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Introduction

Thank you for your interest in applying to the fourth cohort of New Profit’s Civic Lab!

The information shared through this form will enable us to determine which organizations are the strongest fit for New Profit support at this time, using our investment selection eligibility criteria and guidelines. Please note that many outstanding organizations are not a fit for New Profit’s support model and there are many reasons why an organization may not be selected in a given investment cycle. In addition, not being selected does not disqualify an organization from being considered for future selection cycles.

Who We Are

New Profit is a venture philanthropy organization building a multi-racial, intergenerational, cross-sector coalition focused on advancing equity and opportunity across the United States. We back breakthrough Social Entrepreneurs – the CEO, Executive Director, or equivalent title leading social impact organizations.

What You Are Applying For

This application is to join a peer learning community with New Profit through a Catalyze Cohort Investment, which supports visionary social entrepreneurs and their organizations. Our collaborative support model includes participation in a peer learning community, 1:1 adaptive leadership coaching, connection to consultations with external content experts, New Profit’s capacity-building framework and tools, and $100,000 in unrestricted support.

While each cohort of social entrepreneurs requires tailored supports to meet their unique needs, the base of our capacity-building program includes the following:

Refining impact model to advance systems change outcomes and connecting it to a compelling story of impact
Assessing organizational strengths, capabilities, and opportunities for growth
Building an effective, high-performance boards of directors
Developing equitable and results-driven practices for managing teams and stakeholders
Identifying effective practices for operational excellence in order to execute against organizational strategy (fundraising, finance, HR, and communications)
1-2 additional topics identified by cohort members as areas of support

Instructions

The FormAssembly platform allows users to save partially completed work. At the top of the form, you may select "Save my progress and resume later," and you will be prompted to input your email address and a password. Once you save your application, you will receive an email with instructions for resuming your application.

You also have the option to "Resume a previously saved form," where you can discard your latest progress and go back to an older version of the form to begin editing again.

Important Milestones & Dates

In consideration of your time and to support your planning and scheduling, we are sharing the stages of our selection process, as well as key milestones and dates. At each stage, you will be notified via email of your organization’s status within the process.

Application submission deadline: Wednesday, September 6, at 8pm ET/5pm PT: The application for this cycle consists of basic information to help us understand your organization (e.g. year founded, contact information, financial data, and communities served), as well as a handful of long-form questions to better understand your organization’s program model, mission, and impact. Once the submission deadline passes, our team will conduct an internal review of applications to determine which organizations will be invited to screening interviews.

Screening Interviews: Starting in October: A subset of organizations will advance to this stage, which will consist of two rounds of interviews. The Civic Lab team will ask questions to better understand each organization’s work, and social entrepreneurs and other key stakeholders will have opportunities to ask questions of New Profit. Our goal is to build a mutual learning partnership and we want to ensure organizations and their teams get time to get to know New Profit as we get to know them. These interviews will begin in October.

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B. Short-Form Organizational Data

Contact Information

We will use the information below to contact you regarding next steps or clarifying questions.

Applicant (Person completing the form) information

Applicant’s full name

Applicant's job title

Applicant's email address

If applicable, please provide the full name and email address of the person on your team in charge of scheduling for the current Social Entrepreneur(s).

Full name

Email address

Organizational Data

In this section, we would like to learn a bit about your organization and team.

Organization information

Website

EIN

Founder(s) of the organization

Year founded

Location of headquarters (city, state) if applicable or if fully virtual, please indicate “virtual”

In what geographies does your organization operate?
Please also note the number of program sites in each geography, if applicable.

We define a program site as a location where services are provided. It may or may not have full-time staff dedicated to it. Click 'Add another response' to include more location sites.

Location

Number of program sites

	FY 2021:	FY 2022:	FY 2023 (Projected):
Number of full-time employees by year:
Number of part-time employees by year:

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C. Financial Data

In this section, we would like to learn a bit about your organization’s finances. Please provide all dollar amounts in $USD.

Fiscal year start month:

	FY 2022:	FY 2023 (Projected):
Expenses
Revenue

Please provide your estimated percentage of revenue from the below sources for the most recently closed fiscal year:

Foundations

Corporate Sources:

Individuals

Government:

Earned Income/Fee-For-Service:

Membership Dues:

Other Sources:

Current number of months of cash on hand:

New Profit defines this as the number of months you can continue to pay your operating expenses with the current cash available.

Please list your organization’s top 3-5 funders and what percentage of your organization’s revenue base they each contributed in the most recently closed fiscal year.

	Name	% of revenue base
Funder 1
Funder 2
Funder 3
Funder 4
Funder 5

Optional: If there is any supplemental information you would like to share to explain your organization’s financial picture, please let us know.

D. Communities Served

In this section, we would like to learn a bit more about the communities your organization serves.

Please provide a brief description of your “core constituents.” (350 word limit)

We define core constituents as the groups or individuals with whom your organization works directly, including program participants, key partners you engage, or systems actors you are influencing (e.g. frontline workers, labor unions, residents of a particular jurisdiction, or young people). Please do not include groups who may benefit from your work, but who you do not directly engage (e.g. if you train employers on hiring for BIPOC jobseekers, do not include BIPOC jobseekers unless you also support them directly).

