Social Velocity » social return on investment

How Do You Convince Donors to Give?

Nell Edgington — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:39:01 +0000

Convincing a donor to give to your nonprofit is a tricky business, and it’s getting harder all the time. Now more than ever nonprofits are struggling for funding amid growing competition and decreasing available dollars. It has become harder and harder to stand out and recruit donors. These days, donors, especially major ones, are less likely to give because an organization “does good work” and more likely to give because an organization provides a solution to a social problem the donor cares about.

Which is why every nonprofit needs a compelling Case for Support. Our newest Social Velocity Step-by-Step Guide, helps you create your nonprofit’s Case for Support.

This new environment requires those nonprofits that want to continue to attract and grow philanthropic support create a compelling argument for why a donor should give to them. Driven by a thoughtful combination of data and emotion, a good Case for Support can help you communicate and connect with your target donors much more effectively.

Our Case for Support Guide is organized into the 8 sections of a Case for Support:

1. The Community Need
2. Our Solution
3. Why Us
4. Our Impact
5. Financial Model
6. Strategic Direction
7. Resources Required
8. Social Return on Investment

In each section of the guide there is a series of questions. Your answers to these questions become the basis of your final Case for Support. But your Case for Support cannot be written in just a day, by one or two people. You will need to get feedback and insight from staff and board. And you’ll need to gather data to make your Case for Support stronger. This work will take time, so it may be a few weeks or months before you have a final Case for Support that is compelling, convincing and agreed upon by the organization as a whole.

A good Case for Support is an increasingly critical part of any fundraising campaign. You must be clear about why someone should give to your organization. Because if you don’t know, how will they?

Photo Credit: puzzledmonkey

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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What Social Value Do Nonprofits Really Create?

Nell Edgington — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:03:25 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Change.org Social Entrepreneurship blog earlier this year.

There is a concept that good entrepreneurs know only too well, but nonprofits could stand to explore. A “value proposition” is the unique value a product or service provides a consumer. Without a value proposition a business has no place in the market. For a nonprofit, a social value proposition is just as critical to success, but often ignored. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, due in part to the growth of for-profit social entrepreneurs, nonprofits must analyze, articulate, and deliver on a social value proposition.

In the past, nonprofits could exist without a value proposition. Donors wouldn’t argue that a library, homeless shelter, food pantry or school provided a necessary service. But as we move further down the road of social innovation, the assumption that money will automatically follow good works is no longer valid.

The issue is complicated by the fact that nonprofits have two sets of consumers: those who benefit from the product or service (clients) and those who buy the service (funders, investors, philanthropists). There is increasing competition for both sets of consumers.

In order to attract the consumers who buy services (and who, by the way, increasingly want a social return on their purchase) nonprofits must articulate the value that the consumer (donor, investor, philanthropist, sponsor, whatever you want to call them) receives by writing a check.

In the nonprofit sector the closest thing to a value proposition has been a case for support. But when this is created (which isn’t often) it tends to focus on the organization and its needs rather than on the potential social return on investment for the funder. A good value proposition articulates how an organization is uniquely positioned to create significant social impact that is much greater than the costs associated. It involves an organization analyzing, understanding and delivering on three very important things:

Capability: What is the organization uniquely positioned to provide to the community (the marketplace). Why is this organization better positioned than other organizations (nonprofits, for-profits, government) to deliver it?

Social Impact: What change is the organization creating in the community, region, world? Why is this significant? Why should/will consumers (funders) care?

Cost: How do the costs of the service being delivered compare to that social impact? Is there a social profit being achieved, i.e. are the costs involved in delivering the service significantly less than the benefits? Will a funder (who is paying these costs) receive a significant social return on their investment in the organization?

A value proposition is less about a well-articulated statement and more about an organization’s ability to think through these questions and really understand the marketplace in which they operate. More and more the nonprofit that can effectively execute on a social value proposition will find the financial stability that ultimately leads them to create lasting social change.

Related posts:

What Social Value Do Nonprofits Really Create?

What Nonprofits Can Learn From Netflix

Where Nonprofits Fit in the Social Innovation Movement

Why Do People Give?

Nell Edgington — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:34:02 +0000

There is a great discussion going on at the Tactical Philanthropy blog centered around the new book The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan by Charles Bronfman and Jeffrey Solomon who argue that philanthropists (big and small) should take a more strategic approach to giving. The discussion that has followed the three posts so far gives fascinating insight into the reasons that people give. Katya Andresen at Network for Good, nicely summarizes the two broad reasons that people give: 1) for personal return on investment (recognition, feels good, status, increase in network) and 2) social return in investment (make a difference, create impact, solve a problem, etc).

For me, there are three takeaways from this discussion. First, anyone who raises money in the nonprofit sector should read the posts and the comments. They provide fascinating insight into the various motivations for giving to nonprofits. A reading of the discussion gets a nonprofit fundraiser out of the mentality of raising money around their organization’s needs and into the more lucrative mindset of what is compelling to potential donors.

Second, I think that there is an increasing focus by philanthropists on the second motivation (social ROI), as opposed to a past focus on individual ROI. Because of the past philanthropic focus on individual gain, the resulting nonprofit fundraising activities have centered on activities that provided donors an individual ROI, for example capital campaigns that promise a new building with a donor’s name emblazoned on it, or events that provide networking and exclusive activities, or “thank you” gifts. As social ROI becomes more of an interest to philanthropists, smart nonprofits will focus on creating their logic models and demonstrating impact. And when they do this, I would argue that they will actually be more successful at raising money (see Kay Sprinkel Grace’s Beyond Fundraising).

Finally, we will never get to a place where all individual giving is social ROI focused. As the authors of the new book point out, philanthropy is very much an individual sport that is focused on the individual’s values and what they want to accomplish (whether that be personal or societal gain, or a combination of both):

When you give, you get, and we believe you need to focus on what it is that you are getting for what you give. We argue that what you get in philanthropy is nourishment for that portion of the body that is so sacred it cannot be found in any book of anatomy: the soul, where all that is best in us resides. It is simultaneously the innermost self and the one so external it seems somehow eternal—which makes it the natural connection point for our philanthropy, for we give to improve the world in a lasting way and to leave it with our stamp.

Which then begs the question, will we ever get to a place where social problems are solved through capital raised from individual philanthropists? Charitable contributions to the nonprofit sector make up 12% of the sector’s money. Roughly 80% of that comes from individuals. Government money has been declining and so nonprofits have increasingly focused on dollars from individuals to make up the difference. If individual philanthropy will always have an individual return motivation, is that ultimately a problem for a sector that is trying to provide social goods?

I don’t know, but the discussion and questions that these authors have raised will no doubt help propel philanthropy forward.

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