$9.3 Million W.K. Kellogg Foundation Grant to Strengthen Performance Financial Footing of 800 U.S. Nonprofits



Participating W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantees will have access to a broad array of resources, including expert consultation, training, benchmarking, management tools, access to capital, publications, subscriptions, and professional associations and conferences. The more than 800 current Kellogg grantees will be expected to improve their organizational capacity and financial structure. This will help the nonprofits better achieve their missions, increasing their community-level impact and improving their prospects for long-term survival.

Kellogg Foundation Program Director of Philanthropy and Volunteerism Tom Reis said: This is about contributing to our grantees doing more good work for many years to come. That kind of success often depends on an extraordinary balance of mission, money, and organizational capacity. When most nonprofits seek help, they look for either specific consultation's8212;such as strategic planning's8212;or for financial assistance. It is rare that they look to the deep inter-relationship between their mission, their financial structure, and their organizational capacity. Our new effort will simultaneously build financial and organizational capacity's8212;and what we learn from the effort should make a significant difference in how our current grantees operate.

Fieldstone Alliance is the grant recipient and primary project manager for this Kellogg-backed venture. Nonprofit Finance Fund will be the lead developer of new financial tools and practices for nonprofits in this project.

Fieldstone Alliance President Carol Lukas said: This is a challenging time for the social sector, including W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantees. Nonprofits must preserve program quality, serve increasing numbers of people with more complex needs, respond to rapidly changing market pressures, and meet demands for transparent decision making and immediate results. This is all occurring in an environment of increased competition for funding, stressed financial models, and organizational infrastructures better suited to the past than the future.

Nonprofit Finance Fund President and CEO Clara Miller said: By combining our two organizations's special areas of expertise's8212;capacity building and finance's8212;this project will bring W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantees a new set of tools and resources to help them become sustainable over the long haul. Through our focus on balancing mission, organizational capacity, and financial structure, we will strengthen their ability to achieve greater social impact in their communities. Our aim is to improve practice in the fields of nonprofit management and philanthropy in the United States through knowledge creation, product development, and knowledge dissemination. What is learned from direct assistance to grantees will fuel the exploration and testing of new approaches that can be applied sector-wide.

New consulting approaches, print and electronic publications, and training are among the methods that will be used by Fieldstone Alliance and NFF to make the practices available throughout the nonprofit sector

About the groups
Fieldstone Alliance works to strengthen the performance of the nonprofit sector. With a 24-year history of providing capacity building services and knowledge resources that strengthen the nonprofit sector and the communities it serves, Fieldstone Alliance offers a comprehensive array of resources for nonprofit leaders, grantmakers, and consultants.

Fieldstone Alliance typically assists close to 100 organizations and networks a year and trains 1,000 or more nonprofit leaders, consultants, and funders. Fieldstone Alliance publishes books on nonprofit management, philanthropy, and community development, which are distributed around the world. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, Fieldstone Alliance has a staff of 13, supplemented by a network of affiliated consultants and authors. Fieldstone Alliance began operations as an independent organization in June 2005 after spinning off from the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in St Paul, Minnesota.

Nonprofit Finance Fund is dedicated to increasing the impact of nonprofits in their communities by helping them get the capital and knowledge they need to make program decisions that are backed by sound financial planning and management. Founded in 1980, NFF builds the capacity of nonprofits through financial resources in the form of loans, capital grants, and asset-building programs, reinforced by a variety of advisory services. NFF has helped more than 8,000 nonprofits implement sustainable growth and improve their capacity to serve their communities. Since 1980, NFF has lent over $100 million and leveraged more than $500 million of capital investment on behalf of nonprofits. Headquartered in New York City, NFF has a staff of more than 50 in offices serving Greater Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware; New England; Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia; Detroit; and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations. Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy communities. To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include: health; food systems and rural development; youth and education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities in leadership; information and communication technology; capitalizing on diversity; and social and economic community development.





$9.3 Million W.K. Kellogg Foundation Grant to Strengthen Performance Financial Footing of 800 U.S. Nonprofits