Details
Location:
Los Angeles, California
Description:
A beloved Los Angeles environmental institution that inspires and supports Angelenos to plant and care for trees, harvest rain, and renew depleted landscapes.
Challenges
Amid California’s devastating drought, L.A.’s trees were thirsty for rain. TreePeople was suffering from its own dwindling resource: the philanthropic support necessary to fund its response to the emergency.
"Amid California’s devastating drought, L.A.’s trees were thirsty for rain."
K2 Role &
Results
Necessity leads to creative approaches. For the trees, this meant new efforts to engage volunteer arborists and capture and channel sparse rainfall; for TreePeople’s development operation, it meant looking deeper at its existing base of donors to identify those who could increase their giving.
With the organization between development officers, K2 completed an in-depth analysis and identified donors whose demonstrated loyalty and capacity represented a deep well of untapped major gift opportunity.
Among these donors, and representative of them, was one of Hollywood’s most beloved comedic actresses. As with other prospects, K2 developed the strategy that related her philanthropic interests to the current crisis and coached executive staff through the cultivation and solicitation process. Proof that the approach was on-target: the resulting six-figure check was not just this celebrity’s largest-ever gift to the organization, but it arrived the very next day.
