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

Further Together: Fundraising Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations

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Feb 1, 2021 • 40min

prospect research 101 with Preeti Gill

Send us a textProspect research, or prospect development, often seems to be one of those fundraising “best practices” that feel exclusive to charities with more resources. How can small charities do meaningful prospect research and development without draining their bank account? On today’s podcast, prospect development expert Preeti Gill shares some practical tips for small nonprofits to kickstart their prospect research and challenges us to rethink the notion of philanthropy through the process of prospect development. Myths that Preeti wants us to leave behindYou always have to look outside for prospects. Be curious about your own donor base first. Look at the donors who have made a gift larger than you expected in the past, reach out to them, and get to know them and why they support your organization. More information means more dollars will be raised. Gathering external information and research about donors and donor prospects must be coupled with action in order to yield results. Don’t expect any donor research database or tool will solve all your fundraising problems. Preeti’s tips on prospect researchActively and consistently capture data on who is interacting with your organization. Collect data on who is subscribed to your e-newsletter, who comes to your event, and who volunteers for your organizations - your best donor prospects are those who already support your organization. Leverage external information to fill in the information gap about your existing donors. There might be information that your donors do not want to share with you explicitly. For instance, how much are they giving to other charities. If you can leverag donor research to fill these information gaps, you will have a better picture of your donors. Don’t do prospect research just from your desk - meet with people! Communities everywhere are filled with diverse donors who are eager to support and engage with their community initiatives. You’re missing a big part of the picture if you only rely on an online database to look up past giving history. You might also fall for the dangerous trap of having a narrow definition of a philanthropist and philanthropy. Favourite Quotes from Today’s EpisodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“It is not enough to have beautifully crafted and presourced prospect development. You also need to be investing in training your donor facing colleagues to get to know their donors and understand that it is their job to foster philanthropy and secure philanthropic support from donors supported by the prospect research.”“Prospect researchers play an important role in broadening our definitions of what philanthropy is beyond seeing an old white guy's name on the top of a building. Really think about what philanthropy means to a broader subset of Canadians, because I would argue newcomer Canadians and first generation Canadians have a different definition of philanthropy and how philanthropy is practiced and viewed in North America.”Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipPreeti Gill on LinkedinPreeti Gill on TwitterSupport the show
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Jan 25, 2021 • 39min

how to recruit your dream board with Andrea Shirey

Send us a textManaging the board often gives EDs a headache. When a board functions effectively, it can be an organization’s greatest asset, but when it doesn’t, it becomes an extra burden for the ED and the rest of the staff. So how do you build your dream board from inside out? On today’s episode, Andrea Shirey, CEO of One Nine Design and expert on nonprofit board management, shares with us step-by-step tips on improving your board’s experience and impact. Myths that Andrea wants us to leave behindPeople with tons of board experience are going to fix your board. Bringing in someone who is sitting on multiple boards is not necessarily going to fix things. Assess whether this board member even has the capacity to support your board, and be mindful that sometimes positioning a new board member as “the fixer” of problems can set the board member up for failure and create unintended friction within the board“We need to train our board!” - instead of focusing so much on training your board, focus on untraining them on bad habits first. Assess what they are doing right now that is not a good use of time and resources. See the tips below for some of the examples on how to “untrain” them. Andrea’s tips on increasing board engagement Improve communication with your board with the ED’s executive report. Avoid pages of long content without focus. Instead of writing the ED’s report the night before the board meeting, keep a document throughout the month to keep track of highlights and items you need the board’s support. When presenting the report, be very clear what kind of support you’re trying to get from the board members. See below for Andrea’s free Executive Director Board Report template. Flip your board agenda upside down. Make the board meeting engaging and interesting by sharing a good story right at the top and have the most important discussions at the beginning. Leave the procedural stuff at the end. Leverage your existing board members to recruit board members with authenticity and specificity. When you’re writing out a board recruitment posting for public distribution or your board members to share, avoid jargons and give a succinct summary of your organization’s theory of change and what is the expected commitment of your board members. Don’t be afraid of specifying the skill sets and expertise that you’re looking for. Favourite Quotes from Today’s EpisodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“Start with your current board, understanding what you need to move forward, and take the right steps to recruit the right people. An ideal board is made up of the right people for the right time for the organization who understand why they're there and understand what's expected of them.”“Improving the current board members’ experience and recruiting the right people to the board needs to happen simultaneously. When you improve the current board members’ experience, you’re setting them up to help the organization effectively. A good and specific place to start is with the Executive Director’s report.”Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipAndrea Shirey at One Nine DesignBetter Board Strategy GuideExecutive Director Board Report TemplateSupport the show
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Jan 18, 2021 • 36min

