Identifying Funding to Sustain Your Efforts

New Orleans
Many interfaith service-learning efforts begin with volunteer leaders who are passionate about the vision. At some point, however, you need some money to accomplish your goals. This may be as simple as funding to purchase supplied for a project or ongoing financial support to staff and coordinate the network. (In our experience, at least a part time person is needed to facilitate an interfaith service-learning network.)
 
The challenge is that few funders have interfaith work as a funding priority, and (at least for now) few organizations see supporting it as central to their mission and operations. Therefore, some creativity and tenacity are needed to make the case and to find the support needed to sustain interfaith service-learning programs.

Funding for Individual Projects

If you’re needing funding for a specific project (to purchase supplies, etc.), some creative approaches can secure necessary funding:

  • Ask steering committee members to approach their religious communities and ask for funds or ask for names of potential donors. Create small “ask” cards that specify what the donation would cover. For example, “Your gift of $100 will feed 25 youth on the day of the service project.”
  • Approach local corporations, foundations, service organizations, and individuals who may have a special interest in interfaith service-learning or the issue being addressed through the service. They may be able to provide in-kind supplies as well.

  • Ask participants or their religious institution to pay a small registration fee to cover the cost of materials.
  • Ask participants to raise funds through a pledge drive, such as a build-a-thon or a serve-a-thon

Funding to Sustain Interfaith Service-Learning

Though many interfaith service-learning efforts begin with short-term grant funding, it is  difficult to institutionalize interfaith service-learning programs through a series of one-time grants. The partnership’s energy becomes consumed with fundraising, not running the program. In contrast, programs are easier to build when they become line items in the budget of the host organization and, potentially, each of the participating religious institutions. Then grant funding can be used to enhance, not support, basic functions.
 
If your interfaith service-learning efforts use grant funding to support core staff (e.g., a cooridnator), it is important to immediately develop a vision, then a concrete plan, for how to move the coordinator’s position to more secure and long-term funding sources.

  • Start planning sustainability early: Institutionalization is more likely when service-learning leaders spread the word about their long-term growth plan and engender early support among partners and potential funders.
  • Identify multiple funding sources: Service-learning initiatives are more sustainable when they have funding from multiple sources.
  • Find funding for permanent staff: Institutionalization is more likely when projects find funding for a permanent staff position. Securing the coordinator’s position is a critical step in ensuring long-term viability.

Making Your Case to Funders

Because few funders see interfaith service-learning as their core priority, your challenge is to show how your vision and program are a means to accomplishing a funder’s priorities. There are several ways you might make your case:

  • If the funder is primarily interested in community impact on a particular issue (one that youth have identified as a priority in the community) or a particular neighborhood, you can show how your program can make a lasting impact on that issue or location, with interfaith service-learning being the means to that end.
  • If a funder is primarily interested in service or volunteering, you can show all the ways service is woven into the interfaith service-learning approach. Furthermore, you can cite federal research (Building Active Citizens: The Role of Social Institutions in Teen Volunteering [PDF]) that shows the importance of religious institutions as venus for youth engaging in service to others. See the page titled "Why Faith-Based?" for more facts and figures on faith-based and interfaith service-learning
  • If a funder is primarily interested in cultural, ethnic, or economic diversity, you can address how your program addresses these issues, particularly highlighting religious diversity as an important and neglected dimension of cultural diversity.
  • If a funder is primarily interested in peacemaking or violence reduction, you can emphasize how young people are learning the skills and strategies for working across differences and working together for social justice.

The point here is not to abandon your core focus on the strategy of interfaith service-learning, but to link it to the core interests and priorities of potential funding partners.

Building Partnerships to Institutionalize Your Program

As noted earlier, it is best not to rely solely on grant funding to sustain the core costs (staff, etc.) of your ongoing interfaith service-learning effort. Therefore, your leadership team (or another group) should, early on, begin to explore options for how its efforts might be sustained in the community. Some potential models would include:

  • Become a program that is affiliated with a community intermediary organization such as an interfaith council, a council of churches, a volunteer center, or similar group. These membership organizations can often provide more stability than seeking to operate independently of a larger structure.
  • A similar model would be for one of these intermediary organizations (or another institution) to offer free office space and equipment and also to assign a staff person to coordinate the initiative.
  • Develop a collaborative model in which each partner (religious institution, community organizations, etc.) each build their support for the collaborative into their operating budgets.
  • Form an independent nonprofit or social entrepreneurial organization and seek to raise donations or investment resources to sustain your efforts.

Potential Funding Sources

Here are some links to potential funding sources. You will need to review each to determine whether it is relevant for your interfaith service-learning efforts.

More Resources