When foundations started tightening their belts after the economy took a nosedive five years ago, Garrett Neiman knew where to turn to find support for his fledgling charity: wealthy individuals.
As a Stanford University student at the time, he was immersed in Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial spirit and recognized that he could find the money for his start-up, SEE College Prep—later renamed CollegeSpring—the same way he might for a for-profit business.
“We still went to foundations, but we were mostly finding that they were reluctant to take new grantees,” says Mr. Neiman, who co-founded the organization with another Stanford student, Jessica Perez. “So we decided to look for individual philanthropists who have the mentality of supporting new organizations with great potential for growth.”
Key to wooing such donors, Mr. Neiman says, was having a plan for financial sustainability and proving market demand for CollegeSpring’s services, which feature tutoring low-income high-school students for the SAT college-entrance exam.
Charging Fees
CollegeSpring ran its first pilot program with 50 California students in the summer of 2008 on a $10,000 budget. It has since raised $3-million, put more than 2,700 students through its program, and set a course to serve 6,000 students a year by 2015.
Almost from the start, the group charged participating high schools a per-student fee—a prescient move, perhaps, given what happened to the economy.
With less philanthropic support readily available, the school payments made it easier for CollegeSpring to meet its earliest budgets, Mr. Neiman says. And the idea of charging schools helped land CollegeSpring its first big gift in 2010: a $510,000 grant over two years from the Coleman Fung Foundation.
Mr. Neiman says he reached out to Mr. Fung—who had made his fortune with OpenLink, a software company—through Stanford’s alumni network after reading about Mr. Fung’s entrepreneurial success and interest in supporting education and environmental causes. Over a number of meetings, Mr. Neiman says, he was able to demonstrate CollegeSpring’s solid business plan, capacity for growth, and return on investment—which, in the case of his college-prep nonprofit, the measurable ability to improve students’ test scores.
Says Mr. Neiman: “Coleman Fung was like the nonprofit equivalent of an angel investor to us, and investors like to invest in organizations with sustainable business plans.”
CollegeSpring
Year founded: 2008
Mission: Offers free college-preparatory services to low-income high-school students
A key to success: Attracts revenue from diverse sources
So far: Has provided SAT tutoring and college-prep mentoring services to more than 2,700 low-income students in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Students who have completed the program have increased their test scores by an average of 178 points.
Next: Raising $11.1-million over three years to pay for plans to serve 6,000 students a year by 2015 and gear up to expand nationally
