Core funding impact story: Dylott

The mission of DYLOTT (Developing Young Leaders of Tomorrow Today) is to address barriers to economic security for Black youth and young professionals. We prioritize relationship-building in niche career fields such as diplomacy and cybersecurity in order to dismantle traditional barriers to entry and invisibility of secure employment opportunities.

As a Black-led, Black-serving and Black-focused (B3) nonprofit organization, there already  exists a plethora of systemic forces working against DYLOTT’s mission to specifically serve the diverse needs of Black youth and young professionals. Of particular note are the challenges faced by B3 organizations that are offering new and innovative programs that deviate from the kinds of programs that are traditionally funded. These challenges include a lack of relationship and visibility to funders with similar interests, a requirement to compete with larger, more well-resourced organizations for limited pools of project-based funding and the expectation to possess core infrastructure viability without the provision of the necessary capacity-building financial support necessary to do so. 
 
As a result, a lack of core funding stunts DYLOTT’s impact possibilities from an organizational, psychological and community trust perspective. Project-based funding creates and perpetuates an environment of lack of confidence from society that the organization will survive beyond the end of the funded project; thus fulfilling stereotypical narratives about the success trajectory of Black businesses. Further, there is a replication of precarious and impoverished economic conditions – the same conditions that the organization was created to dismantle are being experienced within the organization. What these amount to are:

• Delayed start or cancellation of programming
• Decline in quality of programming due to patchwork of services
• Restriction to serve Black communities within the immediate vicinity; and opportunities to test scalability are eliminated.

Consequently, pervasive lack of core funding directly contributes to high staff and board member turnover rates; further de-stabilizing the infrastructure necessary for the organization to be sustainable. In this regard, DYLOTT is unable to retain adequate talented, committed and well-informed operations team and board of directors, given the specialization of our  programming. Having to always be “putting out fires” results in leadership burnout due to requirements to do everything from program delivery to fundraising. Organizational risks become more entrenched and manifest through:

• Lowered morale each time a project-based funding application is declined
• Unstable and unpredictable compensation for staff
• Contrary conditions to decent work and economic growth for organization predominantly serving Black youth and women
• Mental and physical exhaustion in pursuing every project-based grant pool to enable full program deliverables
• Inability to fulfill strategic mission and vision as the organization can only plan for days or weeks at a time

Unrestricted and core funding would enable DYLOTT to provide permanency, predictability and consistency to the staff team, program participants and the communities we serve. It would also allow us to build out wraparound aspects of our programs that have been proven to have positive complementary impacts within much more manageable timeframes. Further, reduced pressure related to time constraints of project-based funding would allow us to pursue other forms of revenue for the organization that is independent of grants and donations that change based on political will.