Small Nonprofit: Fundraising Tips, Leadership Strategies, and Community-Centric Solutions

Further Together: Fundraising Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations

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Feb 7, 2022 • 35min

asking for a *gasp* major gift with Rhea Wong

Send us a textMajor gift fundraising can be very intimidating for so many small organizations. Oftentimes we think we don't know anyone who can give, or we think of a major gift as a hundred thousand dollars where very often it can be 500 or a thousand dollars for your organization. But I think the most intimidating part of major gift fundraising is the idea of a face-to-face ask that gets people running and hiding. I think that is truly the number one thing that many people think of as the worst part of fundraising. In today’s podcast, Rhea Wong, experienced nonprofit consultant and coach, will talk about how you can make bigger asks for bigger gifts to fully fund your small nonprofit’s vision and mission. Myths that  Rhea wants us to walk away from:You can ask anyone to give. Building a relationship with donors is a process. To determine whether they align with your organization’s mission, you must first identify and understand the type of person you are approaching, their capacity to give and know their values and interests. Only rich people have the capacity to give.  Rhea suggests that the best way to know whether someone is inclined to give to you is to simply ask.  Just because someone has a hundred million dollars doesn't mean they're going to give you a hundred million dollars. These donors could give you a thousand or five hundred dollars if your mission does not resonate with them.Rhea’s thoughts around major gift fundraisingFundraising is just a math problem.  It's asks minus no’s equal yeses. The more asks you put out, the more nos you're going to get, but the more yeses you're going to get.  Learn to listen. In conversations with donors, remember the 75:25 ratio, where 75% donors talking and 25% you listening. People who are nervous about money, about the conversation, they overtalk, they create a deck as a crutch but there's no substitute for being present and being vulnerable and asking really good questions to people. Give value. Every time you talk to someone and you're asking them for something, you're probably not going to get callbacks. But you can cultivate a relationship where you are also offering value and that could be in the form of companionship, giving information, opportunity to get more engaged or involved in a meaningful volunteer experience. Every meeting should be about engaging further, but that engaging further, it doesn't have to be about them giving it can also be about you giving.Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode“ I build a whole business around major gift fundraising training, and I'm like, here's the big secret you guys, I'm training you to have a conversation. That's the secret. Like, it's not like some deck, it's not magical words. It's not like anything other than like, can I as a human being have, sit with you and understand who you are as a human being. And see if the thing that you care about is the thing that we're doing. And if so, can we build something together? Like, that's it, that's the big secret, right? ”Resources from this EpisodeRhea Wong ConsultingThe Good PartnershipSupport the show
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Jan 31, 2022 • 36min

stepping into your leadership with Kathy Archer

Send us a textRunning a small nonprofit can be pretty lonely. Very often, whether we're the executive director or a senior manager or leader in the organization, we don't have peers in our role. In small shops, we're often the only ones responsible for our area of work. And that can be hard, especially when we feel like we might not be as competent, confident, or content with ourselves as leaders in the work that we do. In today’s podcast, we’ve invited Kathy Archer, a leadership development coach, to share her insights on how to lead your small nonprofit with confidence. Myths that Kathy wants us to walk away from:Leaders know everything. The most effective leaders are learners and they not only focus on professional development, but they focus on personal development. You can continue to grow and learn all of the stuff you need in your organization, your field, your sector, but as you move up the ranks, there's a lot of inner growth that needs to happen as well.Small nonprofit employees can’t have leadership skills.  Leadership is not about job title or job description. This is about becoming the person you want to be and as a leader.  You can think of your future career path and make a decision. Forget about the victim mindset and take responsibility for your own learning and growth.  Kathy’s Inner Guidance Cycle in Mastering Confidence as Nonprofit LeaderPause – Stop and pay attention to your thoughts. As leaders, we're always on the go, like whacking moles or sending emails and going to a meeting and we're getting this done and taking this off the to-do list, but we never step back and stop. The first thing we should do is step back and pause. Ponder – Consider the messages in your thinking. True pondering is forward motion. Stop a moment and check where you're attuned to your body or your body sensations, your thoughts, and where you want to be. Think about your goals. Ask yourself: how do I want to develop? What do other people say? What's the feedback?  What are my own desires? What's the direction my career wants to go?Pivot – Shift your thoughts. This is the stage to think about the direction you are going and to review your goals. Break it down into those more reasonable steps so it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Proceed – Move forward again, intentionally and mindfully. This stage is actually doing the work you said you were going to do and recycling that process again. Pause, think about your goals, review, and proceed. Favourite Quotes from Today’s EpisodePost your favorite quote on social media to share with us!“The most effective leaders are learners and they not only focus on professional development, but they focus on personal development. And so you can continue to grow and learn all of the stuff you need in your organization, your field, your sector, but as you move up the ranks, there's a lot of inner growth that needs to happen as well. And so we have to align the two.”Resources from this EpisodeKathyArcher.comThe Good PartnershipSupport the show
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Jan 24, 2022 • 28min

