A full room, a generous host, and a conversation that carried straight into the parking lot.
Last Thursday's Community Meeting brought a great mix of practitioners together around a topic every nonprofit lives with, where the money comes from. Every kind of role was represented, and the conversations kept going well past the official close.
Thank you to Suzin Hines and The Cause Agency for opening their doors and going above and beyond to host us. Suzin coordinated with Cuisine for Healing and Avoca Coffee to set out a breakfast spread that made showing up early feel worth it.
A quick word on Cuisine for Healing. They are a Fort Worth nonprofit that cooks organic, nutrient-dense meals for people facing serious illness, delivered free to medically referred clients and available for purchase to anyone who wants to eat well or support a loved one. Alongside the meals, they share nutritional education that helps people make lasting, healthier choices. Food as medicine, made with real care.
In case you missed the meeting, you can catch up below with the recap, the presentation, and the takeaway packet.
Where the Money Comes From
The morning ran on three concepts. Where the money comes from, the full spectrum of nonprofit funding. How the mix shapes the work, because every dollar behaves differently depending on the strings attached. And how to pursue funding without losing the mission.
We reviewed the five sources most organizations draw on at once, individual giving, foundation grants, government grants and contracts, corporate and sponsorship, and events and community giving. From there we looked at what the mix shapes, whether a dollar is restricted or unrestricted, one-time or renewable, on-mission or a stretch. The thread underneath all of it was one question worth carrying into any funding conversation. Does this dollar move the mission, or just the budget?
We also touched on a hotly debated topic: diversify or specialize. Neither is automatically right. The real question is what gives your mission both reach and resilience. It could be one or it could be both, working together systematically.
The Takeaway
The packet opens with the funding spectrum, the five sources laid out so you can mark where your own organization is heavy, light, or not yet present. It moves into what the mix shapes, the three distinctions every dollar carries, then into mission drift and the one question that holds against it. It covers the diversify or specialize decision, and it closes with the Map Your Funding Strategy activity so you can run a version of it with your own team.
Hearing From the Field
Suzin Hines, Associate Executive Director at The Cause Agency, works with nonprofits on donor strategy and connecting organizations to the right funding sources.
Juliet Moses, founder of RS Strategies, spent three years on the funder side of federal grant programs here in Fort Worth before launching RS Strategies to help nonprofits build the compliance, capacity, and infrastructure that make funded work possible.
Together they took on the questions practitioners actually wrestle with. Why some strong missions still struggle to attract steady funding. What to fix before asking for more. Whether every funder gets the same pitch or a tailored one. And the fundraising myths worth letting go of. Suzin and Juliet were generous, direct, and genuinely useful, and their fingerprints are on this meeting in the best way. Thank you both.
Moves You Can Make From Any Position
You do not have to write the budget to shape how funding serves the mission. A few moves that work from any role:
Learn your organization's top two or three funding sources, and what each one is for.
When a new opportunity comes up, ask out loud what mission goal it serves before asking how much it brings.
Notice when a program is bending to fit a funder, and name it early and kindly.
Keep a short list of the work that matters most, so the mission stays the reference point.
One More Thing
The conversation did what it always does. It kept going past the end time, out the door, and into the parking lot. A few of us even circled back that evening for the Near Southside Happy Hour and the Third Thursday Art Walk. A wonderful Thursday in the Fort Worth community, start to finish.
What’s Next….
🌱 Connection Circle
How do funding restrictions affect your program work?
🗓️ July 23rd
📍TAFB
⏰ 12 pm - 1 pm
This session is a grounded conversation about the strings attached to the money, what restricted and unrestricted dollars shape about how programs actually run, and what practitioners can notice in those constraints even when they aren't the one negotiating the grant terms.
🌱 Connection Circle
What would you want fundraisers to know about your programs?
🗓️ August 19th
📍TAFB
⏰ 3 pm - 4 pm
This session is a grounded conversation about the information practitioners wish they could hand directly to fundraisers, what gets lost in translation between programs and development, and how to start building a bridge between the two sides of your organization.
🌱 Community Meeting
How Program Staff Support Development (without becoming fundraisers)
🗓️ August 20th
📍Longhorn Council, Scouting America
⏰ 8 am - 9:30 am
Join us at Longhorn Council, Scouting America - in partnership with Frost Bank, M.Gale & Associates, and Little by Little. 🌱
This session is designed to give a clearer picture of how the fundraising cycle works, what development teams need from the people closest to the programs, and how to translate the work you already do into language that funders respond to.
What's Happening in Our Community
Under the Community Board, you will now find Community Events, a running calendar of nonprofit events happening across the area throughout the year.
This calendar is being built alongside our friends at Fundraising Fanatics, a local virtual meetup for development and fundraising professionals. Their work makes this resource possible, and we are glad to be building it together.
A few ways to put it to work:
See what your partners and contacts are up to. The calendar makes it easier to stay close to the work happening across the sector in any given month, without chasing down every individual invite.
Plan your own events with the bigger picture in view. When too many galas, fundraisers, or community gatherings land on the same date, partners and funders are forced to choose between them. A quick check before locking in your event saves your team, and the community around it, real headaches.
Until next time,
Founder & Executive Director
Empowering nonprofit leaders to grow and lead with purpose.
