Fundraising Case Studies
Our consultants design and implement fundraising solutions that have effectively strengthened nonprofit institutions time and time again. Here are a few examples of the personalized programs we’ve developed for a wide variety of clients.
AIDS Project Los Angeles
AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) is one of the top three HIV service and prevention organizations in the country. Its programs and services promote self-sufficiency for people living with HIV/AIDS, to support positive medical outcomes, and to keep people living with HIV/AIDS in care and treatment programs. Changing Our World partnered with APLA to conduct an audit of its multifaceted fundraising program and an e-philanthropy analysis, develop a planned giving program, and create a strategic plan to further institutional support of APLA’s growing international efforts
The Archdicoese of New York
The Archdiocese of New York is one of the strongest and most diverse communities of the faithful in the United States. To celebrate its 200th year anniversary, the Archdiocese embarked on a major fundraising effort and engaged Changing Our World to assist them in this historic endeavor. Following a four-month intensive campaign planning study, the Archdiocese launched Through Faith We Grow, The Archdiocese of New York’s Bicentennial Campaign. The Campaign raised more than $220 million from an Archdiocesan-wide parish based effort to fund a multitude of capital and program needs and a leadership gifts effort to establish endowment funds for vital ministries such as Catholic education, Catholic Charities, St. Joseph’s Seminary, and priest retirement. This successful campaign represents the largest fundraising effort in the history of the Archdiocese.
The Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary's Seminary
Following the completion of a feasibility study in November 2008, Changing Our World began the implementation of a twenty month comprehensive campaign for the Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. The campaign seeks to address four key investments: critical capital improvements, strengthening the endowment, growing the annual fund, and increasing funding for vocations and student recruitment. In conjunction with fulfilling these needs, an outreach and marketing effort that expands across the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has been initiated to increase awareness and support. The realization of this goal will ensure the financial stability and future sustainability of the Athenaeum of Ohio. The campaign entered the public phase in May 2010 with more than $14 million raised toward the $16 million goal.
California State Parks
While New York’s Central Park, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and Chicago’s Millennium Park have come to define those cities, Los Angeles has never had an iconic park to represent its cultural, natural, and industrial leadership. Today, the State of California is preparing to launch a public-private partnership to develop Los Angeles State Historic Park into a world-class park, worthy of the City of Angels. With a breathtaking, unobstructed view of the downtown skyline, Los Angeles State Historic Park will become a place where residents and visitors alike can gather for events, cultural and historic interpretive exhibits, and recreation activities. To share this history with visitors near and far, Los Angeles State Historic Park will become a living, breathing place that salutes the past, present, and future a place where the City’s diversity can be recognized and honored. In its effort to establish an urban footprint in downtown Los Angeles, California State Parks Foundation engaged Changing Our World to conduct a feasibility and planning study to guide the development of a fundraising plan for Los Angeles State Historic Park at Los Angeles’ historic ‘cornfield’ rail yards. The project, which included over 75 interviews with Los Angeles’ civic and philanthropic community, led to an intensive leadership development phase which will support the long-term expansion of park efforts.
Catholic Alumni Partnership
Following a comprehensive feasibility and planning study, Changing Our World is currently managing the initial implementation of the new Catholic Alumni Partnership (CAP). CAP is a privately funded effort that seeks to install strong, sustainable annual fundraising programs in each of the 303 participating elementary schools and to providethese schools with the development tools and resources they need to identify, cultivate and solicit their alumni for ongoing support of their mission. The Archdiocese of Boston and 49 of its elementary schools, recently signed on to begin the planning phases of the program. CAP is a pioneering undertaking for various reasons. Unlike Catholic high schools, Catholic elementary schools generally have not engaged their alumni. In addition, never before has a group of archdioceses and dioceses participated in an initiative working toward this type of common goal.
College of Mount Saint Vincent
Founded by the Sisters of Charity of New York in 1847, the College of Mount Saint Vincent was the first women’s college in New York City, in the decades before colleges and universities were open to women. It afforded its students the life changing opportunity to pursue careers of extraordinary achievement and service. The College became coeducational in 1974, and today, as an academically excellent, authentically inclusive, Catholic and ecumenical liberal arts college, it continues to uphold the mission entrusted to it by the Sisters of Charity. To advance this mission, the College sought the services of Changing Our World and, in partnership, we re-engineered the College’s fundraising program over a two-year period. Upon completion of this intensive effort, the College engaged Changing Our World to conduct a campaign feasibility and planning study and, based on this study’s findings, launched the Building Our Future campaign. This successful fundraising effort raised more than $20 million toward the $18 million goal.
