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Strategic Development

Aspiration provides guidance, tools, and direct support to non-profit leaders, activists, and their allies looking to overcome fundraising challenges and bring new resources to their work. Grounded in a deep understanding of money, systemic power, and movement building, our offering is designed to help you:

  • Break down issues of power, class, and wealth to find equal footing with donors;
  • Develop and deliver compelling stories that bring people into your work;
  • Populate and manage a pipeline of grants, gifts, and investments;
  • Structure your development program to drive growth; and
  • Engage with donors one-on-one to close transformative gifts.

Raising money doesn’t have to feel intimidating. It doesn't require you to compromise your values. And it can be a source of creativity, meaning, and subversive joy.

We can help.

Workshop

How to Raise Money

Our flagship offering, How to Raise Money (HtRM), is a series of strategic workshops, tools, and templates purpose-built to help emerging nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs bring partners, expertise, and resources to their missions.

Workshop Collage

Looking to build the efficacy of your program? Bored or intimidated by fundraising and desiring a new approach? New to the profession and wanting to learn? This workshop is for you.

Learn more about HtRM

Focused Support

We offer 6-month, focused sprints on three development challenges commonly experienced by emerging non-profits and social enterprises.

1. Launching a New Venture

  • Finding strategic alignment, offering value, and building lasting partnerships.
  • Designing program models that convey competence.
  • Gaining traction with foundations to close your initial funding.

2. Funding Growth

  • Scaling your work through investment campaigns.
  • Engaging donors with creativity, compassion, and partnership.
  • Delivering the 'ask' to secure principal gifts and investments.

3. Establishing a Sustainable Program

  • Transitioning from project-based funding to core support.
  • Building the teams, structures, and systems of a fully established development program.
  • Engaging your donors as complete financial beings through multiple giving instruments.

We start with a deep dive to understand your goals. We then share related practices, work directly with your team to launch the work, and tackle challenges as they emerge. Finally, we'll have your back as you make your asks and build your program.

Embedded Leadership

In certain circumstances, for mission-aligned organizations, we will embed as your interim VP, Development. We'll partner with you to implement your development strategy, work directly with your Board and staff, and share responsibility for hitting your funding targets.

Interested in learning more about Embedded Leadership or our other fundraising assistance programs? Let’s talk!

Contact Us

(email us at HtRM@aspirationtech.org)

Geoffrey encouraged me to build from my experience to grow authentic partnerships. He identifies powerful patterns and helps you learn how to apply them—from establishing a pipeline, to an introduction email, an important meeting, a written proposal, all the way to landing a grant and opening the door for more support. Geoffrey is an excellent teacher who approaches fundraising as an art form, and it is clear that he’s committed to demystifying the practice so that more people, especially emerging leaders who may not have ready access to these resources, can land the partnerships they need.

Michelle Thorne
Sustainable Internet Lead, Mozilla

See all

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Our Mission

Aspiration's mission is to connect nonprofit organizations, free and open source projects, philanthropic funders and activists with strategic frameworks, technology solutions, digital practices and data skills that help them more fully realize their missions.

We want those working for social, racial and climate justice to be able to find and use the best digital tools, resources and practices available, so that they maximize their effectiveness and impact and, in turn, change the world.

Aspiration is a values-driven nonprofit organization.

Read our Our Manifesto and let us know what you think.

  • Values
  • Services
    • Strategic Development
    • Nonprofits
    • Free and Open Projects
    • Event Facilitation
    • Funders
  • Events
    • Events History
  • Training
  • Community
  • About
    • Team
    • Board
    • Press
    • Contact
    • Blog

Contact Us

info@aspirationtech.org

+1.415.839.6456

Mailing Address

P.O. Box 880264
San Francisco, CA 94188-0264

We offer all of our materials and resources under a Creative Commons ShareAlike license. CC BY-SA 4.0.

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