“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family”, Kofi Annan. Prone to numerous natural calamities, and grappling with socio-economic problems, Haiti has a low literacy rate of just 60%. There are a number of children living in extreme poverty with no access to a basic livelihood nor a means to move out of it.
Many organizations work day in and day out to do as much as they can to help these children. One such organization runs an orphanage and school in Hinche, Haiti, and its mission is to the children of Haiti the opportunity to build a better life and to contribute to the growth and development of society. The founder envisioned a safe space where children could grow and learn. Since 2004, the organization has been on a very long journey beginning with acquiring land, forming a non-profit entity, and starting its first class in 2011. 11.
The school now has a robust education, health-care program, and life skills program for orphaned kids and their caregivers. They also have a regular school program and currently have 70 kids enrolled across all age groups. With a vision to see a thriving society and to give an opportunity to kids to change the trajectory of their futures, the organization is working hard to keep things going.
With a lack of adequate funding and avenues to raise funds, the organization was struggling to keep its programs running. They needed some guidance in building a framework for a marketing and fundraising program including a community outreach program. CLASS got to work with them on identifying short-term and long-term goals which would help the organization continue working on its noble cause.
CLASS conducted a workshop to better understand the current situation and what work needs to be done. CLASS evaluated the contents of the organization’s website, current donors, and social media, which revealed major shortcomings. The main ones were inadequate funding as a result of a decline in individual contributors and donors and a lack of diverse funding initiatives.
CLASS noted that the organization had a weak community outreach program and lacked promotional activity in the San Francisco Bay Area. In order to address these problems, CLASS came up with numerous recommendations as well as a success metric to measure the execution of the plan. CLASS also put in place an implementation plan that helped the organization streamline its activities and to work towards short-term and long-term goals.
The solution was twofold: a funding strategy and a community outreach program. For the funding strategy, CLASS suggested conducting an in-depth diagnosis of the current donor base, capabilities, finances, the process of identifying a potential donor base and funding, and performance monitoring metrics to track results.
The second plan was to run a full diagnostics test of marketing channels, evaluate the best marketing mix, revamp the website and other marketing materials, and provide a measurement metric to monitor marketing channels.
The roadmap that CLASS has provided has been a phenomenal help to the organization in focussing on tasks that are the most important. A clearer picture of where they are and where they need to be has helped tremendously in creating an impact. They are working on making suggested changes to their marketing and fundraising strategies and aiming to see a huge improvement in donor acquisition, branding, and building public awareness.
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About The CLASS Consulting Group
The CLASS Consulting Group is a trusted advisor to the board of directors and senior leadership of the bay area nonprofit organizations. It is a boutique management consulting firm headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area that provides consulting services to senior management and board of directors of nonprofit organizations and offers community leadership opportunities to professionals.
Since 2002 CLASS’ volunteers have been assisting nonprofit organizations in the SF Bay Area and supporting the communities in which, we all live and work. Learn more about our mission and story.