How to Find Individual Donors

When I speak to groups of nonprofit boards and staff, they are often shocked when I reveal how money flows to the nonprofit sector. Thinking that foundation grants are the holy grail of funding, many nonprofits hire a grant writer and spend countless hours and resources chasing highly competitive grants. But the fact is that barely 2% of the money flowing to the nonprofit sector comes from foundations. A much larger portion, over 11%, comes from individuals:

But many nonprofits don’t know how to raise money from individuals. For them, it seems somehow easier to research foundation guidelines, put together a proposal that answers each question, and hope for the best. But individual donor fundraising can help diversify a nonprofit’s funding picture, and major donor fundraising in particular, which requires a one-on-one relationship building mode,l can be a great way to systematically expand a nonprofit’s network and funding. It is also the highest and best use of a board member’s fundraising time.

To help nonprofits understand individual donor fundraising and how to get moving in that direction, the next webinar in our ongoing Financing Not Fundraising webinar series focuses on how to bring individual donors in the door.

The Finding Individual Donors webinar will give you tools and strategies to:

• Understand the differences between smaller donor fundraising and major donor fundraising
• Define a major gift for your organization
• Use social media to connect with individual supporters
• Create events that resonate with individual donors
• Identify prospects
• Engage your board in individual donor fundraising
• Create a system for engaging individual donors
• Launch a major donor campaign
• Break an individual donor dollar goal into pieces to make the goal achievable

And much more.

If you want to attract individual contributors to your nonprofit, but don’t know how to get started, or if you would like to expand the individual donors you already have, this webinar will show you how.

Webinar Details:
Financing Not Fundraising: Finding Individual Donors
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
12 noon-1:00pm Eastern
Price: $40

I hope to see you there!

Tags: financing not fundraising, finding individual donors, fundraising from individuals, individual donor fundraising, nonprofit webinars, raising money from individuals

9 Ways Board Members Can Raise Money Without Fundraising

I’ll admit it, I’ve been on a board fundraising kick lately in the blog (here and here). I just think that if your nonprofit is going to become more strategic and financially sustainable, you have to start from the beginning (or the top, as it were). In my last blog post I discussed how to overcome excuses for why a board member can’t bring money in the door. But the fact remains that a majority of people don’t like to (or simply won’t) ask for money.

The good news is that there are lots of other things board members can do to bring money in the door. And remember, if you are financing not fundraising your organization, your definition of “bringing money in the door” should be very broad.

Here are 9 things you could ask your fundraising-shy board members to do:

1. Help create or evaluate a business plan for an earned income venture. If you have business leaders or entrepreneurs on your board this would be a great use of their time and add tremendous value to your organization. If they can help you create a more profitable business, they are directly contributing to your organization’s bottom-line.




2. Advocate for government money. You may have a board member that can’t stand the idea of asking their friends for money, but they are well connected in city, county, state or federal government and could open doors to you for government contracts, grants, fee-for-service or other government monies.




3. Provide intelligence on prospects. If you have a board member that seems to know everyone in town, but for whatever reason refuses to ask any of them for money, they can still be incredibly useful. You may be getting ready to ask a prospective donor for $1,000, and this board member can tell you what that person has already given to, at what level, who else might know them and so on. When you make an ask, the more information you have going into it, the more successful you will be.




4. Set up a meeting with a prospective customer. If your nonprofit is engaged in an earned income venture, you probably always need help with new sales. If you have a board member who is part of, or connected to, the target customer(s) of your business, they could open doors to new customers. Or at the very least, they could help you think through your sales and marketing strategies and make them  more effective so that you can attract more customers.




5. Email, call or visit a donor just to say thanks. The stewardship of a gift is an often forgotten, but incredibly critical, part of the fundraising process. According to Penelope Burk’s annual donor survey, 84% of donors would give again if they were thanked in a timely way. And being thanked by a board member is a bonus. A donor who renews their gift to a nonprofit is providing more money for the organization.




