How Nonprofits Can Raise Money in an Uncertain Economy

How Nonprofits Can Raise Money in an Uncertain Economy

With inflation rising, it might be tempting to cut fundraising budgets and programs, but that’s the last move you should be making. Instead, it’s time to put proven fundraising strategies to work. As long as you keep in mind that in order for a fundraising campaign to be fruitful, both time and effort need to be invested, the strategies discussed below will help you raise money more effectively.

Don’t Try to Fix What Isn’t Broken

First, don’t panic. If your development staff has been successful at implementing effective activities, don’t cut your budget (or lay off staff). Continue to follow the plan. An economic slowdown is not the time to cut back on development work.

Create a Plan for Strategy and Revenue

People give money to causes that resonate with them. They give even more money to organizations that are strategic about their mission and how they execute their goals to accomplish that mission. Therefore, if you don’t have a strategic plan and a revenue plan already established, now is the time to create them. An effective strategic plan allows you to build investment, and an effective revenue plan provides a blueprint to generate funds. Think about how you can sharpen your nonprofit’s messaging and position your mission, values, and programs to boost your effectiveness for the recipients of your services.

Connect with Supporters

In times of economic uncertainty, nonprofits need to double down on efforts to stay connected with their supporters. This includes thanking donors, offering updates about your budget and pressing needs, and conveying stories about your work through testimonials, photos, videos, social media conversations, etc. Allow space for your supporters’ voices to be heard in telling their own stories in how they connect to your organization and community.

Utilize Social Media

If you want people to become more invested in your work, focus on creating an online community through social media where people can get to know your organization — your mission, goals, and plans to achieve them. Showcase upcoming events and be clear on opportunities for people to become involved. Additional modes of digital outreach include email newsletters, campaigns, and event invites.

Pay Attention to Return on Investment

In regards to raising money, nonprofit organizations generally have limited resources in the form of staff, technology, and funds. Be sure you are accurately calculating the costs of every revenue-generating endeavor to be able to gauge the actual net income that resulted from each endeavor. If the return on investment of time, effort, and money is lacking, you might find that there are less expensive and more effective ways to raise money.

Find New Donors by Analyzing Existing Donors

When your well of support is running low, look into your database of existing donors and determine commonalities among the most generous donors. Demographics, donation amounts, and length of time they’ve been regularly donating are all key aspects you should pay attention to. Once you’ve narrowed it down to your best donors, ask them (formally or informally) what drives them to give to your specific organization. The goal is to figure out what resonates with them so that you can find other donors like them.

How Nonprofits Can Raise Major Gifts Post-Pandemic

How Nonprofits Can Raise Major Gifts Post-Pandemic

As we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel in regards to Covid-19, it’s helpful to review the basic strategies of working with individual donors to raise major gifts. Below is an overview of how to strategize raising major gifts in a post-pandemic world.

What Is a Major Gift?

Simply put, a major gift is one of the largest—if not the largest—donation an organization receives. The amount that defines “major gift” can vary by organization. These donations are typically used to fund specific projects, meet fundraising goals, or supplement general programs that help an organization succeed in its mission.

The Major Gift Fundraising Touchstones

The four touchstones of major gift fundraising are identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. Let’s break these down step-by-step.

Donor Identification

Step number one is to identify potential donors. You can do this by checking your database of supporters, which should include donor history. As you review your database, you want to identify your largest donors as well as your most loyal donors. Your loyal donors may only give a small gift each year, but consistent donations likely mean they are invested in the mission of your organization, so they will be your best giving prospects. Create a list of the top 20 donors who meet these criteria (largest donor or loyal donor), and concentrate on fostering relationships with them.

Cultivation

This next step entails building relationships on trust and commonality before launching into a pitch for donations. Some of the individuals on your list you may already know. They might be board members, volunteers, or involved with your organization in other ways. Be careful not to take these relationships for granted. When it comes to any prospective donor, you need to consider the best approach to get them to think about supporting your organization with a major gift. This requires a plan for each person on your list. While these plans certainly can have similar frameworks, you’ll want to adjust them according to your particular relationship with each individual. You can build strong relationships by:

