“Our partnership with Growth for Good has always been fruitful. From fundraising planning, to interim staffing, to consulting on several galas (including a virtual gala) Growth for Good is a collaborative partner. They focus on the details while remaining strategic and not losing site of the bigger picture. Never ‘consultant-like,’ with top-down advice, they become part of the team.”
Christie Ko, Fiver Children’s Foundation, executive director
Photo Credit: Queens Botanical Garden and Center for Architecture
We have more than 150 years of combined experience in helping nonprofits improve their impact. Drawing on our individual and shared expertise, we are able to offer a full spectrum of integrated services including fundraising, strategy, leadership, event management, marketing, and workshops.
FUNDRAISING
Capital Campaigns
A well-conceived capital campaign should deepen your donor base and build your fundraising muscle. Growth for Good’s capital campaign planning starts with a discovery period to understand your nonprofit’s leadership capacity, audit past fundraising and communications activities and strategies, and review board practices around donor development. We dive into your donor database using our own proven methodology and wealth screening software (e.g. DonorSearch or WealthEngine) to identify and categorize real prospects and set realistic goals and timelines. We will help you collaborate and set goals and conduct a feasibility study. This work results in the development of realistic a budget, gift chart, compelling case for support, detailed prospect research, and clear timeline and work plan with measurable benchmarks.
Fundraising Event Production
Fundraising Planning
A long-term fundraising plan with targeted approaches for each fundraising activity is essential to your long-term sustainability. We do not work in a consultant cave to produce an impenetrable document that is destined to collect dust on a shelf. Growth for Good collaborates with you to evaluate your fundraising efforts to date, develop methodologies to mine your donor database, and craft a diversified, strategic fundraising plan serving you for years to come. We create a detailed roadmap for your events, direct mail appeals, institutional support, major donors, board growth and development, and staffing and administrative functions. Your fundraising plan includes communications templates and step-by-step directions with a timeline featuring clearly articulated roles and responsibilities and measurable benchmarks.
Our strategies are supported by a proven donor research methodology combined with leading-edge donor database tools, (e.g. DonorTrends, predictive analytics, and DonorSearch or WealthEngine, wealth screening software.) We are able to identify individual donors and predict contributed income. We document donor capacity, articulate a moves management strategy, and identify individuals who could become major donors, event honorees, host committee members etc. We calculate your key metrics of success — donor acquisition, donor retention, conversion rates, and ROI and benchmark your results against peer organizations nationally. This helps you evaluate your development efforts outside of a vacuum, manage expectations, and set realistic goals.
STRATEGY / LEADERSHIP
Board Development
Unless your board of directors is actively engaged and operating within effective governance structures, you will struggle to raise funds. Growth for Good will evaluate your board of directors—interactions with staff, involvement in fundraising, methods and practices—and recommend strategies to improve financial management, bylaws, recruitment, development, structures, reporting, evaluations, and marketing.
Executive Coaching
Nonprofits are only as effective as the people doing the work. Growth for Good’s coaching services are an excellent investment in human capital with a high rate of return. We will suggest informed responses and strategies for leadership as issues arise and provide on-demand professional development. Coaching is key for organizations in periods of transition or growth.
Interim Executive Leadership
Interim leadership gives an organization’s board and/or human resources team time to conduct a thorough and thoughtful search. Growth for Good’s skilled, nonprofit management professionals are trained in transition leadership and will quickly assume day-to-day executive, development, and/or marketing leadership activities while safeguarding your mission. At the same time, we will enhance long-term sustainability through coaching and organizational development consulting.
Strategic and Business Planning
Even the most worthy mission will wither without a solid, well-articulated plan behind it. Through a highly collaborative process informed by a competitive analysis and market research, Growth for Good will help your organization develop the goals, measurable outcomes, strategies, tactics, timelines, and language needed to rally your forces and achieve growth and/or sustainability.
Executive Search
Talent moves mission. Growth for Good founder Katherine DeFoyd launched Search for Good to help nonprofits achieve their missions by securing great leadership. From an initial assessment of your organization’s leadership needs to negotiations and job offer, we will engage all relevant stakeholders in the hiring process so that you arrive at a consensus-based, expert decision.