6. Explain to a prospect why you serve. A board of directors is a group of volunteers who care so much about the mission of the organization that they are willing to donate their time (a precious resource) to the cause. As a donor, it is affirming to see that a volunteer is contributing time, but it is even more motivating to hear, in the board member’s own words, why they feel compelled to serve this organization. That story can be enough to convince someone to give.




7. Host a small gathering at your home. Over the course of a year, most people invite a gathering of friends and/or family into their home at least once. A board member could take a few minutes at their next dinner party, birthday celebration or Super Bowl feast to talk about something that is near and dear to their heart: the nonprofit on whose board they serve. They don’t have to ask people for money, but they could simply say, “If you’re interested in learning more, let me know.” And then the nonprofit’s staff could take it from there with those who are interested.




8. Recruit an in-kind service. If a board member could remove an expense line item from a nonprofit’s budget that would directly contribute to a stronger bottom-line. For example, if a board member works at an ad agency, could they convince their company to provide some pro-bono marketing services to their nonprofit? But keep in mind, these in-kind donations must be of value to the nonprofit and provide an offset to a direct cost that the nonprofit would otherwise have to bear.




9. Negotiate a lower price from a vendor. Do you have a board member with great negotiating skills (think of all of those lawyers on your board). Could they negotiate with your insurance providers, office space rental company, or printers, for a lower price? If so, that’s more money in the bank.

If you think of a board member’s “get” responsibilities in these much broader terms, then I find it difficult to imagine a board member who cannot bring money in the door. You just have to get strategic about how each individual board member can best contribute to the organization’s bottom-line.

Photo Credit: DeeganMarie

Tags: Board of Directors, earned income, financing not fundraising, nonprofit board of directors, nonprofit fundraising

Financing Not Fundraising: Jump Start Your Board

In part 12 of our on-going Financing Not Fundraising blog series we’re talking about activating an often under-used nonprofit financing resource: the board of directors. The words “fundraising” and “board” can sometimes seem so incongruous that it results in  a lot of eye-rolling on the part of an executive director. As a general (and probably optimistic) rule, nonprofit boards of directors are not very helpful at bringing money in the door. It is often a chicken or the egg scenario that leaves many nonprofits at an impasse. But I believe it is up to the executive director to get tough and strategic about getting her board to take action.

If you are new to our Financing Not Fundraising blog series, the series is about how nonprofits must break out of the narrow view that traditional FUNDRAISING (individual donor appeals, events, foundation grants) will completely fund all of their activities.  Instead, they must create a broader, more strategic approach to securing the overall FINANCING necessary to create social change. You can read the entire series here.

If you want to learn more about how to apply the concepts of Financing Not Fundraising to your nonprofit, check out our Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series.

Here are some ways to get your board to bring more money in the door:

• Make Them Strategic. Involve them in strategic planning. No one wants,  or is able, to raise money without a bigger plan. If you don’t currently have a strategic plan, put one together, but make sure to get the board involved in the whole process. It must be their strategic plan if they are going to help finance it. If you already have a strategic plan, make sure that you are updating the board, and more importantly, asking for their help on implementing it at every board meeting. It’s not enough to create a strategic plan, you must keep the board engaged in making it come to fruition.




• Force Them to Give. Once your board is excited about the strategic plan and the future direction of the organization, get them to invest. It is unconscionable to me that there are still nonprofit board members who don’t make a financial contribution to their organization. Make it abundantly clear that a contribution (at a level significant to them) is a requirement of service. No one can convincingly ask someone else for money if they aren’t giving themselves. End of story.




• Focus Their Fundraising. The highest and best fundraising use of a board member is major donor recruitment. Stop asking board members to be involved in any and all aspects of fundraising (event planning, direct mail letter creation, grant writing). Instead have them focus on tapping into their networks to bring people to the organization. And no matter how “connected” you may or may not think your board members are, believe me, their networks are vast. They include their friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, social media fans/followers, church congregants, fellow alumni and on and on. Ask each board member to come up with 5 people in their network that they think have the capacity to give at your major donor level. Then have the board member spend the year focusing on getting those people in the door.




