How a dancer found 200+ potential funders for two Bay Area nonprofits because she got curious to try Kindora

For months, Michelle Zhang carried two names she couldn't shake.

One is Micaya Presents, who has been running hip hop dance events in SF for over 30 years. She produces the annual SF International Hip Hop DanceFest, an unique SF landmark event that brings artists from all over the world to perform at the Palace of Fine Arts. It was through one of Micaya's dance programs that Michelle met her husband.

The other is Bay Area Youth Arts (BAYA), a new dance non-profit started by Jisoo Choi, who cared so much about enabling in-person community connection among youths that he left his tech engineering job to do it!

One is 30 years wise. One is brand new. Both needed funding. Both were paralyzed by how to find them.

Michelle had learned about Kindora at an AI for Non-Profits event at the SF library. She got curious. In a single sitting, Michelle set both organizations up on Kindora from nothing but their websites.

Within a week, each had 200+ aligned funders stack-ranked by fit, with each one's giving history and the specific angle to approach them. The question stopped being whether funders existed, and became which one to start with.

She walked the results through with the people doing the work. Their reactions, in their own words:

“There's way more than I thought there would be", “It's way more real now, I can see what to prioritize first”, "We'll enjoy exploring this great tool!"

Kindora can't guarantee funding, and it doesn't apply on anyone's behalf. What it did was collapse the gap between deciding to look and knowing where to start — for two nonprofits led by people close to the communities they serve.