Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry At a presentation event on Monday, Elevating Non-Profits founders (left) Andy Sokolski of Whirley DrinkWorks and John Papalia of the Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry receive a lead funding contribution of $5,000 from the Community Foundation of Warren County Executive Director John Lasher. United Fund Executive Director Lacey Hanson (right) represented the Elevating Non-Profits stakeholder committee and will be contacting United Fund member agencies looking for prospective students for the program.

It’s time to elevate non-profits.

There are over 100 non-profit entities serving a variety of roles in the community.

Many do their jobs very well. But, who doesn’t have room to do a little better?

Elevating Non-Profits is a new program aimed at helping the leaders of non-profit entities expand and reach more people.

The concept has been in the works for a while.

“About two years ago, we were coming at the idea, ‘how can we help non-profits elevate their performance in a community where the ability to keep expanding funding would be highly challenged?'” Andy Sokolski of Whirley DrinkWorks said. “The idea was, if we could help improve operational excellence, financial management, and access to grants, we could help the non-profits expand their mission and be able to deliver more services.”

“From the chamber’s side of things, we really see Warren County as a whole,” John Papalia of Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry said.

“So much of the work that they do benefits all of our community. It benefits individuals, it builds better workforce, and ultimately raises up all of Warren County.”

“The number of non-profits that are large agencies delivering services to significant numbers of members of our community, that might be 20 or so,” Sokolski said. “We’ve always felt the United Fund supports the businesses in this community by providing services to all members of the community.”

“That’s good business,” he said. “If a family has an issue that doesn’t get resolved, somehow, it comes back to the workplace.”

“This is a great way to think about… we’re doing good for the community, we’re doing good for business, we’re doing good for individuals,” Sokolski said. “They all tie together.”

They formed a stakeholder committee.

“As we built this and put this together, we were able to work with a wonderful group of people that were helping to guide, serve on a steering committee, serve on our stakeholders committee, and other organizations coming to the table,” Papalia said.

“The stakeholder committee was Mayor Maurice Cashman, our county commissioners, Judge (Maureen) Skerda, (Warren County School District Superintendent) Amy Stewart, (United Fund Executive Director) Lacey Hanson, Todd Betts (of Betts Industries),” Sokolski said. “The idea was to get a really good cross-section of the community from government, private industry, and Lacey representing non-profit interests, to get a single voice looking at how we define need and then move to serve that need.”

“We also think it’s really important, as part of this process, to get the people who donate and fund initiatives together with the people who are running those funds to start to look at and work together to define the need, put a plan together to meet that need, and to agree on what does success look like, ultimately,” he said. “That’s going to take some time as a process.”

The organizers expect most of the inaugural class to come from the ranks of the United Fund’s member agencies.

“We’ll be inviting all the United Fund agencies to participate,” Papalia said. “It’s certainly not limited to United Fund agencies.

There are a lot of wonderful non-profits here that we hope to engage and get involved.”

With the help of the committee, the preliminary ideas landed on a certificate program.

“We took a look at the standards within the non-profit world on how to operate and we came up with a six-course certification process,” Papalia said.

On Monday, the Community Foundation of Warren County showed its support of the fledgling program with $5,000.

“The Community Foundation is proud to support Elevating Non-Profits,” Executive Director John Lasher said. “Just as Warren Gives helps non-profits raise funds for their operations, we believe Elevating Non-Profits will help organizations achieve their missions more effectively.”

“The Community Foundation has a lead gift,” Sokolski said. “The Sokolski Family Foundation, Warren County, the LeMeur Family Foundation” also made initial contributions to the program.

“That certainly helps get our program launched,” Papalia said. “It helps to fund the coursework, materials, and really get us off the ground.”

The inaugural program is set to start with an introductory meeting on Jan. 5. Thereafter, there will be a four-hour class every third Wednesday from January through June.

“We are planning on running one course a month,” Papalia said. “From strategy, to finance, to how to write grants.”

The programs include: mission, strategy, and evaluation; leadership: board, staff, and volunteers; legal compliance and ethics; finance and operations; resource development; and public awareness, engagement, and advocacy.

“We’re using instructors from Strategy Solutions Inc. out of Erie,” Sokolski said.

“They were involved in the Erie non-profit initiative,” Papalia said. “They have a lot of experience in these sort of things… running similar courses.”

“We have a commitment to conducting that class on an annual basis and really making this a long-term investment in the people who are in leadership positions in non-profits in Warren County,” Sokolski said.

“Certainly, as the initiative goes on, we hope this is the tip of the iceberg, we can evolve, improve, and find other areas to focus on as we move forward,” Papalia said.