Helping organizations tell meaningful stories of change and impact.
What if your grantees could document their impact as deeply as they experience it?
Foundations invest millions in technical assistance and capacity building. But the bottleneck isn't knowledge — it's infrastructure.
There is a mismatch in funding and grantee administrative structures. That's a systems problem. And systems problems have solutions.
Purposeful Impacts ROI provides the partnership management infrastructure that lets every layer of your funding network document outcomes, share learning, and demonstrate the full depth of what their work is actually producing.
Transformation, Scaling, and Growth
Built from 15 years of federal experience where transformation was experienced within multiple funding systems and networks. Syles.
15+
Years of Federal Experience
1B+
Investments in Victim and Survivor Services
1000+
Grant Recipients including nonprofit organizations, states, territories, and tribal government
4+
Multiagency Intermediary Funding Models Completed
What if your funding administrative systems had a huge blind spot?
The Infrastructure Problem Few Discuss Openly
Purposeful Impacts ROI was not built by a technology company that studied the problem from the outside. It was built by someone who spent 15 years living it from every angle — as a federal senior executive designing the funding programs; as the person coordinating over one billion dollars through complex grant programs; and as the national coordinator of technical assistance focused on strengthening organization capacity.
What 15 years of federal grant administration experience made clear: the gap between a funder's intention and a community's impact is almost always a systems problem. Structural problems require structural solutions — not more training.
Join a Live Co-Learning Session
Monthly briefings. Two distinct audiences. One conversation the sector has been waiting to have
The Data Maladies Conversation
Free session
For program officers, intermediary staff, and grants managers
Registration
The Impact Maladies Leadership Briefing
Free session
For foundation executives, CEOs, and senior leadership
Registration
Four Ways to Work Together
Whether you need the outcomes infrastructure itself or the strategic expertise to reimagine how your organization funds, builds, and sustains its impact, there is a path designed for where you are right now.
By Lorem Ipsum
Grow Personal Financial Security Thinking & Principles
(4.0)
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is normal of letters.
By Lorem Ipsum
Grow Personal Financial Security Thinking & Principles
(4.0)
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is normal of letters.
By Lorem Ipsum
Grow Personal Financial Security Thinking & Principles
(4.0)
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is normal of letters.
INFRASTRUCTURE TRANSFORMATION
Foundation License
Purposeful Impacts ROI Solution
Co-Learning Infrastructure for Foundations, Nonprofits & Community Organizations
Your grantee partners need simple tools they already use every day to document who they're serving and the impact they're creating — with automation that helps them elevate that story. Your program officers need a portfolio view that shows outcome patterns, not just populated spreadsheets. Real-time input shapes better calls, engagements, and site visits.
Purposeful Impacts ROI gives both. A shared infrastructure where funders, grant recipients, and intermediaries access real-time outcomes data together — so your entire team can tell stories of measurable impact and co-learn how you're serving the people in your community.
INFRASTRUCTURE TRANSFORMATION
Intermediary License
Purposeful Impacts ROI Solution
Co-Learning Infrastructure for Intermediaries, Grantee Partners, & Community Organizations
You are managing a subgrantee cohort across multiple organizations, federal reporting requirements, and a capacity building mandate — often with a team that was not sized for the coordination load that comes with it. Your subgrantee partners are doing meaningful work that deserves to be documented and seen.
Purposeful Impacts ROI gives intermediaries a purpose-built infrastructure layer — subgrantee cohort tracking, federal compliance documentation, and a shared outcomes dashboard that makes your model's impact visible to the funders who need to see it most.
INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION STRATEGY
Purposeful Impacts ROI
Transformative Capacity Building · Funding Innovation · Grant Program Growth
How is your foundation or intermediary telling stories of change and impact? What tools do your grantee partners have to easily document outcomes and data? If it's a spreadsheet — or a costly system your grantees can't access — there's a better path.
Purposeful Impacts ROI provides the infrastructure that lets every layer of your funding network document what they're producing, see what's happening across the portfolio, and build the shared language of impact that genuine co-learning requires.
TRANSFORMATIVE CONSULTATION
Strategic Advisory Services
Intermediary Strategy · Transformative Capacity Building · Funding Innovation · Grant Program Growth
For organizations ready to strengthen the stories they tell about change and impact — to rethink how their co-learning model is structured, how their intermediary relationships are designed for optimal capacity building, or how their grant programs can scale with input from grantees and the people they serve. Our strategies and advisory engagements are designed around your specific portfolio and goals and a roadmap for effective co-learning, outcome documentation, and partnership building.
Bringing Impactful Storytelling to Life
The Purposeful Impacts Podcast is where the infrastructure conversation continues — candid, field-level thinking at the intersection of funding, advocacy, and the people that make the work matter. Listen and subscribe today!
Clarify actions for strengthening co-learning
Strategize to address administrative blind spots
Apply practical strategies
Stories and data to help you take confident, consistent action
Choosing us is a good decision for you
Choosing us means gaining trusted guidance, proven strategies, and personalized support focused on your growth, confidence, and long-term success—every step of the way.
MEET THE FOUNDER & CEO
Shawndell Dawson
Shawndell Dawson brings 29 years of national experience, including 15 years as a funder and 14 years in the nonprofit sector, standing alongside survivors and the organizations that serve them.
She has lived on both sides of the funding relationship — grantees who must prove impact to sustain their funding, and funders who must demonstrate portfolio outcomes to their boards and co-investors. Both carry the burden of proof. PI ROI was built to make that burden lighter for both.
She deeply understands the importance, urgency, and moral imperative to tell stories of change and impact in ways that are inclusive and comprehensive for agencies, people, and communities.
14 in the nonprofit sector, standing alongside survivors.
15 as a federal funder and Senior Executive coordinating $1B+ across 15 agencies, supporting 2,000+ grant recipients, and reaching 2.3 million survivors annually through health, social service, and victim services programs.
She successfully justified and provided evidence for increased Congressional appropriations — documenting outcomes, impact, and data critical for evidence-based policy making
15 years leading national federal intermediary models, including supporting partnerships with community health centers and domestic violence/sexual assault programs.
Launching an intermediary model for the $49.5M ARP Culturally Specific Populations Grant Program that brought 311 first-time federal grantees into the system.
Shawndell Dawson built a federal co-learning infrastructure that worked across expansive differences in organizational capacity — from large national organizations, tribal governments, to grassroots coalitions, and small community-based organizations receiving federal funding for the first time.
PI ROI is that infrastructure, honed by over 29 years of national experience, made available to foundations and their grantee partners.
Also Known for...
$1 Billion in
ARP Funding for DV, SA, Culturally Specific, and Mobile Health Supports Accessiblity Funding
$45 Million in CARES Act Supplemental Funding foR Shelters, Tribes, Coalitions, Resource Center,s and Hotlines
$10 Million in Hurricane Disaster Assistance and Response Supplemental Funding foR Shelters, Tribes, Coalitions
$260 Million in Annual funding for foR Shelters, Tribes, Coalitions
2,000+ grant recipients supported nationwide, US Territories, and 252 tribal nations
3 national intermediary models implemented successfully for trauma-informed health supports, trauma-informed health services, and culturally specific services
Contact us today for a strategy session!
Ready to see what co-learning infrastructure looks like for your foundation or cohort? Book a PI ROI Strategy Session — 60 minutes to map your partnership data system and leave with a clear next step.