Uptown Stories empowers young people in Washington Heights to discover and develop their voices as writers. Students participate in ten-week writing workshops, after which they hold a celebratory reading at a local bookstore and receive a paperback anthology of all the writing and art from the semester. The organization’s “Express Yourself” workshop was expressly created for LGBTQ+ youth participants. Through conversations with the Board of Directors and consultants, it became clear that streamlined fundraising systems would benefit the organization by allowing them to improve donor and participant engagement and free up the Executive Director’s time to focus on stewardship and teaching workshops. With this grant, Uptown Stories seeks to increase their fundraising capacity by hiring a Development Assistant to take on fundraising responsibilities from the Executive Director. In addition, they will invest in a centralized donation dashboard to help identify trends and areas of improvement.
Uptown Stories will streamline its fundraising systems to improve participant engagement and dedicate more time to teaching workshops.
