Posted Date: June 18, 2008

A "Boot Camp" For Non-Profit Groups

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

   Yvonne Rivers is a type of master sergeant who is helping many non-profit organizations shape up and ship out.
    As the CEO of a three-year-old company called the Nonprofit Boot Camp, Rivers plans to help even more non-profits shape-up their grant-writing skills at seminars she will hold at various sites in Hampton Roads on June 24, July 15 and July 22.
   “People go into the military to learn what they will need to do to succeed,” Rivers said. “The same applies to securing and keeping grant funds.     Clients would call and ask me for help, but they didn’t know what kind of help they needed,” explained Rivers, a public relations, marketing and media specialist who founded the Phoebe Marketing Group in 1997.
    Whether it was someone from a successful or a struggling non-profit group, Rivers said she noticed a single thread running through most of their histories.
   “They didn’t know how to organize,” she said. “A case in point is an international group that never had applied for grants. “So I showed them how to organize. I met with them at a retreat and met with their volunteers. They have recently received funding.”
    Specifically, about 50 of the 75 people who have studied in her boot camp have walked out as certified grant writers. Participation is steadily increasing, she said.
   Their stories differ but they all want to acquire grant funding. For example, one client wanted to obtain a grant to start a senior-home-care program. There was another client who wanted to obtain a grant to start exercise classes for obese children. Another one wanted to open up a home for former female inmates.

   But Rivers said the starting point is always the same no matter the story: Open your eyes. Then, start writing the grant. In other words, see if the type of service you want to provide is needed in the community you want to serve.
   “Getting grants now is tougher than ever before,” she continued. “You have to do research and verify the need,” said Rivers, a graduate of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
   “The purpose of any grant is to fund a need in the community. You have to verify there is a need. It’s not about you personally (getting the grant)—but about serving the community.”
    Say it’s a teen pregnancy program. Open your eyes and study the statistics to qualify for a grant. Is the same service already available in Portsmouth or some other part of Hampton Roads? Moreover, would your program attract enough pregnant teens?
    Ask questions, gather statistics, then write, Rivers advised. Moreover, ask the same questions to keep receiving a grant after a project has been funded for two or three years. Grant funding can evaporate and fall through the cracks of a community that is not being served.
    To keep a grant, focus on the mission of the non-profit group you operate or work with, she said. “The essence of the vision or mission will not change over the years—not the essence of it.” Pointing to an after-school tutorial program as an example, she said, “these kids will grow up. So what else can you do for this non-profit?”
    In other words, the same type of service must continue to be provided to the community for the grant to continue. “Establish additional goals. For example, you can teach life skills to that same population of kids as they graduate. You can teach job interviewing skills,” she said.
    So, the key to getting or keeping a grant is to organize. Organize your thoughts. Then organize the groups you will serve, as well as those who will serve.
    Her clients have included non-profits such as Affinity 4 Inc., Portsmouth Public Schools, the Azalea Festival, the Essence magazine College Campus Tour, Dallas Black Dance Theater, Hampton Jazz Festival, and many others.
   “There are a series of questions to ask to discover a non-profits’s vision or mission,” she continued. “But serve the community. That’s the bottom line.
   “Grant funding is based on how good a job you’re doing with others.”
For more about Ms. Rivers, visit nonprofitboot.com or call 757-481-8009.

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