  • Organize a face-to-face meeting. You want to keep it intimate, but a board member and the executive director and/or development director can join. You’ll want to ask them a series of open-ended questions to get to know them—and their connection to your organization—better, as well as to encourage them to think deeper about their involvement in the mission of your organization. What do they love about your organization? How did they originally become involved? Why is your organization’s mission important to them? Do they have any suggestions for improvements?
  • Invite them to take a tour, visit a program, or attend an event. Given what you know of individual prospects, try to choose something that may move them, or have a powerful impact on them.
  • Encourage them to volunteer. Inform them of all the ways your organization utilizes the help of volunteers. There may be a role they’d be interested in that they were never aware of before. Volunteering draws people closer to your organization and its mission because they become involved in a more personal way.
  • Provide updates twice per year. Whether by phone, email, hand written note or thank-you card, or at an in-person meeting, sending regular updates pertaining to your organization’s programs and services keep prospective donors in the loop.

Solicitation

It’s time to start actively requesting major gifts. Make a list of your top few prospective donors and schedule meetings with them. Once those meetings are in the books, schedule meetings with the next few prospective donors on your list, and so on.

To be clear, your prospects should not feel surprised or misled by your request for a donation. Depending on the trust you’ve built thus far, they might even ask beforehand if this meeting is in regards to money. Be honest and say that you’d like to discuss how they might contribute to your organization in a more impactful way.

Be sure to discuss who will be in attendance at the meeting. This should be a small and select group—typically the development director, executive director, and a board member—and be sure that your donor has met everyone more than once. After all, your organization should be cultivating relationships, not merely conducting business transactions.

Ideally, a board member will be the one to ask for a donation. This is called peer-to-peer fundraising. As a volunteer, the board member is simply pointing to the time and money they’ve already contributed and asking your donor to consider doing the same. As for the actual asking, approach the topic with a specific amount in mind for a specific project, program, or service.

Stewardship

As the final step in fundraising, stewardship is the “thank you” in response to a donation. You want your donor to know the impact they’ve had on your organization. Think about how many different ways you can express your gratitude: a handwritten note; a phone call; a mention in your newsletter, annual report, and website; an update on how their gift is being implemented; and a follow-up meeting. Any combination of these can be done, and by multiple people, but be sure you have a plan in place so the stewardship is strategic, appreciative, and informative but not overwhelming for your donor.

Maintain Your Major Gift Fundraising Program

Devote time each week to holding meetings with your development team where you discuss your organization’s list of prospective donors. Is there someone on your list with whom your organization can cultivate a more meaningful relationship? Who on your list do you feel might be ready to donate in a bigger way? Who is going to schedule that meeting, and what is your target amount to ask for? Finally, regarding any recent outreach efforts to other potential donors, do any follow-up inquiries need to be made?

 

Nonprofits are Overlooking Messaging Opportunities in Digital Marketing Strategies

Nonprofits are Overlooking Messaging Opportunities in Digital Marketing Strategies

According to a recent study, smaller nonprofits are largely missing opportunities to share their message online. While budgeting is certainly an issue, the benefits of online marketing and an online presence for nonprofits can’t be overstated. Below is a quick guide to various means of digital marketing and why they’re vital for nonprofit organizations.

Email Marketing for Nonprofits

Looking to increase newsletter subscribers, launch a fundraising campaign, keep supporters and volunteers in the know, or share recent developments? Email is one of the most effective, direct, and inexpensive ways to accomplish all this and more. The key is to capture your reader with engaging content, both in words and images, and always end your emails with a call to action, inviting the reader to reach out to your organization. Consider someone on staff who has the writing chops to accomplish this task, or think about hiring a freelance writer. Aim for sending two-four emails a month.

Your Website

In addition to having a website that is straightforward and easy to navigate, you want it to function as a tool that maximizes lead generation and gift revenue in ways that email can’t. For instance, adding pop-ups to your site can help gain newsletter subscriptions as well as collect contact information for potential donors.

Social Media

Establishing a presence on social media and engaging with your audience on individual platforms are no-brainer ways to share your organization’s purpose, campaign materials, involvement in the community, etc. A social media manager on staff could prove to be invaluable. Be sure to add social sharing buttons to your website and emails in order to grow an organic following. Greater outreach equals donations.

Donation Pages

The key with donation pages is simplicity, so cut the lengthy information and instructions. You want to encourage two main actions with your donation page:

  • Give donors a clear path to give to your organization
  • Make sharing the page with friends, family members, and social media networks easy

You will also want to include a recurring donation option for those who prefer to contribute smaller amounts on a monthly basis. This donation approach can be beneficial to both the donor and your organization because:

  • Donors aren’t likely to notice or take issue with a recurring $5 or $10 out of their monthly budget for a cause they’re drawn to, but your organization will appreciate these monthly contributions as every dollar adds up.
  • Recurring donations create long-term connections between supporters and your organization.