• Integrate Money into Every Conversation. A lot of boards don’t like to talk about money: either raising it, or how it is spent. Boards often have limited financial management conversations, skimpy or non-existent finance committees, and a general preference for discussing mission over money. But you can’t let them get away with that. It is absolutely critical that money be fully integrated into any conversation the board has. They must understand what the financial model of the organization is and be continually monitoring the ability of that model to deliver on mission.




• Don’t Sugar Coat Anything. The tendency in the sector is to treat a board as the organization’s most important donors and from which you hide the truths about your organization. But you need to move beyond that and start helping the board to understand the harsh realities of your work. The next time your board asks you to raise more money without additional staff, or add programs without new funding, or go down a rabbit hole for no reason, tell them “No.” Give them your honest appraisal of what the organization should or shouldn’t do. And make sure they listen.

Boards need to step up. There is no doubt. But it is up to the executive director to make sure that they do. By getting your board to be strategic, focused, invested, integrated and aware they can start helping to finance your work.

Photo Credit: Intercontinental Hong Kong

Tags: board fundraising, board role in fundraising, executive director, financing not fundraising, major donor fundraising, nonprofit board of directors

A New Strategy for Nonprofit Financing in 2012

If you are serious about finding a way out of the nonprofit starvation cycle in this new year, you need a clear plan to get there. It amazes me how many nonprofits think that they can raise enough money through disjointed activities and hope. The only way you can raise the money it will take to accomplish your goals is to get strategic. And that means you need a strategic financing plan. Our upcoming Financing Not Fundraising webinar “Creating a Financing Plan” on January 24th can help you do just that.

This webinar is part of our ongoing Financing Not Fundraising webinar series. Based on the popular Financing Not Fundraising blog series, the monthly webinar series breaks down this new approach to finding enough money to achieve a nonprofit’s mission into the steps necessary to get there. You can learn more about all of the upcoming webinars in this monthly series here.

A nonprofit financing plan is different that a typical nonprofit fundraising plan for many reasons. Here is how they differ:

• A fundraising plan sets goals only for private revenue streams (foundation grants, individual gifts), but a financing plan includes goals for all money flowing to the organization (government grants, earned income, etc).
• A fundraising plan’s dollar goals are based on what the nonprofit thinks it can raise, but a financing plan’s dollar goals are based on what the nonprofit needs in order to meet the goals of their organization’s strategic plan.
• A fundraising plan is created only by the fundraising staff with no input or knowledge from the rest of the organization, but a financing plan is created with the whole organization’s input (board and staff) and is fully integrated into the organization’s overall strategic plan.
• A fundraising plan only includes activities that raise money for programs, but a financing plan includes strategies for raising infrastructure dollars as well.

This interactive “Creating a Financing Plan” webinar will help nonprofit leaders break down the steps of creating a financing plan. Webinar participants will think through how to:

• Set goals for ALL revenue streams flowing to the organization
• Tie their financing plan to their organization strategic plan
• Determine the infrastructure dollars they need to raise
• Create tactical steps to make the plan a reality, with activities, deliverables, people responsible, timeline
• Divide tasks by staff and board members
• Develop ways to monitor the plan going forward

I hope to see you there!

Financing Not Fundraising: Creating a Financing Plan
A Social Velocity Webinar
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
12:00 noon -1:00 pm Eastern
Cost: $40.00
Register Now

Photo Credit: kolix

Tags: financing not fundraising, fundraising plan, nonprofit fundraising, nonprofit strategic planning

10 Most Popular Posts of 2011

As 2011 comes to a close, I wanted to provide a list of the ten most popular Social Velocity blog posts this year. Then I’m taking a break from the blog until January.

I hope you all find time over the holidays to relax, unwind and spend time with friends and family. Thank you all for reading and contributing to the Social Velocity blog this year. I really appreciate all of my readers and look forward to talking with you in the new year. Happy Holidays!

