Financial Innovation & Resilience Program

Where
Zoom

When
September 19, 2023 - September 21, 2023

REGISTRATION FOR OUR SEPTEMBER PROGRAM IS NOW CLOSED. 

Virtual Intensive dates: September 19-20-21 from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM ET (convert to your timezone here)

Unlock the confidence you need to build financial strength. In September 2023, we are offering our Virtual FIRE Fundamentals program, a 4-month long dynamic and interactive learning journey for developing essential capacities for building greater, mission-aligned financial strength.

Organizations and networks around the world working to advance social and climate justice face a volatile and rapidly changing political and funding landscape. The work is complex and the need to adequately resource is ever-present. 

What if you and your leadership team could: 

  • Bring the same resilience to building financial strength as you bring to programming?
  • Use a creative, entrepreneurial approach to grow your base of supporters?
  • Gain new perspectives on money to inform your strategies?
  • Employ user-friendly financial health indicators in decision-making?

Spring has collaborated with funders and organizations around the world to build organizational resilience, making sure that social change actors have the strategic finance plans in place to build a better world. Clients and partners include the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and their grantees ... and many more!

Want to know how it works in practice? Watch our latest FIRE impact story from Lebanon's Action for Hope.

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What will you be able to do?

What makes this program unique?

Details in brief

Sliding scale

Register

You will be able to:
  • Build a new toolbox that you can apply to your work immediately.
  • Form a customized action plan informed by clinics and consultation.
  • Create a budgeting strategy that projects and captures income, costs and recovery of costs.
  • Explore a user-friendly dashboard of key financial health indicators that can be easily absorbed by your staff and board.
  • Learn a creative, entrepreneurial approach to growing and strengthening your base of supporters through all your communications channels.
  • Gain invaluable knowledge for shaping engagement with funders leading to both transactional and transformational relationships.
  • Discover a fresh capacity to respond to changes in the funding and financing landscape.
  • Join an international community of Financial Innovation & Resilience graduates working for social and climate justice.

Please consider attending as a team to optimize the Impact! The program provides valuable time for an organization’s executive director, finance leader and resource development/communications leader to integrate financial resilience insights, practices and tools into their context as well as co-create and implement a customized action plan.

What makes this program unique?

Since 2012, Spring's Financial Innovation & Resilience program has supported leadership teams from close to 400 social and climate justice organizations in over 54 countries. It is infused with experiences from organizations dealing with shrinking civic space as well as those working under more favourable circumstances, offering a rare opportunity to gain both global and local insights that can be applied in different contexts and organizations. 

Your program will begin with a 3-day virtual intensive, where you will interactively explore and understand four key areas in relation to building financial strength: Funding Landscape, Resource Mobilization, Strategic Finance and Purposeful Communications. Through peer support and cross-learning, you will begin developing a FIRE action plan for your organization or network. 

Following your 3-day virtual intensive, you will continue refining and implementing your action plan with four months of accompaniment in the form of three thematic webinars, three cross-learning sessions with other groups in your cohort, a one-on-one session with a coach and a program completion session. To support your team’s FIRE journey, you will have access to a suite of multimedia FIRE resources including e-modules for self-directed learning, animations, videos, primers, tools and templates via Spring’s FIRE Learning Lab.

Details in brief

Number of participants: Up to 36 participants

Group composition: Executive directors and senior staff who lead in the areas of finance, resource mobilization and strategic communications, as well as foundation staff providing financial support to these leaders.  

Virtual Intensive dates: September 19-20-21, 2023; Time: 8:30am-12:00pm ET (UTC-4)

Post Intensive Accompaniment: Four 90-minute webinars, cross-learning and completion sessions alongside three small-group coaching sessions and an individual coaching session. The accompaniment sessions will take place on the following dates:

  • Strategic Finance: October 18, 9:00-10:30am ET
  • Purposeful Communications: November 9, 9:00-10:45am ET
  • Capital Reserves: December 6, 9:00-10:30am ET
  • Keeping Momentum: January 25, 9:00-10:30am ET

Workshop materials: Multimedia resources including animations and primers via Spring's virtual FIRE Learning Lab.

Location: Zoom

Sliding scale

We work to make our programs as accessible as we can and offer a sliding scale with three tiers of program payment rates. When you register below, please choose the fee based on your circumstances.

1. Redistribution Rate: US $2,200

This is for organizations based in the Global North or with an annual budget above US$2 million. It’s also designed for individuals with access to wealth or with an annual income over US$70,000. Payment at this rate covers the costs of the program and allows for a contribution to support the participation of organizations and individuals with less access to wealth.

2. Full Cost Rate: US $1,750

This is for organizations with an annual budget above US$1-2 million. It’s also designed for individuals with an annual income of US$50,000 - US$70,000. 

3. Solidarity Rate: US $875

This is for organizations with an annual budget of under US$1 million. It’s also designed for individuals with an annual income of under US$50,000. Payment at this rate covers 50% of total costs. 

Don’t see an affordable rate? 

If the Solidarity Rate is not affordable to you, please get in touch with us to let us know and we can discuss what might be possible.

Please click here for more details on Spring's Sliding Scale.