Graduate Students Delve Into Nonprofit Fundraising

Master of public administration students create fundraising solutions for nonprofits during pandemic

Sacred Heart University’s new, fully-online master of public administration (MPA) program offered students valuable, real-life experience to complement their academic studies during the pandemic, and nonprofit organizations reaped benefits.

The MPA program offers concentrations in emergency management, nonprofit management and a self-design option. The class on fundraising for nonprofits aims to give students real-world experience. “Students work directly with the nonprofit of their choice to design and implement a fundraising plan,” said Kenna Barrett, adjunct instructor. “During this module, they have the added dimension of fundraising as a crisis response during a time of virtual communication.”

Sonia Plumb Dance Company

Kadidiatou Ballo ’20 and Branden Martins ’20 worked with Sonia Plumb Dance Company in Hartford to raise scholarship money for 23 students for the fall semester. The dance company launched its new fundraiser June 24, and Sustainable Connecticut agreed to match donations during the event.

When one of the dance company’s board members needed to be inspired to donate to the scholarship fund, Ballo presented data about the socioeconomics of Hartford’s population compared to the dance students. She also helped with a video project featuring a former student and a current one explaining the dance company’s impact on their lives.

“It’s important that people see, ‘This is where my money is going; these are the people I’m helping,’” said Ballo, who also created a streamlined calendar for fundraising. Additionally, she prepared a plan, timeline and structure for Sonia Plumb, director of the dance company, to follow for her next fundraising event.

“It was awesome to have someone set up a schedule for email, video and pitches,” said Plumb. “We hadn’t thought about all of the outreach leading up to the event.”

For Ballo, the class was “challenging, but a great experience. Helping someone raise funds is a big responsibility.”

Ballo and Martins also encouraged Plumb to address current, national issues on social media. They helped her express support for the Black Lives Matter movement and empathy toward her students as they dealt with quarantine. Martins helped develop Plumb’s social media strategy by creating posts for Facebook and Instagram that were relevant to the current social climate, realizing the importance of staying in front of potential donors.

They also created the #DanceFundChallenge on social media, providing people with fun, zombie-style choreography and mysterious music. Students and friends were encouraged to post videos of themselves taking on the challenge and asking people to donate to Sonia Plumb Dance Company’s scholarship fund. Students posed the question to viewers, “Did you know approximately 80% of Hartford’s youth do not have access to online programming? They cannot access the dance classes many of us are taking as we have been stuck inside.”

“Being part of something that’s giving back to the community and helping kids from diverse backgrounds is exciting,” said Martins. “Helping kids to stay active and get them out and having fun is so good for their mental health.”

Plumb praised Bellow and Martins’ work. “One of the most amazing things is that here are two young people interested in figuring out how to help me fundraise. They obviously have great values,” she said. “They connected with what we are trying to do, and they were excited to get this funding for these kids.”

Community Foundation of Greater New Haven

Aniello Furino ’20 worked with the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven for his class work. The nonprofit foundation, established in 1928, manages a sizable endowment built by nearly a century of donations and distributes grants to area charities. Its mission statement declares the goal “To inspire, support, inform, listen to and collaborate with the people and organizations of Greater New Haven to build an ever more connected, inclusive, equitable and philanthropic community.”

Furino took on the challenge of promoting sustainability for local nonprofits. While many nonprofits receive a seed grant to start, they don’t always know how to reach out to donors to keep their organization afloat. He proposed an in-person fundraising event where nonprofits would set up stations according to the issues they address. After visiting the stations and individual presenters, donors would make a pledge for a particular issue, and the donations would be split equally among the organizations under that issue’s banner. This enabled smaller nonprofits that didn’t have the ability to capture large donors to talk directly with potential philanthropists and raise funds to further their missions.

Boys & Girls Club of America, Local New York Chapter

Cedric Lawrence ’20 gained grant-writing experience while assisting a local Boys & Girls Club of America in New York state for class. He participated in the Institutional Review Board process by interviewing clients, staff and board members to collect information for a grant based on capacity building. He also built a logic model for evaluation and planning, as well as a budget narrative as part of the process.

“Getting involved and being so hands-on—in the beginning, it was scary,” said Lawrence. “To share the idea with someone at that level and to formulate it, put it together, was an amazing experience.

“We broke it down into chunks and, when we finally put it all together, it was incredible to see all these scattered pieces assembled to form the final project. It felt personal. I was proud of that,” he said.

“If anyone is interested in a role in government or a nonprofit, Sacred Heart offers great opportunities,” said Martins. “The real-life experience aspect of this course is extremely beneficial. I would recommend anyone taking the MPA program to take this class.”

Barrett said students also found the personal growth that developed through the project “as challenging and rewarding as fundraising. All of my students should be proud of what they accomplished here. Each of these students has made a lasting impact on the organization they worked with.”

Lesley DeNardis, Sacred Heart’s MPA program director, agrees. “Gaining fundraising experience is essential to students in the nonprofit management concentration,” she said. “Sacred Heart strives to incorporate service learning into the curriculum wherever possible to help our students grow into critical thinkers who are socially responsible.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates a demand for nonprofit management in the years to come. The non-profit sector is the third largest industry in the U.S., comprising 1.5 million organizations (30,000 of which are in Connecticut). Sacred Heart’s online MPA program prepares students for careers in the fields of federal, state and local government, social and community services, private industry, public safety and nonprofits.