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New and noteworthy
Client Highlights AVANCE, an organization focused on parent education that serves primarily Hispanic families in low-income communities, has engaged CWV to assess the organization’s readiness for growth. With a proven model of impacting both parents and their children, AVANCE is looking to scale their reach beyond their current focus on the southwest region. Using CWV’s Growth Assessment Tool that was developed with field insights and input from Paul Bloom at Duke University, CWV will identify both strengths that should be leveraged in a full growth plan and critical areas of investment. The Annie E. Casey Foundation Volunteerism Strategy CWV is working with the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) to help the foundation develop a strategy around volunteerism. As funding decreases across the nonprofit sector, organizations must find innovative ways to expand capacity to meet growing demand for their services. Recognizing the integral role volunteers play in helping nonprofits meet these needs, the public and private sectors are increasing their attention to and investment in supporting volunteerism. The Obama administration’s support of the 2009 Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act has dramatically increased financial support for recruiting and training volunteers. Reimagining Service, a recent collaboration among businesses, government, and nonprofits, indicates increased awareness of the need for a more sophisticated and strategic approach to leveraging volunteers. This renewed interest and investment in volunteerism presents a compelling opportunity for the foundation to revisit how it incorporates volunteerism into its strategy and program investments. During 2010, Community Wealth Ventures will work with AECF to develop 3 to 4 initiatives that will help the foundation and its grantees leverage more resources and realize greater social impact through volunteerism. The HealthPath Foundation of Ohio The HealthPath Foundation of Ohio, a supporting organization of The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, recently joined with CWV to bring The HealthPath Foundation of Ohio Family Violence Prevention Workshop Series to a portion of its grantee organizations. The 6-month workshop series is designed to assist the state-wide participating coalitions with developing business plans that address organizational development and sustainability, with particular emphasis on training businesses and earned income generation. In addition to developing an individual business plan for its own coalition, each participating group will also be afforded the opportunity to work with, learn from, and explore the potential for joint dissemination of its programs across the state with the other participating organizations. The workshop series will begin on March 10 with a two-day peer learning in Newark, Ohio. The four participating coalitions are: Partnership for Violence Free Families, Tri-County Family Violence Prevention Coalition, Violence Free Coalition of Warren County, and Family Violence Prevention Project. North Texas Community Wealth Collaborative Seven Dallas-area nonprofits—all part of the North Texas Community Wealth Collaborative—have started business ventures to generate additional funds and expand their mission-related work. The collaborative is a partnership between the Center for Nonprofit Management in Dallas and Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., based in Washington, D.C. ACH Child & Family Services, Cancer Care Services, Christian Community Action, Grapevine Relief and Community Exchange (GRACE), Helping Restore Ability, Nexus Recovery Center, and Special Care and Career Services were selected to participate in the initiative. They presented their final business plans to a panel of local business experts and entrepreneurs on Wednesday, January 13 to obtain feedback and to gain experience pitching their business concept and nonprofit organization. CWV is working with Juma Ventures to develop a business plan for the organization’s new strategy for breaking the poverty cycle and enabling youth to complete college. Juma, based in San Francisco and with sites in Oakland and San Diego, offers an award-winning program that integrates employment through social enterprises, college preparation, youth development and financial literacy/matched savings scholarships. The business plan will serve as a roadmap for executing the new strategy, including marketing, operations, HR, performance and management metrics as well as a 3-year financial model. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Community Wealth Ventures (CWV), in partnership with the Knight Foundation, is developing a project to encourage experimentation with nonprofit approaches to producing, sharing and distributing news and information in local communities. Overall, the project is seeking to achieve the following:
The project is centered on eight nonprofit news organizations: MinnPost, Voice of San Diego, New Haven Independent, St. Louis Beacon, CrossCut, the Texas Tribune, the Bay Area News Project, and ChiTown Daily News. These organizations represent entrepreneurial approaches in the journalism industry and they are interested in experimenting with new ideas and looking for ways to enhance their long-term sustainability. The pathway to sustainability for nonprofit news organizations, including the grantee cohort featured in this project, is dependent upon three key organizational elements: social value creation, economic value creation, and organizational capacity. Through the course of the engagement, CWV will work with the eight news organizations in this cohort to help them experiment with new practices that will enhance their long term sustainability in each of these three areas. Learning from this project will not only enhance the participating news organizations but the Knight Foundation and the broader field. CWV and the Louisiana Office of Social Entrepreneurship have offered 12 nonprofits across the state of Louisiana the opportunity to participate in the Social Innovators Institute. This Institute offers an exciting 6-month business plan development process designed to help select Louisiana organizations create a business plan for a new or existing entrepreneurial and innovative program. Louisiana Nonprofit Innovators have worked tirelessly since September to complete comprehensive social-purpose-business plans designed to address a myriad of social problems affecting Louisiana's citizens. They have planned to generate greater social impact, create financial sustainability, and measure their impact in our communities. February 24, 2010 marks the culmination of their work as they participate in the 2010 Social Innovators Business Plan Competition and Innovators Awards Ceremony in New Orleans. It marks a significant milestone in Louisiana—the first state-wide public offering of social-purpose business plans. Three competition winners will be selected to receive $10,000 in state grant funding. Events National Network for Youth Symposium 2010 January 24, 2010 Washington, DC Presenter: Christina Ng, Consultant, Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. Topic: Social Enterprise Christina served on a panel to discuss how social enterprises can be used by youth-serving organizations to achieve mission and financial goals. Other panelists included Lori Kaplan, Executive Director of Latin American Youth Center; Mark Forseth, Vice President, Marriott International; and Russell Miller, Vice President, Huntington Learning Center. Entrepreneurs Foundation Annual Gathering of Affiliates March 9, 2010 San Jose, CA Presenter: Diana Peacock, Director, Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. Topic: Business Model Benchmarking and Opportunity Identification Entrepreneurs Foundations engage entrepreneurial companies in philanthropy and community involvement. Across the affiliate network they accomplish this purpose using business models that vary widely. This workshop presented benchmarking data from the affiliate network and fostered a discussion around the affiliates’ revenue engines and opportunities to generate community wealth. » BACK TO FRONT PAGE |
The public and private sectors are increasing their attention to and investment in supporting volunteerism.
The pathway to sustainability for nonprofit news organi-zations . . . is dependent upon . . . social value creation, economic value creation, and organizational capacity.
