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introduction

Introduction: Improving CHIP’s Funding Methods

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The Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention (CHIP) is looking for new opportunities to find sufficient funding for their organization. The purpose of this recommendation report is to present evidence from the team’s exploration and analysis of methods to improve CHIP’s funding. These methods, using field and desk research methods, include: 

  • Picking out why it is hard for nonprofits to find funding 

  • Understanding why people donate to nonprofits 

  • Studying how other nonprofits get their funding 

  • Looking for patterns in other nonprofits on their employees and their job descriptions  

  • Finding ways for CHIP to reach a specific audience 

  • Understanding a nonprofit’s funding 

 

Our client with CHIP determined the scope of the project to be focused on how other nonprofits, specifically organizations like CHIP, are able to get their funding. This recommendation report is broken down into the following sections: 

  • Methodology: How the team conducted the exploration and analysis 

  • Analysis: Each team member’s important findings and expert advice 

  • Review of literature: How the expert advice relates to the team’s recommendations 

  • Recommendations: Detailed recommendations based on the client’s scope of the project 

  • Appendixes A, B, &C: The local study and its results and the team’s full list of references 

Methodology 

Methodology: Local Survey and Digital Exploratory

The purpose of our IUPUI team's research was to determine how important fundraising efforts are for CHIP and to increase overall fundraising and independent donations from benefactors. To find effective and favorable resources our team researched a variety of sources with regard to  volunteerism and how similar non profit organizations implement a role specifically for writing and obtaining grant funding.  

 

Client Meeting: Details

After meeting with one of our CHIP contacts, Christy Gelback-Diaz, our team began with 100 hours of research. 

 

Local Study: Research and Topic

In seeking to develop valuable information for your business, our team used two types of research: field and desk. Our field research consisted of a Google Survey. Emails were sent to students and faculty at IUPUI and surrounding contacts for information regarding our scope. The team also used desk research by identifying references for this report, through multiple databases. Distinct strategies aided in maneuvering through different scholarly databases thus ProQuest and EBSCO host. Both are considered companies that host a database that contains a wide selection of digital resources including article and ebook databases. These companies provide search platforms that allow users to retrieve high-quality resources in full-text through keyword searching. Terms we used during our research included:

  • CHIP funding 

  • Coalition for Homeless Intervention and Prevention donations 

  • CHIP interviews

  • Backbone organizations 

  • Homelessness 

  • Ending homelessness

  • Grants

  • Funding

  • Finding funding for homeless 

  • Nonprofit funding 

 

We also accessed IUPUI’s online scholarly library and found sources covering grants and non-profit funding. 

 

Our field research was conducted with the purpose of filling in the gaps of our desk research. The survey consisted of ten questions to gauge what influences people to donate money or time towards non-profit organizations. The survey took into account the type donation, the amount given, and what the donor would like to see after. The survey was passed around on canvas email at IUPUI, given to IUPUI professors and was taken online by 56 people.

 

Our desk research was conducted in two phases: learning/discovery and focused analysis. We sought to find out the best way to grab the public's attention when it came to advertisement for funding, what donors wanted in return, how donors decided on CHIP as a place to donate and what could get them more involved. Lastly, we wanted to know how social media should and should not be used in finding funding. We also sought to discover grants, and effective tools for accessing grants. 

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