multicultural philanthropy with Bobby Sahni

Send us a textReaching and engaging the changing demographics in communities is often on organizations’ strategic agenda. But when it comes to developing the actual strategic tactics and implementing them, organizations often face a set of questions:  where do we begin? How do we reach new communities authentically and meaningfully? And how long will our strategies start to show results? On today’s podcast, Bobby Sahni, Partner and Co-Founder of Ethnicity Matters, joins us to answer all your burning questions about engaging diverse and multicultural communities. Myths that Bobby wants us to leave behindThere are universal strategies for building a D&I program. The make-up of communities are shifting and organizations must pay ongoing attention to shifting trends to build a thoughtful diversity and inclusion practice. “do immigrant communities give”? According to the recent study that EthnicityMatters conducted with Imagine Canada, across the board, immigrant communities have the willingness to give more but they currently feel like they’re not being spoken to directly by charities. Bobby’s tips on building a multicultural philanthropy programDevelop a long term strategy and give yourself permission to fail. Don’t try something in the short term and then easily fall back to the good old way of doing things just because one or two strategic tactics do not work out. Start from the top. Driving diversity, inclusion and belonging is an internal journey and must be led by the leadership level of the organizations in order to have long term, sustainable outcomes. Know the communities you want to reach and serve. While this may sound so intuitively obvious, do a gut check and be honest with yourself and your organization whether you truly know the communities you want to serve. Go out in the communities to meet people and get to know them. Be curious and open. My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“The only thing we have in common is that we’re different. Let’s be curious and open and talk about all of our differences”“Building a multicultural philanthropy program is not a one-month, two-month, or one-year, or five-year project. It's constantly evolving and changing. Every organization really needs to first develop a strategic mindset and understand that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy.” Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipEthnicityMattersReport on Multicultural Canada and the Future of GivingBobby Sahni on LinkedinSupport the show
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Jan 11, 2021 • 38min

Looking forward with Bruce MacDonald

Send us a textMyths that Bruce wants us to leave behindBecause corporations have shrinking budgets, they can’t support the charitable sector.  Many corporations have digital expertise that charities might not have. Corporations can share their digital expertise and help charities to assess their digital infrastructure needs to support them to adapt to the pandemic and post-pandemic world. After we survive this pandemic, it will be back to normal and business as usual for the charitable sector. It is clear that the ways we work and collaborate and the way we deliver our impact in the sector is rapidly changing. Charities must start thinking about what is their future business model and consider how to design their workspace (physical and/or digital), work culture, and service delivery model. Bruce’s tips on how can charities be equipped to face future stormsBuild digital infrastructure. Whether it is through sharing resources and expertise with partners and funders, or hiring digital specialists on the team, charities need to act now to build digital infrastructure that will ensure the sustainable health of their organizations. Diversify or maintain a diversified pool of funding support. We need a mix ecology for what is supporting the charitable sector, including support from the government, corporations and communities.  The coming together of different stakeholders will allow for the charitable sector to thrive. Continue to invest in impact sharing and storytelling. Continued and effective communication of the impact of charities and our sector as a whole has a profound impact on building and deepening trust with the general public. My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“It's time to shift the conversation to health and well being as opposed to overhead and administration. I've been using a tree analogy. We all understand that we need to deepen the roots and have a strong foundation. If several branches of the tree break off in a storm, for organizations whose roots are not strong, the storm will break the trunk of the tree. Part of building foundational strength is investing in the kinds of things like digital infrastructure and digital technology that are going to last in the long run.”“I’m hopeful that some of the practices that we've seen emerge through a crisis can shift our DNA and become part of how we as a sector work together more effectively going forward. With 2.4 million Canadians working in this sector, 13 million volunteers and 8.5% of GDP, we are a force to be reckoned with in Canada, and should be reckoned with. And if there's one thing we can do something out of this is to leverage our ability to use that strength for good.”Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipImagine CanadaBruce MacDonald on LinkedinSupport the show
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Dec 14, 2020 • 43min

