Resources Archive - Lever for Change

Sustaining Change: Unlocking Durable Capital for Lasting Impact

The average U.S. foundation grant is about $50,000 and lasts just over a year. Ambitious philanthropists must equip nonprofit leaders with durable capital: Executive Summary…

Report

Durable Capital: What We’ve Learned

This article is an excerpt from our report, “Sustaining Change: Durable Capital for Durable Impact.” See the full report here. A Billion-Dollar Sector Struggling to…

Report

Experimentation and Evaluation

Whether an organization hopes to diversify its existing services or expand to support new communities, it is rarely obvious how to do so. Testing and…

Report

Bolstering Financial Systems

Attracting new funding can be vitally important for nonprofits, but even when fundraising targets are achieved there are no guarantees an organization will maximize the utility and longevity of new…

Report

Achieving Critical Mass

When new nonprofits introduce effective social innovations, slow, steady growth can occur as they gradually build awareness among new users and communities. But the exponential…

Report

Strengthening Partners

Few nonprofits can make lasting progress on intractable social issues alone. Cooperation and coordination with likeminded organizations and government agencies is usually essential. Durable capital…

Report

Deepening Work

Serving ever larger numbers of individuals and geographies is not the only way for nonprofits to increase their impact. Another option is to evolve and…

Report

Annual giving cycles, which bias donors towards short-term, once-a-year gifts rather than long-term philanthropic investments, create instability for the charitable sector. Nonprofits’ budgets can fluctuate…

Report

Traditional Scaling

The most common and readily understandable type of durable philanthropic capital enables nonprofits to expand their impact by providing their services to significantly more individuals,…

Blog

Beyond the Grant: Why Your Application Matters

In today’s competitive funding landscape, gaining access to resources often depends on who you know. At Lever for Change, we don’t think it should be…

Report

2025 Impact Report

We have exciting news: Lever for Change has reached its goal of influencing $2.5 billion in grants!  To mark the occasion, our team has created…

Blog

Branding

This page provides you with information about Lever for Change and resources for partnering on our communications efforts.