Diocese of Brooklyn
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, serving 1.4 million Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens, is the only completely urban diocese in the United States. The Diocese of Brooklyn engaged Changing Our World, Inc. to lead a diocesan-wide, parish-focused effort, the Parish Support Program in the more than 190 parishes that comprise the Diocese. The goal in each parish was three-fold: increase weekly collections; with each parish’s lay leadership, educate parishioners on the financial standing of their parishes and on taking ownership as its stewards; and register more parishioners to use offertory envelopes. Changing Our World provided field directors to each parish to conduct individualized, tailored six-week programs. Working closely with the pastor, parish staff, and lay volunteers, field directors developed plans, provided messaging content, and conducted follow up. At the end of each program, we provided best practices on maintenance and renewal as well as next steps in order to sustain the increase achieved.
The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases
The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases is a major initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute that was founded at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006. Changing Our World is currently helping the organization leverage a $34 million catalytic investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation into hundreds of millions dollars more for the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). A coalition of international organizations with decades of on-the-ground experience fighting NTDs, the Global Network exists to raise awareness and funds to combat a group of 13 bacterial and parasitic infections affecting more than one billion people worldwide living on less than $1.25 per day. The Global Network serves as an intermediary connecting donors and health delivery systems, and is committed to finding and maximizing opportunities for integrating NTD prevention and treatment with other interventions, including malaria and HIV/AIDS treatments and water and sanitation projects. Changing Our World designed a global resource generation campaign and is working with the Global Network to implement it with prospects throughout the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Changing Our World has worked closely with the Global Network to identify and secure advocacy and resource partners ranging from the Brazilian National Soccer Team and organizers of World Cup 2014 to the Miss Universe Organization.
The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)
The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is the premier college for art, design, business and technology in New York City. Growing out of a need for an “MIT for the fashion industries”, the school was established in 1944 to encourage innovation and passion among tomorrow’s industry leaders. As a college within the State University of New York public school system, FIT raises funds and receives donations through its foundation, the Educational Foundation for the Fashion Industries. FIT engaged Changing Our World to build its fundraising capacity and prepare the college for a major capital campaign. Changing Our World conducted an in-depth assessment of the foundation's current systems and infrastructure, fundraising programs, and governance. In the two years since Changing Our World began its work with FIT, the foundation has gained new governing leadership from among the upper echelon of the retail and fashion industries, broadened its fundraising programs to include the launch of the first Annual Fund, and conducted initial outreach to alumni. Changing Our World created, and is currently working to implement the Foundation's first comprehensive development program which corresponds with the college's ten year strategic plan.
The Heriditary Disease Foundation
Causing involuntary movements in all parts of the body, severe emotional disturbance, and progressive cognitive loss, Huntington’s disease creates both physical and emotional stress on an individual and a family. As an inherited, degenerative disorder of the brain, the disease progresses without remission over 15-20 years and is always fatal. No treatments exist. Symptoms usually appear in the third or fourth decade of life, but can strike children as young as two or adults as old as 80. Each child of an affected parent has a 50% chance of inheriting the illness. The Hereditary Disease Foundation was founded in 1968 and is dedicated to finding a cure for Huntington’s disease and related disorders. The HDF’s unique combination of creating and funding innovative, strategic research has sparked an explosion of knowledge. Collectively, the HDF scientists have created a vast, international, collaborative effort that is markedly shortening the journey toward a cure. Formed forty years ago with roots in the entertainment industry, the Foundation had relied on a limited network of celebrities and high net worth individuals for its resources. Changing Our World was engaged to assess the possibilities for extending its fundraising network. The engagement included a Board assessment and Board development, the development of a planned giving strategy, and support to both major gifts acquisition and to several high-profile events in New York, Seattle and in Hollywood.
