What About Sustainability at SYM?

Mission Capital calls sustainability one of six critical criteria for a nonprofit to be highly effective and impactful. They break sustainability into six components, listed below along with Street Youth Ministry’s examination of its performance on each:

1. "Our budget process and reporting are fiscally sound, transparent and based on realistic assumptions." We're fantastic on this point. We have had a monthly budget every year since 2008, and we recently changed to a rolling 18- month budget that we adopt each June to give us even stronger planning capability.

2. "We have a well-developed positioning of our organization within our competitive and cooperative landscape." SYM is engaged in a very highly focused area of ministry for homeless young people through age 28, and we cooperate with the few others who also focus on serving our clients: LifeWorks, Micah 6 Street Youth and LINC Austin. We have for several years acted as a thought leader, innovator and convening point for discussion among fellow caregivers for street youth in our neighborhood. We are on the advisory committee for the city as they look to refocus how they spend their budget on homeless services in 2019. And we are part of HUD's effort to change by 2020 systems that provide housing to street youth under 25.

3. "Our board and staff operate as ambassadors, regularly and visibly interacting with donors." We consider every interaction important to our organization and ultimately for our clients. We provide public speaking and awareness-raising, volunteer opportunities, service learning opportunities and projects, and training opportunities. We work as members of the communities in which we find ourselves.

4. "We have an actionable fund development plan that guides our strategy, staffing and activities." SYM has "broken even" every year of its operation since 2008 by providing our supporters and staff with a clear view of where we are and where we need to go. Each of our missionaries is a support-raising staff member. It is part of our training, job duty, and calling to come on board the ministry. Even so, our full cost to raise funds is $5.21 per $100.

5. "Our funding portfolio is stable and predictable." Every supporter is valued, but sustaining donors with repeat giving patterns bring stability and predictability to our operations and are highly prized. SYM analyzes the giving pattern of supporters continuously and has sustaining donors who account for 50 to 60 percent of our operational need for cash gifts. Sustaining donors had an annual giving power of $190,000 in June 2018.

6. "Every nonprofit program should have a clear revenue strategy.” Our programs are financially viable and incorporate earned revenue opportunities where possible. We have implemented many innovative features that give us a degree of sustainability, and we continue to examine the possibility of integrating more over time. First, we have developed a strong system of in-kind donation processing capability that assures access to clothing, camping gear, and other items our clients need. And we have developed a food recovery and donation system that allows us to receive donations to feed our clients healthy, organic and wholesome meals. Both of these require human resources and systems, but they brought us a benefit of $70,788 in 2017. We also invest heavily in creating meaningful volunteer roles and systems so our volunteers can help us in our daily work. Each volunteer hour costs us $2.56 in systems or human resources overhead to manage, but that brought us a minimum benefit of $74,700 ($4,980 hours @ $15/hour) in 2016. In addition, we have strong Salesforce capability and skilled enough to offer consulting or software products to help other nonprofits use Salesforce more effectively. We could compact some of our facility space to free up room for an ongoing business concern to further boost sustainability.