Beyond Dollars
Capacity Is a Poverty-Fighting Investment
The Constellation Fund pairs financial support with expert talent, helping high-impact nonprofits build the systems, strategies, and leadership strength to extend their reach.
Through Beyond Dollars, talented professionals contribute the specialized expertise that many nonprofits need but cannot afford, turning capacity-building into another engine for lasting, measurable impact. And 2026 showed what makes the program work.
Mapping the Path to Growth
Ready, Set, Smile had a vision: take its school-based preventive dental care beyond the Twin Cities. What it needed was a map and McKinsey & Company helped create one. The work paired market and organizational analysis with financial, workforce, and infrastructure planning, producing a phased growth strategy and cost model. The estimated value: $550,000.
Building AI Fluency
Great MN Schools used a different kind of capacity boost. Through an introduction from Constellation, Anthropic provided six months of Claude Enterprise access, personalized implementation support, and one-on-one sessions with a Customer Success Manager. Instead of staff experimenting with AI separately, the organization built shared expertise and tools that can improve efficiency and broaden families’ access to its resources.
As Jennifer Stern, Great MN Schools CEO shared, “These supports have fundamentally shifted how we use technology platforms to find efficiencies in our work and further our mission.”
The result is a new kind of ROI. Return On Involvement. Nonprofits gain tools and capabilities that last, volunteers see their expertise create community value, and every grant has more potential to go further.
