Apr 11, 2023
Robin Hood & Coney Island Prep: Supporting Grantees Through Management Assistance
Two years ago, Robin Hood’s Management Assistance team partnered with Coney Island Prep, engaging their leadership on how to help them grow resources to support student success. Read and listen to their story.
Poverty-fighting nonprofits often lack the resources and tools they need to strengthen their resiliency and scale their impact. To address this, Robin Hood’s Management Assistance team partners with community partners to solve key management challenges while helping to build their networks, develop skills, and fund capacity-building projects.
At Robin Hood, we believe that when we succeed, nonprofits have the resources they need to operate and scale effective, sustainable programs that fuel New Yorkers’ journeys to permanently escape poverty.
Consulting is delivered by Robin Hood’s internal consulting team, corporate pro bono partners, and technical assistance grants, providing $1.8 million in investments in grant making and multi-partner initiatives last year alone.
We’d like you to meet one of those community partners: Coney Island Prep.
Coney Island Prep (CIP) is a K-12 public charter school network that serves 1,200 students in southern Brooklyn with a goal of opening a new high school in 2024 and expanding to over 1,400 scholars across four campuses. CIP became a Robin Hood Power Fund partner in 2021 and the MA team engaged leadership to determine technical assistance interventions that could help them achieve their ambitious growth goals, which included:
- Paid MA grants totaling $105,000 included communications planning and storytelling to improve their private fundraising.
- A search for a Chief Talent and Equity Officer to improve overall staff recruitment and retention.
- Connecting CIP leaders to professional development opportunities including the Development Director Peer Group and a Leaders of Color Peer Group specifically for men.
Through these MA investments, CIP brought in a new recruitment team, onboarded 93 new hires and, for the first time in five years, experienced no staff resignations between the start of orientation and the first day of school. Their refined communications and fundraising efforts have led to an 11% increase in revenues at the midpoint of FY23. Including a recent $3.5 million MacKenzie Scott gift, their income is 98% higher than previous years.
Leslie Bernard-Joseph, CEO of CIP, describes the Robin Hood support as “Absolutely game changing. It has elevated who we are as an organization and what we are able to do for our kids and their families.”
Watch their story and join Robin Hood to #FightPoverty in NYC.
