More Than Words

Financial Profile

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

MTW’s hybrid funding model offers the nonprofit organization a sustainable revenue base upon which it can build and grow.  During its first year of operation, MTW covered 22% of its expenses with earned revenue generated by youth-driven online book sales.  Since then, MTW has increased its earned revenue to cover approximately 35%–40% of its operating budget, while continuing to grow the overall organizational budget for critical programming.   

As the organization has grown over the past few years, MTW has leveraged its earned revenue to attract foundation support.  More recently, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) has taken notice of MTW’s success; DCF contracts currently cover approximately 10% of MTW’s operating budget, and the system is now recognizing MTW as a new approach to “support and stabilization” services for youth and families. 

To ensure financial sustainability, MTW plans to continue to strengthen its earned revenue through the efficient sourcing of book donations and improved marketing, while increasing foundation and DCF support and strengthening its yet untapped individual donor network.

A COST-EFFECTIVE MODEL

Because youth actually run the business, they not only receive more effective job training than they might otherwise, but also make their training more cost effective.  Youth offset the fully loaded cost of their MTW experience with every book they ship out or sell in their store.  While the actual training cost per youth at MTW is $10,000 per year, earned revenue reduces the cost per youth to only $7,000.  The impact of this figure is profound.  When youth succeed in an empowering experience at MTW, society avoids the cost of the alternative path for many of these youth keeping a young person in locked facilities comes with a price tag of approximately$70,000 per youth per year.