About Us

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.

At the beginning of 2020, before anyone knew what the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) would bring, the organization faced a profound financial crisis. Through a grant from the Phillips Family Foundation, Hopewell’s long-time staff member, teacher, and newly appointed acting executive director Andrea Myers and the rest of the administrative staff contracted with Propel’s Strategic Services team to review their budget, collect and analyze important program data, and find clarity around their finances. Eventually, that work transitioned into the organization’s first conversations around strategic planning and board development through which the organization was able set some long-term goals and recruit new board members to reinvigorate its leadership.

Propel offers a variety of Accounting & Finance services to nonprofits. In FY21, we worked with 17 organizations of which 5 received year-long financial insight services, 8 received QuickBooks Online Setup services.

One of those clients was Northeast Youth & Family Services whose new president and CEO, Tara Jebens-Singh, worked with our consultants to gain clarity around the organization’s accounting operations after staff and software transitions. She presented with our consultants at the 2021 Minnesota Council of Nonprofits Annual Conference; Tara and the Propel team discussed how to identify partners to assist in creating reports, and use financials to tell her organization’s story.

In fiscal year 2021, Propel sponsored 57 projects, 16 of which were neww. 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.

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, on the same day George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police, Christian Cooper, a Black man and avid birder, was birding in Central Park when a white woman called the police on him. Cooper filmed the incident, the video went viral, and it drew national attention against the backdrop of a social uprising and calls for racial equity across the United States and the world.

Incidents like this are one of the reasons the Minnesota-based Urban Bird Collective (UBC) exists. Founded in 2018, the Urban Bird Collective supports birdwatchers of all different skill levels in leading walks in their own neighborhoods. They are working to create safe and welcoming spaces for all communities to come out and explore birding and the outdoors.  Their main foci are Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and the LGBT Community, but all are welcome.