Introduction
Junior Achievement is a global nonprofit organization focused on empowering young people to own their economic success through financial literacy, workforce readiness, and entrepreneurship. They execute against these goals by engaging volunteers to directly teach in classrooms kindergarten through high school, delivering Junior Achievement’s powerful educational content that “fills the gap” in training for life skills outside of a traditional curriculum. Junior Achievement of Chicago (the largest Junior Achievement branch in the world) delivers programs to more than 600,000 students, in over 28,000 classrooms, engaging 14,000 volunteers across Chicago.
We are so grateful to Oliver Wyman for all of your meaningful work, as it has been so impactful to our organization and the students we serve! You assisted us in tackling our most pressing challenge of resource generation. And quite frankly, as a nonprofit, we would never be able to access the level of professional services you provided!Sandy Daffe, President, Junior Achievement of Chicago
Scope
Junior Achievement Chicago (JAC) aspires to grow to expand its impact on students and communities across Chicago. As a nonprofit organization, it relies on donations to cover costs for developing educational content, engaging and training volunteers, and working with schools in communities it serves. To fuel its growth, JAC sought to enhance its fundraising efforts within an already challenging and crowded corporate fundraising environment in Chicago. Oliver Wyman helped JAC refresh its fundraising strategy to increase the depth and breadth of their fund-raising capabilities. This work included analyzing penetration and success of current fundraising sources, market research to evaluate the potential opportunity size for corporate donors in Chicago, evaluating feasibility of direct to consumer fundraising strategies, and profiling new programs/approaches.
JAC is an amazingly well-run organization with a powerful mission. I’ve learned a great deal being part of the board, volunteering in classrooms, and have been thrilled to help JAC expand the impact of its programs in ChicagoJim Fields, Partner
Impact
Oliver Wyman helped increase JAC’s corporate major gift donors by 6 percent annually through mapping and segmenting the potential donor landscape, identifying JAC’s positioning in the corporate and consumer giving channels, and developing recommendations on areas of additional opportunity including a specific list of target donors for JAC to pursue. Additionally, through interviews and surveys with board members, profiling other charitable organizations, and identifying leading social media practices, Oliver Wyman shaped recommendations for JAC to penetrate new donor channels and launch programs for raising funds. These recommendations have provided the basis of JAC’s outreach efforts to bring nearly 300 new organizations to JAC’s volunteer base annually; it has also catalyzed JAC’s growing social media initiative. Our firm continues this special partnership with JAC, and our Sponsoring Partner has deepened his relationship with JAC as an active board member.