About ShoeString Solutions for Non-Profits

Shoestring Solutions for Nonprofits was founded on the belief that many nonprofit organizations are not able to pursue strong grant programs due to staff or budget limitations. The Company helps nonprofits secure grants and assists larger organizations with enhancing their foundation and corporate giving programs.

About Ellisha Caplan and Lynn Calder, the Founders

Before Shoestring Solutions, Lynn Carter was a freelance grant writer. Lynn previously was Assistant Director, Foundation Relations at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate.  Prior to moving to Delaware, she served as Director of Communications, North America at the American University of Beirut’s New York Office and Assistant Director of Communications at the American University in Cairo.

Prior to co-founding Shoestring Solutions, Ellisha was the Director of Young Leadership at the Jewish Federation of Delaware. Prior to that, she was Annual Campaign Director at The Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation, Associate Director for Planning and Community Outreach, and Director of Young Adult and Women’s Divisions at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washtenaw County. Ellisha is deeply devoted to volunteerism. 

Hands-on Grant Writing & Grant Research: Shoestring knows that most non-profits lack the resources and funding to provide the high level of research and writing required to be competitive in securing grants. They work closely with you to assess your needs, discuss your goals and develop a plan that will help you attain maximum funding. Then, they put their excellent research and writing experience to work for you. They have helped non-profits secure over $XX million in grants and funding.

Strategy, Goals and Results

Problem/Challenge

As a participant in one of my Growth Strategies Webinar Series, Ellisha and Lynn were seeking to scale the business. They wanted to build a team of writers to do most of the grant writing (they would oversee and manage the writers) which would allow them to focus on other areas of the business.

The problem was, they did not know how to make it happen.

The Solution

Shoestring Solutions had great prospects for growth. The Company provided a great array of service offerings (i.e. grant research, grant reporting, development planning, etc.) that would be attractive to all kinds of non-profits. The key was defining the opportunity and then sequencing the action steps in implementing the growth strategy.

The approach we took included the following:

• Defined and vetted the best opportunities for growth
• Then we conducted a financial review focusing on cost of service, pricing, profit margin and found that cost of service was higher than Ellisha and Lynn knew, pricing was too low, and the profit margin would not allow them to implement their growth strategy. Subsequently, Ellisha and Lynn created a new pricing structure
• Developed a customer persona that represented the type of customer that was compatible with Shoestring’s service offering, pricing, and profit margin needs
• Developed an implementation strategy

Long-term Goals:

• Build out a robust team of writers
• National in scope
• Industry leader

The Final Results

• Year over year sales increased by 50%
• Current year sales projected to  double previous year
• Landed multiple major clients during the year
• Now up to 4 writers