More than 80 community leaders attended a forum for Black-led nonprofits at Neumann University to better learn how to get corporate support both financially and with personnel.
The Foundation for Delaware County’s Center for Nonprofit Excellence held its second Black-led nonprofit forum Thursday at Neumann University’s John J. Mullen Communications Center.
“You know what happens with a lot of nonprofits?” Joanne Craig, chief impact officer for the Foundation for Delaware County, asked. “They are developed out of someone’s experience and passion so they’re all in. They give all their time and effort but there’s no requirement or rule that says you need to know how to run this nonprofit business.”
She said people see them doing their work and give them a donation or a grant.
“They really get started, they take off,” Craig explained, “but their focus, their expertise is delivering the service, the helping of someone or helping someone get to a different, better place. They’ve got to really learn on the job, develop and run a nonprofit business.”
That’s where the foundation, and its Center for Nonprofit Excellence, fit.
“We’re able to step in, we’re able to help folks to connect. That’s a big thing that we do,” Craig said. “We’re able to help folks if they need to learn about finance … or if they want to connect with some other funders ‘cause the foundation doesn’t fund everything everywhere but we know folks.”
The forum featured a panel of corporate philanthropists sharing tips and it was moderated by Steven Scott Bradley, board member of The Foundation for Delaware County and principal and senior client executive of OneDigital.
Bradley told the attendants that the most important part of the forum was the focus on building relationships.
“People give money to people they trust,” he said.
And that was part of the reason that Donna Northern, director of operations for the Boys & Girls Club of Chester, was there.
“It’s about collaboration because that’s what allows us to be able to expand our program and bring in new resources to our children and to be able to share what we have as well,” she said.
The Boys & Girls Club has been a part of Chester’s community for 94 years and provides services for 200 youth through daily and ancillary programming.
They serve as one of the Chester Upland School District’s 21st Century After School sites with 50 students who participate. They also have a partnership with the Chester Culture, Arts & Technology Center for art programming.
She shared the focus of the national Boys & Girls Club.
“It’s 3 o’clock, where are your children?” Northern said. “They’re with us and they’re in a safe place. While they’re in a safe place, they’re connected to positive adults and then they receive a lot of recreational sports, health, emotional and social development.”
And that’s why attending an event like Thursday’s with a focus on funding was so critical for nonprofits like Northern’s.
“For us, that’s where the work really digs in,” she explained. “Because we don’t have one funder that funds us. We have so many different funders so we’re always looking for new funding to be able to keep the doors open.”
Panelists shared ways for nonprofits to reach them.
“Before even making a decision about who to sponsor or how we give money, we take the time to learn about the organization, learn their needs, their mission, who they’re serving,” Darrell Davis, public engagement manager for DoorDash, said, adding that they look to find ways to connect them to their logistics network.
Josh Miller-Myers, corporate citizenship manager of TD Bank, said his company likes to have conversations about values upfront.
“Our best relationships and partnerships come from when you meet on shared values and shared alignment and shared tactics,” he said. “We don’t want a nonprofit to create a program to fit with our alignment. We want to meet with you, we want to talk with you, we want to find that alignment because that’s what makes a standout partnership.”
Krista Seng, lead corporate giving and community affairs for Aqua, spoke about getting the company to know them through connecting with their initiatives for Earth Day in the spring or food insecurity in the fall.
“Get your foot in the door. Get to know us,” she said. “It’s just like a friendship, right? So, build that friendship.”
Cassandra Bell, vice president, Charitable Foundation, senior regional program officer of M&T Bank, spoke of the variety of ways nonprofits can receive support.
“As a financial institution, we have employees that are able to come out and do some volunteer opportunities,” she said. “There’s boards that we can also sit on and we can get actively engaged with you as a nonprofit and also get actively engaged in the community.”
And, Chinwe Onyekere, program officer, Healthy Start for Kids for Vanguard, said her company sees interaction with nonprofits as bidirectional in that what nonprofits are seeing firsthand in the community can help form their strategy.
