Nia Imani Family, a Milwaukee-based organization addressing housing instability used WPP funding for the project Sustainable Institutional Advancement Strategy Planning and Support. Through the project, the organization partnered with a grant professional to strengthen its fundraising capacity and support organizational growth. The project established a grant team, shared filing system, grant calendar and processes for managing funding opportunities, applications and reporting. These improvements allowed staff to focus on expanding programs for young parents, youth and community members while building more sustainable institutional funding.
Nia Imani Family (NIF) expanded beyond its transitional housing program for young mothers and children to offer public programming for young fathers and other community members. This expansion responds to longstanding community input and a UW-Milwaukee study highlighting the program’s quality and positive long-term outcomes for families. However, NIF needed more sustainable and reliable institutional funding to support the new programming, address existing facility capital needs, and increase the number of people served.
This need is especially important in the neighborhoods surrounding NIF’s 25th and Vliet St facilities. NIF primarily serves economically disadvantaged young parents experiencing housing insecurity in the 53205 ZIP code, where the average household income is $22,526. Without diversified funding and stronger fundraising processes, NIF faced challenges sustaining and expanding programming focused on co-parenting, fatherhood, conflict resolution and applied arts-based education.
The project aimed to diversify and improve the reliability of NIF’s funding streams so it could expand from serving 10 families in transitional housing to reaching dozens of community members. This increased capacity would support programming that strengthens parenting and co-parenting skills, promotes father engagement, teaches conflict resolution and helps families access healthcare, academic support and other resources needed to maintain stable households.
Nia Imani Family strengthened its capacity to identify, secure and retain institutional funding. Despite employee turnover, the organization contracted with a grant professional consultant, assembled a grant team and established systems for managing the full grant life cycle. This included creating a shared file system, gathering application materials, improving grant eligibility and competitiveness, and integrating grant activities into its data management system.
NIF also developed a grant calendar that tracks funding opportunities, relationship-building activities and reporting deadlines. The team monitored listservs, submitted grant applications and reports, held monthly meetings and received training on grant development, compliance and management. The consultant also provided capital planning assistance and conducted a government grant risk assessment.
Following the arrival of a new executive director on August 1, 2025, NIF also identified lapsed funders and drafted a letter co-signed by the former and new executive directors to rebuild those fundraising relationships. Overall, the award created stronger fundraising systems and internal capacity to sustain NIF’s programming and support its continued growth.
This project was awarded as part of WPP’s 20th anniversary grant program.