leveraging (micro) influencers with Christina Edwards

Send us a textIn today’s podcast episode, we’re going to talk about influencer marketing with Christina Edwards, the founder of Splendid Consulting, a marketing expert, and a coach, and she will show you how to work with influencers to grow your small nonprofit and amplify your social impact. Myths that Christina wants us to walk away from:Influencer marketing doesn’t work with small nonprofits.  Influencers are used to being paid but a lot of these people, especially on Instagram or TikTok, want to be part of change, they want to be part of making their world or their community or their neighbourhood, a better place. We just need to find influencers who care and resonate with our cause and highlight the benefit to them. Influencers need to have large followings. Micro-influencers, who have 900 or 2000 followers are also powerful and sometimes even more powerful than influencers with 5 million followers because that person usually has a higher engagement level and is also very specific to what they talk about and that could be specific to your location or a cause of your organization. Christina’s thoughts around influencer marketing for nonprofitsMake it fun and easy. Working with an influencer should feel fun and easy for the influencer. If it's not fun and it's not easy, then this is a business opportunity and we need to pay them for their time. This should feel like an added value for them because they're partnering with you. Connect with influencers. Meet them where they are. Start by warming up before you make the ask. Interact, share and comment on their content in an authentic way.  This should be a partnership that feels well aligned, fun, and easy for both people. You can also develop relationships with influencer agencies, managers, or publicists. Make influencers your brand ambassadors and partners.  Influencers are used to being paid for and they typically need to create a lot of content. In this sense,  it's not a heavy lift for them if you give them done-for-you assets. The second thing is that we're really highlighting the benefit to them. They want to be part of something that is giving back to the community. They want to be a part of this social change. Lastly, start with an initial ask for one time, where you bring them in on for one of your campaigns. So that might be two or three times a year. Favourite Quotes from Today’s EpisodePost your favorite quote on social media to share with us!“We didn't really talk about like the power of the influencer who has 900 followers or 2000 followers, because that person is so powerful. Arguably sometimes more powerful than the person who has 5 million followers because that person usually has eight engaged community that has a higher engagement level and is also very specific to what it is they talk about.”Resources from this EpisodeSplendid ConsultingThe Good PartnershipSupport the show
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Jan 17, 2022 • 22min

raise more money with this one simple trick with Cindy Wagman

Send us a textSmall nonprofit organizations face the same fundraising challenges over and over again. They often believe that one fundraising strategy can solve all of their problems and look to large organizations for inspiration. Better marketing, major gift campaigns, corporate sponsorship- they have so many ideas, but most of the time, those solutions are not aligned with what will raise their organization's money today and in the near future and grow it into a sustainable program.If you want to learn how to raise more money for your small nonprofit that is aligned with your organization’s mission, our very own Cindy Wagman will share the key strategy to your fundraising success in our upcoming FREE online training on January 18, see you there! Myths that Cindy wants us to walk away fromA donor meeting is an ask for money. Donor meetings are not an ask for money. It is not a pitch and it's not talking about your organization very much. This is an opportunity for you to get to know your donors, why they support you, what they care about. Maybe they even have feedback around your fundraising or ideas to help you raise more money.It’s okay to make assumptions about your donors.  We make so many assumptions about our donors based on our beliefs around fundraising and the value of our work, and almost always we're wrong. And then we use these wrong assumptions to then drive our fundraising strategy and decisions, which leads to us making bad fundraising decisions, which leads to us not raising the money we want to make or raise for the organization. Cindy’s thoughts around fundraising Get to know your donors. Most of our fundraising decisions are made by people sitting in a boardroom or around zoom and we make assumptions about our donors. And almost always these assumptions are wrong. We need to stop making assumptions and start verifying information about our supporters. The more information we know the more we can think about fundraising strategies that make sense for their donors and of course for our mission.Donor meetings help you find more donors. By getting to know your donors, it will help you see patterns and learn about their values. They have probably shared these values with their friends and networks.  Your donors are one of the biggest untapped resources in finding new donors to your cause so the more you get to know them and build that fundraising strategy in line with them, you're also creating opportunities for them to welcome more people and introduce your organization to more potential donors.Communicate with donors. Getting to know your donor is an opportunity to understand how to communicate with them. By leveraging tools and technology, you can find ways to connect more with them. Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode“We always get so caught up in elaborate fundraising plans and strategies, and we have to do these big things. It's not fundraising. Success comes from consistency and finding those points of intersection between your organization, its mission, and your donors.”Resources from this EpisodeSign up for our FREE online training and get your donor meeting guide todayThe Good Partnership Support the show
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Jan 10, 2022 • 30min

