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Collaboration/Fund Raising Case Study: KaBOOM! Published: October 2007 The need to raise money to support your organizational goals is something most nonprofits are familiar with. This organization has taken partnership and collaboration to a whole new level resulting in a funding structure that allows them to carry out their mission, grow their organization and increase the impact their activities have on the community. Nonprofit: KaBOOM! The Challenge | The Solution | The Process | Measurements & Results | Lessons Learned
The Challenge: CEO and Co-Founder Darell Hammond and Dawn Hutchison developed a three-prong fundraising model that built on their research, which concluded that corporations tended to focus on two aspects of corporate giving—(1) giving back to the community and (2) providing a service opportunity for corporate staff. In an unusual twist, the organization finds the funder first and the project second. The Challenge | The Solution | The Process | Measurements & Results | Lessons Learned The Process: Each playground project has three parts—a corporate sponsor, a community organization and KaBOOM! (serving as project manager). KaBOOM!’s first step is to find a corporation—often one with a community affairs department--willing to spend around $60,000 to build a playground. The group finds a corporate sponsor even before a project is identified because, while many places would love a playground, there’s not necessarily a major funding source available for it. Once a corporation is officially onboard with a signed contract, the project is handed off from KaBOOM!’s four-person Corporate Development staff to the Client Services department, a group of eight to 10 people who manage that relationship. Client Services then works with the funding partner to find suitable community partners, such as schools, Boys and Girls Clubs or YMCAs. Staff seek groups that are interested and that match both the criteria the funding partner seeks and a set of parameters set by KaBOOM!. For example, KaBOOM! is upfront with corporate partners about the focus being on areas with great socioeconomic need. Eighty percent of 80% of the playgrounds it helps build are located where 70% or more of the local children are in free- or reduced-lunch programs at their schools. These are areas with the most need and the least likelihood of affording a new playground. KaBOOM!’s community engagement process also requires that any interested local group contribute $10,000 to the project, host a fundraising project and agree to supply volunteers for the planning committee and actual building day. Interested community partners complete profile forms, which are narrowed to three top groups. KaBOOM! then presents those candidates to the corporate partner. The corporate partner is coached by staff throughout the process, so the decision generally is made by everyone, rather than just the corporation. The planning committee for a playground involves 10 to 40 people, depending on how the partners organize. Usually 150 to 250 volunteers—half from the corporation, half from the community partner--are needed on the day of a build. Early in the process, KaBOOM! sends a project manager to meet with children residing near the playground site; children actually draw what they want on the playground, and the project manager then works with the design budget and involved adults to turn that vision into reality. KaBOOM! also coaches the community partners through the fundraising element of the arrangement, providing Web resources to help share resources, ideas and success stories. It also provides trainings and publications to help other organizations adopt and adapt its fundraising and volunteer management model. This community-build model not only engages people (the organization’s theory of social change), but also saves a lot money, because the project has no professional installation fees. The Challenge | The Solution | The Process | Measurements & Results | Lessons Learned Measurements & Results The model has proven so successful that KaBOOM! has experienced rapid high growth—at least 20% to 30% in the last three to four years. As a result, the nonprofit has increased staff from 40 to 90 in the past 2½ years and works with a $24 million budget. More importantly, 17,000 new playgrounds have been built. “We’ve learned that this is a workable model, especially with playgrounds,” says Dennis Reynolds, vice president of online and community programs. “People like [playgrounds]. The tangibility of this has a lot of appeal, because the corporations can really see something for their investment, and they have something for their employees to do. Everyone loves that service day. “We survey the volunteers who come out [to work on building day] and share that with the corporate headquarters. The satisfaction rating is always very high, because people come out and have a really good time.” “People use different measurements such as inputs, outputs, outcomes,” Reynolds continues. “Measurable outcomes are what we’re all aiming for--whether we change a community and make life better--but those are hard to measure…. We assume a playground is a good thing for the community and improves kids’ lives, so we’re looking at the fact that we build playground as an output that means it has impact. “This year we’ve contracted for a major impact study that’s looking at outcomes,” he continues, nothing that results will be available in late 2008. “They’re trying to determine what impact it’s made on the community in terms of next steps people have taken. Our idea of our model is that, in many communities where we’ve installed [playgrounds], there haven’t been many ‘community wins,’ so we see this [process] as one step on a ladder. What we‘re trying to do with the outcome study is to see what people have gone on to do next. We do have evidence that this is happening, but it’s anecdotal, so we’re trying to be more systematic about it.” For instance, KaBOOM! has been told that its funding/partnership model, backed by successfully built playgrounds, has provided communities with more confidence to raise money for needed projects. “[The model] establishes longer-lasting connections within the community,” Reynolds explains. “An organization may go to some local businesses to try to fundraise, which sets up a longer-term relationship between, for instance, the school [community partner] and the company.” For a company such as Home Depot (one of KaBOOM!’s early supporters), the model has been attractive, because it has 2,000 stores and wide geographic distribution. Home Depot also has helped the organization pilot a larger model—sponsorship of multiple playgrounds. Home Depot has sponsored more than 100 playgrounds as of September 2007. KaBOOM! is also piloting a “legacy fund,” which pieces together funding from several small companies instead of one large corporation. Called Operation Playground, the nonprofit has been trying to build playgrounds for the past two years in areas hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. “It’s a very limited experiment that we may do more in the future,” says Reynolds. “We’ve always found, though, that companies want to be the sole sponsors.” KaBOOM! is starting to examine whether online giving by individuals could be part of the fundraising effort. As of September 2007, the nonprofit had rarely tapped the potential individual giver; KaBOOM! only added a “donate” button to its Web page a few years ago, and fewer than 5% of its fundraising revenues are from individual donors. However, the potential could be huge. It is also exploring government funding opportunities for the first time. For an example of how and why one association partners with KaBOOM! to leave a community legacy in the host city of each of its annual conferences, visit the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons at www.aaos.org/education/anmeet/resources/Playground.asp. For a one-minute time-lapse video showing how these playgrounds are built, visit www.kaboom.org/OnlineCommunity/tabid/442/Default.aspx. The Challenge | The Solution | The Process | Measurements & Results | Lessons Learned Lessons Learned:
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