An Interview With Amanda Carter, CoachArt

CoachArt tries to make life a little brighter for underprivileged children suffering from chronic and, often, life-threatening illnesses by getting them involved in arts and sports.

Here, CoachArt Executive Director Amanda Carter discusses the organization and its fundraising efforts.

FundRaising Success: Please tell us a little about the organization’s history.
Amanda Carter: The idea of CoachArt was first conceived in 2000 by Zander Lurie in memory of his father Dr. Art Lurie, a cardiac surgeon who loved teaching and mentoring children. Zander, together with his family friend, Leah Pomeranz Bernthal, set out to create an organization that would enhance the lives of chronically ill youth by tapping into the resources from the Los Angeles coaching community.

CoachArt was granted status as a nonprofit organization in 2001. The next 18 months were dedicated to research and development in order to create a program that filled a critical need in the community. The concept of matching pediatric patients with coaches for free, recreational lessons was enthusiastically embraced by health care professionals, chronically ill youths and their families, and the creative individuals looking to volunteer.

In 2002, CoachArt launched a pilot “Outpatient Coaching Program” at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, enrolling 50 patients in free arts and athletics lessons. Due to the emotional needs of our patients’ siblings, the program was later expanded to include brothers and sisters of patients.

In 2003, a fully operational program was launched, providing 650 patients and siblings with lessons from 75 volunteer coaches. The program also began offering in-hospital arts workshops at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Ronald McDonald House Los Angeles. In addition, CoachArt expanded to offer community events, bringing patients and their families together to attend various arts and athletics activities in the greater Los Angeles community

From 2004 through 2006, CoachArt continued to grow, partnering with new health care organizations and volunteer coaches, and providing more chronically ill children and their siblings free lessons. Working with more than 200 volunteer coaches and 40 arts and athletics organizations, we served 1,584 students through the outpatient coaching program, in-hospital workshops and community events in 2007.

FS: How do you fund your mission?
AC: There are no fees or expenses charged to the families or volunteer coaches in the program. Our mission is funded entirely through contributed revenue. CoachArt raises funds from individuals, corporations and foundations. In addition to a year-end direct-mail campaign, foundation grants and individual donations, we host two special-event fundraisers.

FS: What are the biggest challenges your organization faces as far as fundraising is concerned? How do you overcome them?
AC: The greatest challenge faced by our organization is the diversification of our donor base. We are supported by a group of faithful donors, but the challenge lies in adding breadth to our donor pool. We have challenged ourselves to bolster the foundation portion of our donor base while continuing to reach out to new individuals and corporations.

In the past few years, we have relied heavily on one large fundraising event to raise the bulk of our annual budget. We realize that this is a precarious way to raise money. While a large event can enhance our organization and raise awareness, the event should not be the primary source of income.

As a young organization with an unproven record of success, it was more difficult to secure foundation and corporate support. Now that we have a seven-year track record of growth and financial security, we are working to realign the annual fundraising budget to depend on an increased number of foundation grants, major gifts from individuals and ongoing relationships with corporations that expand beyond one-time event sponsorships.

FS: Do you foresee any big changes in the way you reach potential donors and other supporters in the near future?

AC: We have seen that donors like to feel that they are part of a community, supporting a successful organization. For the most part, donors no longer want to send a check to a faceless organization — many of them want to be involved. There is a fine line for our organization to walk: We must be careful to engage donors without overwhelming and alienating them. Therefore, we have created clear expectations for some donors so they understand when they will hear from us. We also tailor our contact with donors depending on their needs. Some donors want constant communication and involvement to feel as if they are part of a community, while others are more hands-off. Our commitment to communicate in the style that best suits the donor drives us to know our donors better.

We’ve also seen a shift in the way that we reach out to donors. More and more often, we use the Web, e-mail and online meeting places to reach potential donors and volunteers. We are currently building a Web site that will support the changes that we’ve seen in the marketplace. In addition to providing information about CoachArt that can be accessed quickly and clearly, we want to build an online community of supporters who will return to the CoachArt Web site because it is friendly, functional and inviting.

