Over the years, we have had more and more nonprofit organizations with large budgets ($5–$30 million) attend our workshops. They are often surprised to learn how well this model works for large, complex organizations. Their original perception is usually that the model would work best for smaller, human services organizations with one location and one main program focus. In truth, while the model works well for small nonprofits (which can be incredibly complex), it also works very well for large organizations.

Here are some of the main concerns we hear from large-budget organizations:

Concern #1
"Everyone in our community assumes that our organization is so large and established that our financial needs must already be handled. They don't realize that 90%–98% of our budget comes from government grants or fees for service from third-party insurers. Only a tiny slice of our total budget comes from private funding. Furthermore, 95% of the private funding we receive is from corporations or foundations, not from individuals. How do we begin to turn that around?"

Benevon's response
The model is the perfect way to get your story out into the community and educate people about your real needs. Because your organization is well-known and respected, you likely have a large group of supporters who may be unknown to you. We will work with you to identify those supporters and to get to know them through focused Point of Entry^® Events. We will also help you develop a powerful Essential Story^™ broad enough to cover many of your programs, which will connect people to the human side of your work and destroy the myth that you are a fully-funded, monolithic organization.

Odds are that your board is strong and well-respected in your community. It is also likely that you already have several people who could be considered "ripened fruit" and ready to give—even amongst your board members. The model will help to focus these donors' giving and let them play a leadership role in growing a major gifts program that is ultimately designed to build a significant endowment, if that is your goal.

Concern #2
"What would we show people at our Point of Entry Events? We have so many programs and so many locations; we don't know where we would begin."

Benevon's response
Start with your mission statement. It is large enough to contain all of your programs. Then we'll help you identify your top three programs and teach you how to weave them together at your Point of Entry to give guests an overview of your work. No organization, regardless of its size, can truly do justice to every program in sixty minutes. You just want to give people a powerful, emotional first taste of your work and pique their interest enough so that they will want to know more.

As for location, we will help you with that as well. Each organization is different. We usually recommend that Point of Entry Events are held in one or two (at the most) of your program sites, if those sites are located within a few miles of each other. If they are spread out across a region, a state, or many states, we recommend that you first design and test the Point of Entry format in the one location nearest to where your team members live. That way you can work out the bugs and improve it before you take it to other locations.

Concern #3
"We value the long-term philosophy of the model and, if we adopt it, we would want everyone on our large staff to buy into this approach. We have never had a culture of opening ourselves up to the community for tours. Our work is relatively confidential, and it might really upset the staff to have people coming in for tours. How would we integrate this model throughout our entire organization? Should we send several teams to the workshop—one from each program area?"

Benevon's response
Thank you for recognizing that this model is about long-term systemic change within your organization. That kind of change takes time and requires, as you have wisely identified, the buy-in of people at all levels of the organization. Depending on the size and configuration of your organization, we will recommend the number of teams you should send to our workshops. For some large organizations, one team is sufficient to begin with. For others, several teams are necessary. It depends on how your organization is structured. This is something we will discuss with you during the registration process.

Regardless of the number of teams, the objective is the same: to gradually have the model affect (or "infect") your entire organization. At the workshop, you will learn practical tools for sharing what you have learned with your other staff, or at least enough to gain their support. It will take a personal conversation with one of our coaches to learn about your unique needs and to see how your organization can best accomplish this.

Concern #4
"Given all of our programs and sites, what is the best composition of people for our team(s)?"

Benevon's response
If you have one governing board and all of your programs are in one geographic location, the ideal configuration for your team of seven people is three board members, two staff members, and two "roll-up-your-sleeves" volunteers. We want you to have at least six people representing your board, staff, and volunteers. In other words, this is not likely to be a group of people who are already working together as a project team. They will come together for the sole purpose of building long-term sustainable funding for the mission of your organization.

If that team make-up doesn't work for you, or if your organization has multiple boards or multiple locations, our staff will talk with you to craft the ideal team.

Concern #5
"Should we have more than one Ask Event^™ per year?"

Benevon's response
We will help you sort that out as well, but the short answer is that one Ask Event is generally more than enough for a new team to put together in the first year of using the model.

After we decide how many Point of Entry sites you will have and how far apart they are geographically, we can help you plan for Ask Events by analyzing the natural geographic nexus around each of your sites and how far people would naturally travel to attend an event. If you decide to hold multiple Ask Events, you will need to send a separate team from each site, since every step of the model needs to be completed in each of those locations. Also, the coaching that comes with your workshop package is all geared to support one team through the full implementation of the model in one location, including one Ask Event.

Frankly, our larger groups often end up sending additional teams back to one of our workshops for basic and advanced training as the model takes hold. This allows them to run the model in multiple locations and deepen the community involvement in each satellite office. Because they are aiming to build sustainable funding for the parent organization, they want to begin to incorporate donors throughout their service area as soon as possible.

Conclusion
Overall, large-budget organizations are often misunderstood by their communities. It is a common misperception that they don't need money. The Benevon Model can be a huge boost to getting their stories out and connecting with donors who are ready to contribute.