Answers to common questions

The Accelerator is supportive community of ambitious nonprofit leaders, staff, volunteers and other altruists who act with courage, urgency, focus, discipline and resiliency to solve problems and achieve their dreams of making the world a better place.

The Accelerator serves leaders, staff and board members of small to mid-sized nonprofits (startup to 25m annual revenue) with:

1. high-potential programs; 
2. adaptive CEOs eager to learn new ways to capture growth and impact (read this about adaptive leadership);  and
3. board members ready to participate and engage in the work. 

The Accelerator engages participants, experts and mentors who are from and who serve marginalized communities. We are committed to an inclusive, diverse environment of respect, honesty and transparency.

While there are hundreds of business accelerators nationally, few serve nonprofits, and we’ve found only one that does so exclusively (Fast Forward in CA, for tech-only nonprofit startups). The Altruist Accelerator is the first accelerator open to nonprofits of all missions and stages of growth, from startups and those emerging from fiscal sponsorship to larger, more mature organizations looking to get to the next level. 

All participants will enjoy an exhilarating and challenging exploration into what it really takes to achieve nonprofit impact and growth. We expect participants to rank this as one of their most valuable professional development experiences as they develop and apply a complete organizational management system tailored to their mission:

1. A comprehensive organizational benchmarking exercise that targets the most critical opportunities for growth and organizational performance improvement.
2. A business framework that aligns boards and executive teams on overall direction,  year-one initiatives, and initial formulations around key performance indicators and impact and growth strategy.
3. A world-class  business plan, pitch deck and financial projection to immediately distinguish your organization from the crowds: this document will organize teams, align boards, chart execution pathways, and engage partners and investors with your compelling vision and execution pathway;
4. Comprehensive, step-by-step guidance on how to generate and grow revenue from all sources: contributed (gifts, grants and other forms of philanthropy), earned income (products, services, contracts, for-profit subsidiaries, etc.), and impact capital (risk- and rate-adjusted debt) from all available sources: individuals, foundations, corporations, government agencies and impact investors. 
5. An executive dashboard with consolidated key performance indicators and trend data.
6. Ongoing community support as well as expert guidance around leadership, change management, governance, fundraising, and organizational development to support the adoption and successful use of this management system.

Participants will capture the most benefit if they adopt this platform as their single, permanent management architecture. It works best when all staff and board know it and use it. If the methodology competes with multiple other initiatives, efforts or change initiatives, the risk of failure (flat growth, no organizational change or improved impact) increases dramatically. 

Organizations that apply the methodology with fidelity capture near-term benefits like improved fundraising, heightened morale, a more focused and engaged board, and better organization-wide teamwork in as little as 3-6 months. Longer term, participants will raise significantly more money from a range of sources; establish or grow earned income streams; achieve greater impact with a data-driven program performance management system; and ultimately achieve and sustain rapid annual growth (the median is 25%) in revenue and impact.

A critical success factor is our supportive community. While participants can capture organizational improvements quickly, it takes time to embed the full acceleration and growth system, from 6 to 18 months or more, depending on an organization's agility, urgency and leadership. So support from the Accelerator continues long term, providing affordable support and expert advice from field-leading nonprofit experts and social impact thought leaders and practitioners.

The format is designed for busy professionals: self-paced, step-by-step learning of bite-sized practices, which are followed with specific, practical guidance to each organizational mission and context. 

You are not alone: learning and execution is enriched by supportive peer feedback and expert guidance. Additionally, expert guest speakers expand the dialogue and contribute to a culture of robust analysis and critique, all delivered in a collegial, safe and supportive setting.

The Altruist Accelerator is the independent nonprofit arm of Altruist Partners, a global social impact management consultancy that has served hundreds of nonprofits regionally, nationally, and globally since 2006. Accelerator coaches are guest speakers bring a great a diversity of successful social impact experience, all eager to support nonprofit growth and impact.

Weekly seminars are led by the Accelerator's Founder and Executive Director Donald Summers. Working at the leading edge of social sector innovation since 2006, Donald has advised hundreds of nonprofit boards and executive teams across the US and around the world, resulting in over $1 billion in new, sustained revenue and programs that have delivered some of the most exciting and important nonprofit success stories today. A graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard University,  he is the author of Scaling Altruism as well as articles and scholarship published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education and others. 

Guest presenters include the field-leading experts at Altruist; pre-eminent thought leaders and social impact experts; and, perhaps most importantly, CEOs, board members, and staff who have successfully adopted the methodology to drive unprecedented levels of growth and impact for their organizations.

Perhaps most importantly of all, participants teach each other. As the saying goes, "if you want to master something, teach it." Member support each other by critiquing and improving each other's progress and comparing their guidance to that of the experts and coaches, developing their own mastery and perspective by seeing how these rigorous practices apply in other organizational contexts.  

All course fees, materials, tools and templates, along with long-term mentorship and support, are covered by a low monthly fee that begins at $79/month. Discounts are available for executive teams, groups, and annual memberships. 

The time commitment is manageable for even busy executives, but this is no quick fix. Results will only happen if participants closely study the materials and work consistently to apply them in their organizational settings. As the other nonprofit executives who have adopted the methodology will tell you, the effort is worth many, many multiples of the investment. 

Members of boards of participating organizations should at minimum read Scaling Altruism. Their awareness and adoption of the management and governance tools are critical success factors. As they will discover, their work becomes enjoyable, efficient and effective.  

Participants will capture the most benefit if they adopt the entirety of the Accelerator impact and growth platform. If the methodology has to compete as one of multiple initiatives, efforts or strategies, the risk of failure (flat growth, no organizational change) increases dramatically. 

Participants who apply the methodology with fidelity can capture benefits like improved fundraising, a more focused and engaged board, and better organization-wide teamwork in as little as 3-6 months. Longer term, we expect participants to raise significantly more money from a range of sources; establish earned income streams or grow existing ones; focus and deepen program outcomes; and ultimately achieve and sustain rapid annual growth in revenue and impact (median = 25%).

A critical success factor is long-term participation. This is not a quick fix. Nothing about scaling up growth and impact is easy. While some participants may begin to realize accelerated growth and impact in as few as six months, others will need more time, so mentoring and measurement continues year after year.

The Altruist Nonprofit Accelerator is open to ALL nonprofit and NGO staff and board members, regardless of location, size, mission or organizational maturity. But come prepared. Learning and applying this methodology is not easy, so organizational leaders need to be ready for an adaptive journey.