Introduction
There are 1.5 million non-profit organizations in the United States. A global nonprofit organization is an entity that is created and operated for socially beneficial purposes to solve global challenges for vulnerable populations rather than to make a profit. Nonprofits may receive donations from individuals, corporations, foundations, and government entities. One such US-based mature global non-profit with 120M in revenue annually, wanted to expand its footprint in other countries supporting more program participants.
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This particular global non-profit had grown their impact mainly through mass marketing to bring in a large volume of small unrestricted donations. The funds were unrestricted which meant that they had to use the funds for the purposes of the non-profit; however, they had the flexibility to use the funds wherever they were needed to ensure the non-profit could cover all expenses. Along with the flexibility in the use of the funds, they also were not required to send reports to donors or comply with regulations. However, the cost to raise the funds was significant, requiring a large workforce and a high percentage of investment in marketing.
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In order to grow their footprint, the mature global non-profit needed to seek ways to increase their income (revenue) for their activities, that was more cost effective, but also aligned to the core goal and objectives of the organization. The executive leadership knew that other global non-profits were raising funds through winning competitive bids from both institutions and foundations. The global non-profit wanted to start bringing in funds through these grant mechanisms.
Opportunities and Challenges
Their revenue model needed an upgrade. To apply for restricted funds through competitive procurement processes managed by institutions like the US Government and foundations like MasterCard Foundation or Gates Foundation, a nonprofit has to be able to understand the requirements of the procurement and develop a responsive and innovative proposal within a determined time as well as meet the evaluation criteria. The evaluation criteria include the ability to execute the proposed activities both financially and technically and show evidence that the models set forth to create change have been successful.
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This mature global non-profit was already operating in almost 30 countries, with 120M USD from unrestricted resources, however they did not have data to prove the models were successful beyond qualitative narratives and did not know the cost of creating impact because they had never had to apply for funding in the past. They also did not have staff who knew where to find these procurement opportunities or a well-defined and organized process in which to develop a winning proposal for submission that would be compliant.
NEXUS WIN Methodology
To tackle this critical issue, this mature global non-profit with revenue of 120M USD annually worked with the consultants of NEXUS Strategy and Growth Partners to focus on revenue growth and a new revenue model. After Nexus conducted a discovery period to fully understand the global non-profit’s opportunities and challenges, it moved forward with a strategic plan and its following initiatives that are part of the NEXUS WIN Revenue Methodology under the Pillar: Increasing New Business and Impact.
STEP 1
Projected a 10-year global impact goal and key metrics that this global non-profit could use to show that the model is impactful. Built the impact unit. process and system to track impact, report progress, and adapt based on successes and failures.
STEP 3
Worked with the senior leadership of the global non-profit to define the staff roles required to launch a new business development unit.
STEP 5
Facilitated a process to support the global non-profit in developing the new business development process unit, system, and process to follow to identify opportunities and developed winning proposals.
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STEP 2
Collected key data points and analyzed the costs per participant per country to translate the activities into actual costs.
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STEP 4
Identified, hired and trained staff who had the expertise in developing proposals for restricted funding opportunities for the new business development unit.
STEP 6
Established a new revenue model to support growth. Facilitated a process to develop an executable income plan (revenue plan) for seeking restricted funding from various sources, and how to leverage unrestricted resources to bring in additional restricted funds.
These strategic initiatives were planned and executed to directly address the challenges this mature global non-profit was experiencing. NEXUS facilitated sessions to ensure that the most prominent 10-year impact goal was fully articulated and communicated globally, with realistic annual income (revenue) projections from both unrestricted and restricted opportunities that would be required to meet the audacious targets of the mature global non-profit.
Results
As a result of this strategic plan, the mature global non-profit now has a new revenue model and a 10-year global impact metric to drive the funding requests, and a detailed plan to seek the funding. They were able to begin raising restricted funds by leveraging their unrestricted funds and doing so with various newly identified partners.
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As a result of this intensive Revenue Growth process, where all levels of the organization were involved at some point along the journey, this global non-profit experienced a 60M USD multiyear revenue increase through various restricted opportunities that brought a three-fold increase in just 24 months. They were well on their way to making the global consolidated impact goal and very successfully leveraging their healthy stream of unrestricted annual revenue to bring in restricted revenue which allowed them to start growing their global footprint.
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These results exceeded their expectations and set a new standard for their annual planning and budgeting process, as well as a perspective on how to utilize unrestricted resources to grow their revenue portfolio. They could now tell their mass marketing unrestricted donor base that they were able to double and even triple their impact due to leveraging restricted resources.
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As Managing Director at a mature global non-profit with annual revenue of 120M, “I would highly recommend working with these senior consultants as they can support you in formulating a strategy and also look into the data and analytics necessary to know the trade-offs in execution.”
Are you facing a similar challenge? Do you wish to make a breakthrough and achieve your most pressing goals like this mature global non-profit did?
NEXUS Strategy and Growth Partners offers a free discovery session to help you gain clarity around your main challenges and how to solve them.​
We can help turn your biggest challenges into results, just like how we helped this mature global non-profit at a current revenue of 120M annually, break through the profit ceiling so they could support more vulnerable communities in need.