NonProfit NewsPod: SVP's Fast Pitch 2025 10th Anniversary Breaks Records. $260K Raised for Local Nonprofits

Jeff Holden: [00:00:00] Welcome to this nonprofit podcast News Pod. I'm speaking with Brad Squires, CEO of Sacramento Venture Philanthropy, Andrew Hayes, COO of Sacramento Venture Philanthropy. Gentlemen, welcome to the program. Thanks. Thank you. There's a specific purpose for this conversation, and that is to recognize the incredible accomplishments of an event that took place earlier this week, your 10th annual fast Pitch competition.

And having attended it, I can say it was all that. Brad, would you share a little bit with us about the event and the significance of it this year, your 10th year? 

Brad Squires: Yeah. You know, fast Pitch has become a staple of our community as a nonprofit. Capacity building program, helping nonprofits tell their story.

We call it a program versus a competition. It's really about the, the four months that the nonprofits put in the [00:01:00] work to distill their story into a three minute pitch. And then of course, we had our big showcase event this last week where we got 10 of the 16 participants on stage to share their pitch live in front of a, an audience, and we raised a whole bunch of money.

It was epic. 

Jeff Holden: How big was the attendance? If I'm not mistaken? You were sold out right? 

Brad Squires: We were sold out plus, so we, we, uh, definitely were, uh, bursting at the seams at the Sophia, which is a great event space. We, we love doing this event there. 

Jeff Holden: Roughly how many does that hold? 400. So 400 plus people, 

Brad Squires: yeah. 

Jeff Holden: Is huge.

That's. That's just amazing what a neat crowd it was. Having been there and seeing all the people, but to know that there was even a, a standing room only and a wait list to get in really lends a lot of credence to where the program has come over the course of its last 10 years. 

Brad Squires: We wanna fill the room with people that can help support these organizations.

You know, you've got nonprofits that are, you know, looking to raise funds, but also recruit donor of [00:02:00] volunteers and supporters of what they do. So this becomes a really great platform to both, for the attendee, the donors, and the organizations to make connections. 

Jeff Holden: Key word there. You had a sold out room, you had an outstanding group of cohorts, 10 of the best presentations that had been distilled down from, what was the total application?

Brad Squires: I mean, we had a, we had about 70 or so that applied for the program and then we chose the top 16 from that list. And then, you know, it was, it was interesting. Uh, all 16 did an amazing job and all of them have the tools now. To tell their story well, but we, you know, we have a process to choose the top 10 of those to be on stage.

But this year I will say it all did a great job. 

Jeff Holden: That's great to hear. And then you have judging from incredible community leaders and there's a fundraising function as well, right? Yeah. Drew, would you walk us through what that process is and then we'll culminate with what the entire take for the night was?

Drew Hayes: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we've been working, as you mentioned on this for the past [00:03:00] 10 years and trying to level it up a little bit each year. One of the biggest ways that we did that this year from a sort of back of house side was on the technology piece. And so RAD built an awesome app for all of our check-ins, our registration process, but it also had built into it the donation component, which has been sort of a separate piece in the years past.

So what that meant for, you know, our attendees is that when they checked in they can set up their account and get ready to not only donate live throughout the event, but be ready for the live auction and paddle raise and all of that. It was really a pretty seamless experience from, you know, from an attendee perspective and it helped us out a lot on the back end as well.

Just being able to get all that information quickly, efficiently, and then be able to turn around those donations back to the nonprofits. 

Jeff Holden: To your point, the technology on this thing, you're sitting in the audience. People are typing away on their phones and, and making donations to their favorite organizations as they see them present.

But you're seeing it live in real time, on the screen behind [00:04:00] the stage where it's amazing just to see that tally just keep rolling and rolling and rolling up for the organizations and see the organization shift. It's really exciting as a attendee to be able to watch that. 

Drew Hayes: And that was another key component of the technology piece as well, a piece that we have had challenges with in the past and being able to see all those donations live, just like you said.

So the leaderboard was really impactful and I think the combination of the technology, making it easier for attendees to be able to donate as well as the visual aspect, just like you mentioned of that leaderboard, being able to see, have the excitement growing, see their favorite nonprofit rising up the leaderboard.

Um, it just all came together really well. 

Jeff Holden: That was an amazing part of the evening, and I'm sure equally as exciting for anybody in the audience who is a member of that organization, just seeing, oh my gosh, look what we've got on the board. That's X and it's x plus and it's x plus plus as it just keeps going on through the evening.

