Early-Stage Operations + Planning Grants
$400,000 ($600,000)

Early-Stage Operations and Planning Grants provide mission-aligned nonprofit organizations with three-year $150,000 general operating grants and technical assistance through a cohort model to help build the infrastructure of the organization and connect leaders to others at similar stages in their nonprofit tenure. ESOP recognizes that newer nonprofits are often highly skilled at serving the needs of their constituents but may need some additional support to transform their passion into a sustainable nonprofit that will live on beyond them.

Each ESOP cohort meets quarterly to engage in topical learning around things like affirming their mission, vision, and values, building a board, developing a fundraising plan, and shoring up programming and measurement, with an eye for marrying content on best practices and time to hear from those in similar positions about what’s working well and what hasn’t to move them collectively forward faster than they might on go their own. At the end of the three-year cohort, participating nonprofits will have built the needed structures to sustain for the long-term and have greater flexibility to seek funding through additional channels.