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New Podcast Announcement: Nonprofit MBA Podcast 3.19 with Stephen Halasnik
When Your Nonprofit Funding is Plateauing Featuring Sherry Quam Taylor on The Nonprofit MBA Podcast
Read an Executive Summary or Listen to the Podcast HERE
Nonprofit Consultant Sherry Quam Taylor from QuamTaylor LLC talks with Stephen Halasnik from Financing Solutions about the signs and solutions for when a nonprofit fundraising has stopped growing. The solutions are much more counterintuitive then one would expect.
How a nonprofit’s funding can plateau through Irrational Frugality . . .
Last week, I shared with you some advice Bobbi Rebell shared during a guest interview on The SimplyBe. Podcast. I follow her because she’s a financial guru and runs a super successful business and brand.
I also told you that I’d circle back and tell you my favorite new phrase she used! I had literally told about 30 people this within a week of listening to the podcast. Why? Because it resonated so much with me.
Here’s what happened to me.
My husband and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary in February of 2020. We went to Italy on our honeymoon. And when we were in Italy ten years ago, we made the pact to come back on our tenth anniversary.
Well, a lot has changed in ten years.
Back then we had full freedom to time vacations whenever we pleased. Go anywhere in the world without much planning or looking ahead. Life is full of surprises.
How Google Ads Can Further Your Nonprofit’s Mission
Nonprofits, due to their governing structure and limited resources, must be extra careful with the investments they make to market their causes to the public. Therefore, nonprofit leaders need to carefully consider every investment and seek opportunities that are of specific benefit to nonprofit organizations.
At Nonprofit Megaphone, we’re experts at finding these opportunities to help nonprofits further their mission. Our specialty is the management of the Google Ad Grant, an opportunity that is exclusively available to nonprofits. The Grant gives nonprofits the ability to affordably use Google Ads, creating a sustainable and effective way to conduct digital marketing.
Nonprofit Leaders: What do you need to decide today?
I can’t believe the year is almost halfway over. How did that happen?
One thing I’m trying to be really intentional about this year is taking time for learning - I’d gotten out of the habit of listening and learning from other experts. Luckily, I’m back to regular reading and podcast consumption.
Earlier this month, I found myself in the car for about six hours headed downstate for a funeral. During those hours I binged a podcast that had been recommended to me called, The SimplyBe. Podcast. One of my favorite episodes was a guest interview with Bobbi Rebell, author of “How to Be a Financial Grownup”. Bobbi is a Certified Financial Planner and has so many fancy endorsements and accolades behind her name. She runs a super successful business and brand - I’m inspired by her.
4 Best Practices for Making Your Virtual Gala a Success
The shift to online interactions this past year has caused nonprofit fundraising development directors to rethink how they engage supporters. In particular, organizations moved their traditional, face-to-face events online, creating remote meetups and virtual interactions.
Some fundraising events translate to virtual spaces better than others. But this doesn’t mean that they can’t still be successful at bringing in donations and building donor relationships.
For example, your nonprofit may be skeptical about its ability to host hybrid and virtual galas. Many of the major draws to galas such as food, live entertainment, and dressing up don’t carry the same impact over video cameras. However, with careful preparation and an understanding of what can be accomplished with digital platforms, your gala can emulate the engaging atmosphere of an in-person event and powerfully reinforce your nonprofit’s dedication to your supporters.
Nonprofit CEOs: You Are Your Most Valuable Fundraising Asset
Last April I took a life-changing program taught by Tracy Goodwin. It’s a program about the psychology of the voice. I thought her vocal techniques might help me get rid of my ‘ummmms’ when teaching Webinars. It not only did that, but it changed my entire business and even how I approach solicitation coaching with my clients. For example:
She helped me show up . . . and not some version of me or who I think I should be when speaking. It’s the same for fundraisers. I see so many people showing up to donor meetings thinking they’ve got to be more . . . more professional, more polished, more of what the donor wants.
But only the real you needs to show up.
Tracy taught me how to stay in the moment during the conversation and not let stories of the past, or fears of the future creep in. That’s how you get rid of your ummms . . . but it’s also how you serve, listen, and connect deeply and authentically. This is huge in fundraising.
But you need to quiet your mind.
Nonprofit CEOs - you’re going to be the most successful fundraiser when YOU are YOU.
4 Data Management Tips to Free Up More Time for Nonprofits
As a nonprofit professional, you’re always looking for new opportunities to use your time wisely, create better systems, and maximize your mission impact. Maybe you’re trying to improve communication skills, create more effective fundraisers, or even hire new team members. The one place that almost every nonprofit has room to improve? Data management.
