Vision
Helping rural populations in the developing world cope with water, food, and fuel shortages resulting from the impact of climate change on their communities.
Using a participatory approach and appropriate technologies, CREATE! works with communities in rural Senegal to identify and meet their needs in four primary sectors: water, cooperative community gardens, renewable energy, and income generation.
Values
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Addressing and alleviating the disastrous impacts of global climate change on the lives and livelihoods of citizens of rural village populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in the developing world
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Enhancing the lives of men and women in rural communities and building their capacity to meet life challenges
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Providing access to quality resources for all
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Creating more equitable communities
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Empowering women
Challenges
Our work with CREATE! started with introductory calls and a needs assessment, from which we interpreted that the organization mainly lacked experience in executing a major gifts plan or campaigns.
The key challenges hindering their fundraising efforts circulated around developing a major gifts strategy and expanding their major donor base.
Challenges:
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Need for a change in leadership
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Need to maximize limited staff
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Need for acquiring better fundraising skills and focusing on prioritizing fundraising
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Hesitant to approach individuals and lacking knowledge of how much to ask from donors
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Underestimated the importance of ROI
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Hesitant to seize new opportunities
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Dependent on specific donors
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Relying solely on donations
Solutions
Once the key challenges were identified and carefully studied, Wright Collective tailored a customized set of action plans to follow in order to face these challenges:
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Conducted a needs assessment and impact analysis with the available resources to make data-driven decisions
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Designed a series of board and staff trainings
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Prioritized fundraising by creating a development calendar
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Performed wealth screening which helped in targeting and approaching individuals and knowing exactly how much to ask from each individual
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Utilized the gift pyramid process to assess the feasibility of the fundraising goals.
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Organized events and activities, like trivia night, Nutrition and Food Security webinar while keeping ROI in mind.
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Researched for available opportunities and pinpointed the most valuable ones.
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Reworked the revenue structure
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Strengthened the team’s fundraising skills and confidence to launch campaigns and raise big money over time
Results
The Facts
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Planned, strategized, and is implementing a $750,000 2021-23 Case for Support (60% completed)
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Board is now trained to do outreach
More focused on fundraising, already developed both short-term and long-term strategic fundraising goals. -
The training provided for the Board of Directors and staff mobilized them to fundraise with major donors to include their donations, and secure multi-year commitments from new donors.
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Learned about the power of SEO, Facebook and other social media
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Got $150K grant through Alyssa making an initial contact as part of the stakeholder analysis process
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Learned how to and where to strategically identify prospects and generate comprehensive plans to cultivate these relationships over time
Testimonial
Michael Carson
Executive Director
CREATE!s experience with the Wright Collective has been excellent on several levels. First, we diagnosed the challenges we faced as leaders replacing our founders. We were then able to prioritize our fundraising and develop a fundraising or development calendar. Finally, Alyssa and CREATE! planned, strategized, and is implementing a $750,000 2021-23 Case for Support. We would not be able to achieve this without the strategic consulting of the Wright Collective. I look forward to our continued collaboration with the Wright Collective through CEO Alyssa Wright joining our CREATE! Action Advisors.