failing forward with Nikki Bell

Send us a textWe all want to do a good job. Especially in the nonprofit sector, sometimes there’s immense pressure to do an outstanding job because we need to answer to the community we serve. But trying to do a good job does not equate to the endlessly pursuing perfection. In fact, perfection doesn’t exist and we learn the most when we fail. On today’s episode, our guest Nikki Bell, fundraising consultant and founder of Pizza for Losers, will share with us how we can learn from the smallest to the biggest failures and how to build a growth-oriented relationship with our fear of failure. Myths that Nikki wants us to leave behindFailure shows our weakness. Moments of failures show our real potential. If you have not failed at anything, it means you’ve been playing too safe. Only big failures can guide us to learn. Our work and lives are made up of many small failures more than big, catastrophic failures. Some of the biggest learnings can come from the smallest failures. Nikki’s tips on failing forwardTake space and time for reflection. Failing gives us an opportunity for introspection. Make sure that you allow yourself to sit with the uncomfortable feeling and observe what is going on and reflect what is your biggest takeaway. Have a toolkit ready for facing fear. Dealing with fear of failure and pressure to succeed takes practice. Use methods like free writing to dissect your feelings and nurture habits to make you feel comfortable with these stressful and uncomfortable feelings. The more you practice, the more you will become aware of it and know how to respond instead of react to it. Don’t play the comparison game. Practicing failing forward is a journey, and everyone’s journey is different. Avoid comparing yourself with others or else you might fall for the trap of thinking the person you compare yourself with doesn't seem to have fear or failures, but in actuality you don’t know another that person feels. My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“With failures, we tend to blame elsewhere. It’s really important to get comfortable with uncomfortable feelings. Reflect, work on yourself, and love yourself.”“Quitting something that’s not working is not failure. The failure is sticking in it and festering there long term just to save face.”Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipNikki Bell Pizza for LosersFundraising EverywhereSupport the show
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Dec 7, 2020 • 42min

donor naming rights for small charities with Vincent Duckworth

Send us a textOffering a naming right opportunity to donors can be a daunting process. From making the right offer to negotiating the terms of the naming, how might we think holistically and act strategically about it? On today’s episode, Vincent Duckworth, seasoned fundraiser and CEO and President of the ViTreo Group, reframes our fear and worry around donor naming rights and provides practical advice on how to manage this process, regardless of how big or small your organization is. Myths that Vincent wants us to leave behindNaming rights only benefits the donors. Having a major donor’s name on a campaign or program can help drive momentum to the campaign and establish credibility for the program. Donors who want naming rights only care about visibility. Many donors actually don’t care about visibility as much as they care about impact. Understand every donor’s unique needs and design the naming right opportunity to meet those needs. Vincent’s tips on managing donor naming rights The property you associate the donors names’ with is a reflection of the relationship. The more tangible the named property is, the more that it shows you value the relationship. For example, a physical donor wall reflects more permanence in a relationship than a virtual donor wall. Be adaptable with your recognition strategies as your organization evolves. There is no one golden rule that is always right when it comes to naming right opportunities. When your organiatin starts out, it might make sense to provide more donors with naming rights. As your organization grows, you can also decide whether or not to reserve naming rights to be more exlcusive. When confirming naming terms, be aware of the impact it has on the communities you serve. While it might make sense to limit the naming rights’ to a term, for certain programs, sustaining stability and longevity is important and changing their names from time to time can have a negative impact on your community. Engage your community in the process if possible and be aware of the impact it has if you need to change the naming of a program, an offering, or a property. My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“In the nonprofit sector, some organizations suffer from thinking that their brand is not as important as those in the for-profit sector. And that’s just not true. But we don’t realize this until we make an abrupt change like renaming a property or program without talking to the community. Be aware that naming things has an impact on community dynamics.”“Sometimes, donors like naming right opportunities that are only seen by program recipients and staff. They do this not because of ego and not because of brands. It’s about making people know others care.” Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipFind Vincent at ViTreo GroupBrainTrust Philanthropy PodcastSupport the show
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Nov 30, 2020 • 46min