Content

If your organization can establish a position of having a finger on the pulse of current news, knowledge, and facts surrounding its particular cause, donors who share an interest with your cause are going to want to support you, and feel confident doing so. In order to achieve this, you will want to create regular and quality content in the form of informative articles, fact sheets, and other applicable digital resources, all of which convey not just that your organization is a top source of information about your particular cause, but how it’s impacting and changing your community and even beyond.

Gratitude for Supporters

Organizations that recognize the patronage and loyalty of their supporters are more likely to receive follow-up donations and social media mentions than those that fail to acknowledge their supporters, or do so intermittently. This fix can be as simple as creating an automated but personal email response to each donor, professing thanks and gratitude on behalf of the organization.

 

Generating more organic traffic and engagement on your website and across social media platforms will set your organization on a path for long-term growth and success.

Educational Institution and Nonprofit Audits Fast Approaching for June 30 Fiscals

Understanding the Educational Institution and Nonprofit Audit Landscape

June 30, the day on which many educational institutions and nonprofits end their fiscal year, is fast approaching. This brings “joy” to many internal accountants because they know that an annual visit from the auditors is just around the corner.

While it is our experience that auditors are not always greeted with open arms by an organization’s staff, we have seen an evolution in these relationships over the past few years. In previous years, auditors were frequently seen as a necessary evil, but now the disdain has diminished. Audits and auditors are now viewed less and less as a commodity or a frustrating interruption to the regular work schedule. Instead, we are more often than not viewed as professionals handling an independent confirmation of the organization’s financials. It has also become a common perception that auditors seek solutions that can help an educational institution or nonprofit improve policies and procedures.

Through the years, accounting and audit technologies have improved, which in turn has bettered audit efficiencies and lowered costs. In an era when enrollment, funding, government grants, and other forms of income are down, hiring an established and proven independent audit firm that provides fair fees (as perceived by the staff and board) is imperative.

Audit Efficiencies

Audit efficiency comes from different areas, such as technologies, documentation, analytical analysis, secondary reviews, and advance preparation. Understanding how to maximize on these efficiencies can cut down significantly on the costs to an organization.

Documentation: A best practice for audit efficiency is documentation. Documenting the whats, whys, and whens associated with accounts or procedures incurs less work for those charged with reviewing the financial data – inevitably reducing the amount of work handled by an auditor. Generally, auditors find that things are done properly but are lacking documentation. It is important to reinforce documentation procedures with your staff because it will save time and money in the long run.

Analytical Analysis: Another preferred practice is to have a member of the auditee perform the analytical work that the audit firm will be doing. This will help in several ways: the analytics will highlight the results that were not expected and/or expected, but had a large variance with a previous period; and the analytics “force” the analyzers to learn more about the organization’s financials.

Issues that arise can be reviewed and discussed internally prior to the auditors’ arrival. Having done the analytical analysis in advance will equip the organization with the answers the auditors will be seeking. This will increase the efficiency connected with the audit, along with providing the staff and other parties with fiduciary duties to the organization more knowledge about its financials.

Secondary Review: Another step that can be taken is to have someone in the organization look at the final financial analysis schedules that were internally prepared. As we know, mistakes happen. A second set of eyes to review the final work product prior to sending it off to the auditors limits mistakes found in schedules, enhances efficiency, and decreases the time an auditor spends at your office.

Advance Preparation: All organizations know when their audits are coming and dread the audit request list. Rather than responding reactively, take a proactive attitude by preparing in advance. Then, respond to the audit request list as completely as possible – keeping the information in the same chronological order as requested.

Leaving a few unanswered requests can really slow down the auditors’ work. Not only does efficiency go out the window, but the final report date gets later and later. The quicker the auditors receive the information, the quicker they will get started. The more time an organization spends on preparing a “tight” package for the auditors, the less time the auditors need to spend on the audit. This equates to lower auditing fees and earlier delivery dates.

Everybody wins when the organization incorporates efficiency into its audit preparation.

Full Article: http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/accounting-auditing/educational-institution-and-nonprofit-audits-fast-approaching-june-30-fisc

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