Sarah J Consulting | Nonprofit Fundraising Consultant

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Telling a Foundation's Complete Story: An SJC Case Study


In 2014, the US-based India Youth Fund approached SJC about helping them to create fundraising messaging strategies appropriate for an American audience. Their parent organization, the Salaam Bombay Foundation, is the largest NGO in India focused on enriching the lives and health of the millions of children who live in Mumbai’s slums.

SJC worked closely with the client’s leaders to devise key messages and clear language about their core vision, goals, and what philanthropy would allow them to achieve—efforts that ended up transforming how both the Fund and the Foundation tell their stories.

During the ideation process, SJC came to realize that the organizations’ original primary message about tobacco cessation among youth only told part of their story. As it turned out, Salaam Bombay leads a wide variety of initiatives and campaigns to improve the lives and wellbeing for many thousands of Mumbai’s children—from a Sports Academy that has developed teamwork and stress management skills in more than 2,000 children, to the Arts and Media Academies that has developed confidence and self-expression in 2,200 children.

As a result, Salaam Bombay and SJC devised broader content strategies that encompassed all of the organizations’ good works, while placing the story of Mumbai’s children front and center in fundraising materials.