About RaiseMN

Sizing up the fundraising sector.

In 2015, GiveMN started to ask questions and perform research around a hypothesis: that there is a critical gap in fundraising strategies and infrastructure among small- to medium-sized nonprofits.

Through a survey of hundreds of organizations, 69% of Minnesota nonprofits said they were not confident their current fundraising strategy meets the demands of their missions. In fact, 72% of the nonprofits we surveyed relied solely on volunteers or, at most, one staff member to raise money.

That’s why we launched RaiseMN as a pilot initiative in 2017. Through our inaugural Campaign Institute, we worked alongside five nonprofits to build lasting fundraising strategy and infrastructure.

Through our first few years of pilot work, we’ve been testing our own assumptions, building our capacity and program offerings, and listening intently to the organizations we’ve been honored to work with. As any good pilot should, we’ve been limited in our scope as we’ve worked to scale our programs.

Now, we’re open for business.

How is RaiseMN different?

We believe nonprofits are experts in both their missions and their donors. Through a coaching model, fundraising becomes a less mystifying and solitary experience.

That’s why we’re not a one-size-fits-all program or a traditional consultancy. Instead, we believe coaching helps identify an organization’s fundraising pain points, reinforces good strategy, teaches essential skills, and leaves nonprofits in better shape to create and enact strategy which they’ll be able to sustain long after our engagement is over.

We coach fundraisers rather than simply taking on the projects ourselves because it helps to build an ecosystem of empowered, strong, relational professionals. That betters our field, makes donor experiences better, and in turn, helps us to all grow giving together.