‘Tis the season of generous giving! As we wrap up the last two months of the year, there are a couple of things to do to keep the fundraising momentum going through the new year. Take a moment to organize donations, and don’t forget to send out thank you notes.
A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) evaluation is critical to an organization's end-of-the-year review. While this might not be a part of an organization's current end-of-the-year process, it is an important piece to add.
Recruiting new volunteers can be an excellent way to give your organization a bit of a ‘facelift.’ In the process of recruiting new volunteers, you’re getting your organization’s name and mission out into new corners of the community. Plus, the new faces coming through your doors can breathe new life and excitement into ongoing projects and programs.
From the bottom of my heart to the moon and back, you really made my day! Is that too personal or should I be a little more formal? Donor stewardship is everything that happens after someone has made a donation. Your donors should have a positive experience and want to continue supporting your organization’s needs in the future.
Now is the time to re-engage with your clients both virtually and in person. Your organization can re-engage with your clients by making introductions, being present, listening, acting, and inviting.
It’s that time of year again. Many nonprofit leaders like yourself are in the process of crafting their budgets for the upcoming year. Nonprofit finance is about maintaining the practices and policies that build a strong financial future and help nonprofits achieve their mission. Even if you are the most seasoned administrator, it is sometimes necessary to review the basic foundations. Below are some tips for understanding nonprofit finances.
Start your countdown to the biggest day of generosity, GivingTuesday, which falls on November 30, 2021, this year. More than 33 million Americans participated in GivingTuesday and donated nearly $2.5 billion in 2020. All hands on deck! Here are some tips to help your organization make the most of GivingTuesday.
As the executive director of a small nonprofit, you are likely in the habit of wearing many different hats at your organization – often multiple hats at the same time. It’s time for your organization to set goals for the upcoming year through a strategic planning process. While some organizations bring in outside consultants to lead this process, you are confident the strategic planning process is one more task you are ready to handle. So, where do you begin?
Volunteers play a vital role in a nonprofit organization. Volunteers play a role in most organizations’ governance, administration, fundraising, programming, promotion, and advocacy. Therefore, volunteers are a huge part of an organization. However, volunteer management can often feel clunky and piecemealed. To turn your volunteer management into a natural system of your organization, you should focus on the four areas of volunteer management: recruitment, tracking, engagement, and retention.
A few years back, I wrote a blog entitled, Four Types of Conflict that Arise with Stakeholders and How to Avoid Them, the most viewed content on our website. People still view this blog almost 10X more than any other content.
What this tells me is that nonprofit leaders are searching for tools to resolve conflict. In the piece I’ve linked above for you, I focus on four conflict drivers, Interest-Based, Cognitive, Emotional, and Structural, and offer tools for resolution. Today I want to apply that information to our current reality.
Donors generously give to many different causes during the last three months: October, November, and December. While December remains the largest month of charitable giving, you should begin planning your year-end appeal in September. We’ve provided some helpful steps to get you started on planning your year-end appeal campaign in this blog.
The back-to-school season means that summer plans are coming to a close, excitement and emotions are high, and nonprofits are gearing up for their fall programming and fundraising operations. Here are tips for working with your internal teams, clients, and donors regarding back-to-school campaigns.
These past 18 months have shown us that we have to think of out-of-the-box ideas in order to pivot. We have had to think of out-of-the-box ideas for program development, fundraising, outreach, publicity, workshops, and events. Coming up with new ideas can be challenging. Maybe you feel the tools that you have for brainstorming ideas are not enough. I would like to share some tools and techniques to help in your next brainstorming session.
Grant applications generally require statistical data to provide evidence of need or as justification for the grant ask. For example, a typical 'ask' in the narrative section of a grant application might look something like this:
"[Grantor Name] strongly emphasizes the use of data and evidence in policymaking and program development."
In other words, the grant reviewers expect to see lots of data, references, and evidence that justify how and why dollars should go to your project, program, or organization.
To produce good evidence, you must spend time researching and collecting data.
Grant writing professionals will tell you that usually the actual 'writing' of the grant is really only about 20% of the grant writing process.
Therefore the other 80% of the grant writing process -- the bulk of time spent dedicated to grant writing -- is time spent researching and finding the data necessary for creating a compelling, evidence-based narrative.
That data and evidence can come from a number of different sources.
Tomatoes, wheat, parsley, lemons, and onions. These are some ingredients for a delicious Mediterranean salad. There are plants that you can grow all year round or harvest once a year. Fundraising is like farming; there are sustainers (donors that commit to monthly giving) and annual donors. Find out why your fundraising portfolio should include a program for monthly sustainers.
Nonprofit leaders are very familiar with the need and benefits of strategic plans. We hear about them all the time and likely engage in a strategic planning process within your organization on a regular schedule. However, fewer of us in the sector are aware of the term “operational planning.”
Many organizations are moving back into the workplace. There is a lot of information about re-entering the workplace. After reading several articles, I came up with three questions to consider as you move back.
There has been a lot of buzz lately on nonprofit boards and networks regarding the Google Ad Grant. “What is it?”, “How do I apply?” “Is it worth the time?” In the following article, I will walk you through everything you need to know to put your mind at ease.
According to the United States Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey, an estimated 1.4 million people with disabilities live in Michigan (or 14.3%). So, in a group of twenty people, at least three may have some type of disability, which can be visible or non-visible.
Planning your events to be accessible to the disability community is not only the right thing to do. You also demonstrate your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by incorporating accessibility in your services, programs, and events..
SMART Goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and Timebound. It’s useful to think of evaluation as part of a cycle. This allows us to consider the evaluation process at the start of a program cycle. There are many benefits to approaching evaluation this way – the most important being that gathering data and information becomes so much easier throughout the program cycle.
