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Accelerator’s Customized Approach

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Accelerator Home

Walking Hand in Hand with Organizations Through Their Development

The DANA Nonprofit Accelerator Program offers a unique three-year journey for existing small nonprofits dedicated to serving historically excluded communities. Our program is designed to provide continuous technical assistance, coaching, connecting, and consulting to strengthen your organization’s leadership and capacity for long-term sustainability and expanded community impact.

Our ultimate goal is to help participating nonprofits and their boards and leadership develop a culture that ensures their continued impact in communities in need. By the end of the three-year program, we aim to see these organizations become larger employers, with sustainable financial streams of support, and ready to serve as partners with government entities or philanthropic organizations in improving local communities.

Accelerator’s Cohort model creates opportunities for shared learning and potential partnerships through a peer learning model.

Participating nonprofit leaders and their boards of directors will have a DANA staff member support them through the program.

  • Support to strengthen the Board, Leader, and Organizational Processes
  • Customized to each organization’s unique goals
  • Dedicated time for learning, application, and integration into the organization
  • Fellowship and shared experience with other nonprofit leaders
  • Routine evaluation to track progress
  • DANA Membership
Are You Accelerator Ready?

Accelerator is Designed to Meet Your Organization Where You Are: Two Accelerator Pathways: Catalyst and Booster

  • Both pathways aim to enhance and amplify your organization’s impact, focusing on strengthening and scaling its efforts.
  • Based on organizational needs, participating nonprofits will be designated towards one of two developmental pathways.
  • Participation in the DANA Nonprofit Accelerator Program is structured to ensure affordability and consider the time it takes to build capacity. 
  • Thanks to government and philanthropic support, participating nonprofits will contribute only 10% towards the overall cost. 

The Catalyst Pathway:  

Nonprofits who have a reputation of high impact but have a very small-scale structure. These organizations need a combination of back-office support, policies & procedure technical assistance, planning, and leadership development support to scale and sophisticate their operations.  They have access to up to 500 hours each of the program’s first two years for operational support and up to 300 hours in the final year. 

Catalyst Pathway Cost:    

  • Participating Nonprofit Organizations will spend an estimated 8 to 10 hours per month participating in Accelerator activities.  
  • Catalyst Year One Fee: $8,000  
  • Catalyst Year Two Fee: $8,000
  • Catalyst Year Three Fee: $6,000  
  • The total Three-Year Value of DANA Services is over $220,000
  • Payment schedules are available to assist with cashflow needs 
  • Nonprofits that complete their annual goals will have a portion of their fee returned at the end of each year. 

The Booster Pathway:  

Nonprofits in this pathway have some systems but need coaching, planning, and leadership development support to strengthen and scale their impact in the community. These organizations with existing systems need coaching and planning support. Organizations have up to 200 hours each of the first two years of the program for operational support and up to 100 hours in the final year. 

Booster Pathway Cost:

  • Participating Nonprofit Organizations will spend an estimated 8 to 10 hours per month participating in Accelerator activities. 
  • Booster Year One Fee: $5,000  
  • Booster Year Two Fee: $5,000  
  • Booster Year Three Fee: $3,000
  • The total Three-Year Value of DANA Services is over $130,000 
  • Payment schedules are available to assist with cashflow needs
  • Nonprofits that complete their annual goals will have a portion of their fee returned at the end of each year.  

Click here to see an example of the Catalyst and Booster Nonprofit Goals and Use of Hours.

Application Process

DANA’s Nonprofit Accelerator Participants Receive the Following:

DANA Expertise
Organizational Assessments to guide opportunities for growth
Three customized Cohort Workshops each year
Access to DANA workshops & On-Demand Courses
Executive Director Peer-to-Peer learning cohort
Bank of Technical Assistance Hours
Bank of Organizational Support Hours
DANA Staff Support
Program Navigator: The Go-to Person for Accelerator – Meet Jen here!

Contact Person

Dan Davis

Program Director

[email protected]



Funded in part through a grant with the U.S. Small Business Administration.