At a Crossroads: Mergers, Partnerships, and Strategic Options for Nonprofits

Join us for coffee and breakfast bites as we explore one of the most consequential decisions a nonprofit leader can face — whether and how to pursue a partnership, merger, or structural collaboration with another organization. Whether you're actively weighing options or simply want to understand the landscape before you need to, this session will give you a clearer framework for thinking through what's possible.

Through expert facilitation, you'll explore the full spectrum of partnership structures, learn what actually makes these deals work (and what sinks them), and get grounded in the financial, legal, operational, and cultural realities that shape every strategic decision of this kind.

You will:

Understand your options. Learn from facilitators who help mission-driven organizations think through these choices every day. From fiscal sponsorship to fuller forms of collaboration, you'll leave knowing what each path means. And you'll understand when each one fits.

Learn what makes collaboration work. Our facilitators will cover the financial, legal, operational, and cultural realities every leader should understand before beginning any partnership conversation. You'll know which questions to ask. You'll also recognize the warning signs to watch for.

Assess your readiness. You'll use a simple scorecard to rate your organization across five key areas. You'll identify your strengths. And you'll spot the places where a partner could add real value.

Connect with leaders like you. Sit alongside nonprofit and social enterprise leaders navigating the same strategic questions, and share what you're each grappling with together.

In just a few hours, you'll leave with a completed readiness scorecard, a clearer view of your options, and at least one concrete next step.

Meet Your Workshop Co-Facilitator, Colleen Kazemi

Colleen Kazemi is a cross-sector leader with 15+ years spanning Silicon Valley tech, biotech entrepreneurship, and nonprofit leadership. She built her career at companies like Netscape/AOL, Teradata, and the Impact Angel Group, co-founded and exited an AgBiotech startup, and served as CEO of SVP Denver, leading its transition through COVID. Today, through Synergy5280, she coaches mission-driven CEOs and senior leaders and helps social enterprises build diversified revenue strategies, forge strategic partnerships, and navigate M&A opportunities, all while keeping their mission and their people thriving.

Meet Your Workshop Co-Facilitator, Russ Williams

Russ Williams is a Partner at West Elk Partners, a lower middle market private equity firm that makes control investments in specialty manufacturing, value-add distribution, and food production businesses. A CFA Charterholder with a background in CFO consulting and complex securities valuation, he focuses on financial infrastructure, reporting, and planning that helps owners build long-term value without compromising their legacy. Russ joined Social Venture Partners in 2016 through a partnership with the Denver Children's Foundation, and most of his work since has supported nonprofit leadership teams on strategy, systems, mergers, and organizational structure.

Meet Your Workshop Co-Facilitator, Alan Frosh

Alan Frosh is a passionate strategist invested in maximizing efficient and engaging philanthropy. As a sixth-generation Denver native, Alan is deeply committed to the community in which he was raised and has made his career, and he’s eager to partner with other individuals, organizations and funders with the same objectives.

About Social Venture Partners Denver

SVP Denver is the metro area's premier community of engaged philanthropists who provide pro bono consulting, advising, training, and impact investing opportunities to early stage nonprofits and social enterprises. In its 25 year history, SVP Denver has helped scale over 400 organizations through more than 20,000 hours of pro bono support and $25MM invested.

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