Foundations built Teach Plus. Getting to twenty million dollars meant adding a channel most foundation-funded organizations never build: real individual giving, with the staffing and systems to support it, not just the ambition.
Teach Plus, a national teacher leadership organization, built an ambitious 2025 strategic plan: growing from roughly $13 million to $20 million in annual revenue, doubling its network of teacher leaders from 2,000 to 4,000, expanding from 12 to 16 states, and mobilizing more than 35,000 educators and partners. Its fundraising, however, ran through essentially one channel.
Revenue came overwhelmingly from foundation grants at the national and regional level, with individual giving, an opportunity Teach Plus itself sized at $5 million or more a year, essentially untapped.
Local Executive Directors and the National Development Team had no clearly defined division of fundraising responsibility, professional development needs, or coordination process.
Teach Plus's CRM and donor management process were not structured to support an individual giving program, prospect research, or the reporting a larger, more diversified fundraising operation would require, leaving that multi-million dollar opportunity largely uncaptured.
Interviewed national and regional staff, reviewed CRM operations and donor management practices, and benchmarked comparable organizations' fundraising staffing and structure across a structured three-phase engagement: an audit, an evaluation and analysis phase, and a strategic fundraising plan.
Recommended a new Regional Development Director role to bridge national and local fundraising, clarified which donor management activities (identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship) belonged to national versus regional teams within a donor stewardship framework organized by giving level, and defined a Local Advisory Board model to extend regional donor relationships without diluting national board governance.
Built a multi-year roadmap to grow individual giving toward Teach Plus's own $5 million target by 2025, starting with pilot sites and Local Advisory Boards before expanding system-wide, so Teach Plus's largely foundation-funded model could diversify without abandoning what already worked.
Teach Plus mobilizes teacher leaders to shape the policies and practices that affect their classrooms and students. A fundraising engine that can grow past foundation grants alone, with real individual giving behind it, is what lets that network of teacher leaders keep expanding into new states and reaching more educators and partners.
Stronger Consulting partners with mission-driven organizations to turn complex challenges into clear, practical action, from strategy through implementation.
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