Case Study — Greater Twin Cities United Way
Overview
Co-Creating a Balance-Centered Ecosystem
The challenge:
Disrupt unbalanced systems and reimagine how philanthropy partners with community expertise. Traditional philanthropy often sidelines the very leaders best positioned to drive change. Community-rooted organizations in the Twin Cities achieved powerful outcomes but received less funding, limited trust, and little say in shaping their own support.
The solutions blueprint:
Through the Workforce Accelerator, we reframed philanthropy as a collaborative, co-designed journey. Guided by our Considerate Design™ framework, we centered community-led leadership, built peer networks for sustained growth, and transformed technical assistance into shared leadership. The result: enduring systems change, resilient networks, and lasting momentum toward impartially-driven philanthropy.
Essential Benefits of Engaging Imagine Deliver:
- We Reimagine Philanthropy with and for Community
Imagine Deliver transforms philanthropy by centering the wisdom and leadership of community-led changemakers. Through collaborative innovation and systems change, we help funders and partners shift from “doing for” communities to “creating with” them, resulting in solutions that are more just, effective, and enduring. - We Transform Capacity Building into Shared Growth
Our technical assistance model isn’t transactional, it’s a co-developed journey. We walk alongside organizations to build capacity that reflects their lived realities and aspirations. The result: partners feel empowered, not prescribed to. - We Design for Durability, Not Short-Term Wins
We focus on building practices, relationships, and systems that continue to thrive long after our direct involvement. This ensures communities and organizations have the tools to carry the work forward. - Our Impact Extends Beyond the Engagement
Imagine Deliver’s approach is intentionally expansive. The transformation sparked within a cohort, initiative, or organization doesn’t end when the formal work does. Instead, it radiates outward, creating lasting ripples of change across systems and sectors.
THE FULL STORY
Revealing Gaps to Ignite Bold Solutions
At Greater Twin Cities United Way (GTCUW), the first step in addressing uneven nonprofit funding is simply to name it. Staff confront the reality that leadership rooted in the community often achieves stronger results, yet receives far less support. “If we’re serious about solving enduring disparities, we have to be bold, radical, and transparent,” a GTCUW team member observed. This candid declaration set the tone for our partnership.
Together, Imagine Deliver and GTCUW launched the Workforce Accelerator, a cohort experience designed around grant recipients.
Imagine Deliver reframed philanthropy by centering community-led leaders in the Twin Cities through collaborative innovation and systems change.
IMPACT
Building Resilient Networks Through Real Connection
The impact of this work reached far beyond the accelerator itself. Through a deeply collaborative process, grantees began to share resources, exchange insights, and co-create new ways to overcome systemic challenges together. Participants gained a clearer understanding of what it truly takes to sustain their work, including the real cost of delivering impact and the types of support that make it possible.
Shifting from top‑down support to shared leadership
Imagine Deliver transformed technical assistance and capacity building into a co-developed journey.
Rather than prescribing solutions, we invited grantees to shape their own experience. Recognizing their lived knowledge, we embedded their voices into program design. Grantees moved from receiving support to co-leading solutions crafted for their unique contexts. This created more sustainable, relevant, and impactful outcomes.
The Resource
As part of the journey, we co‑authored a white paper with grantee input, documenting insights and learnings from the Workforce Accelerator. This output both captured our work and offered a guide for those who follow. It also reinforced our belief that peer learning and shared reflection catalyze stronger programming.
Inspiring a New Philanthropic Paradigm
Imagine Deliver works within the mindset of long-term durability. And our approach extended beyond the cohort’s duration.
Grantees began forming peer networks, sharing tools, insights, and approaches to complex challenges. Importantly, they gained clarity on what their work truly costs and the type of support that fuels growth. One year after the program wrapped in 2020, 85 percent of participants were still deeply engaged in serving their communities; 57 percent reported significant advancement in their organizational maturity.
Among the measurable results:
- One organization launched a distinct program model and diversified its funding.
- Others streamlined processes and leveraged technology to expand staffing and operations.
These successes reflect how a collaborative, thoughtfully designed process equips organizations for lasting impact.
“Let’s take the strength of one organization and combine it with the strength of another, and then make it a service.”
CONCLUSION
Inspiring Lasting Momentum Beyond One Project
The Workforce Accelerator’s ripple continues today. Energized by the white paper’s real-world outcomes and inspired by this peer-led vision, other funders and foundations are now exploring similar models. We see this as a signal of momentum toward philanthropy grounded in collaboration, innovation, and shared insight.
The Imagine Deliver difference: people as design partners
At the heart of our work is a simple belief: those closest to a challenge often hold its most transformative solutions. The most recent Workforce Accelerator exemplifies our approach: elevating community leaders as co-designers of their own strategy and support, not as recipients.
Grantees navigated complex systems with firsthand insight. That insight fueled tailored strategies and a reimagined support model co-developed for and by them.
Ready to turn your own project into a collaborative design journey? Let’s get started together.