The 10 most popular Social Velocity blog posts of 2011 were:

1. 5 Lies to Stop Telling Donors
2. The Financing Not Fundraising Blog Series
3. 10 Great Social Innovation Reads: November
4. The Problem with Strategic Planning
5. 5 Nonprofit Trends to Watch in 2011
6. 4 Things Every Nonprofit Needs
7. What is Social Innovation?
8. A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Nonprofit Revenue Plan
9. 7 Things Board Members Can Do to Raise More Money
10. Why Nonprofit Overhead is Destructive

Photo Credit: Charline Tetiyevsky

Tags: financing not fundraising, nonprofit board fundraising, nonprofit donors, nonprofit overhead, nonprofit revenue, nonprofit strategic planning, social innovation

A New Approach to Nonprofit Funding: Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series

I’m delighted to unveil today our new Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series. In each of the last three months I held an overview Financing Not Fundraising webinar that explained the concept and how nonprofits should approach their money generating activities in a very different way. This webinar is based on our popular Financing Not Fundraising blog series. Because the overview webinar was so popular and there was such a demand for more in-depth, topic specific webinars, I decided to launch a webinar series beginning this coming January. This series will take the individual concepts within Financing Not Fundraising one-by-one.

Below are the first four webinars in this series. As the year progresses, we will add additional webinars. There will be one Financing Not Fundraising webinar each month. And if you missed the overview webinar, you can still view a recording of it here.

I hope you’ll join us for these webinars!

Financing Not Fundraising Overview-Recorded Webinar
This recorded webinar from December 2011 shows nonprofits what this broader approach to securing the overall financing necessary to create social change looks like, including:

•    How to align your nonprofit’s mission with the money needed to deliver on it
•    Why a message of impact results in more money
•    Understanding the critical difference between revenue and capital
•    Why overhead isn’t a dirty word anymore
•    How and why to calculate the net revenue of money raising activities
•    When to explore new revenue streams

Download the Webinar

Creating a Financing Plan
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
12:00 noon -1:00 pm Eastern

This webinar will help nonprofit leaders create an overall financing plan to bring money in the door. This interactive webinar will help nonprofit leaders develop a plan that includes:

•    All revenue streams flowing to the organization
•    A strategy for funding programs and operations
•    Opportunities to raise money for infrastructure
•    Tactical steps with activities, deliverables, people responsible
•    How to divide tasks by staff and board members
•    Ways to monitor the plan going forward

Register Now

Finding Individual Donors
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
12 noon-1:00pm Eastern

Individual donors make up 80% of the private money flowing to the nonprofit sector, yet many nonprofits don’t know how to find and communicate with individual donors. This webinar will give you tools and strategies to:

•    Engage your board in individual donor fundraising
•    Use social media to connect with individual supporters
•    Create events that resonate with individual donors
•    Identify prospects
•    Create a system for engaging individual donors
•    Launch a major donor campaign

Register Now

Creating a Message of Impact
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
12 noon – 1:00pm Eastern

No one likes to beg for money. And donors increasingly aren’t moved to give through the tin cup approach. A far more effective way to communicate with potential donors is to talk about the impact your nonprofit is having in the community. This webinar will help your nonprofit:

•    Differentiate between donations and investments
•    Talk about what your nonprofit does in the community
•    Create a compelling case for support
•    Target donors who care about your work
•    Get your board excited about asking for money
•    Articulate a social return on investment (SROI) for donors

Register Now

Raising Capacity Capital
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
12 noon – 1:00pm Eastern

Capacity capital is the money that nonprofits desperately need, but find so hard to raise. It is money for infrastructure and organization building. It supports things like revenue-generating staff, launch of an earned income business, technology and systems, evaluation, training and consulting. If you want to move your organization out of the starvation cycle, you have to learn how to raise capacity capital. This webinar will show you how to:

•    Talk about the importance of capacity capital to donors and your board
•    Create a budget for the capacity dollars you need
•    Develop a campaign goal
•    Break the goal into donor ask amounts
•    Identify prospective donors
•    Give your board a role in the campaign

Register Now

Tags: creating a fundraising plan, creating a message of impact, financing not fundraising, finding individual donors, fundraising webinar, nonprofit board of directors, nonprofit fundraising, raising capacity capital

Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series

Because of the popularity of the past two Financing Not Fundraising overview webinars in October and November, I’ve decided to launch a webinar series that breaks the Financing Not Fundraising concept into its various parts and expands on how to approach each element.

