Which of your programs is right for us?
We offer two programs for groups new to our model.

1. Benevon 101—Building Sustainable Funding for Your Mission: our signature one-year training and coaching program. Starts with a two-day training for your team of five to seven people, followed by four private one-hour coaching conference calls. Designed to deliver one year of predictable success. Tuition: $14,000 per team. Results: Average group raises $196,000 in the first year in gifts and pledges.
2. Benevon Five-Year Curriculum for Sustainable Funding: five years of trainings, coaching, spreadsheets, and benchmarks, designed to build quantifiable long-term sustainable funding. Package includes annual trainings for teams of eight people, training for an additional fifteen new team members from the same local chapter or organization, additional coaching hours, and group conference calls. Tuition: $90,000 per team (paid in annual payments of $20,000, $19,000, $18,000, $17,000, and $16,000). Results: In 2007, groups raised an average of over $400,000 (includes gifts and pledges). Groups raised an average of $1.5 million cumulatively by the third year, and $3.5 million cumulatively by the fifth year.

Each program has specific readiness criteria to ensure that you will be successful in achieving the results of that program. We will work with you to determine the right level for you to enter our curriculum. Please read more to determine which program would be the best fit for your organization.

How does the Five-Year Program work?
Your organization signs up for a series of annual two-day workshops and coaching for your team of eight people. The curriculum for each year's workshop (101, 201, 301, etc.) provides the skills you will need to move to the next level of success in attaining sustainable funding.

We work with you to craft the ideal team, based on our twelve years of experience with over 3,000 nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes.

Using our formulas and spreadsheets, our trained coaches assist your team in quantifying a measurable definition of sustainable funding (e.g. reserve fund, endowment, number of new individual donors) and then coach your team to attain yearly benchmarks.

As part of the program tuition, you may train up to fifteen additional team members over the five years.

What kind of results can we expect?

• In 2008, first-year groups in our Five-Year Program raised an average of $269,000 in gifts and pledges; groups in our one-year-only program raised an average of $137,000.
• Groups report that over 60% of this money came from new donors.
• By the third year, the average group in the Five-Year Sustainable Funding Program has raised a cumulative total of $1.5 million in gifts and pledges through using the Benevon Model.
• By the fifth year, the average group in the Five-Year Sustainable Funding Program has raised a cumulative total of over $3.5 million in gifts and pledges through using the Benevon Model.

What is the single greatest benefit your Five-Year groups report?
Beyond the money raised, groups in the Five-Year Program report that the single greatest benefit is that the story of their real work is finally known in their community.

Tell me a little more about Benevon. What is your track record with nonprofits?
We are in our twelfth year of offering our training and coaching programs. We have trained over 3,000 nonprofits in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and several countries in Europe.

Nearly two-thirds of our groups join our Five-Year Curriculum for Sustainable Funding, either prior to attending Benevon 101 or immediately afterwards.

What percentage of the groups meet your formulas?

• Over 90% meet or come within 10% of meeting our first-year formula if they have followed all of the steps in the process according to the coaching.
• Formula: take the number of people who attend their first Ask Event and divide by two, then multiply by $1,000.
• For example, a 200-person Ask Event would yield $100,000 in gifts and pledges the first year.

What are the reasons for failure?
We take each group's results very seriously. We debrief and critique the reasons for each of those groups that do not meet our formula. There are three reasons they don't succeed:

1. Team composition does not meet our requirements (two to three staff including Executive Director/CEO; two to three board members; and two to three volunteers).
2. The team does not use the telephone coaching hours that come with the workshop package.
3. The team does not follow the recommendations of the coach—they "get creative"!

Having said that, for a group to come to our workshop, follow the model and raise, for example, $100,000 from a 250-person Ask Event, is still a major success for most groups! Yet, above and beyond the money raised, every group reports great pride in having the story of their real work known in the community.

What sizes and types of nonprofit organizations have you worked with?
Our groups span the entire gamut of the nonprofit world—health and human services, advocacy, research, environmental, arts, faith, international relief, etc. We have alumni in all fifty United States, nearly every province in Canada, in the United Kingdom, as well as several countries in Europe. Here is a chart showing budget sizes of the groups currently registered in our Five-Year Program.

Will this model work for us if our organization does not have cute kids or programs we can show people first hand, e.g. if we are a group with confidentiality issues, or a policy, advocacy, international relief, or research group?
The model works for every imaginable type of nonprofit, so long as you have a passionate team of six to eight people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work it takes to implement this successfully, according to the coaches' recommendations.

How have other organizations found the funds to pay the tuition?
We recommend, rather than focusing on where to find the tuition funds, that you focus first on having others from your organization attend an Introductory Session to learn more about the Benevon Model. Once enough people understand how the model works, they will work together to secure the funding.

In many cases, a single donor or board member pays all or part of the team's tuition, and even frequently chooses to join the team.

Many foundations and individuals fund "capacity building" and "technical assistance" programs that can provide support for teams to attend the workshop. They understand the leveraging value of paying for a team of people to be trained and coached over time in building a base of sustainable funding.

How do we get more internal support to come to your programs?
Take our readiness quiz to find out more about resources and recommendations for securing the support of your board and staff.

Do we need to hire more staff to implement the model?
Eventually, but not right away. For the first year of implementation you will need the equivalent of a half-time person (staff or volunteer) to manage the process. This can be a composite of several team members' time to equal twenty hours per week.

Most people are concerned with all the work this seems like, yet once they get into it, they realize they can start by re-characterizing what they're already doing.

They are already talking to a lot of the right people—the same people—but not with an eye to cultivating relationships.

Many groups implement the entire model with a strong team of volunteers, and no paid staff at all. Whether you ever have paid staff to manage this process or not, you do need one person within the organization who is accountable for the whole cycle. We call that person the Team Leader.

How can I talk to people who have implemented the model?
There are a few different ways for you to hear from our workshop alumni.

• You can participate in a free, sixty-minute, live Sustainable Funding Conference Call to learn about the Benevon Model. Most of those calls include an alumni talking about their experiences implementing this model. You can register for one of our many types of calls at our Conference Calls page.
• Live, in-person Introduction and Alumni Panel Events are another great way for you to meet our alumni and learn about their experiences. Check our Introductory Session Calendar for upcoming sessions.
• For immediate examples of nonprofit organizations that have successfully implemented the Benevon Model, please visit our Testimonials page.
• If you wish to speak personally with someone from an organization that has completed our Benevon 101 Workshop, please visit our Reference Policy page for details about requesting a reference.

How do I find out more?
Call our Regional Representative for your area at 206-709-9400.