The Foundation’s investments are designed to help youth-serving nonprofits achieve organizational sustainability on a significant scale. Achieving sustainability requires succeeding in three critical areas: organizational strength, financial viability, and program quality and effectiveness.

The Foundation’s investment process occurs in three stages—due diligence, business planning, and structuring investments—that identify organizations poised for success and position them to maximize their capacity and succeed in each of the three areas that are critical to achieving sustainability.

Due Diligence
Exemplary youth-serving organizations that look like potential fits for the Foundation’s grantmaking goals may warrant closer examination in a rigorous assessment process known as due diligence. The Foundation spends hundreds of staff hours analyzing a potential grantee’s program models and organizational capacity in order to determine how closely it meets the Foundation’s six selection criteria.
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Business Planning
If due diligence determines that an organization has a promising model for helping youth and shows the willingness and capacity to serve more youth with high-quality programs, the Foundation makes an initial investment to underwrite business planning costs. This support enables the organization to create a business plan that lays out how it will achieve its growth objectives over a specified period of time.
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Structuring Investments
If a grantee’s work with consultants produces a sound business plan, the Foundation uses it as the basis for structuring a substantial multi-year investment. This investment includes agreed-upon performance goals that the grantee intends to meet and to which it agrees to be held accountable.
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