Project YES (Youth Envisioning Social Change) July 29, 2009

GiftWorks helps this organization reengage with lapsed donors.  In addition, the organization's Board of Directors is more involved in fundraising now that information on supporters is so easily accessed.

Project YES (Youth Envisioning Social change) is dedicated to creating leadership opportunities for diverse young people through the arts and service learning. Project YES provides three principle programs: the Youth Center, The Service Learning Partnership, and Art in the Community. Our free drop-in Youth Center provides a safe place where young people, ages 12-18, participate in daily, after-school and summer programming. The Service-Learning Partnership promotes academic success and civic engagement through art and service learning for young people ages 5-14. The Art in the Community Program promotes self-expression, collaboration and art appreciation through arts-based programming for youth ages 12-18. 58% of the youth we served are considered low-income.

Project YES recently re-located closer to the local high school and middle school, in order to accommodate rising numbers in Youth Center participants and a subsequent need for a larger space. However, like any nonprofit during these difficult economic times, we have struggled to maintain the funding necessary to continue providing our vital services to the community. An increase in rent and demand for our services left us scrambling to make ends meet, and as funding cuts were made we knew that we needed a new fundraising strategy to make us sustainable.

The obvious solution was to tap into our individual donors, and push for community support, rather than relying on foundation and government money. Unfortunately, the existing database was difficult to use and complex, resulting in corrupted data or no data at all. We had no way of easily re-connecting with our lapsed donors, or even identifying them to ask for their support during our time of need. 

Project YES began searching for a new database system: something easy to learn and use that would bring immediate results. However, everything available seemed too large, too complex, and much too expensive for our needs.

Now, thanks to GiftWorks, Project YES has been able to easily identify donors that have fallen off and re-engaged them through targeted appeals. Our Board of Directors has become more involved in donor solicitation, because we are able to provide them with quick, detailed information on supporters. Direct Mailings take less time, and our volunteers are happy because we can track their interests, skills and schedules. Project YES has set a goal to triple our individual giving in the next 5 years, and we are confident we will be able to meet this goal.

Economic times may still be difficult, but Project YES is in a much better position than we were only 6 months ago because of GiftWorks. We are grateful that Mission Research continues to help us meet OUR mission of serving disadvantaged youth by giving us the tools to connect supporters with our work!