We created a non-profit and spend our days working in the non-profit world, which means we are constantly working with grants, donors, sponsors, fundraising and everything else that goes along with being a non-profit that makes an impact in our community and there are lots of different stories that highlight what a great city Indianapolis is and how fortunate we are to call this home.
Nine13sports, since last summer, has operated on a fee-for-services that has a sliding scale to it based on need and programs that the school already has in place. We felt it was imperative for the success of our organization to have revenue coming in for the programs and not place the burden totally on ourselves for funding. We also found that we had even better “buy-in” from the administrators when the school was responsible for a portion of the total program costs.
So we operate in a way in which we constantly seek our own donors and grants to help subsidize some of the costs, and work with the youth program partners to find a budget line, a sponsor or a donor to help bring our services and measurable outcomes to their facility.
Nine13 programs at BGCI Wheeler-Dowe last summer
A great facility that we’ve provided programming for previously, Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis at their Wheeler-Dowe Unit, had asked us to come back and provide programs for their summer camp. We worked with them last year and they do great work in the community and have a great group of kids. With that being the case, we agreed to subsidize 50% of the program costs and they thought there was a donor on their end who would come in for the other 50%.
Monday morning I received an email that their donor fell through and they were going to be unable to come up with their portion of the funding due to the late nature of it. We put out a few emails to some friends and networking connections we have within the community and while we heard there were several interested parties in helping us out in a general capacity, nothing was going to get put together in time to help cover the rest of the costs for BGCI programs that were to launch this week.
Until yesterday, at 2PM, when one of our good friends called me with great news!
Arbor Homes had agreed to step up and cover the cost of the program for BGCI to bring Nine13sports into the Wheeler-Dowe Unit. Just about 48 hours after the original donor fell through, we were able to help BGCI out and find a sponsor for the facility!
“Nine13sports presented by Arbor Homes” will be the name of the program at BGCI this summer. Additionally, Arbor Homes is honored and recognized as a sponsor moving forward the next year with everything Nine13sports does.
Thank you Arbor Homes and all those that made this possible for being pillars of support in the community. There are 120 students each week that will benefit from your kindness for the duration of the summer camp programs.