HR made simple with Bruce MacDonald

Send us a textFrom lack of opportunity to develop leaders or train managers to pay transparency, there are so many issues and topics about HR that we never seem to have time to do or be able to make the proper investments. It's going to be a big problem for our sector because our work is only as good as our teams. Our organizations are only as strong as our culture. In today’s podcast episode, Bruce MacDonald, President, and CEO of Imagine Canada,  is going to share with us HR Intervals - a new and entirely free human resources toolkit specifically designed for nonprofit professionals to help them manage new challenges and opportunities in our work cultures. Myths that Bruce wants us to walk away fromSmall nonprofits can’t afford human resources. Some leaders may need to find some volunteers to help them out, whether it's a member of the board or just networking to find some HR folks. Start that conversation with the staff about the priorities and urgent needs of the organization and be willing to listen to them. A talented staff member who is inspired by this work could be the staff lead supported by the executive director. They can also access the information and resources they need to perform HR functions at their organizations with the new HR Intervals toolkit. Nonprofits shouldn’t invest in human resources. The pandemic posed new challenges in terms of attracting and retaining employees. Private-sector firms are improving their ability to attract and retain talent, which has an impact on charities and nonprofits. Companies are now offering incentives to work there, and it is critical to ensure that we have the best possible workplaces, fair workplaces, reasonable, transparent compensation, that the culture is there, that this equity and equality is more vital than it has been in quite some time because of this competition for talent.Bruce’s thoughts around HR Intervals for Nonprofits Access to free information and resources. A vast majority of our sector does not have paid human resources talent inside their organizations, there can be a gap in terms of how organizations think about the management of their people. HR Intervals is made to bring a service that organizations can go to, to help leaders better understand, address, and guide people management in their organizations.Be intentional. HR Intervals offers a variety of resources and practices that can be utilized by nonprofits to assess their organizations. They can leverage this information to develop realistic opportunities and set priorities that will create a better workplace for their employees and enable them to do their mission effectively.Favorite Quotes for Today’s Episode“I think the one thing I've learned is you can't do it all at the same time or can do it all at once, but over time can create a basket of offerings that make it a place where people want to be, want to go and want to stay.”Resources from this Episode HR Intervals The Good PartnershipSupport the show
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Dec 13, 2021 • 36min

creating space to breathe with Kim Dechaine

Send us a textHave you ever felt overwhelmed, like giving up? Or maybe just really burnt out? You are not alone! Nonprofit employees are always at risk of burnout. Pre-pandemic, our work was already demanding. And now the pandemic has left us even more stressed and with no capacity to deal with any more ups and downs. In this episode, Kim Dechaine, Founder of Inner Powered Leaders, will discuss how we can change our mindset, and prevent and overcome burnout at work. Myths that Kim wants us to walk away from:Being busy and overwhelmed is normal. We have been told over the years that being busy and getting many things done is a good thing. But these are just the expectations of our society, especially in our sector. In reality, we need to listen to our body, and we need to take a break from work, slow down and take care of ourselves to prevent burning out.We can’t control burnout. In order to find balanced energy, we need to have self-leadership which is learning to control our thoughts, feelings, and actions. We can have more balance and connection when we slow down, practice mindfulness, compassion, and gratitude. Kim’s thoughts around Burnout Mindfulness: Slowing down our minds and being quiet allows us to choose more of our energies. We can choose more creativity and flow. We can listen to what our body is telling us. Mindfulness helps us to focus on one thing at a time and we can train ourselves to be mindful by doing breathing exercises. Compassion: Stepping into another person’s shoes. It is looking at their situation from their perspective without judgment. We need to practice breathing and quieting our minds first, which allows us to choose how we are going to react, what action we should take, and how we can look at a situation from someone else's perspective. Practice Gratitude: Kim suggests practicing gratitude in three ways. First, by writing down three things that you are grateful for every day. This doesn’t have to be massive, we can find it with the small things. Second, saying you’re grateful right when the moment happens. Lastly, when you feel like you are in a difficult moment, you can pause for a moment and choose gratitude instead of reacting in a situation. Gratitude helps us to shift our perspective. Favorite Quotes from Today’s Episode“We have been taught this from a very young age that actually being busy and overwhelmed is normal. And it makes us a better person because we're doing more because we are, you know, look at how much work she gets done. Look at how the time, oh, look who spends the longest at work. Right. And it's almost like we applaud those actions and we cannot do that. And honestly, the only way we can change burnout is each of us taking control and deciding we're going to change this. We're going to change the outlook of society and the expectations.”Resources from this Episode Inner Powered LeadersKim Dechaine | LinkedInThe Good Partnership Support the show
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Dec 6, 2021 • 36min

