If we are to achieve real outcomes and positive social change in our communities, we must end the culture of scarcity that has plagued the sector for decades. Leaders need to challenge the myth that social sector organizations are not sustainable, and that their business models are fundamentally broken.
Building off our experience training thousands of organizations on building leadership capacity and financial health through programs such as Annenberg Alchemy, the Real Cost Project, Scaling What Works, the Neighborhood Builders Leadership Initiative and other capacity building efforts, Social Sector Partners has developed Think Money First! to help social sector leaders create a culture of sustainability for their organizations.
The Think Money First! program aims to change how social sector leaders think. We believe that if you can change your thinking, your can change your organizations, and then you can change the world. But we will not get there with the same scarcity mindset that promotes organizations spending 95 cents out of every dollar on programs – all while starving the organization and its necessary infrastructure. We will not get there if we continue to act as victims and believe there is nothing we can do about it.
Our role as social sector leaders, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, and board members is to ensure that people continue to have access to the programs and services that are essential to creating a more just, equitable and sustainable world. To truly lead, we need to shift from a scarcity mindset that starts from a position of weakness and insignificance, to one that starts from a position of opportunity and strength. 
Think Money First! is a project of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), a foundation dedicated to providing resources and support services for projects that address social justice and environmental issues. To read more about SEE and the foundation’s mission, we invite you to visit their website at www.saveourplanet.org.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Think Money First! is an innovative, experiential training that will transform how senior leaders and board members work and help them must align their business models and fundraising strategies with their ability to deliver their mission and impact.
The program is built around the belief that staff and board leaders aligned in common purpose can transform social sector organizations. Therefore, the program is designed so that the Executive Director and a Board member (preferable the Board Chair) would attend all sessions together.
The Think Money First! workshops will guide an organization’s leadership team through an intentional process of driving change. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of their organization’s business model and the need to build their adaptive capacity. This will help ensure financial solvency, programmatic effectiveness and organizational sustainability.
The Think Money First! workshops are offered in a variety of formats to meet your training needs:
Workshops
Interactive, engaging workshops ranging from 90-minute presentations to full-day workshops customized to the specific needs of your organization.
Accelerators
Innovative, hands-on 2-day boot camp that will transform how senior leaders and board members work to drive sustainability & impact for their organizations.
Training
Multi-part training series designed to allow for greater interaction for participants, peer learning opportunities and in-depth exploration of organizational challenges.
ATTENTION FUNDERS
Interested in having training for your grantees? Contact us for more information on creating a customized workshop series to help the organizations you support become more financially sustainable and to be better able to deliver on mission.
FREE WEBINAR SERIES!
We are proud to partner with NonprofitReady.org and the Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation to bring you a free 5-part webinar series for Think Money First! This innovative series will help nonprofit leaders understand what it really costs to be able to deliver on mission over the long haul and how to build a business model that generates enough reliable revenue to cover the full cost of doing business. We will also provide resources, templates and exercises that you can use right away in helping to build a more sustainable and effective organization.
Register now for Module One Understanding Operating Performance
Once you are registered for the Think Money First program, you will be able to access all 5 modules in this series for free!