About Us

Propel Nonprofits is an intermediary organization and federally certified community development financial institution (CDFI). We provide capacity-building services and access to capital to support nonprofits in achieving their missions including the ability to link strategy, governance, and finance and to support nonprofits throughout their organizational lifecycle. Propel Nonprofits was created from the 2017 merger of Nonprofits Assistance Fund and MAP for Nonprofits.

Our Vision

A diverse network of mission-driven nonprofits building a healthy, vibrant, and more just community

Our Mission

Fueling the impact and effectiveness of nonprofits with guidance, expertise, and capital

Guiding Principles

Part of our Theory of Change is that when nonprofits are well-led, well-resourced, and well-connected they achieve mission success. As we work toward our mission of fueling the impact and effectiveness of nonprofits with guidance, expertise, and capital, we use these principles as a strategy screen, as accountability markers, and as a handshake, whether you’re new through our door or an old Propel friend.

  • Champion nonprofits
  • Be a mutual and trusted partner
  • Advance justice
  • Stay curious
  • Have fun
More About Guiding Principles

Our Strategic Framework

The downloadable document presents a strategic framework for Propel Nonprofits, weaving together mission, vision, values, strategic priorities, and organizational culture work completed during 2020 by the Board of Directors and Propel staff.

As noted in the document, the framework is designed to be adaptive and responsive. As a staff and board, we chose to develop a truly high-level Strategic Framework as a guiding document for the next several years.

 

Download the Strategic Framework

Client Highlights

Great River Shakespeare Festival

Lending

Nonprofits use our loans to expand programs and services, bridge cash flow gaps, and purchase/renovate buildings. In FY20, our Loan Fund originated 112 loans totaling $19.8 million; 87% of nonprofit borrowers serve low income people and communities.

After learning about Propel Nonprofits through free webinars, the team from the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN reached out for a working capital loan from Propel to meet cash flow needs as the company waited for monthly disbursements from other funding sources.

Read Their Story
Jody Nelson standing beside a newspaper clipping of her as a young girl

Strategic Consulting

Our capacity-building services include training on nonprofit finance and governance; consulting focused on strategy, finance, and governance; fiscal sponsorship; and resources and guidance for nonprofit staff and board leaders in Minnesota and adjacent communities across all fields of service and at any life-cycle stage.

Change Inc. is working to change the future for those it works with primarily through the educational system. Over the past few years, it started to see a fairly rapid growth, with most of the funds going to programs not to internal infrastructure and operations. Learn more about how Change Inc. worked with Propel’s strategic consultation team to implement strategic financial forecasting to see what needed to change in its business model to reflect and sustain that growth.

Read Their Story
Break the Silence memorial groundbreaking

Fiscal Sponsorship

In fiscal year 2020, Propel sponsored 60 projects. Our fiscal sponsorship program works with dozens of mission-driven organizations, projects, causes, and collaborations annually to build infrastructure, set goals, and develop sustainable business models.

In October, Break the Silence, a fiscally sponsored organization at Propel and an organization founded to support survivors of sexual violence by striving to end rape culture and hold perpetrators accountable, completed and dedicated the nation’s first permanent Memorial to Survivors of Sexual Violence. You can watch the dedication ceremony at their website.

Visit Break the Silence's Website

Our Impact

These numbers reflect work completed in Propel’s FY20. For more information about our impact, visit our Reports page to read the most recent Quarterly Investors Reports and our FY20 Impact Report.

151

Training Sessions

7,316

Training Participants

112

Loans to Nonprofits

$19.8M

Lended to Nonprofits

90

Consulting Projects

60

Fiscally Sponsored Projects

2,265

Webinar Participants

76

Leaders Circles® Participants

Response to COVID-19

When the Coronavirus pandemic shifted the way we live and work in March of 2020, we focused our time and energy on being nimble, responsive, and helpful to our nonprofit partners. Beyond our initial work, some of it described below, being offered for free, we remain committed to helping nonprofits navigate the phases that lie ahead.

How we’re responding:

  • Being more open than ever for technical assistance for the many organizations who reach out for help with issues big and small
  • Shifting our trainings to webinars and virtual delivery. We’ve had hundreds of people on webinars about cash flow, being a great board chair, and scenario budget planning. We’ve created complementary resources on these topics, too, available on our COVID-19 Resource page.
  • Being a resource and guide for questions about state and federal resources available to nonprofits. We demystified the Paycheck Protection Program for many organizations and assisted them in preparing the application with the right information, calculations, and documents. We partnered with Community Reinvestment Fund (CRF) to submit applications directly when that was the best option. We’re proud to have removed many roadblocks for nonprofits accessing these federal funds to pay staff.
  • Shifting scope of our strategic services projects to help nonprofits in the here and now with their organizational plan in getting through the coming weeks and months.
  • Deferring loan payment and providing new loans to nonprofits when debt capital is the right tool for the circumstances, and most importantly;
  • Continuing to be a coach, an ally, and a partner, listening, offering guidance and resources, and helping nonprofit leaders through these difficult times.