dismantling white supremacy in the nonprofit sector with Hawa Mire

Send us a textHow can we have a real conversation about systemic racism and white supremacy, especially at our workplace with power dynamics involved? On today’s podcast, Hawa Mire, strategy and equity consultant and community organizer, walks us through how we might build up our muscles and emotional intelligence for having these important conversations. Myths that Hawa wants us to leave behindIf I do better individually, racism and oppression will go away. Racism permeates our society and culture on a systemic level.  While individual actions matter immensely, recognizing systemic racism and oppression exist and continue to exist is a starting point for us to tackle and dismantle white supremacy together. Only bad people will do racist things. Everyone has blindspots and unconscious bias perpetuated by systemic racism. Assuming that only bad people are racist pigeonholes conversations about race to be about individual character and risk neglecting the whole picture of systemic racism and power dynamics at play. Hawa’s tips on building up your muscle for talking about race, racism and white supremacy:Get out of passive learning. Reading a book is very different from engaging with real people and engaging with the community. Get out there to engage in experiential learning and connect with people and understand their lived experiences. Don’t react to a conversation with the sole intent of self-preservation. Conversations about race and racism are much more complex than one person’s good or bad. Allow people to come talk to you about their experiences without making the conversation about you. Respond mindfully and don’t be afraid to recognize you don’t have the language or answers. Recognize you’re responsible for the harm of your action and words. Intentions and outcomes can be very different. Having good intentions does not automatically preclude you from inflicting harm. Take responsibility for the impact and outcome of your actions and words. My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“It’s hard for people to get out of this sense of: I'm only a racist if I'm a bad person, not racist if I'm a good person. When you start the conversation around white supremacy there, you don't get very far because people are much more interested in preserving their sense of themselves. If the conversations involve BIPOC people responding rightfully about their lived experience, then suddenly we've got groups of people having conversations about themselves, but only one of those groups of people has any significant power to change the condition of the other”“In the context of a work environment, a charity, or an organization especially charities and nonprofit, what often happens is that staff or clients bring forward concerns around race and senior leaders bring in unconscious bias training. And what that does is it, it suggests that everybody in the room has the same level of power to engage in uncovering their bias, and it's just not the truth. We have to recognize the power dynamics: some of us have the power to do things about our bias, and some of us don’t.” Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipHawa MireFind Hawa on TwitterSupport the show
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Nov 16, 2020 • 33min

that dreaded question about sustainability with Kylie Hutchinson

Send us a textHow are you going to make this program sustainable after we stop funding you?Most people who have written a grant have been asked that question, and guess what, most people just improvise the answer.There’s a lot to unpack about program sustainability. Is it a fair expectation to ask from nonprofits? If nonprofits do want to sustain a program, what factors should they consider.Today’s guest on the podcast, Kylie Hutchinson from Community Solutions, has spent many years researching and trying to understand more about this subject. She even has a book specifically on this topic. Give it a listen, and know that next time when you’re scratching your head trying to answer that million dollar question about program sustainability, you’re not alone. Myths that Kylie want us to leave behindLet us run the pilot, then we will think about sustainability.  If you want your program to sustain, start planning for sustainability now. There’re many external factors that will help shape that, and although those factors can vary from program to program and organization to organization, it is never too early to think about sustainability, given that sustainability is aligned with your organization’s strategic goals.Sustaining a program means sustaining all parts of it all the time. Sometimes, like right now during the pandemic, even with the best intentions, it’s unrealistic to sustain all parts of a program. Instead, Kylie advises to focus on sustaining the core components of the program that can reignite momentum for the whole program.  Kylie’s tips on program sustainabilityShow and talk about your impact. No matter how great your program is, no external stakeholders will know unless you tell a compelling story about your impact. Showing and talking about your impact is instrumental to bring attention to why your program deserves support and should be sustained. Build community support through partnerships and collaboration. Kylie recognizes that partnerships and collaborations take work and require capacity, and sometimes it is very tempting to roll out a program all with internal support and no external collaboration. However, having community partnerships is like gaining legs for a table that is harder to shake down. Do the upfront work of collaborating now and your program will be stronger in the long run.Find your program champions in your community. Program champions are usually those who are at an arm-length with your organization (so not your board or staff) and believe in your impact. They have the connections and resources in local communities that you roll out your program, and so can contribute to your program needs in a practical way (like connecting you with a local media) or in a reputational way. These champions can have a huge impact in supporting your program in the long run.My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“Don’t wait till you have a month left in your funding, start planning for sustainability now.”“Ask yourself what are the embers of your programming absolutely need to maintain? So that when you are in a position to start rebuilding, you can blow on those embers and get your services back to where they were.” Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipFind Kylie at Community SolutionsFinally, a Guide on Program Sustainability!Support the show
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Nov 9, 2020 • 36min

