Initial Five-Year Plan
(2025 – 2029)

Sunflower Outreach’s initial (Phase 1) capital and operating plan will run from 2025 to 2029. We will launch, nurture, grow and sustain the new organization in three areas of the southeast United States… Atlanta, Georgia; Savannah, Georgia; and, Charleston, South Carolina. Sunflower Outreach will then grow intentionally and opportunistically throughout the United States focusing on those cities and towns that lack a synergy between art and mental wellness.

We anticipate Phase 2 of the organization’s capital and operating plan to run from 2030 to 2034 and focus on expanding into a wider global geography.

Strategy I: Seed, Promote, and Grow Sunflower Outreach

Build a high-performing organization with effective supporting infrastructure that facilitates an innovative art-centric style of mental wellness care, with sufficient capacity in areas of: wellness offering; fund development; stakeholder, public and community relations; marketing and communications; and financial management; and executive leadership.

SEED Initiative: Establish and Sustain a High-Performing Organization with Strategic Clarity, Financial Discipline, Operational Efficiency, and Effective Governance

• Conduct Market Assessment and Positioning Study

• Develop 2025-2029 Capital Budget & 2025 Operations Budget

• Build strategies and support systems for annual and capital fundraising to include:

  • Donor Identification, Research, Wealth Screening and Management Tools

  • Spring and Fall Annual Appeals (beginning 2026)

  • Two annual signature special events (beginning 2026)

    • Early-spring benefit show in Atlanta

    • Late-summer event in Charleston or Savannah

  • Solicit major gifts and sponsorships through individual giving, public and private grants/foundations, corporations.

  • Encourage planned giving and third-party events.

• Build and maintain organization

  • We anticipate four dedicated employees for initial three markets (Atlanta, GA; Savannah, GA; and, Charleston, SC)

  • Enlist eleven-member Board of Directors.

  • Recruit volunteers, support through involvement, education, and training.

• Develop organizational support systems and tools

  • Virtual/remote work environment with necessary equipment, information systems, professional fees, and financial management/decision support tools

  • Onboarding training and tools

PROMOTE Initiative: Advance Sunflower Outreach and its Mission Through Effective Marketing, Communications, Public and Stakeholder Relations

• Strengthen Sunflower Outreach’s Brand

  • Partner with a professional PR and marketing firm, develop clear messaging strategies, tactics, and budget to significantly raise awareness of Sunflower Outreach and its mission.

  • Identify and confirm public and private audiences.

  • Develop compelling marketing materials and presentations.

• Establish Sunflower Outreach’s Virtual Presence

  • Develop effective and resourceful website.

  • Develop social media plan and tactics.

• Launch and maintain a series of wellness-centric public education offerings, timely newsletters, eblasts, media releases, seasonal promotions, periodic reports, briefings, and regular/annual appreciation events.

  • Create and maintain communications calendar.

  • Regularly solicit and respond to donor and stakeholder feedback.

• Audit financials, track outcomes, report to our board, donors, and stakeholders.

GROW Initiative: Identify and Build Strategic Relationships to Enhance Community Awareness, Education, and Involvement

• Connect and maintain strong collaborative relationships with Savannah College of Art and Design, the Historic Fox Theatre, and other organizations that can facilitate advancement of our wellness offering.

• Get involved/lead actively in aligned area nonprofits.

• Engage best-practice and comparable mental health/wellness organizations in

• Atlanta, GA; Savannah, GA; Charleston, SC.

Strategy II: Empower and Connect a Worldwide Village of Young and Established Artists

Create a “Family of Choice” community that is welcoming, encouraging, and supportive. A community where young aspiring artists can connect with established artists, and with each other. A community where people offer wellness to people in need of wellness.

EMPOWER Initiative: Empower Young Artists Through Financial Support

• Create an Empowerment Opportunity Fund to provide academic scholarships and other aid to students attending Savannah School of Art and Design (SCAD)

  • Fund a minimum four students annually with partial tuition, room, and board.

  • Work with SCAD to assess the level of financial assistance that strikes the balance of breakthrough empowerment with student accountability.

  • Expand to as many students as possible.

• Leverage SCAD’s established student screening, application review, and scholarship selection/monitoring process.

• Share recipient career progression as part of “Village Square” mentorship program.

CONNECT Initiative: Encourage the Courage to Connect

• Help young artists overcome their hesitation and/or insecurity to share what they create with the world.

• Create a virtual “Village Square” that connects young artists with established artists and each other. Help overcome unkind and discouraging influences from traditional institutions, family, peers, etc.

  • Build a wellness-centered social networking platform that offers a safe space to the artist community:

    • Create the social networking app.

    • Architect the app’s backbone with mental health and wellness partners.

  • Create a Content Center repository of available wellness resources for artists.

  • Enlist mentors to help create content for the Content Center and build relationships with aspiring young artists.

  • Conduct live and prerecorded forums to let established artists share personal stories of how they overcame discouragement and obstacles towards pursuing their art. Let aspiring artists see themselves in successful artists.

  • Establish annual Recognition Award to honor a young aspiring artist or established artist who embodies the spirit of Sunflower Outreach’s mission. Award recipient to be honored at Sunflower Outreach’s Annual Early Spring Benefit Show in Atlanta. Award criteria to be developed.

Proposed Annual Budget: $670,000

Proposed Five-Year Budget: $3,100,000

Strategy III: Inspire Wellness

Connect healers with young people who have wellness challenges to inspire beauty, art, imaginative creation, not just through the art alone but through the artist’s wellness.

INSPIRE WELLNESS Initiative: Inspire Wellness by Creating Artistic Space

• Facilitate available physical space with trained art proctor/facilitator for parents to bring their children to learn how to find calm through art. Include focus on special needs children who are dealing with anxiety and other mental wellness issues.

• Leverage virtual Village Square to negotiate and secure discounted group wellness pricing for professional counseling services which are too often financially out of reach for those who could benefit from such services.

Proposed Annual Budget: $55,000

Proposed Five-Year Budget: $275,000

Strategy IV: Spread the Seeds

Expand into new towns and cities that lack synergy between art and mental wellness. This will likely occur after the 2025-2029 timeframe of our initial budget.

• Intentionally expand our wellness impact by conducting further demographics studies to determine “Magic Quadrant” towns and cities: those with an intersection of high- viability-for and high-value-from Sunflower Outreach art-centered wellness programs.

• And opportunistically expand into locations in which mentors and volunteers show strong activity within the Virtual Village.