The National 4-H Council
The 4-H movement in the United States is a direct product of the agricultural extension system. Created through the extension services and land grant universities to encourage new farming practices by focusing on the innovative spirit of rural youth, 4-H began as the youth program in agricultural extension. A century later, the 4-H legacy now includes 6 million youth served each year and more than 60 million alumni. 4-H can be found in every county in every state, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and over 80 countries around the world. 4-H'ers participate in fun, hands-on learning activities, supported by the latest research of land-grant universities, that are focused on three areas: Science, Engineering and Technology; Healthy Living; and Citizenship. Changing Our World has partnered with the National 4-H Council to design and activate a global resource development plan that will increase the capacity of, and linkages between, 4-H partners around the world and, in so doing, better enable 4-H to realize its mission going forward.
Plan USA
Plan USA is an international organization helping children in emerging countries and promoting their rights and interests. Since its founding in 1937, the organization has worked at the grassroots level to meet the needs of individual children and their families in poor communities around the world, while fostering relationships to increase understanding and unity among people of different cultures. To support this incredible mission, Plan USA partnered with Changing Our World to significantly expand its fundraising efforts, building on its child sponsorship program. With Changing Our World's direct oversight and hands-on assistance, Plan USA undertook a complete overhaul of its fundraising program, with particular focus on enhancing Plan's individual major gifts fundraising, planned giving, and direct marketing efforts, and installing a more dynamic corporate and foundation outreach program. Plan USA is beginning to reap the benefits of this comprehensive undertaking, as it experiences a dramatic growth in its donor pool. Today, Plan USA nurtures close to 90,000 meaningful relationships between caring individuals and children overseas. Contributions from sponsors and donors are pooled and used to implement comprehensive community-based programs aimed as making a positive difference in the life of a child, his or her family, as well as their community.
Research Corporation for Science Advancement
Founded in 1912, RCSA is the second-oldest foundation in the United States and the oldest foundation for science advancement. For nearly 100 years RCSA has funded transformative research by investing in early career scientists, who consistently make important science breakthroughs, improve the quality of student learning and encourage student persistence in science through the integration of research and teaching. Cognizant that America has been losing ground in science and that talent pipeline issues are intensifying, RCSA partnered with Changing Our World to explore philanthropic options that would allow it to grow its programs and pursue a new solar energy initiative. Changing Our World studied RCSA’s potential to engage philanthropic partners in its programs and, therefore, expand its ability to impact the way in which early scientific research is supported in the United States. Rather than institute a traditional giving program, RSCA and Changing Our World are preparing to launch a partnership office to leverage money in collaboration with like-minded foundations and corporate partners. This approach is tailored to RCSA’s unique history and institutional culture, supporting its desire to improve communication across academic disciplines and sectors while growing its resource base.
St.John's Riverside Hospital
St. John's Riverside Hospital is a comprehensive network of health care services that extends from Yonkers to the riverfront communities of Hastings on Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley and Irvington. With roots in the community that date back nearly 140 years, St. John's was the first hospital in Westchester County. To secure its position as a leader in providing the highest quality and compassionate health care utilizing the latest state-of-the-art medical technology, St. John's launched the Riverside 2010, a capital campaign that raised the financial support needed to significantly expand the hospital's services within the Operating Room, Chest Pain Center, Cardiac Catherization Lab, Inpatient services, Private medical/surgical rooms, and Obstetrical Services, as well as create a new Cancer Infusion Center. The success of this campaign has enabled St. John's to continue its commitment to excellence and a long and proud tradition of responding to the changing and diverse health care needs of the communities it serves.
World Vision
Since its creation in 1950, World Vision has become the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization. It now serves over 100 million people in nearly 100 countries around the globe. World Vision’s programs work to combat the root causes of poverty, elevate the living standard of children and their families, and respond quickly when disaster strikes. In the United States, World Vision works in 11 major urban and rural areas, giving hope to those in need and resources to those who are leading the way in the fight against poverty here at home. Changing Our World is currently partnering with World Vision US on an intensive effort to elevate the role of major gifts fundraising. In addition to assisting with the design and implementation of a comprehensive major gifts plan, Changing Our World is training and equipping World Vision’s major donor representatives throughout the country with the necessary tools and skills to achieve their new fundraising goals.