The Boys & Girls Clubs of Columbus won a $500,000 grant from the City!
Boys & Girls Clubs to expand programs thanks to $500,000 from city (dispatch.com)
Wow! And congrats to them! The money is part of the American Rescue Plan dollars the City received, and this windfall is a boon for Central Ohio youth, and a mighty pleasant surprise.
Using this grant as an example, let’s examine how it came to pass for Boys & Girls Clubs of Columbus (B&GCC for short), and how the Columbus City Council came to decide to grant the money to them.
- Mission-Driven – B&GCC doesn’t make a move that doesn’t serve their youth members and their mission. Their strategic plan centers on expansion to more neighborhoods to serve more kids. They don’t live in an echo chamber; they seek out the voices of the very people they serve – the youth of Central Ohio.
- Reputation – Yes, Boys & Girls Clubs is a nationwide organization that has been around for decades. They have a solid reputation. But the Columbus “chapter” has had strong local leaders and they’ve made many good decisions for the youth they serve here.
- Fiscal Soundness – B&GCC has a diversified funding stream that includes individuals, corporations, private foundations, and public money. They don’t have all their eggs in one funding basket.
- Governance – Their CEO and board are not content with the status quo and are not satisfied with “because we’ve always done it that way” answers. They make sound decisions but are constantly reaching for what’s next, and how to make things better. Their expansion plans to the Milo-Grogan neighborhood are one example of growing to meet the expressed needs of their community.
- Management – They don’t just give lip service to “we hire from within.” Top management is known for their mentorship of young leader-wannabe’s coming up within their organization.
- Expansion Plans – Their plans were not made in a vacuum; they did their research and know how to prioritize the many locations they would like to expand to.
In creating plans for the grant money, B&GCC is not going behind closed doors to seek the opinions of a bunch of “old, white guys” on what to do. No! They hosted a town hall OF THEIR YOUTH MEMBERS – the very beneficiaries of any plans that may materialize from this cash boon – to gather information on what they considered important and what plans they saw for the future of the organization that serves them.
President of The Center for Effective Philanthropy Phil Buchanan, in a The NonProfit Times article (The Leading Business Publication For Nonprofit Management – The NonProfit Times), equated such sudden massive windfalls to winning the lottery, and warns not to “squander the opportunity.”
So, if you’ve ever fantasized about a surprise million in an unrestricted grant from Mackenzie Scott, or drooled over a $1million federal grant and begged your Grant Writer to go after it, remember what B&GCC’s strategies, which I can boil down to two things:
- Don’t follow the money (follow your MISSION); and
- Prepare NOW, so when the opportunity for that $1million grant comes around, you will deserve it, the funder will see you as investment-worthy, and you will be able to manage that size windfall!
For more on this and other grant topics, visit Carolyn’s website.