	FY 2021:	FY 2022:	FY 2023 (Projected):
Total number of core constituents served (as defined above)

Optional: If there are additional individuals or communities who benefit from your work and whom you also consider key constituents, please offer a brief description.

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E. Long-Form Questions

For the following more substantive questions, we ask that you keep your responses under the limits provided. Please note that FormAssembly tracks and limits word count.

1. Organizational Vision & Mission:

In 1-3 sentences, tell us your organization’s mission. (150 word limit)

In a few sentences, help us understand your organization’s mission. You may want to include language around the work you do and the communities you serve.

2. Problem:
What is the problem your organization is addressing, and how do its root causes and symptoms manifest for marginalized communities? (350 word limit)

Please include a brief description of how your organization defines the “system” that it operates within.

3. Approach:
What is your organization’s core approach (i.e. program or impact model) to address the problem? (350 word limit)

Help us understand what your organization does day to day.

4. Defining Democracy:

How does your organization define democracy? (350 word limit)

We’re interested in learning more about how you’re thinking about and approaching your work in the space. We at New Profit are always looking to learn more about different, innovative approaches to strengthening our democracy.

5. Social Entrepreneur(s) Statement:
How is your leadership influenced by proximity to the communities you serve? (350 word limit per Social Entrepreneur. If your organization utilizes a co-leadership model and both Social Entrepreneurs are planning to participate in the cohort, we ask that both Social Entrepreneurs respond to this question.)

Help us understand how you, the Social Entrepreneur(s), cultivate proximity to the communities you serve and advance equity for. Consider elements of your own lived experience and identities and / or practices you pursue to develop proximity. We appreciate that many organizations leverage other team members to complete grant applications. However, we ask that the organization's Social Entrepreneur(s) respond to this question in the first person so we can learn more about them as a leader.

Social Entrepreneur A

Social Entrepreneur B

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E. Long Form Questions (continued)

6. Constituent Voice
How do your core constituents, and other stakeholders, inform the design, implementation and improvement of your organization’s program or impact model? (350 word limit)

Help us understand how your organization cultivates proximity to the communities your organization serves and is advancing equity for.

7. Evidence of Impact
What are the most important outcomes you seek to achieve for those you serve, and what evidence (qualitative or quantitative) do you have that shows you’re making progress toward those intended outcomes? (350 word limit)

If available, include descriptions of any systems and processes you have to collect and track that data. If it’s applicable to your organization, feel free to share about differentiated outcomes across the populations or stakeholders you serve.

8. Systems Influence
Do you pursue activities or strategies that contribute to systems change? If so, what systems conditions do you seek to address (i.e. policies, practices, resource flows, relationships, power dynamics, and / or mental models), and what levers will you use to influence those conditions? (350 word limit)

Help us understand how your organization aims to change the system in which the problem your organization addresses is currently entrenched. Consider the system actors that you are engaging to drive that change and the behaviors or actions you are intending for them to adopt (or have already seen them adopt as a result of your engagement).

9. Organizational Growth
What are your organization’s strategic growth and impact priorities in the coming 3-5 years? (350 word limit)

10. Interest in Cohort
As a part of Civic Lab, organizations join a peer learning community of fellow social entrepreneurs. While each cohort of social entrepreneurs requires tailored supports to meet their unique needs, the base of our capacity-building program includes the following:

Refining impact model to advance systems change outcomes and connecting it to a compelling story of impact
Assessing organizational strengths, capabilities, and opportunities for growth
Building an effective, high-performance boards of directors
Developing equitable and results-driven practices for managing teams and stakeholders
Identifying effective practices for operational excellence in order to execute against organizational strategy (fundraising, finance, HR, and communications) 1-2 additional topics identified by cohort members as areas of support

Reflecting on the opportunities of a peer learning community and capacity-building programming, what might you want to learn as a part of this experience? What questions of organizational growth and development might you want support on? (350 word limit)

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F. Attachments

Upload the following supplemental materials:

Please note that you may upload multiple attachments for a question if you select 'Add another response' for that question.

1. Social Entrepreneur's resume or biography.
If you're applying as a co-leadership model, please include both Social Entrepreneurs' resumes or biographies.

2. Audited financial statements with notes from the most recently closed fiscal year.
If you do not have audited financials to share, please upload your profit and loss statement/budget from the most recently closed fiscal year.

If your organization is fiscally sponsored, we ask that you please share your organization’s profit and loss statement/budget if that information is available to you, rather than your fiscal sponsor’s audited financials. Otherwise, you may share your fiscal sponsor’s information.

3. Please share a list of the members of your organization’s or fiscal sponsor’s Advisory Board or Board of Directors and relevant experiences and expertise.
A document with a link to the relevant page on your organization’s website is also an acceptable submission. If your organization does not have a board structure in place, please note that here.

Would you like to be added to the Civic Lab mailing list to be notified of future funding opportunities?

YesNo

Thank you for completing your application! You will hear back from us soon.

Thank you for your interest in Civic Lab.

Based on your responses, you are currently ineligible for this cohort. Return to the top of the page for next steps.

New Profit's Civic Lab 2023 Investment Application