Queens College Orr Group partnered with Queens College to develop a comprehensive roadmap to double institutional revenue over the next three years and identify, cultivate, and solicit foundation and corporate funding.
Situation Founded in 1937, Queens College has entered its eighth decade of preparing students to become leaders of global society. Through a rigorous education in the liberal arts and sciences under the guidance of a faculty dedicated to both teaching and research, Queens College students learn from the best, immersed in the nation’s brightest city. Prior to engaging Orr Group, Queens College and its Office of Institutional Advancement had a proven track record of success attracting philanthropy from the audiences they had historically focused on. However, the college did not have any resources dedicated to creating, cultivating, and soliciting a robust pipeline of foundations and corporations. To address its need to build up its institutional giving program, Queens College partnered with Orr Group over the course of two months to evaluate and define opportunities for increased corporate and foundation fundraising.
Solution Through quantitative analysis, comparable organization research, and conversations with key staff, board members, and current foundation funders, we developed a comprehensive road map to double revenue from charitable foundations over the next three years. Our recommendations included identifying the programs most appealing to funders, building specific prospect lists for each fundable area, creating specific strategies for the best donors, and designing the systems needed to support this growth. Following our assessment, Queens College re-engaged Orr Group to provide outsourced development support to increase revenue from new foundation and corporate partners that will support ongoing initiatives at the college directed at BIPOC students. As an embedded partner, Orr Group is identifying appropriate foundation prospects, developing donor approach strategies, crafting proposals and executing solicitations to secure institutional fundraising aligned with the college’s DEI efforts.