I will kick off this new webinar series in January with a new webinar each month. Some of the webinar topics will be:

• Creating a Financing Plan
• Finding Individual Donors
• Developing a Message of Social Impact
• Raising Capacity Capital
• Evaluating Earned Income
• Calculating the Cost of Fundraising
• Moving from Push to Pull
• Getting Your Board to Raise Money

If you want to find out when those webinars get scheduled in the new year, sign up for our the Social Velocity e-newsletter.

But in the meantime, if you want to get up to speed on the overall concept of Financing Not Fundraising, I’m doing one more overview Financing Not Fundraising webinar on December 6th.

This webinar, based on our popular Financing Not Fundraising ongoing blog series will show nonprofits what a broader approach to securing the overall financing necessary to create social change looks like, including:

• How to align your nonprofit’s mission with the money needed to deliver on it
• Why a message of impact results in more money
• Understanding the critical difference between revenue and capital
• Why overhead isn’t a dirty word anymore
• How and why to calculate the net revenue of money raising activities
• When to explore new revenue streams

If you’ve been following the Social Velocity Financing Not Fundraising blog series and you want to learn more, or if the series has brought up some burning questions that you’d like to have answered, join us for this interactive webinar.

If your staff, your board, and your donors are worn out, rest assured, there is a better way. Join this webinar to find out how. I hope to see you there!

Financing Not Fundraising: Rethinking How Nonprofits Bring Money in the Door
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (Eastern Time)
$40.00
Register Now

Tags: board fundraising, capacity capital, financing not fundraising, individual donors, nonprofit earned income, nonprofit fundraising, philanthropic equity, social impact

Financing Not Fundraising E-Book

I’m delighted to announce that, by popular demand, we are releasing today the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book. This 27-page e-book is a compilation and expansion on the 11 blog posts from 2011 in the Social Velocity Financing Not Fundraising blog series.

In the midst of an incredibly challenging economic situation that is not getting better any time soon, the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book outlines a new vision for how the nonprofit sector gets funded. Fundraising in its current form just doesn’t work anymore. Indeed, traditional fundraising is holding the sector back by keeping nonprofits in the starvation cycle of trying to do more and more with less and less.

What the sector needs is a financing strategy not a fundraising strategy. Nonprofits have to break out of the narrow view that traditional FUNDRAISING (individual donor appeals, events, foundation grants) will completely fund all of their activities. Instead, nonprofits must work to create a broader approach to securing the overall FINANCING necessary to create social change.

This 27-page e-book is a compilation and expansion of the Social Velocity blog series Financing Not Fundraising from 2011. The blog series is ongoing, with new posts added throughout each year. We’ll begin adding new posts to the series in the new year, but in the meantime, this e-book captures and expands on the posts from 2011 in one place.

The 12 chapters of the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book are:

1. What is Financing Not Fundraising?
2. Create A Financial Strategy
3. Align Money and Mission
4. Find Individual Donors
5. Develop a Message of Impact
6. Raise Money for Building Capacity
7. Explore New Types of Money
8. Evaluate Earned Income
9. Calculate Net Revenue
10. Move From Push to Pull
11. Stop Lying to Donors
12. Getting Started

You can download the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book here.

If you want to learn more about how to apply the concepts of Financing Not Fundraising to your nonprofit, check out our Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series

Tags: earned income, financing not fundraising, individual donors, nonprofit capacity, nonprofit fundraising, nonprofit growth capital, nonprofit strategic plan, Philanthropy