AI, fundraising, and you with Nejeed Kassam

Send us a textAI is one of those buzzwords that has recently taken over people's minds. We imagine AI as a futuristic, thrilling, and scary opportunity. But we don't always recognize how it affects us or our work. The cool thing is that AI is being brought into our sector and has a lot of potentials to help organizations leverage their data to do more focused work or analyze and find new opportunities.In today’s podcast, our guest, Nejeed Kassam, Lawyer, CEO and Founder of Keela, an impact technology company, talks about AI and how it helps small nonprofits manage their donors, mobilize resources, and raise more money.Myths that Nejeed wants us to walk away from:AI will replace your job as a fundraiser. Nobody's coming for your jobs. You can't automate fundraising. That's not realistic. What you can do is allow folks to be less burnt out, allow them to prioritize more effectively, allow them to see patterns and focus their work in different ways.Spending time on data has no benefits for your organization. Quality data has many benefits for organizations. Aside from compliance, data helps organizations to prepare for donor meetings, and then to use it for reporting and analytics. Nejeed’s thoughts around AI and Fundraising AI predictions help drive decision-making. Using patterns from data that you have collected will help drive your decision-making. Data can tell your organization a story about your donors that is not recognizable when we don’t see the big data picture. It can also help you identify ask levels or make decisions about where you spend your time and energy.Forecasting helps fundraisers. Understanding forecasting can help you understand your organization’s programming realities. It can understand whether you’re on track for where you want to be. You can make decisions when you have an idea of where you're going. It also helps identify when to ask for support, how much to ask for, and more.Benchmarking for fundraising.  Data helps your organization to measure efficacy and focus on thinking about how you are doing relative to your goals. Being able to check yourself, being able to hold yourself as an organization and as a fundraiser accountable is really valuable because then you can lean on all these data points in these predictive analytics and know where you really need to dig in and not.Favorite Quotes from Today’s Episode“No, you can't automate fundraising. That's not realistic. What you can do is allow folks to be less burnt out, allow them to prioritize more effectively, allow them to see patterns and, um, focus their work in different ways because of the AI ultimately the effective use of artificial intelligence and fundraising is going to be because it’s deployed appropriately and then the fundraisers can take that knowledge and make decisions and steward better and build stronger relationships.”Resources from this Episode Nonprofit Software | KeelaKIT: AI-Powered Fundraising (fundraisingkit.com)The Good Partnership Support the show
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Nov 29, 2021 • 31min

a primer on design thinking with Betty Xie

Send us a textHave you ever heard the term design thinking thrown around whether in our sector or in the business world and you've thought, what are they talking about? What is that such a buzzword? But there's actually a lot of really cool stuff happening around design thinking and the approach that it has to problem-solving, which is exactly what today's podcast is about, how we can apply design thinking to our fundraising and our work.Our guest for today’s episode is our colleague at The Good Partnership, Betty Xie, a fundraiser, filmmaker, and Coach for creatives. She studied Strategic Foresight, Innovation and Design at OCAD and brought that to our work. Myths that Betty wants us to walk away from:Design Thinking can't be applied in fundraising.  At the core of design thinking is a process of problem-solving that is focused on a human-centric, problem-solving process. In the fundraising space, empathizing with the user is the key. This means understanding your donors and funders’ needs, reaching out to them, and getting feedback. You need to have a perfect pitch deck to raise more money. Following the process of design thinking, at the most minimum prototype, it’s just like passing an idea or some kind of model that doesn’t go for the most perfect state and move forward with it. The Stages of Design Thinking Process Empathize with the user - In the nonprofit’s case, this could be our beneficiaries, the people that we serve, or our donors. Framing the problem - Defining what exactly is the problem that we try to solve. Ideate and design a solution - Once you have an idea of a solution, instead of going with the perfect solution, you will come up with a prototype and a prototype doesn't need to be physical. In a context of an organization, the prototype can be an idea that you're testing or a server or program.Testing and Iterating - Testing the prototype to see what works, what doesn't work, and then bring it back, have an honest conversation of other feedback, and try again and again. Favorite Quotes from today’s episode Empathize with the user is key. And in the fundraising space, that means really understanding your donors and funders’ need. I just think that it's very common to not spend enough time staying in that space and trying to reach out and get feedback. Resources from this episodeBetty Xie LinkedIn  Lead to Create The Good Partnership Support the show
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Nov 22, 2021 • 35min

