Small Organization Snapshot: It Happened to Alexa Foundation
The It Happened to Alexa Foundation, a small, Lewiston, N.Y.-based nonprofit, is the only organization in the U.S. that provides financial assistance to the loved ones of rape victims, allowing them to be with the victim throughout the course of her trial, according to Executive Director Ellen Augellos.
“The foundation believes those who face the grueling task of prosecuting their assailants need a support system, and that expenses should not stand in the way of that support,” says Augellos.
It Happened to Alexa Foundation’s provenance is a brutal one. In the fall of 1999, Tom and Stacey Branchini drove their daughter, Alexa, from Lewiston to Boston, where she would be starting school at Boston University. Ten days later they received a call telling them that Alexa had been raped and was recovering in a hospital in Boston. The perpetrator had been apprehended, and a trial was impending.
Alexa’s trial was exceedingly difficult and drawn-out, Augellos explains, involving as it did rigorous cross-examinations and accusations that it had been consensual sex instead of rape.
“But she remained strong and determined,” Augellos says, “knowing that she had her parents’ love and support backing her.”
After 18 grueling months, the trial finally got underway. It lasted for six weeks, during which time Alexa and her parents spent a total of 27 days in Boston. The trial resulted in Alexa’s attacker being sentenced to 40 to 45 years in prison.
It Happened to Alexa Foundation was founded by the Branchinis after Tom and Stacey considered two things: how important it was that they were able to be with Alexa during her emotionally taxing trial; and that their presence at the trial required more money than many families in similar circumstances can afford.
The organization receives the bulk of its funding through grants from public and private foundations. It also has one major annual fundraising dinner — the last one had 200 attendees at $125 a head plus sponsorships and netted $98,000 — and devoted donors to whom it encourages planned giving. Augellos is the foundation’s one full-time employee, and her responsibilities for the organization basically revolve around fundraising.
“About 90 percent of the executive director’s job is fundraising. It has to be,” she says, adding that procuring grant money can be a tricky business sometimes.
“We have had great luck in the past with grants,” Augellos says. “At one point we received a federal grant that covered all our expenses for a year, so that all funds raised were put into an endowment or went directly to victims.”
But at the same time, she adds, the foundation’s greatest challenge arises from a combination of its unique mission and its small size.
“We hear from [state] funders that they do not want funds going out of state. Then we hear from national funders that we are not big enough yet; do not serve enough people nationwide to qualify for funding,” she says. “So we find ourselves betwixt and between.”
It can be a hard row to hoe, Augellos said: “All of our difficulties involve funding.”
In the face of that, It Happened to Alexa Foundation’s fundraising philosophy has to be flexible and creative.
“Leave no stone unturned,” she says. “I will try any event or idea. The philanthropic climate is constantly changing; fundraising always have to be adapting.”
To that end, the organization is searching out new avenues of donor cultivation, including its own online newsletter and a cause-specific interactive blog at MyLifeBrand.com, a global platform for social communities that allows participants to meet and share ideas online. Augellos adds that “more Internet networking is being explored” but that it has to be as basic as possible because of her organization’s limited resources.
Moreover, Augellos says, the cultivation of repeat donors is of great import to It Happened to Alexa Foundation’s fundraising success: “Going forward I am trying to maintain multiple commitments so that every year is not like starting over.”
When asked what advice she would give to nonprofits similar in size and annual operating budget, Augellos said that very small nonprofits should concentrate as much as possible on containing costs.
“Keep your administration cost as low as possible,” she says. “If you can get corporate sponsors to donate space or office supplies in the first few years of operation, it can take out a lot of the worry.”
Furthermore, Augellos encourages, smaller nonprofits should think about maximizing revenue through in-kind donations, which “can be a win-win for all parties and are always worth exploring.”
It Happened to Alexa Foundation
125 S. First St.
Lewiston, New York 14092
716.754.9105
info@ithappenedtoalexa.org
www.ithappenedtoalexa.org
Annual Operating Budget 2007: $144,000
