COVER STORY
Nonprofits hone message, presentation in Fast Pitch competition By Holly Fisher
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national network committed to funding and strengthening nonprofits. The Charleston chapter started about five years ago and is housed under the umbrella of the Coastal Community Foundation. SVP Charleston saw how the Fast Pitch program took off in other communities and determined it would be a good fit for Charleston. “We knew it would be one of the tools in our tool chest for capacity building,” said Edie Blakeslee, regional vice president for the Coastal Community Foundation and loaned executive for SVP Charleston. Fast Pitch offers social innovators a unique opportunity for mentorship, exposure and seed funding for sustainable nonprofit ventures. Throughout the Fast Pitch program, participants receive mentoring and training, helping them to hone their ideas, improve their concept and build relationships with advisors, donors and partners. The first annual Fast Pitch Finals, then called Fast Forward 2014, was held on October 29, 2014 at Woolfe Street Playhouse where participants competed for a $20,000 seed grant. The Center for Heirs Property won the competition. “(Fast Pitch) is exposure for the nonprofits, but it also gives people in the community exposure to nonprofits who are doing some Another tool in the tool chest Fast Pitch is an initiative of Social Ven- really cool work,” she said. “It isn’t meant to ture Partners Charleston, part of an inter- be a game show like ‘Shark Tank’ and just do-
asper County is one of the poorest in the state. Many of its residents have little cash, but are living on goldmines: large tracts of land and structures, passed down through generations. Yet, as they pay their property taxes, they only see a liability in the acreage and trees. Thanks to the $20,000 the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation won in last year’s Fast Pitch program, more Jasper County landowners have the chance to see how they can turn their property into an income-generating asset. Through education, legal services and its sustainable forestry program, the center can help those with heirs’ property take advantage of South Carolina’s $18.6 billion forestry industry, explained Jennie Stephens, executive director. If they can learn how to manage their property, they can generate income that would help them progress out of poverty, she said. With the money from the Fast Pitch competition, the center was able to hire both an attorney and a forester for Jasper County and offer services in that area more quickly. “We have been able to leverage the money they have given us,” Stephens said. “For every $1 they gave us, we’ve leveraged it with $3 more.”
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ing pitches like the for-profits do, but it’s really about that capacity piece.” Nonprofits apply for the program – 19 applied for the 2015 competition – and then a committee of SVP partners narrows the field to eight semi-finalists. Those eight nonprofits work one-on-one with two or three mentors over two months, honing their presentation and taking a hard look at how they present their organization to the public and potential donors. Fast Pitch is made possible by a diverse mix of 37 partners, all of whom make a threeyear commitment to the organization as well as a financial commitment of $5,000 per year. Depending on their schedules and interests, the partners – from business owners to attorneys – assist with short-term projects like Fast Pitch while others devote more time to long-term mentoring of local nonprofits.
A polished presentation Last year’s Fast Pitch participants gained a great deal from that mentoring opportunity, some even continued to consult their mentors and used their presentations in future donor pitches. “Most nonprofits are so busy day in and day out doing the work of their mission, they forget they are a business sometimes,” Blakeslee said. “They are just so focused on meeting their mission that it’s hard to think outside that. They
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