how-to guide for staff supervision with Rita Sever

Send us a textSupervision is one of those things in our sector that we kind of fall into. It is often overlooked in our sector but the quality of supervision is important because it affects productivity, morale, work quality, team interaction, conflict, and the overall culture of the organization.In today’s episode, Rita Sever, an expert in human resources, organizational psychology, and nonprofit systems, talks about how to lead, manage people, and create a culture that is aligned with our organization’s anti-oppression work and values. Myths that Rita wants us to walk away from:Nonprofit workers don’t need supervision. Nonprofit organizations are full of kind, caring, and committed people, but that doesn't mean they don't need to be supervised. Even when people are extremely high functioning, they need a supervisor's tender touch and a culture that will encourage them along the way and help them succeed.Power and privilege don’t exist in nonprofit supervision. Power and privilege have an impact on supervisory relationships. To work from an anti-oppression perspective, supervisors must be prepared for self-awareness – knowing their own background, norms, and hidden rules, and bringing that awareness to real conversations about how it affects their supervision, relationships, and treatment of others.Rita’s JOIN framework on giving feedback as a supervisorJ - Join your supervisees before you give them feedback.  You want to make sure you remember you're on the same side. O - Observation and objective statement of what actually happened.I - Impact. What was the impact of that objective observation? How did it impact the person, the team, the work? N - What needs to be different. And that can be simply, let's talk more about how you could have handled that interaction.Favorite Quotes from Today’s EpisodePost your favorite quote on social media to share with us!“I think the pitfall is that we are doing so much or so committed to our missions that we sort of take it for granted that everything will work out in terms of people because people are there to support the mission. So we just trust that it's all going to work, but even when people are extremely high functioning, they need that tender touch of a supervisor and a culture that is going to encourage them along the way and help them be successful.”Resources from this Episode Supervisionmatters.com Leading for Justice: Supervision, HR and Culture The Good PartnershipSupport the show
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Nov 15, 2021 • 32min

disrupting philanthropy with Yonis Hassan

Send us a textFundraising and philanthropy make a lot of people very uncomfortable. A big part of that is our discomfort with money generally, but a lot of it is how our sector and philanthropy have been structured and the power systems it upholds.Our sector faces challenges related to power, change, and resource redistribution for impact. In today's episode, Yonis Hassan, Co-Founder, and CEO of The Justice Fund discusses one of his biggest challenges with the philanthropic sector - the hoarding of money in foundations. According to the Justice Fund’s most recent campaign, Move The Money, charitable foundations in Canada are holding onto over $85 billion dollars in charitable assets. If distributed, this money would create transformative change in providing security and proper access to opportunities and long-term resources to underserved communities.  Join the conversation as Yonis shares why the time to use this money is now. It’s time to call for change.Myths that Yonis wants us to walk away from:Preserving a foundation’s capital over a long time is in the best interest of the public. It’s not. There's going to be more money coming into this sector. There’s going to be more innovation, more creativity, and more risk-taking. Yonis urges the charitable sector to use the abundance of taxpayer’s assets in a timely manner when we have a plethora of crises facing our communities. Small nonprofits cannot make big changes in the philanthropy sector. Whether you are a grassroots organization, an unincorporated organization, a volunteer, a board member, someone who just donates to organizations, there will be an opportunity for you to speak up around these issues. Yonis’ thoughts around reforming philanthropy: Changing the status quo. The foundations and funds in our sector have amassed a total of $85 billion. Reforming philanthropy entails leveraging the abundance of these assets to have a greater impact and serve the most vulnerable communities, especially during times of crisis.Stepping up as a collective sector. We must act collectively and have an open discussion about charitable laws and how they contribute to discrimination and continued oppression of indigenous communities in order to mobilize resources that will improve the situation of the vulnerable populations. It’s time to speak up. Yonis encouraged the philanthropic community to speak up. Whether it's speaking with your municipal council or your MP or MPP, your donors, or your board members, stand up and urge them to take action and make these legislative reforms.Favorite Quotes from Today’s EpisodePost your favorite quote on social media to share with us!“With over $85 billion of charitable assets in this country, we can be using that to invest in affordable housing, to invest in climate financing, to invest in transit, to invest in cooperatives, but we choose not to. So, expecting the federal government to implement some changes to hold us accountable, to hold the philanthropic sector accountable.”Resources from this Episode Justice FundThe Good Partnership Support the show

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