How GrowFundMe supports small, BIPOC-led organizations building lasting change.
Most people understand why locally owned small businesses matter.
They create jobs, reflect the culture and values of a neighborhood, and make our communities vibrant places to live. Their importance is not measured by their size, but by their connection to the people they serve.
Small nonprofits play a similar role.
Across King County, small nonprofits are often founded by people who are closest to a community’s challenges and opportunities. They build trust, develop leaders, strengthen communities, and create solutions that larger institutions often cannot. Their impact comes from proximity, relationships, and a deep understanding of the communities they serve.
In many ways, these organizations represent what we say we want community change to look like: community-led, culturally relevant, responsive, and rooted in lived experience.
At SVP Seattle, we focus on small, BIPOC-led nonprofits because we believe community-led organizations are essential drivers of lasting change. These organizations are often closest to the challenges facing their communities and best positioned to deploy solutions that work. Yet they are also among the least likely to receive the funding, visibility, and support needed to sustain and grow their impact.
According to the 2025 Communities of Color Index from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, communities of color make up 44.3% of the United States population, yet nonprofits led by and serving those communities receive just 2.9% of philanthropic funding.
At the same time, small nonprofits are not the exception. They are the norm. Research shows that 92% of nonprofits in the United States operate with annual budgets under $1 million. They make up the backbone of our nonprofit sector, providing critical services, building community power, and responding to local needs every day.
The question is not whether these organizations are making a difference. The question is what becomes possible when we invest in their growth.
That is why we created GrowFundMe.
GrowFundMe is a six-month program designed to strengthen the fundraising capacity of small, BIPOC-led nonprofits. Through workshops, peer learning, one-on-one support, and skilled volunteer engagement, nonprofit leaders build practical fundraising tools, strengthen their case for support, and develop a roadmap for sustainable growth.
But GrowFundMe is about more than fundraising.
It is about investing in leaders who are already creating change in their communities. It is about building relationships across race, class, culture, and lived experience. And it is about reimagining philanthropy as something we do with communities, not for them.
This year, seven nonprofit leaders have spent six months working alongside SVP Partners to strengthen their fundraising and storytelling skills and prepare for the next stage of growth.
On June 11, those leaders will take the stage at GrowFundMe: Thrive to share their vision, their work, and what is possible when we invest in community-led change.
Together, we are working to raise $140,000 to be shared equally among the seven participating nonprofits. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we have already raised $50,000 toward that goal.
The event may be sold out, but there is still time to support the cohort.
Every contribution to the GrowFundMe pooled fund is an investment in organizations that are building stronger, healthier, and more equitable communities across King County.
Because when small, community-rooted nonprofits thrive, our communities thrive.