Giffords Case Study
The Opportunity
Led by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Giffords is dedicated to saving lives from gun violence by fighting to end the gun lobby’s stranglehold on our political system. Giffords’ goal was to increase their revenue by building a pipeline of foundation funders to support the organization’s C3 entity (previously Giffords Law Center). Additionally, they wanted to assess how foundations were approaching the issue of gun violence, and explore facets of their work that could be highlighted to reach untapped funding resources. Armed with that knowledge, Giffords then sought to reach these new audiences and further articulate the connection and critical role gun violence prevention plays in public health and safety writ large.
Our Work
SDSG approached Giffords’ challenge in two phases. We started first by assessing Giffords’ current donors, fundraising materials, proposals, and strategic plan to build a unique set of criteria for identifying possible foundation funders. Following the presentation of our initial findings, we pivoted to the second phase of work dedicated to pipeline development, researching and presenting a comprehensive prospective funder pipeline and accompanied recommendations on how they might explore and message a broader body of work to attract those prospective funders.
Client Services
Strategic Fundraising + Development
Funder Intelligence + Pipeline Development
Funder + Stakeholder Engagement
Client Results
As a result of our first phase of work, Giffords gained sightlines into the overall gun violence prevention funding landscape as a nascent funding sector. This included funding trends, insights on large funders, funder collaboratives, and the way both funders and advocacy organizations were positioning work to end gun violence. Following the second phase of our work, Giffords was equipped with a robust pipeline of qualified funders to begin cultivating and exploring potential funding relationships. SDSG provided a concise case statement, including modular language, that could be used to engage new audiences and further articulate their work and its broad-reaching implications.
