A recent grant from Inland Empire Community Foundation through the Riverside County ARPA Fund is allowing one nonprofit to strengthen its mission to provide entrepreneurs facing discrimination and other barriers smoother access to mentorship, valued resources, and a supportive network of peers.
Caravanserai—Alliance for Entrepreneurs Program Manager Sierra Sims says the grant elevates the nonprofit’s ongoing efforts to help ground organizational leads and teams in achieving their social impact goals.
“The funding also helps us continue working with organizations to build a strong infrastructure that allows them to sustain their work in their organizations,” Sims said. “Some of the things include sound financial management, adopting best practices for things like resource management, as well as developing sustainable business plans and long-term growth strategies.”
Sims believes the grant will extend the nonprofit’s reach, particularly with several unique programs.
“At a recent grant writing program, we did two cohorts which assisted organizations in learning how to write grants and in what ways to approach them,” she said. “It was also important to show them how to do the research on finding grants.”
A financial management program was also on the docket, another for fund development. The programs were offered to more than 180 different organizations in the region.
Caravanserai was founded in 2016 with a clear goal to facilitate the skills of individuals from marginalized, under-resourced communities to create for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations that would produce economic mobility, financial security, and systemic change.
Its programs are free, and Sims points out that Caravanserai can also customize and even develop new programs to a client’s needs.
Recent milestones include being selected by the Orange County Inland Empire Small Business Development Center (SBDC) to host the newest SBDC in the area. The organization has also been praised for the unique way it provides access to funding, particularly connecting organizations to significant capital resources, including grants and small business/micro loans.
The horizon also looks bright.
“One of the things we’ve recently done is change our name from Caravanserai Project to Caravanserai—Alliance for Entrepreneurs, which I think helps share the story about what we do as an organization,” Sims said. “Another one of our goals is to provide technical assistance to nonprofit and for-profit businesses and help them identify opportunities for revenue and being able to diversify their funding sources.”
This allows the organization to move beyond relying strictly on specifically just grants and donations.
“Something we really enjoy doing is helping build that strong infrastructure,” Sims said, “because that will allow organizations to sustain themselves beyond just working with us. We want to see them thrive far past their work with us.”
In addition to becoming an official SBDC now, Caravanserai—Alliance for Entrepreneurs has also worked in key partnership with IEHP Foundation, yet another change agent in the region. IEHP Foundation supports CBOs and community leaders in both San Bernardino and Riverside counties, aiming to progress exceptional health through such things as public policy and advocacy, and leveraging funding for local community-based organizations.
“Working in that partnership enabled us to provide crucial financial resources, including $5,000 grants for each participant that addressed their capacity-building needs,” Sims said. “We were able to do two cohorts in both San Bernardino and Riverside County, totaling 60 different organizations.”
Looking toward 2025, Sims says the organization is generating a Seed Lab, a yearly program where 11 organizations—both non- and for-profit—are welcomed.
“We spend eight months with them doing intensive work and training, and then we celebrate them at the end of the year with a big event that allows them to pitch their organizations to hundreds of individuals,” Sims added.
Learn more at caravanseraiproject.org.
This story originally appeared in the Desert Sun, December 2024.
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