Amy Casey Consulting
Strategy → Positioning → Revenue
Case Study

Making an ambitious strategy real, owned, and fundable.

Building the foundation for transformational growth.

The Situation

The ambition was clear. The infrastructure to support it was not yet there.

A national civic engagement organization had a bold, decade-long mission and strong programmatic work. Its revenue model was built entirely on fee-for-service. There was no philanthropic program, no institutional funding infrastructure, and no collateral to support one. The strategy everyone believed in internally had not yet become something funders could recognize or invest in.

The Challenge
  • •The mission, helping lead a national movement to double volunteering, did not map to how institutional funders define priorities or allocate resources.
  • •There was no philanthropic content, no case materials, and no collateral. Everything needed to be built from the ground up.
  • •Programs, marketing, and development described the same work differently, with no shared standard for what made an opportunity fundable.
  • •Leadership lacked visibility into what was advancing, what was at risk, and where to focus attention.
The Work

Build a fundable articulation of the mission

Worked with executive leadership to translate the mission into a model of impact grounded in the language of civic engagement, public health, and place-based outcomes. These are categories funders recognize and invest in. The result was a strategic spine that programs could connect to and leaders could speak from consistently, without interpretation or reframing in the room.

Create the philanthropic content infrastructure

Developed every piece of philanthropic content from scratch in partnership with programs, marketing, and development leadership. One-pagers, case materials, and positioning documents were built to carry the strategy into funder conversations, grounded in the same positioning so the materials held together as a coherent system.

Establish a shared standard for what is fundable

Through facilitated working sessions, established a common framework across programs, marketing, and development for evaluating and positioning work for investment. The gap between a strong program and a competitive funding opportunity became something that could be closed with clarity rather than effort.

Align the operating structure to support growth

Working with development leadership, aligned roles to meaningful bodies of work. Progress, tradeoffs, and capacity became visible, and leadership could evaluate what was moving and where attention was needed without being drawn into day-to-day execution.

The Outcomes

The organization did not get a new strategy. It got the clarity and collateral to advance the one it already had.

$1M
Individual gift

A strategic narrative that made the organization's impact legible at the level a major donor requires, where none had existed before.

$2.5M
Foundation grant

A co-developed program and positioning approach, built on the funding infrastructure established during this opportunity, ready to advance at scale.

$20M
Prospecting pipeline

A shared model of impact, messaging, and fundability, enabling the organization to pursue institutional opportunities previously out of reach.

Beyond the funding

A different operating posture.

  • 01Leadership could articulate the work clearly and consistently, without the need for ongoing translation.
  • 02Development, programs, and marketing shared a common understanding of what the organization was advancing and why it mattered.
  • 03Opportunities were defined and pursued with greater focus and confidence.
  • 04The foundation built was designed to hold, embedded in materials, standards, and process rather than dependent on any one person.

Building philanthropic capacity for the first time, or rebuilding it on a stronger foundation?

That's the work.

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