Raise $6M to invest to increase capacity to scale through technology and marketing/fundraising adds to staff, and to accelerate grants.

Thank you for your investment in the Forever Campaign. Your collective giving brings us to $3,185,640 toward our $6,000,000 goal.

National Board member donations to the Forever Campaign exceed $1.2M (20%) and more than $1M+ is being given by those who have served on GOA’s Strategic Advisory Council for the past 3 years. Together, these leaders have developed our ambitious, visionary FY2030 growth plan and have made substantial contributions to the Forever Campaign as a personal commitment to the plan's success.

We also have good news to share about a special matching gift opportunity designed to inspire additional support for the Forever Campaign. A lead donor is contributing 10% of the total amount raised through our Forever Campaign up to $1M.

The Forever Campaign allows us to invest $3M to accelerate our grant growth to help more children with a higher average grant, totaling $28M and 5,000 children over the next five years.

Our program impact goals scale year by year. See chart below.

We will update you on the number of grants awarded, children served, qualified applications, and the average grant amount results each quarter.

• AI. Deploying an AI-assisted story generation workflow built on Anthropic's Claude platform. The system enables staff to produce quality first-draft grant recipient stories, applying GOA's storytelling framework to generate a formatted draft complete with photo links, authorization status, and editorial guidance. The workflow also includes a story candidate finder that matches donor funding restrictions and preferences to eligible grant recipients automatically. Built on GOA's existing Microsoft 365 and SharePoint infrastructure, the system required no additional licensing beyond our current Claude for Nonprofits subscription. We are also using AI to more efficiently produce monthly Chapter Plan updates including adding real-time information to the plans, streamline grant selection docket preparation, and are beginning to create foundation vetting and proposal drafting tools.
• Website upgrade. Falkon Technologies, (referral from GOA SC Chapter Board member), completing the website upgrade pro bono. This is a $50K+ savings that we may redeploy to further our technology goals.
• Cybersecurity. Falkon Technologies is also committing to a minimum two-year pro bono cybersecurity package (and likely longer) covering centralized IT management, continuous monitoring and threat response, staff help desk support, disaster recovery backup, and staff training.
• Database migration. Falkon Technologies has also proposed a path for us to replace our Access 2003 application database with a modern SQL/Azure solution with a web interface for staff and applicants. The proposal is in final review and work is expected to begin this fall and completed by year-end.
• AIO/SEO/SMO. With pro bono support from Strategic Seven, we are piloting targeted Google Ads in areas where funding outpaces applicants.

Foundation Grant Writer

• We have staffed the grant writer position with a new college graduate (former GOA intern) working full time along with two part-time independent contractor grant writers. Their focus is to increase grant submission productivity. The entire grant team will increase new foundation submissions from 125/year to 410/year; a YOY increase of nearly 400%.

Director of Business Development & Marketing

• We have reframed this position to include business development responsibilities to attract candidates with both fundraising and marketing experience. Search is underway.

Chief Advancement Officer and Major Gift Officer Roles

• Until mid-September we are conducting a concerted, deliberate search to identify talented candidates for our Chief Advancement Officer and Major Gift Officer positions.
• If there are individuals in your network for whom these positions may be of interest, please invite them to learn more at: giftofadoption.org/openpositions.
• To share these opportunities with those in your LinkedIn network, you can repost them via GOA's LinkedIn page: view the post.