Creating an organization that does good work and fills a need in the community is one thing­–and a very good thing. Yet, many such good organizations fail. Building an organization that makes a difference year after year after year is another thing altogether–and altogether more difficult.

Jim Garcia, founding board member and current executive director of Clínica Tepayac has done exactly that, helping lead the grassroots inner-city clinic for more than 20 years.

We have been there with him nearly every step of the way.

“It’s been a great relationship,” Garcia said. “Clínica had only been in existence for a year or two when we realized the community really valued what we were doing and we knew we needed to start thinking long term and figure out how to sustain ourselves.

“Someone told me to talk to Janine Vanderburg if I wanted to get a handle on growth and how to sustain it. The board realized it would be a challenge to sustain even the modest services we were providing then. Myself and one other board member told the board that we needed to hire a grant writer, but the board was very concerned about the cost and whether we could afford to do that. We made the point that we couldn’t afford not to do it, so we signed our initial grant writing contract with JVA. Looking back on that, everyone would say we made the right call.”

In looking at the role grants have played in Clínica’s growth over the years, Garcia pointed to one of the first grants we helped the clinic with. “They had helped us get some small grants to fund operations, but our first big grant, for about $120,000, came from the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development in 1996 to fund an expansion. That was huge for us, It felt like a multimillion-dollar grant. It was exhilarating,” he said.

“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since we got that first phone call from Jim,” Vanderburg said. “It has been such an honor to work with Jim and the entire staff and board of  Clínica. Today, Jim is as much a friend as a client.”

In explaining why Clínica is still working with us 20 years after that first phone call, Garcia credited both our grant writing success and the quality of the relationship itself.

“JVA has always been very successful in telling our story. Janine has always understood the importance of having grant writers who were a good fit for us, people who could connect both with our mission and with our leadership,” he said. “Having that long-term trust has been extremely important, and JVA has just been very successful in helping us get grants.”

Our grant writer Collin Lessing, who has written most of Clínica’s recent grants, says  Clínica is a dream client.

“Writing grants is never easy, but when you have a client with a good story to tell, a client who delivers results and puts every dollar to really good use, then the actual grant writing is not only a little easier, but is very rewarding as well,” Lessing said.

“Clínica has made so much difference in Denver’s underserved communities, bringing healthcare to the inner city and treating every client with the respect and dignity they deserve. Every time a grant is awarded to Clínica, it is truly a win, not just for Clínica, but for Colorado.”

Our relationship with Clínica extends well beyond grant writing, into strategic planning, program evaluation and other areas.

Talking about strategic planning, Garcia said that having a partner who has been involved with the organization since the earliest days is a big advantage.

“Having Janine givs us the continuity of working with someone who knows our board and staff and understands our mission and vision. She helps us think through how to plan effectively for the future. She helps us step back and see the big picture. The retreats JVA has planned and run for us have been an invaluable part of our success,” Garcia said.

He said our help with strategic planning goes well beyond the occasional retreat and helping with the creation of plans, and that he has come to rely on our advice whenever difficult issues come up.

“Janine and the staff have been a sounding board for issues around board selection and development, governance and leadership. I have relied on conversations with Janine over and over through the years,” Garcia said.

As everyone in nonprofit management knows, it is not enough to do good work. You have to be able to measure the good you do, and that is an area where we also work with Clínica.

“The reality today is that funders, foundations, government agencies, corporate donors and even individual donors want to know what we think constitutes success,” Garcia said.  “We need to prove that we are meeting those standards of success and we need to be able to explain how we are measuring success and why we chose those metrics. They want to know what evaluation tools we are using. That has always been important, but today funders across the board have the expectation that you evaluate programs and prove their effectiveness, and JVA has been a great partner for us in this area as well.

“It is amazing how consistent JVA has been in the quality of work they have done for us over 20 years. Janine and the staff are always on the cutting edge of thought leadership, understanding the latest concepts and the trends affecting organizations like ours, trends in fundraising, organizational development and other issues. That consistency of always being on the cutting edge speaks to how successful JVA has been and is the mark of a successful firm.

“To the extent that any small nonprofit can be, we are on solid ground. We can never get complacent, but we are a very stable organization. We have met the challenges we have faced. We are still meeting the needs of the community that we set out to meet more than 20 years ago. To no small extent, we have accomplished this because of the help and support of JVA.”