nonprofits
BUILDING SUSTAINABILITY: The Fundraising School has helped Pastor James Alberts build Higher Works Collaborative, providing skills to develop his donor base and offer more services to fill growing needs.
The Confidence to Ask Fundraising School gives nonprofits the tools, training to seek donor support. By Gene Rebeck | Photography by Paul Middlestaedt
Nonprofits rely on fundraising to build a sustainable organization, yet asking for donations can be fraught with doubt and uncertainty. Pastor James Alberts, founder and CEO of Higher Works Collaborative, knows the struggle all too well.
nonprofits with strategies to address a necessary but sometimes daunting task: fundraising. Collectively, the 27 graduates of the first two cohorts raised more than $1 million to support their missions— and the people they serve.
Since its founding in 2017, Higher Works Collaborative has provided a growing suite of services primarily for the Greater St. Cloud area Black community. Its programs support entrepreneurship, transportation, housing, employment and more. “We’re growing to the need that is out there,” said Alberts. “And the need is great.” With demand on the rise, Alberts found he had a need of his own—to take his organization’s fundraising to a higher level. To get there, Alberts joined the first cohort of the Fundraising School, a program launched in the spring of 2021 by the Initiative Foundation and Staples-based Sourcewell. A second, smaller cohort of six nonprofit leaders providing support to Black, Indigenous and people of color was offered during the pandemic. Alberts and his fellow students have profited from the program. Through its two cohorts (a third will be under way this spring), the Fundraising School has provided more than two dozen regional
“During the pandemic, everyone had to look at different ways of working and to secure funding that supports the mission,” said Tammy Filippi, Sourcewell community solutions specialist. “What we’ve found—and this is nationwide—is that those nonprofits that stay connected to their donors often receive funding if they actually ask for it.” Since 2001, the Initiative Foundation has offered programming to help strengthen the region’s 1,700 nonprofits with better management, governance, planning and fund development. Several years ago, the Foundation and Sourcewell partnered on the development of a digitallybased fundraising program called Jumpstart. The program had its successes, said Zach Tabatt, nonprofit development program officer at the Initiative Foundation. “What we found was that a lot of the nonprofits from smaller communities—really, all of our service area—didn’t have the capacity to spend as much time as the program’s software required.”
LEARNING NEW LESSONS
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12 Initiative Foundation ifound.org
