Six Years of Multiplying Money and Amplifying Change: What's Next?

This month, Progressive Multiplier (PM) is celebrating its sixth birthday! The research on which we were founded established some profound truths about what nonprofits needed to scale their independent revenue generation (IRG) and become more self-sustaining. For the past six years, these findings have been our program’s north star.  

AND in that time we’ve added some other points to our GPS.  After 122 grants, a global pandemic, an ongoing reckoning for racial justice, and an increasingly divided political landscape, our programs are evolving to reflect everything we've learned with our partners on this journey about revenue generation and their needs now. 

PM’s new program has three components:

The Lab provides financing coupled with deep strategic assistance for movement groups seeking to exponentially scale their independent revenue generation through innovation that expands what we know about IRG for the movement.  In addition to traditional IRG project grants to (c)(3) groups, PM offers a one-of-a-kind utility that provides (c)(3) grants to (c)(4) movement groups to finance the primary purpose work that happens during their (c)(4) revenue generation project.  The Lab is staffed by IRG experts with an average of about twenty years of experience in the field to support grantees throughout their projects. As nonprofits establish IRG methods that produce a 2:1 ROI, we also make recoverable grants and market rate loans available to scale their successful tactics. 

The Catalyst provides hands-on technical assistance that helps groups build the catalytic capacities needed for revenue acceleration or revitalization and implement IRG best practices.  Capacity building is far more than the revenue generation-specific elements of it.  But all infrastructure work requires money.  That’s why we believe revenue generation is the capacity keystone.  The Catalyst is designed to serve movement groups across the spectrum of development, whether they are just starting to build their revenue generation capacity or they have experienced revenue decline and need to regain financial viability. Stay tuned to meet our very first Catalyst partners!

The Convergence is an online community that amplifies our learnings and builds a community of practice for those generating revenue for progressive groups.  It houses the case studies and project artifacts from all revenue generation experiments funded by Progressive Multiplier.  The Convergence is also home to our live and on-demand revenue generation trainings and tools designed specifically for progressive power building groups based on everything we’ve learned through The Catalyst and The Lab.  

In the next couple of months, you can expect a shift in how we talk about our work to advance the movement, so make sure you're on the e-mail list to get all the details as they unfold. 

My birthday wish for progressive multiplier:  

Rapid growth and expansion often challenge organizations, and I care deeply about creating and nurturing a culture that allows our team to thrive and fulfill our mission. This team is at the heart of our work, and my birthday wish this year is for Progressive Multiplier to provide a professional home where our team can excel, driving incredible work that builds progressive power. 

Each day, our team has the privilege and opportunity to look at how we can disrupt the traditional funding paradigm, shaping the way progressive funders and frontline groups invest their resources to build power. And I'm honored to be part of this team that gets to do that every single day.

P.S Follow along over the next few weeks as team members share their birthday wishes for Progressive Multiplier on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.