How Piper Trust expanded their reach to support small nonprofits with Bonterra Jumpstart

Overview

The challenge

A funder seeking to expand its reach

Building a custom capacity building program from the ground up often requires dedicated staff, curriculum development, program management, and ongoing evaluation. For a small-staffed foundation, that simply wasn’t feasible.

We saw great value in engaging experts who paired an ‘all-in-one platform’ with individualized implementation guidance.

Erin Goodman

Senior Program Officer, Piper Trust

While Piper Trust worked to identify a solution that would effectively support smaller nonprofits, the sector overall was experiencing a deeper problem.

Nonprofits stuck in constrained funding cycles

Many nonprofits had built their work around government funding, leaving little room to raise unrestricted revenue or develop an individual giving program. Some were organizations with more than 500 staff members led by strong clinical and/or programmatic expertise, yet with limited experience developing individual giving opportunities.

For smaller nonprofits, the barriers were just as real: limited staff, no established donor base, and little experience attracting donors and managing an individual giving program. With the federal funding landscape shifting, the pressure was on for nonprofits to swiftly activate new supporters.

“Organizations with significant government support often had little unrestricted revenue to invest in generating more flexible funding. They were caught in a difficult cycle, and the urgency was growing,” said Goodman.

A solution found

Adopting Jumpstart as a scalable capacity building vehicle

In 2021, Piper Trust partnered with Bonterra Network for Good to offer the Jumpstart program to a select cohort of grantees. Jumpstart provided the virtual infrastructure, which Piper Trust could not quickly build on its own.

The model worked by combining three things Piper Trust’s grantees need most: individualized coaching support, peer-learning opportunities, and a reliable fundraising platform. As Goodman put it, most nonprofits don’t need heavily customized tools. They need a solid platform, a rich knowledge base, a peer community, and real human coaching.

Piper Trust’s implementation included several intentional decisions:

• Cohort funding: Piper Trust covered the cost of participation for an identified group of grantees, removing financial barriers to participation.
• Multi-year support: Recognizing that fundraising culture doesn’t change overnight, Piper Trust extended support beyond the standard one-year program. Organizations showing genuine progress were often funded for a second year. In some cases, Piper Trust worked with Bonterra to arrange a third year of coaching-only support, which reflected the Trust’s commitment to sustainable change.
• Expanding reach to smaller organizations: Jumpstart gave Piper Trust an effective vehicle to support nonprofits with budgets well under $1 million.
• Accountability built in: Participation came with expectations. Organizations that didn’t use their coaching hours or resources provided were not renewed.

Building new habits, consistent fundraising rhythms, strong data practices, and a shift in mindset takes time. When an organization fully engages in the program and shows meaningful progress, the Trust is often willing to invest in a second year.

Erin Goodman

Senior Program Officer, Piper Trust

Jumpstart’s approach reflected Piper Trust’s belief that real capacity building is not a one-time injection of resources, but a sustained investment in behavior change over time.

Impact

Measurable gains across the nonprofit participants

Further, Piper Trust’s investment resulted in long-term growth and sustainability for these nonprofits such as:

• Early-growth organizations increased their funding from a few thousand dollars raised through friends and family, to $15,000–$20,000 in their first year of structured individual giving.
• Several organizations improved data management and meaningfully reduced ongoing subscription costs.
• Multiple organizations dramatically improved their donor communications, producing more consistent, more donor-centric outreach that Goodman attributes directly to Jumpstart’s expert coaches.
• A handful of nonprofits demonstrated sophisticated stewardship planning around Arizona’s unique charitable tax credit system, showing they had truly internalized best-practices about the fundraising calendar and the donor lifecycle.

A different way of measuring success

Goodman is candid about how the Trust evaluates progress, and it’s not solely through dollars raised. Key indicators include: Are organizations using their coaching hours raised? Have they built a consistent rhythm to their fundraising activities? Are they adhering to their plan? Are staff members growing their expertise to become more sustainable?

This perspective reflects the kind of experienced, grounded thinking that shapes Piper Trust’s grantmaking. The goal isn’t a single impressive number. It’s durable change in how an organization operates.

The headline outcome: expanded reach and support for small nonprofits

The most significant result for Piper Trust was the ability to intentionally serve a broader range of nonprofits. Jumpstart provided a proven, scalable vehicle to reach smaller, earlier-stage nonprofits. Through Jumpstart, organizations were strengthened by building durable fundraising skills, systems, and infrastructure.

Conclusion

Piper Trust’s partnership with Bonterra is a story about what happens when a funder invests in the skills and infrastructure that their grantees need for long-term success. With a lean team and a commitment to finding the best approach through an experienced partner, the Trust found a proven program that provides individualized coaching, a genuine peer community, and proven fundraising technology.

For foundations and grantmakers wrestling with similar questions, Goodman emphasized that meaningful change begins with board and CEO engagement, supported by a sustained commitment to building fundraising capacity.

The partnership between Piper Trust and Bonterra continues to evolve, with multi-year Jumpstart cohorts enhancing the Trust’s ability to support smaller nonprofits and strengthening the evidence base for what sustained capacity building investment can accomplish.