So the big question is, what was [00:05:00] the total that was raised that evening? 

Drew Hayes: So, you know, this was actually a record setting year in a number of ways, but definitely from the donations perspective, we had a little bit over a hundred thousand in live donations from the audience members directly to their favorite nonprofit or to all of the nonprofits perhaps.

And then we also had. Paddle raises and live auction. One of the other cool elements this year was a match from an awesome organization, which I'll let Brad talk about in a second if you would like. And then we always have our awards from our fund partners, right? So they're the SVP partners that participate in our fund.

And so we had over $50,000 from that fund and awards all told. We raised over $260,000 for the nonprofits that evening, and so we're in the process of dividing that up and getting them their checks. Later this week, they'll be pretty excited to get those message. 

Jeff Holden: $260,000 is an amazing amount of quarter of a million dollars plus that it's fed back into our organizations [00:06:00] who desperately need it.

And if I'm not mistaken, that was significantly over last year. Yes. 

Drew Hayes: More than double. Yeah, it was. So we've had over, uh, doubling this year in terms of the number of donations and the, and the grand total that we were able to raise. Obviously super excited to have that going back to these incredible organizations in the Sacramento region, 

Brad Squires: I'll add, uh, the event itself is, is great.

We generate, you know, quarter million dollars plus in new, new, in revenues for these organizations, but now they have the tools to go out and raise money for their own organizations. We see, uh, over the past 10 years, we've seen incredible progress made with. The clarity that Fast Pitch gives the nonprofits to tell their story well, to then go out to funders and volunteers and board members and help to catalyze further funding.

So these, these organizations will move on to raise hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars more over the next few years having these tools in their tool belt. 

Jeff Holden: I'll compliment you on this as well, Brad, because we see the organizations that have obviously come through our studio [00:07:00] and the ones who have been through Fast Pitch are different than those who have not.

And their ability to tell the story, to be a little bit more concise, to have an understanding of what they want to say when they get in studio for the long form element of that story is different. And we, we appreciate what you do as well because we see it in the ability of them to get their story told.

In most cases better. Yeah, you do so much more than just this. In terms of what SVP provides, share with us the benefits of the organization just a little bit so we can clarify that for some people. 'cause they see it as a fast pitch, but they really don't know all the other things that are behind it.

Brad Squires: Sacramento Venture Philanthropy, SVP, we're, we're all about building nonprofit capacity to help these organizations do more with, with less. We do that through a community of donors that wanna get involved by contributing to our fund. And so donors are partners, they give money to our fund. That's how we [00:08:00] fund things like Fast Pitch, but then we also mobilize them and give them ways to connect with nonprofits with their time.

So we do strategy sessions. We take a handful of our, our partners. Business people that wanna help, not just with giving money, but actually help with guidance and strategic advice. And so we do these mastermind sessions with a few nonprofits. Uh, we call 'em think tanks, and we do a bunch of things like that.

We just create these unique experiences for. Donor philanthropists to connect with the nonprofit community. Again, beyond just giving money and also giving some time and being involved. 

Jeff Holden: Before we wrap, is there anybody you wanna give a shout out to for their participation that that really made this a success?

I know there's a lot of people that are involved. These things don't happen. With just a couple. 

Drew Hayes: Yeah. Well, I'll definitely take a moment to shout out to a few of our sponsors here. You know, one of the cool things about Fast Pitch is that that $260,000 we mentioned, none of that goes to putting the event on.

All of that goes directly [00:09:00] back to those nonprofits. And part of the reason we're able to do that is our amazing sponsors. And so our title sponsor was US Bank This year, uh, we just had a wide range. Wilton Rancheria. First time sponsor this year. Longtime partner, Sacramento Region Community Foundation. We had all told, you know, about 25 sponsors this year.

I can't list them all here, unfortunately. But the full list is available on our website and on our social media. Just amazing organizations helping us do what we're doing and, you know, increase awareness and give these nonprofits a, a bigger stage. 

Jeff Holden: And we were proud to be a partner this year as well.

Yeah, so just extraordinary in everything that you guys are doing. Education, collaboration, connection, and last but not least, funding. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that for a nonprofit. Thank you for all the work that goes into this program and more, maybe most importantly, thank you for what comes out of it, and congratulations on a hugely successful 10th anniversary.

Brad Squires: Awesome. Thank you, uh, Jeff, and thanks for all you do for this, uh, this region, for our nonprofit [00:10:00] ecosystem telling good stories. So keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it.