MARKETING
Brand Strategy
Creating a recognizable brand helps organizations capture and keep audience attention. Growth for Good will work collaboratively with your entire team to create a branding identity that expresses what is unique, powerful, and memorable about your nonprofit, and apply it across all visual and marketing platforms.
Marketing & Campaign Materials
Marketing messages are often the first contact people have with your organization. Growth for Good will articulate your mission and hone your arguments for support for maximum success. Our integrated campaign materials—branding, print, electronic, web-based, interactive, audiovisual, event, advertising—will make people want to know more about your cause.
Communications Audits & Planning
What you say, when you say it, and how you say it are critical to positioning your mission in people’s minds. Growth for Good will review your existing communications strategy, benchmarks, and marketing materials with a fresh, professional eye and help you develop powerful strategies with detailed outreach and media plans to build awareness and interest.
WORKSHOPS & RETREATS
Workshops
Topics include:
- Effective Direct Mail during the pandemic: Strategies Backed by Evidence
- How to Take Your Gala Virtual
- Keeping Your Board Engaged in a Virtual World
- Making a Virtual Ask – Fundraising During a Pandemic
- Analytic Clinic – How to Use Data to Cure Your Fundraising Pains
- Approaching Foundations
- Brand Personality & Purpose
- Building Fundraising Staff & Board Teams
- Communications Planning
- Drafting a Board Job Prospectus
- Engaging and Building Your Board – Effective Meetings and Structures
- Event Planning that Builds Organizational Capacity – Including Virtual Fundraisers
- Fundraising Planning
- Fundraising Using Analytics and Data
- Getting Ready for a Capital Campaign
- Government Relations Primer
- Intro to Board Development
- Marketing that Builds Community – Including Online Campaigns
- Onboarding for Keeps
- Purpose-Driven Digital and Social Media
- Rebrand, Rename, or Refresh
- Recruiting Effective Board Members
- Strategic Planning
- Turning Corporate Relationships into Partnerships
- Website Renovations & Rebuilds
- Writing Inspiring Mission & Vision Statements
We have led workshops for:
- ADRP (Association Donor Relations Professionals)
- Arlington Heights Library
- Association for Fundraising Professionals
- Candid
- Camphill Foundation
- Career Learning
- Center for Non-Profit Excellence
- CUNY Institutes (City University of New York)
- Fahari Charter School
- Foundation Center
- Investor Savings – Queens Nonprofit Conference
- Maplewood NJ Arts Council
- Montclair NJ Public Library
- National School Foundation Association
- New Jersey Education Foundation
- New York City Charter School Incubator
- New York City Mayor’s Office Training Series
- Nonprofit Learning Labs
- Nonprofit New York
- Planned Giving Council NH/VT
- Princeton Alumni Corp – Emerging Leaders
- Queens Council on the Arts
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Topics
Every nonprofit benefits from professional development. Below is a representative selection of customizable topics for trainings and retreats we have facilitated in the past. Formats include webinar, half-day, full-day, and multi-session. We also offer workshops that are open to the public through trade associations and organizations, and we are available as featured speakers.
- NEW: How to Take Your Gala Virtual
- NEW: Keeping Your Board Engaged in a Virtual World
- NEW: Making a Virtual Ask – Fundraising During a Pandemic
- Analytic Clinic – How to Use Data to Cure Your Fundraising Pains
- Approaching Foundations
- Brand Personality & Purpose
- Building Effective Team Culture
- Building Fundraising Staff & Board Teams
- Communications Planning
- Drafting a Board Job Prospectus
- Engaging and Building Your Board – Effective Meetings and Structures
- Event Planning that Builds Organizational Capacity – Including Virtual Fundraisers
- Fundraising Planning
- Fundraising Using Analytics and Data
- Getting Ready for a Capital Campaign
- Government Relations Primer
- Intro to Board Development
- Marketing that Builds Community – Including Online Campaigns
- Onboarding for Keeps
- Purpose-Driven Digital and Social Media
- Rebrand, Rename, or Refresh
- Recruiting Effective Board Members
- Strategic Planning
- Turning Corporate Relationships into Partnerships
- Website Renovations & Rebuilds
- Writing Inspiring Mission & Vision Statements