Horizontal: Financial Sustainability & Capacity-Building

The Assignment
Horizontal is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that leverages technology to empower grassroots communities to work safely and effectively amid surveillance, censorship, and repression.

Their work centers around building and providing two main tools, and historically their funding has been tied to those tools. The team came to us because they wanted to diversify their revenue and fundraising sources and make them less project-based.

The Process

• Current state, comparison set, and funder landscape reports

• Weekly small-group check-ins

• Monthly workshops with broader Horizontal team

The Outcome
Horizontal is positioned to successfully secure new revenue and fundraising sources. Platypus Advisors:

• Delivered a report recommending funders to target, grant opportunities to apply for, and viable earned-revenue strategies to pilot

• Set the team up with a customer relationship management (CRM) system for tracking outreach and progress, plus coaching on how to best use the software

• Provided a toolkit to help them thrive—from new funder collateral, such as a pitch deck and a one-pager, to templates for cold and warm funder outreach

• Crafted a high-level timeline to guide the Horizontal team on how and when to roll out the new strategies

The Results

• Sustainability: Horizontal will no longer need to rely on one or two project-based grants and can support themselves through more varied sources, including earned revenue, which helps provide self-sustainment.

• Deep Partnership: Based on the value gained from the engagement, Horizontal asked a Platypus to stay on as an advisory-board member.