Unless Project

NOTE: We’re in the early stages of our inaugural cohort for the Unless Project, so the timing for future cohorts, including 2025, is still being determined.

Background

Dr. Seuss' Lorax left one simple word on a rock before he disappeared forever: Unless.

It meant that ""Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."" As we look around at the state of our communities, our country, and our planet, it's hard not to feel overwhelmed with the challenges ahead - both tangible and existential.

But we at ALBC care a whole awful lot, and have decided to do something about it.

The Challenge

In our experience, organizations with truly new and novel ideas struggle to get the buy-in and resources they need to bring their ideas to life. It's much easier to sell an idea that's already been proven/profitable, so change-makers need to work much harder to get their audiences on board and bought-in, requiring high-end expertise they typically can't afford. The gap between idea and impact is where we come in.

The Big Idea

The Unless Project (UP) is our grant-meets-accelerator program designed to identify organizations with transformational solutions and limited resources, then to repackage, reposition, and amplify them to be as successful as possible. Once a year, we select up to four (4) organizations - one (1) in each of our four focus areas - and donate services & resources worth over $500,000 USD in total.

How Does It Work?

Each grantee is guided through a six-month intensive process with six major stages worth up to $150,000 in services & resources to refine your positioning, build your capacity, and better engage with your audiences.

Throughout this process, we help our grantees transform from current-state to ideal-state, tapping into our entire array of capabilities and expertise, and funding all marketing-related expenditures required to realize their vision along the way.

At the end of the process, the Grantee should see a measurable increase in their impact and their ability to engage new audiences sustainably. Hopefully, their success will inspire others to pursue their own big ideas.

• Discovery & Strategy to establish a viable north star, a pathway to get there, and prioritize our efforts along the way.
• Operations & Education to ensure the infrastructure and resources are in place to successfully reach that destination.
• Branding & Storytelling to revitalize or reimagine how the organization is packaged, positioned, and explained.
• Marketing & PR to ensure the Grantee’s audience is experiencing them in the right way at the right time.
• Pitching & Delivery to ensure we’re successfully achieving our goals and connecting with new, bigger audiences.
• Analysis & Graduation to assess successes and opportunities, and to ensure the Grantee is headed off with the tools they need for sustainable success.

Focus Areas

• Environmental Sustainability
  • When we think of environmental sustainability, we think of sustainable farming, shifting to renewable energy sources, and passive/net-zero building solutions, as well as the removal of harmful plastics and waste products from our environment.
• Health & Human Wellness
  • When we think about human health and wellness, we think of ways we could improve personalized healthcare, proactive healthcare, and mental health destigmatization and support.
• Social Progress & Advocacy
  • When we think about social progress and advocacy, we think of ways we could build a less polarized, better educated, unconditionally equal, safer, and wholly empathetic society.
• Artistic Activism
  • When we think about artistic activism, we think about the explosive documentaries, guerilla installations, unforgettable performances, and stunning imagery that has defined generations.

Award Information

While there’s a small cash stipend ($2500) to minimize any unplanned out-of-pocket expenses, the vast majority of value is provided in services and resources, including any hard costs associated with executing our strategy.

Our for-profit partners typically invest $150,000+ for these services, hence the valuation of the grant. Moreover, we’ve heard and seen too many examples of “chunk-o-cash” grants that end up failing because they don’t come with adequate support, direction, and resources.