Elevate is a stable partner during a volatile year for nonprofits
Last year was an incredibly hard year for the nonprofit sector. In that context, the work of building—and protecting—reliable revenue mattered more than ever. At Elevate, we spent 2025 doing what we have done for more than a decade: showing up as a steady, strategic partner for nonprofit leaders navigating uncertainty.
We are proud that the numbers below tell part of that story.
Grant Revenue as a Stabilizing Force
In 2025, Elevate-supported organizations secured $137.2 million in grant funding, with a win rate of 47%. These results were not driven by a handful of extraordinary awards alone.
Instead, the median grant award was $30,000, reflecting the importance of consistent, renewable funding. The mean award was $159,797. These results reflect a funding landscape where consistency and diversification remain essential to organizational stability. Over the course of the year, our team supported the submission of 383 letters of inquiry, 1,534 grant proposals, and 760 grant reports, for a total of 2,677 deliverables.
This year, we also encouraged clients to make the most flexible ask possible in order to adapt to volatility in public funding. Whenever funders allowed it, general operating support or broadly defined program support became essential tools.
Last year, Elevate raised $29 million dollars in general operating grants for our clients, which is 21% of all dollars awarded.
Also this year, funder stewardship also became non-negotiable. Grantmakers increasingly prioritized existing grantees and organizations with whom they had strong, ongoing relationships. For some nonprofits, maintaining and deepening current funder relationships was the only viable path forward. Our team is proud to have raised $67.8 million in renewal funding, which is half of all funding awarded.
Finally, this year conservative forecasting was essential for nonprofit leaders to plan for uncertainty without overextending already stretched resources. We worked with our clients to deliver over 60 strategy projects including 45 revenue projections, which included a careful review of each current funder, their giving history, and their likelihood to renew. It also included 17 peer landscape analyses, which analyzed the giving trends and of peers to promote strategic decision-making for nonprofit leaders.
Supporting Nonprofits Across the Country
Overall, in 2025, Elevate worked with 102 organizations, including 99 retainer clients, across 20 states and 55 cities. These were nonprofits serving diverse communities, responding to urgent needs, and making difficult decisions under pressure.
This year, we also launched new services to support organizations as they navigate this phase, including our most streamlined service to date. Our Specialized Grant Services also worked with 9 specialized projects for clients, including peer landscapes, cases for support, and prospect research.
Building Long-Term Relationships
We are so proud that our average client tenure reached 4.5 years, a reflection of long-term trust and shared responsibility. And our longest client has now been with Elevate over a decade! In a volatile funding environment, many nonprofit leaders chose to stay with a partner who already understood their programs, their risks, and their institutional history.
A Team Built for This Moment
Supporting nonprofits through a year like 2025 required a team: 60 staff members, living and working across 26 states, bringing regional knowledge and national perspective to every engagement.
Our team logged more than 11,600 Zoom meetings, totaling over 1.5 million minutes, while managing 294 Monday.com projects in our project management system.
For our staff, we invested more than $15,700 in professional development and introduced weekly convenings to crowdsource info and tips across the company about changes they (and their clients) are witnessing across the sector. Our Social Connections Committee also hosted 8 events to facilitate community building and social activities allowing staff to connect through activities outside our day-to-day work, including our very popular Valentine’s Day Battle of Rom Coms, our annual Grant Professionals Day celebration, our Halloween Costume Contest, and our virtual Winter Party.
Other milestones we are celebrating this year include: three staff also welcomed new babies! Additionally, four staff who have been with Elevate over 6 years earned a paid sabbatical. Their adventures included trips to visit family, extensive home renovations, and walking 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago.
Sharing Knowledge in a Time of Change
Elevate also leaned into its role as a thought partner. In 2025, we hosted 13 webinars, including five free sessions, published 15 new blog posts, and convened three live Conversation Series events.
Many of these offerings focused on helping nonprofit leaders interpret and respond to rapidly changing conditions, including new administrative realities and funding constraints.
We were proud to partner with Grant Station on these efforts. We attended the Grant Professional Association annual conference in Baltimore, where you might have seen us!
In particular, we were proud to have three Elevate staff members present topics at this conference, including: Prospect Research Strategy; How to Build Meaningful Relationships with Private Grantmakers; and Infusing Empowerment Language in Grant Writing.
Looking Forward
Elevate has partnered with hundreds of nonprofits over the past decade, helping secure more than $1 billion in grant funding. In 2025, that experience mattered.
Today, our focus is sharper than ever: reducing risk for nonprofit leaders as they make critical decisions for their organizations.
We want Elevate to be the lowest-risk option for your grants program in this moment of uncertainty—not because the work is easy, but because we have built systems, expertise, and relationships designed to hold steady when conditions are anything but.
The challenges nonprofits face are real, and they are ongoing. But so is our commitment to standing with the sector through them. If you want to know how we can help you, please reach out!
