CASE STUDY
Fair Budget Coalition
Growing your fundraising revenue is hard. How, with everything else on your plate, are you supposed to find time to research the donor landscape, engage prospective investors, and convince them to see you as an asset? Fair Budget Coalition engaged Spark Point to help them build out their foundation funding pipeline, and with our Pipeline Push service raised more than $370,000 in new funding in just one year.
Since 1994, Fair Budget Coalition has harnessed the collective power of their member organizations to advocate for a restorative, racially just, and fair budget for the District of Columbia.
But they face a funding challenge common to advocacy nonprofits–their work can seem invisible to potential funders until it results in change, but when it does, it appears to be someone else’s success. That challenge, coupled with this small, Black-led organization’s commitment to unraveling the white supremacy woven into our social and political fabric (of which many private foundations are entwined), has seen Fair Budget Coalition struggle to grow.
Growing your foundation revenue is hard, and that’s why Fair Budget Coalition chose Spark Point’s Pipeline Push service.
After identifying a wide range of potential investors, strategically aligned with Fair Budget Coalition’s advocacy work, we set about preparing the team to start the conversation. Good relationships start with a good first impression–and our compelling cases for support and strong letters of inquiry empower our clients to approach potential investors with confidence. Once these prospective investors are engaged, we coach our clients to cultivate these relationships.
With a clear map of the funding landscape and an assured approach to donor outreach and cultivation, Fair Budget Coalition has raised more than $370,000 in just one year. By investing in prospecting research and donor cultivation coaching, Fair Budget Coalition gained the tools to fund their fight for a just, equitable, and inclusive District of Columbia.
TESTIMONIAL
"Fair Budget Coalition hired Spark Point to help us build our foundation grants pipeline and do grant writing. I was optimistic, but realistic, in my expectations of what we would achieve. Once the pandemic hit, we like many other small organizations feared the financial repercussions to our organization and our ability to secure new funding in the midst of a global crisis. However, Spark Point went above and beyond for us. The results we got blew our expectations out of the water. Not only did Spark Point help Fair Budget Coalition raise more than $165,000 in six months, their team guided me through a number of conversations with new foundation funders that gave me much greater confidence in my fundraising skills and ability to ask for the funding the organization needs for its work. The project had a high return on investment - both financially and operationally. We are now on the precipice of onboarding a second new hire within the past six months, doubling our staff size and capacity!"
Stephanie Sneed, Previous Coalition Director
Fair Budget Coalition