SVP Austin Case Study: Economic Growth Business Incubator (EGBI)

Fueling small business creation in Austin & Travis County

The Economic Growth Business Incubator increases its funding base to expand support for under-resourced business owners and prospective founders

Challenges

• Increased demand for support from business owners and aspiring founders

• Insufficient access to  sustainable funding 

• Difficulty connecting to new funders within the community

Solution

• Identify and contact  untapped potential and lapsed donors and funders

• Upgrade fundraising materials, including pitch deck  and website

• Increase staff capacity for more strategic fundraising and grant management

Results

• Engaged local banks and grant-making organizations

• Implemented web changes and updated the pitch deck

• Boosted executive director’s fundraising prowess and hired a community development associate

Driving business formation and sustainability

The Economic Growth Business Incubator (EGBI) serves hundreds of low-income people interested in starting or expanding small businesses. In the last year,  enterprises supported by EGBI have generated over $33.8 million in revenues and created over 400 jobs. Despite this enormous impact, the demand for EGBI’s services far exceeds its current capacity and funding. Consulting with SVP, EGBI created a donor engagement plan for new and lapsed contributors, upgraded its fundraising materials and website, and increased staff capacity for effective donor relations and management. 

Engaging banks and grant-makers

In addition to re-engaging with partner banks that had lapsed, the SVP team met with non-participating banks to identify opportunities to get them involved. They identified several prospects focused on community and economic development and developed a strategy for contacting them with an ask. 

SVP also outlined a strategy to build relationships with local grant-making organizations to increase program funding. EGBI leadership will ask board members and current donors for introductions to these funders, attend grantors’ technical assistance webinars and make adjustments to accounting systems to track programmatic expenses. 

“SVP gave us ideas on who we should approach to increase our impact and strengthen our relationships,” Davila notes. “We’ve been using their report  as a guide for our development as an organization—the information was very valuable.”

Upgrading fundraising assets 

To boost fundraising effectiveness, SVP helped EGBI envision a fundraising slide deck laying out who the organization helps and how, focusing on stories and data that illustrate impact and value creation. 

EGBI’s website was effective for a general audience, creating an opportunity to hone the Donate page to appeal to potential donors. That included specific content for individual donors and corporate contributors, posting the updated fundraising deck, creating a few testimonials and highlighting outcomes data that show impact.  

“We made the adjustments recently, so I don’t have performance metrics, but we're definitely happier with our website,” Davila notes.

Increasing staff capacity

The SVP team coached Davila on presenting to corporate donors, banking partners and gran-makers. “On a personal level, they helped me to get stronger on strategy,” she says. The team also uncovered the need for a community development professional on staff, and that person was recently hired.