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Cheryl Lyn Welter Charitable Foundation
Challenge
Solution
The founder, Harold, had a mission of providing $50-250 grants to teachers and others who work with students K-12 who are underprivileged after his daughter Cheryl died in an auto accident the night before homecoming. Cheryl loved being involved in her high school activities. Harold wanted every student struggling with finances to have access to books, sporting equipment, and field trips to have a fulfilling school experience. Harold, a one-man show, runs the foundation while also maintaining a full-time job as a financial adviser. As a new foundation, it needed to reach $37,000 by year-end, enabling it to start providing grants in 2018!
Not knowing how to optimize his supporters or his current communication channels, he enlisted the support of [GiveSmart]. Together they created a multi-channel fundraising strategy and communications plan complete with week-to-week activities outlines. The [GiveSmart] team helped him set up his peer-to-peer fundraising page, online donation forms, and a text keyword (Text Cheryl to 71777). Harold was then encouraged and guided on sharing these digital fundraising tools with messages and methods that would garner the most awareness and support for his cause. Being the founder and only a part-time volunteer of the foundation, there was a lot to do and very little time available. Harold was ambitious and followed all the best practices given to him by [GiveSmart]. He reached out to his network and community through social media, local media, school events, and peer-to-peer fundraising. He also posted regular videos on social media sharing status updates about the foundation’s work.
Impact
The support began to roll in, and 194 donors collectively donated $37,062.65 by year-end and successfully met his goal of $37,000 needed to endow his foundation grants in 2018. The outcome was a direct result of focused planning combined with digital fundraising tools that empowered him to connect and build support from donors. This February, Harold and the Cheryl Welter Foundation began distributing grants to teachers in Knox, Indiana. After reaching their goal and realizing even more potential, the foundation now has a “Drive for 55” campaign to raise $55,000 to enable the ability to provide more grants as school starts again in August.
In memory of Cheryl’s love of helping others and her love of participating in school activities, the Cheryl Lyn Welter Family Charitable Foundation has been established to help needy students in grades K-12 have similar experiences and opportunities. Proceeds from the endowment will be awarded via grants to those who are charged with helping underprivileged children.
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Disclaimer: This case study originally featured a nonprofit that used MobileCause. MobileCause is now fully integrated into the GiveSmart platform. All mentions have been edited to reflect the new naming conventions.
The legacy feature set, staff assistance, and training continue to support thousands of nonprofits in raising billions of dollars. We invite you to check out GiveSmart Fundraise, Events, and Donor CRM today.