NFF has a suite of full cost consulting options – including webinars, workshops, deeper analysis, and ongoing support. These are ideal for funders who are ready to up their game and help create a more resilient nonprofit sector, and for the nonprofits they support.
Philanthropic leaders know how essential nonprofits are to the vibrancy of our society, providing critical services, cultural richness, and jobs that contribute to local economies. Nonprofits are crucial partners in helping philanthropists move the needle on issues they care deeply about.
However, one of the most common barriers faced by nonprofits is achieving financial sustainability. Funders that are ready to become change-makers are asking themselves how to create a more resilient sector and better center their grantees’ voices.
NFF’s full cost consulting equips nonprofits and funders to have:
- A clear framework to identify and name what it takes to financially carry out their missions.
- Aligned, honest, and generative conversations about costs, all of which contribute to more informed budget asks and funding decisions.
Full Cost Consulting Options
Introduction to the Full Cost Framework
Creating a shared understanding of full cost concepts for program officers and grantees
This introductory content can be delivered as a webinar, in-person presentation, or can be wrapped into a more comprehensive workshop where foundations and nonprofits come together to share their perspectives, fostering a sense of community and collective learning.
Participants come away with concrete, actionable insights, including:
- How to connect organizational finances to the six components of full cost: total expenses, including unfunded expenses; working capital; reserves; debt; fixed assets additions; and change capital.
- Shared understanding of what it really takes for an organization to advance its mission and how each organization’s needs are different and ever-changing.
- Overview of nonprofit finance fundamentals, grounded in the inequitable system in which nonprofits operate, which both reflects and exacerbates wider systemic inequity.
Individual Full Cost Analyses and Financial Strategy Support
Building a foundation grounded in financial data
Following the introductory session, NFF staff will guide nonprofit leaders through a structured curriculum using our full cost workbook and calculator to apply each concept to their unique circumstances. This deeper engagement can be delivered as part of a group workshop or in one-on-one sessions.
Nonprofit leaders come away with concrete, actionable insights, including:
- A clear picture of their organizations’ full costs, including both immediate and future
needs, based on the operational realities of their organization. - Specific dollar amounts for various capitalization requirements such as cash flow, reserve planning, facilities requirements, and more.
- Confidence connecting mission and operating objectives with financial plans to support their liquidity, adaptability, and durability.
Deeper Ongoing Program Officer Engagement
Putting full cost into practice
NFF’s additional training and support guides funders ready to put full cost concepts to work. Takeaways include:
- A greater understanding of challenges involved with implementing full cost funding practices.
- Examples of models that can be used to successfully replicate and advance improved full cost grantmaking practices across the philanthropic community.
- An increased sense of solidarity and accountability to shift toward full cost practices among funder peers who engage in the community of practice.
Meaningful advancement of individual and collective full cost funding practices.
Full Cost Grantee Analysis
Looking at the big picture in new ways
As grantees work through NFF’s full cost curriculum, valuable data emerges that can be aggregated to inform more responsive grantmaking strategies. NFF’s team can surface trends and observations such as:
- Grantees’ overall financial health and capitalization needs.
- Program-specific funding dynamics, including what’s working and what needs adjusting.
- What equitable funding practices look like. For example, the importance of committing to ongoing sustained support instead of retrenching after episodic funding or one-time infusions of capital.