December 20, 2004

Think Detroit
Best-Managed Nonprofit with a budget under $3 million

Think Detroit rethinks its mission while replacing funding

Judges knew the real test would come this year.

Think Detroit came through with flying colors, securing commitments from 60 individuals to make up for the lost funding, which represented the bulk of its $1.2 million annual operational budget.

In the midst of asking donors to make annual gifts of $500 or more for at least the next five years, the nonprofit shifted its focus away from technology toward leadership training to better meet its mission of building character in young people.

Think Detroit also cut its per-child operational cost and for the third year in a row provided service to an additional 1,000 participants over the year-earlier period on the same $1.2 million budget.

For all of those reasons, Think Detroit is Crain's Best-Managed Nonprofit among organizations with revenue of under $3 million.

Brenda Price, executive director of Black United Fund of Michigan Inc. in Detroit and a judge in this year's contest, was impressed with Think Detroit's forward-thinking plans to overcome the loss of funding not only for its immediate survival but for the future.

"This has been a combination of reaching out to new donors and keeping individual donations a higher priority than foundational dollars, because they are more sustainable in the long run," said Michael Tenbusch, who cofounded the organization in 1997 with Dan Varner to build character in Detroit children through sports and technology.

Earlier this year, the nonprofit shifted its focus from technology as a vehicle for helping to develop character to a weeklong leadership camp that emphasizes the habits of successful people.

Kids were using computers to go to wrestling Web sites and play games in the confines of their homes rather than playing on sports teams with their friends and benefiting from interaction with coaches who served as positive adult role models, Tenbusch said.

"We realized after six years that no matter how much money we were putting into it, we still weren't getting out of it what we wanted to," he said. "I think donors really responded to that."

The nonprofit in June secured $100,000 to create a coaching certification program with background checks and training in CPR, character development, sports rules and general health and nutrition.

Think Detroit also received a three-year, $420,000 grant from the Skillman Foundation in Detroit to help it take its programs to the most disadvantaged young people in the city.

The nonprofit has gone beyond just providing for operational expenses. "When times were really good, we put $1 million into renovations in Riverfront Park and spent $200,000 to renovate our leadership center in Detroit," Tenbusch said.

Continued cost-cutting through renegotiated vendor contracts and taking advantage of staff turnover to eliminate positions has helped Think Detroit lower its cost of serving 5,000 participants from $300 per child to $200. The group has maintained an operating budget of $1.2 million annually, in spite of adding an additional 3,000 participants the past three years.

Think Detroit's board is working with a key donor who gave $10,000 last year to establish an endowment for the board and now has committed $500,000 more toward it to use as leverage to gain matching donations.

The most important thing is that the nonprofit successfully meet its mission, Tenbusch said.

Last year Think Detroit began working with a management consultant who volunteered his services to help the nonprofit develop a system for evaluating its programs.

The organization now tracks on a weekly basis the number of children signed up to play on one of its sports teams, how many certified and trained coaches it has, its donor numbers and average gift amounts, number of meetings with donor prospects and number of family sponsors.

Not only did Think Detroit put in place a plan to offset the loss of most of its funding, it began using it last year before a crisis materialized, said Deana McGraw, president of Detroit Executive Service Corps in Southfield and a judge in this year's best-managed nonprofit contest.

"The other thing that impressed me was that they understood they needed to review their mission," she said.

Sherri Begin: (313) 446-1694, sbegin@crain.com