Unlocking Play: How Volo Kids is Bringing Youth Sports to Thousands of Kids w/Jen Rifkin

About this episode

Jen Rifkin discusses the Volo Kids Foundation's approach to scaling youth sports access while maintaining community trust.

In the social impact sector, scaling an organization nationally while maintaining deep community trust is one of the hardest balancing acts to pull off. It requires an unshakeable operational foundation, a clear mission, and creative revenue models that move beyond traditional grant dependency. In this episode of the Charity Charge Show , host Grayson Harris sits down with Jen Rifkin , Executive Director of the Volo Kids Foundation , an organization dedicated to removing economic, gender, and racial barriers to youth sports. Jen shares her inspiring journey from volunteer coach to national executive leader, breaking down the operational "special sauce" behind their 12-state expansion. She also reveals how their unique, symbiotic partnership with a for-profit adult sports league offers a brilliant blueprint for sustainable nonprofit funding. Show Notes: Key Takeaways Build a Replicable Operational Formula: Rapidly scaling a national footprint requires a standardized core program structure—what Jen calls a "cookie-cutter" framework—that can be easily deployed anywhere while leaving room for local market adaptation. Leverage Hybrid Corporate Partnerships: Volo Kids sustains its…

People in this episode

Host: Grayson Harris

Guest: Jen Rifkin

Topics covered

• youth sports
• nonprofit funding
• community trust
• scaling organizations
• corporate partnerships

Keywords

• youth sports
• nonprofit
• community trust
• Volo Kids
• scaling
• corporate partnerships
• funding

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Volo Kids Foundation, Volo Sports

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