Background
Located in Plano, Texas, the Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County is one of the premier children’s advocacy centers in the United States. With a mission to provide safety, healing, and justice for children victimized by abuse or neglect, the Center brings law enforcement, criminal justice, Family and Protective Services, and medical and mental health workers into one coordinated team. Since its opening in 1992, the Center has served more than 65,000 children and family members impacted by abuse or neglect.
Challenge
With an area of over 880 square miles, Collin County continues to experience exponential growth, greatly increasing the demand for the Center’s services. To meet the needs of this increased population, the Center began planning ways to expand its program space.
Solution
The original concept was to relocate and build a larger facility in a more central location within the county. The Center engaged Mission Advancement for a feasibility study; however, results showed that key donors were not enthusiastic about the plan or the price tag associated with the move. Many donors were also concerned about the Center’s ability to sustain a larger operating budget.
Mission Advancement worked with the Center’s leadership to study alternate models and collect additional demographic data. A task force was created to implement the work and bring a new recommendation to the Board of Directors. Ultimately, the decision was made to retain the current site and launch a northern satellite location.
Results
Mission Advancement assessed the current development team and made recommendations to reorganize positions, update job descriptions, and refresh the fundraising approach. A 24-month capital campaign was launched to raise funds to build the satellite location. Additionally, a model was created to simultaneously grow operating revenue over the next 5 years to support the expansion. The capital fundraising approach helped the Center raise 60% of the funds for the campaign within 15 months.
The capital campaign achieved its initial objective of $10 million within the original 24-month timeframe, and the Center declared a final goal of $11 million. Within the first year of implementation, annual fundraising objectives exceeded budget by 30% – ahead of the 5-year growth plan – and continued to grow throughout the campaign.
Since 2007, Mission Advancement has helped nonprofits create people-centered fundraising strategies to significantly grow their missions and impact more lives.
