A nonprofit that raises $2 million per year has likely hit financial sustainability.There is a desert of failed pilot nonprofits because they were unable to sustain themselves.Of the 300,000 nonprofits in the US, ⅔ of them raise less than $500,000 per year.When Kiva went on Oprah, they raised $11 million overnight.They were able to hire an executive director when they hit a certain size.Kathleen was a practicing lawyer at the time.SPARK doubled its revenue every few months.$5,000 seemed like a lot of money at the time.They organized a fundraising event in San Francisco and raised $5,000 to help women in Rwanda.Kathleen in her twenties got together with her college friends and started SPARK to support gender equality.She noticed early on how nonprofits struggled to survive financially.Her parents sat on many nonprofit Boards.Kathleen Janus grew up in Napa, California and began volunteering at a very early age.The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact without Burnout by Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman Kathleen Janus Show Notes She is a lawyer, lecturer at Stanford, and founder of Spark.
She documented their secrets to success and wrote down the five patterns that got them there. Soon, a playbook was created. In this episode, Kathleen talks about her new book, Social Startup Success: How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up and Make a Difference. Does that sound familiar to you?įor five years Kathleen Janus traveled the country to find out how successful organizations like Teach for America, City Year, and Charity: Water broke through their barriers. She conducted studies and interviewed 200 social entrepreneurs. Most of their energy is spent trying to make payroll at the end of each month-which means less time is spent maximizing their impact. Countless nonprofit organizations are stuck on the treadmill of financial survival.