About DurhamCares

Durham Cares is a volunteer match and grant-making organization. Their vision is to see the city of Durham engaged in serving each other, building relationships across cultural boundaries, and transforming our community through committed involvement. Durham Cares offers new ways for people to get involved, get to know their city, and love their neighbor.

Challenge

Durham Cares grants money to local organizations via a program they call “Success Grant”. In this program, they hope to reward organizations that are transparent in their goals, procedures, and actual outcomes. However, they felt that most applicants to the Success Grant did not properly understand how to set quantitative goals, or set the wrong types of goals.

Solution

After the initial meeting, the Volunteer Consultant started the initial steps of the project. MCforNC and Durham Cares determined that more education of applicants was necessary. Therefore, a powerpoint educational presentation was to be made, and meetings were to be held with interested nonprofits if they still had questions on the right goals to set. After metrics and presentations were created, we met individually with Durham Cares’ Success Grant applicants to coach them through the process.