discovering your donors with Allen Davidov

Send us a textConversations about data, databases, and CRMs often surface fear and insecurity. Are you doing enough? Are we missing out just because we can’t afford an expensive database? How can we leverage the tools out there to help our fundraising efforts? In this episode, Allen Dadvidov, VP of Business Consulting and Nonprofit Sector Lead from Environics Analytics, shares with us tips on how to leverage our existing donor data (yes, spreadsheets included!) to look for indicators that can help grow our fundraising and how general behaviour trends of the populations can support our understanding of donors’ engagement and giving potential. Myths that Allen want us to leave behindYou need a fancy database to understand your donors. Even if you’re using an excel sheet, if you’re clear about what indicators you’re looking for to tell you more about your donors, you will be able to look for those insights. On the other hand, even if you have a very comprehensive database, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you will just be sitting on data that tell you no story. Income level is not the sole indicator of a donor’s giving potential. On one level, income is a non-comprehensive data to reflect wealth, as people with high income can also have high debt. On another level, just because someone has a lot of wealth, it does not mean that person will make a large gift. Donor engagement is a bigger indicator for whether a donor will give than that person’s income level or wealth. Allen’s tips on using data to learn about your donorsTrack and look at what triggered a reaction. Don’t just track who gave and when. Look at whether there is a spike in donations after an email appeal is sent out. Or, try doing an A/B test with an appeal to see what kind of stories or tone works with your donors. Leveraging existing tools to understand the general behaviour of our population. For example, Environics has a tool called PRIZM that has a free online postal code look-up component that allows you to understand the persona of the Canadian population based on the neighbourhood they live in. These data can give you a good sense who your donors might be and what’re potential ways to engage them. My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“The first great step to understand your database is to ask the question: how are people responding and engaging? There might be a group that's very specific to just eblasts and wanting to know about awareness about a specific part of what you do. And there might be a part of your database that could be very tied to fundraising or advocacy. Mapping out these segments and keeping tabs on them are very good starting points to understand your database”“Oftentimes, when we look at fundraising data, we focus solely on how much we raise or how many people responded to an appeal, versus, what or who in an appeal triggered a reaction, because something obviously triggered a reaction. Understanding that is very important.”  Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipAllen on LinkedinEnvironics AnalyticsPRIZM - with a free online postal code look-up to understand Canadian neighborhoodsSupport the show
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Nov 2, 2020 • 45min

grow your fundraising through stewardship with Rochelle and Roxanne

Send us a textDonor stewardship is something that most of us know is important, but for some reason, it always gets pushed to the bottom of our to-do list. What ends up happening is when it comes time that you need your donors, you realize you haven’t talked to them in forever!This is why donor stewardship is not a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have if you want consistent fundraising growth. Today, Roxanne Tackie and Rochelle Greaves from Story Point Consulting share with us their expertise on what makes great stewardship and how you can leverage it to grow your fundraising.Myths that Roxanne and Rochelle want us to leave behindStewardship is a lot of work. Great and consistent stewardship can save you work from stressing over how to get donors and make asks.We need to constantly find new donors. Instead of constantly feeling pressured to find new donors, fish in your own pond. Your existing donor base is the best place to start deepening relationships and engagement. We need big data to observe donor behaviour. You don’t need a fancy database or meticulous dataset to understand your donors. Even if your donor data is sitting in a spreadsheet, look for important indicators such as how often donors give and what their gift size. Roxanne and Rochelle’s on leveraging donor stewardship to grow your fundraisingYour volunteers are great potential donors. Overcome the fear of asking your volunteers to give. They already have invested interest in the organization. A lot of times, they’re just waiting for an opportunity to give. Equip your board or fundraising committee with great stories. A lot of organizations struggle with mobilizing the board or volunteer fundraising committees to do fundraising. The first step is to equip the board members and committee members with great personal stories and experience they have with the organization so that they can paint a compelling picture of why others should support the organization too. Be personal in your communication. Connect with your donors authentically with your own voice. Put away template letters with ultra-professional and corporate tone. Tailor recognition to your donor’s needs. Everyone wants to be recognized or not recognized according to their needs. Listen to your donors' needs and provide the thank you and recognition in the way that suits them. My favourite quotes from this episodePost your favourite quote on social to share with us!“We really don’t want donors to only hear from us when we’re asking for money. If we’ve been communicating to our donors, celebrating our successes with them, and letting them know how the programs are going, by the time we ask them, they should already be aware of where you’re going. Now you’re setting up a situation where your donors are ready to talk about the support you need.” - Roxanne“Once you look at your donor database, you can really see which donors are really engaged. Look at things like: how often are they donating? How long have they donated? Do they volunteer with your organizations? Once you learn who are the most engaged donors, you can start develop plans for stewarding these donors, and maybe eventually move them up to become major donors at your organizations” - Rochelle Resources from this EpisodeThe Good PartnershipFind Roxane and Rochelle at Story PointFreSupport the show

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