Aunt Leah's Independent Lifeskills Society in Vancouver, British Columbia, grew from the vision of foster parents who saw a need to help struggling teens succeed. Their vision started with Aunt Leah's House, a home for pregnant teen mothers, and then expanded to provide lifeskills support for young adults through programs such as restaurant and barista training, residential programs for teens, and a cooking club. Ten years ago, government funding accounted for about 85% of their budget; today it's just 50%, and they have been furiously trying to find a way to fund their $1.5 million budget...

Foster parent Gale Stewart founded Aunt Leah's House, a home for pregnant and parenting teens, in 1988. During Stewart's generation, when unwed mothers needed a place to go, people would say, "Go to auntie's house." Stewart chose the name in honor of her beloved grandmother, Leah, who helped raise her, and her aunt. Stewart wanted her place to exude warmth and love and provide an alternative caregiver to teens who had no sense of community. This vision naturally expanded beyond teen mothers, and nowadays, Aunt Leah's Society provides young adults aged fifteen and up with a range of lifeskills training and support services.

In March 2004, the government withdrew its support for the Aunt Leah's House program for teen mothers. Since young women under the age of nineteen are considered wards of the state, Aunt Leah's needed a contract from the Ministry for Child and Family Development in order to legally continue helping these young women. Lacking such a contract, Aunt Leah's instead launched a program called "Thresholds" to help young women over the age of nineteen care for their babies in the early stages of parenthood.

Today, Aunt Leah's has just one government-funded program, "Support Link," a residential program for teen boys and girls (ages fifteen to eighteen). The program costs about $700,000 a year. The remainder of Aunt Leah's $1.5 million budget ($800,000) funds their restaurant and barista training programs, cooking club, "Thresholds" program, an arts program, and general outreach. Every year, Aunt Leah's helps about 115 teens and young moms, and the organization provides community meals to some 400 people a week through the restaurant program.

To fund all these programs, Aunt Leah's tried all kinds of fundraising methods, the most successful of which brought in approximately $30,000 a year. But they needed something more.

"We heard about [Benevon] and how much people were making—and that it had only an hour-long fundraising event. We were just wowed by the numbers," said Theresa Olson, the communications and donor relations director. "We wanted to try it."

Aunt Leah's sent a team to a Benevon 101 Workshop in October of 2004, and they began their Point of Entry^® Events, called "Leah's Table," soon after that. These Point of Entry Events highlight the "Thresholds" and restaurant training programs, and they demonstrate to guests the valuable work the organization provides to the community.

In addition to inviting new people from the community to learn about their work at these introductory events, Aunt Leah's also invited their existing donors. According to Olson, the inspirational events cemented the donors' passion for the organization, which ultimately led to longer-term donations.

The team at Aunt Leah's says this fundraising approach didn't just raise them more money; it is also getting the community more connected to the organization's work. For instance, now when they sell Christmas trees, they have 225 volunteers instead of 150 volunteers, said Olson. A Starbucks store manager who attended an Ask Event^™ was so inspired that he now wants to get more Starbucks stores involved with helping teens through job shadowing and other training opportunities.

Best of all, this model is helping to provide financial stability for the crucial programs that Aunt Leah's provides to the community. In terms of both financial results and increased community support, "[Benevon] is absolutely blowing everything else (other fundraising methods) out of the water," said Olson.

In this podcast, Terry Axelrod, Benevon founder and CEO, discusses how your organization can thrive even in the face of budget cuts by cultivating individual donors.