All organizations deal with data. Whether you’re using a massive spreadsheet to keep track of your donors or a fully built-out CRM system, you have access to information about your supporters. But too many organizations think to themselves, “I’m saving this information for the future” rather than considering how they can use the data in their current situations. This approach creates two major issues for that organization:
The nonprofit often doesn’t take an active role in organizing and cleaning this data.
The nonprofit isn’t using that information to maximize their time and strategies.
If you’ve found that you’ve plateaued in your fundraising efforts or relate to the issues above, there are opportunities to improve your organization’s data management strategies. In this guide, we’ll cover four key tips that you can use to make sure you’re maximizing your time as an organization by freeing up what’s currently spent on unoptimized data management strategies.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Outlook for Spring 2021
There’s no denying that the unique circumstances of 2020 led many of us to go against the traditional fundraising methods, removing in-person interactions and transitioning annual events to the digital sphere seemingly overnight. While some organizations excelled, others experienced noticeable drops in overall engagement and revenue.
At this point, we’re a year into the pandemic and we have data on what worked and what didn’t in last year’s virtual peer-to-peer fundraising efforts. We can use this data to predict the P2P fundraising outlook for 2021 and take clear actions to fulfill supporters’ expectations of the virtual environment.
At GoodUnited, we help nonprofit organizations better understand, inspire, and cultivate relationships with their peer-to-peer supporters through social media. While thoroughly researching Facebook fundraising and the current peer-to-peer landscape, we’ve noticed a few trends that can help your organization navigate P2P in 2021. This guide will explore the outlook of peer-to-peer fundraising in a pandemic world through the following points:
The State of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Following 2020
What’s Coming Down the Pipeline for P2P Fundraising Trends
Before we dive into the trends that you can incorporate into your 2021 fundraising calendar, let’s take a look back at 2020 and how the year’s uncertainties impacted the peer-to-peer landscape.
How to Inspire Volunteers to Serve and Continue Serving
Guest Post - Chris Barlow of Beeline
While there are a lot of tactics shared by volunteer management experts, there is one overarching principle that I believe can inform your entire approach to working with volunteers, an approach that will leave your volunteers encouraged and inspired to continue to partner with you in your mission.
That principle is called the emotional bank account.
How to Fulfill Donors’ Expectations in a Virtual Environment
Regardless of their mission and size, nonprofits of all types share the same questions right now: how do we navigate this virtual environment and continue engaging with our donors? With COVID-19 impacting the philanthropic landscape on a daily basis, the answers to those questions have taken on new levels of complexity and importance. Growing a nonprofit in the current fundraising environment can be intimidating to even the most experienced fundraisers.
Right now, your development team needs to step up its efforts to continue fulfilling donors’ expectations and keep them involved in your mission.
The Top 3 Reasons Your Fundraising Has Plateaued
When nonprofit executives come to me, they are often a bit stuck. Often their organizations are raising the same amount of money every year and their development plans aren’t helping them grow because they’re simply based on the same thing, plus a little more than last year.
My advice?
“Break out of your comfort zone . . .”
“You’ve got to start doing something new to get different results . . .”
“Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable . . . “
As I’ve researched where organizations’ funding tends to plateau, I find that there’s typically one important first step.
“The Road Less Stupid” for Nonprofits: Avoiding the Mistakes That Sabotage Growth
I learned a lot in 2020, and I’m sure you did, too.
Not that it wasn’t scary. In addition to public health concerns and economic instability, from the beginning, the news was assuring us, “Most small businesses won’t survive this pandemic!”
Um, hi, that’s me.
I chose to tune out the noise. In early April, 90% of my projects felt like they were on hold, but I knew I had spent every minute of 2018 and 2019 putting infrastructure in place to make 2020 “my year.” So, I just kept showing up. I ended up having my best year yet, serving the largest clients of my career, while they got their greatest results, all over the country.
A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste
That’s the title of Chapter 10 from the book I read in late 2020 by Keith Cunningham. Keith would know about this topic. He shares how his business was making scores of millions from real estate deals, but then lost every last penny they had!
Ouch.
He said, “We needed to hear, recover, and rebuild - but do it differently next time. We wanted to be certain that we NEVER had to experience this kind of disaster again. The thinking was not that we could somehow control the economy or interest rates. We couldn’t. But what we could control was the thinking, disciplines, and strategies that allowed us to get caught in the tsunami in the first place.”