In addition to the personal relationships built with our donors and volunteers, we hope to make CoachArt a strong virtual presence in the lives of our donors and volunteers. These changes include a blog for volunteers; a community bulletin board where our professional coaches can post information about their gallery openings, theater performances or community events; and an online gallery that displays some of the artwork from the students and coaches in our program.

In addition to a professional, clean Web site that is constantly maintained and updated, it is important to utilize other online marketplaces including YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Idealist.org and others. We also send frequent e-newsletters, event save-the-date cards and volunteer announcements through mass e-mails. It is our belief that the online communication enhances and strengthens the personal relationships we build with our donors and volunteers.

FS: Can you describe a recent successful fundraising effort?
AC: We created a young membership group called the CoachArt Contemporaries. This group pays a yearly membership fee and is invited to two social events. In a fun environment, they are invited to network, meet other members and learn about CoachArt. They receive biannual e-newsletters and are asked to volunteer for one-day projects with the organization. Utilizing the board’s connections, community leaders were invited to participate. We strived to recruit members in their 30s and 40s — seeing that this is a demographic that is often not yet involved with multiple charities and looking for organizations to support with their time and dollars.

In only four months, we had more than 250 members in the group and raised more than $35,000. The membership cut across the cultural spectrum of Los Angeles, including leaders in the finance, entertainment, law and the medical community. In addition to the immediate financial support, we are able to cultivate the next generation of leaders for our organization. From this initial group, we have identified strong potential board members, high-level donors that could give personally or through their companies, and community leaders who can link CoachArt to potential volunteers, medical resources and donors.

FS: Any major difficulties or setbacks you’ve faced along the way? Things you would do differently with your fundraising?
AC: We haven’t had any major difficulties or setbacks in our fundraising. However, I believe that one of the most exciting things about CoachArt also presents itself as one of our greatest challenges. In a relatively short period of time, the organization transitioned from being a small start-up to a medium-sized nonprofit. This growth has required a shift in the mind-set of the board, staff leadership and outside supporters. We were forced to look at our operating model to devise pragmatic approaches to how we will sustain and grow our programs now that the organization is maturing.

Here are some of the challenges that have come from our growth:

1. As discussed earlier, it is critical to broaden the organization’s donor base. CoachArt’s future can no longer be sustained by the initial small circle of founding donors. The new donor base needed to expand to include a wider range of foundations, individuals and corporations. Similarly, we can no longer rely on a couple large events as our primary source of contributed revenue. The fundraising money must come from a more even distribution of sources throughout the year.

2. A few years ago, we realized that we had to streamline the programs offered by CoachArt to make the mission clear and the fundraising message precise. We found ourselves doing too many side projects that were not the focus of the mission. Donors and supporters would offer opportunities (sporting event tickets, camping opportunities, day trips throughout the city). We saw that while these opportunities were generous, they were outside of our core mission. The leadership had to re-evaluate the mission to make sure that all programs were mission-driven and hyper-focused. This helped our fundraising because we were able to convey a clear, accurate message and clarify evaluation results to our donors.

FS: What advice would you give to organizations similar to yours, in size and annual operating budget?
AC: Successful fundraising takes place when there is a strong partnership between board and staff members. There must be transparency, trust and accountability between the board and staff leadership. At the same time, each group must have clearly defined roles and should hold each other accountable inside those roles. We have achieved fundraising success with a small staff thanks to the strength of the board. They understand their responsibility to help raise funds and open doors for the organization.

In today’s economy and marketplace, it is important to think creatively about avenues to raise money and awareness. Nonprofits must pay attention to their online presence. Information about their organization can be accessed quickly and clearly by a mass market. Building a strong online presence is critical but is easy to overlook when faced with an unending to-do list of other critical tasks. However, most donors/potential donors will visit an organization’s Web site to get a snapshot of the organization. It is critical to make a good first impression.

CoachArt
3303 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 320
Los Angeles, CA 90010
213.736.2850
www.coachart.org

Staff: Four full-time employees/one part-time employee; none devoted exclusively to fundraising

Annual Operating Budget: $750,000

Annual Contributed Income: $750,000/100 percent

Mission: CoachArt’s mission is to improve the quality of life for underprivileged children and adolescents with chronic and life-threatening illnesses by providing free, personal lessons in the arts and athletics.