Jumpstart Investment Builds Fundraising Capacity

by Paula Little, SVP Partner and Board Secretary

With the shared goal of building capacity and sustainability within Portland's nonprofit community, SVP Portland and Network for Good (NFG) formalized a partnership in October 2018 to pilot NFG’s fundraising capacity building program, Jumpstart. With funding from SVP,  the Immigrant & Refugee Community Organization (IRCO) and Latino Network began a two-year effort to evaluate and evolve their fundraising programs. Support included access to fundraising coaches and a constituent relationships management system (CRM).

Through NFG’s CRM, organizations were able to effectively capture and use data to retain and seek new donors, steward relationships, manage events, and, ultimately, increase their funding and impact. "IRCO is a large community-based organization with a very diverse program base and audience. Being able to gather and assess our data through Network for Good has been very helpful," shared Jenny Bremner, Director of Development & Communication at IRCO.

In addition to the CRM, Jumpstart offered organizations access to professional fundraising coaches who not only sought to understand the obstacles to increasing fundraising capacity, but also became valuable partners to teams in their strategic planning, communications and events, community surveys, donor engagement, and more. Juan Martinez, Director of Development & Communications at Latino Network, shared that, “The coaching was extremely useful and provided the opportunity to share ideas with another fundraising professional and to get tips on how to implement these ideas to fully maximize our overall fundraising efforts.”

Over the two-year project, both Jumpstart participants built critical fundraising capacity which translated to significant revenue growth for their organizations. By the end of the program, their final gains each represented more than a 50% increase from their revenue totals in the year prior to beginning Jumpstart. Moreover, both have reinvested in themselves by formalizing a continued partnership with Network for Good, sustaining the grant funding provided by SVP Portland. We’re excited to see IRCO and Latino Network’s growth and success, with the program knowing that ultimately it translates to increased community impact.