Calendar of Events

Make Your Pitch 

Craft a winning pitch to share with prospective funders and build your impact storytelling skills.


PROGRAM DETAILS

DATES June 6 – July 25
LENGTH 9 weeks, 2-5 hours per week
OPEN TO CO-based nonprofits & social enterprises
FORMAT Cohort, group of impact organizations
INCLUDED
  • 4 live sessions with expert 
  • Individual support from local professionals
  • Peer learning group for CO impact leaders
PRICING Free
DEADLINE The application deadline has passed

Have questions? Interested in other dates? Let us know!

 PROGRAM OVERVIEW & BENEFITS

What you’ll learn

Improve your nonprofit or social enterprise’s pitch through data-driven storytelling in this interactive series of workshops.

Are you currently raising capital for your organization? Are you looking to improve your pitch? Do you struggle with effective storytelling? Then this program is for you!

In this program you will:

  • Learn how to leverage a simple framework to effectively convey your business impact, guided by an expert in the field with 10+ years of experience
  • Receive coaching support and feedback from local professionals that will help improve and craft your current pitch messaging
  • Gain insights on how to incorporate impact data and metrics into your pitch messaging
  • Understand best practices to improve your deck for presentations to prospective funders and/or Partners
  • Outline what additional work you need to do to iterate on your pitch as your business scales

 

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

Nonprofits and for-profit social enterprises

Based in Colorado

Actively working on fundraising

MEET THE FACILITATOR

Impact-Focused Entrepreneur & Business Advisor

Aimara RodriguezCo-founder, Function Wellness

Aimara Rodriguez is a first-generation Honduran-American business strategist based in Denver, Colorado. Over the past decade, Aimara has built a diverse background working at the intersection of startups, tech, and products. Her expertise lies in operations management, partnership development, and product strategy. She has mentored for organizations such as Access Mode, Social Venture Partners Denver, Techstars, Google for Startups, Latinas In Tech, and Built by Girls Ventures. Aimara is actively involved with Latinas In Tech and is a chapter lead for their Denver area. 

Additionally, Aimara is the co-founder of Function f(x) Wellness alongside her brother Carlos. Their non-profit supports marginalized communities with an emphasis on at-risk youth. Their programs are developed with Social Emotional Learning, Gang Prevention, and Violence Reduction frameworks combined with progressive and engaging therapeutic movement models that motivate participants. Their programs leverage movement and adventure as a modality to help link vital life lessons with character building experiences. Learn more and support their mission in helping youth within the Denver metro area. 

Through her work, she aims to cultivate opportunities and create spaces for other professionals of color to lead, thrive, and be heard.

Check Out Aimara’s Website

Add Aimara on LinkedIn

Learn More about Function Wellness

OUTCOMES & BENEFITS

Why join the Make Your Pitch cohort?

WHAT YOU’LL WALK AWAY WITH 

By the end of this program you will have:

    • An updated deck to properly present your organization and raise funding for your work
    • A list of next steps / areas to continue iterating on in the future
    • Increased confidence in the way you tell the story of your organization and insight into public speaking best practices

      LONG-TERM IMPACTS

      Participation should create the following impacts:

        • Improved tools and confidence to raise funding that supports your organization’s growth
        • Greater team alignment on your organization’s story and needs
        • Greater understanding of what data pieces are important to monitor and include in your pitch

      SVP DENVER PARTNER SUPPORT 

      Each organization will get paired with a local professionals who will provide support throughout the program. They will: 

      • Join group calls: to discuss plans/progress
      • Review weekly projects: send back notes, comments and ideas

      These Partners will have some relevant experience (though may not be experts). They join to offer another set of eyes and a third-party perspective. 

       

        PEER LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

        As part of this program, you’ll also connect with fellow participants from CO-based impact organizations:

        • Live on Zoom: Four live sessions for people to check in and share learnings. 
        • Individual connections: You’ll be welcome to follow up with other participating teams to connect.
        PROGRAM DETAILS

        More about this training cohort

        Schedule

        During this cohort we’ll meet every other week with the full group to learn from our facilitator and each other. You’ll use the time in between to work with your team independently to develop your pitch.

        Session 1: June 6

        Session 2: June 20

        Session 3: July 11

        Session 4: July 25


        YOUR COMMITMENT

        To get the most out of the program, we suggest you set aside 2–5 hours per week:

          • 1.5 hours – to join live sessions or work with your team
          • 2-3 hours – to work on the draft of your pitch deck 

         

        YOUR PARTICIPANTS & ROLES

        Each participating social mission organization should have: 

        Project Lead: This person will be the internal facilitator of their organization’s process and is accountable for making progress on this project. This person should have 3 – 5 hours per week to commit over the duration of the cohort and should plan to attend all live workshop sessions.

        Support Team: If possible, we recommend having 1-3 additional team members who can join live sessions and/or participate in team meetings to research, design and craft your pitch. 

         

        What Make Your Pitch Cohort participants say

        “You have given us the tools needed and a good foundation for crafting and presenting a winning pitch to investors, customers and partners. Each and every one of you have been instrumental with preparing our group to create and deliver a (tailored) pitch with passion.”

        Lori Collier
        Program Manager, African Leadership Group

        “We gained a tremendous amount from this cohort—having external unaltered feedback from various people with key components to keep in mind has strengthened our approach greatly!”

        Brigid McRaith
        Executive Director, Mile High Youth Corps

        “I think the cohort probably saved us a year in terms of understanding what we do and why and for whom.”

        Mike Rosol
        Free Range Beehives

         

         

         

        94%

        of past participants would recommend

        Frequently asked questions

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        Why is this training free for my organization?

        SVP Denver is a nonprofit that connects nonprofits and social enterprises with the expertise and support they need to grow their impact. We are primarily funded through grants and individual donations that allow us to offer our high-value training for free (or at highly subsidized rates). We are committed to making our programs accessible to all organizations – especially those with inequitable access to resources. 

        Is my organization too big/too small for this program?

        We believe the learning in this training cohort is applicable to organizations across a range of sizes and stages of development. Though we generally prioritize support for smaller organizations with less than $2M in annual revenue. 

        How flexible is the program? I’m not sure I can make all the sessions.

        Somewhat flexible! At least one person from your team should be available to join all of the live sessions since you will also have time to work with designated mentors and your team during this time. We will also record every session and share out with all registered participants, so it’s ok if not all members of your team can make each session.

        We will also send follow up emails with notes and resources after every session.

        Apply for the Make Your Pitch cohort

        Have questions? Interested in other dates? Let us know!

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