Nonprofits CAN Advocate or Lobby?
Recently, I’ve heard from several of you wondering what your organization is allowed to do when it comes to advocacy (and, yes, lobbying!). As many mission-driven leaders know, weighing in on public issues is vital to advancing our causes, but the legal boundaries around lobbying can feel confusing…
Year-End Giving
December is our big push in the nonprofit sector for donor engagement and giving. A while back I shared a few of the statistics below, but I wanted to pull them back out as a reminder. Forty percent of charitable donations are typically being made in December.
November Donor Retention
The final three months of the calendar year are an important time to welcome new donors and invite repeat gifts from previous donors with 40 percent of charitable donations typically being made in December, according to The Fund Raising School.
Maximizing Fall Fundraising
As you know, 4th quarter is the most popular time of the year for donors to give. Some organizations will raise up to 40% of their annual revenue this quarter alone.
Budgeting For Impact
The value proposition we have is the total of how we transform a community. It is not somehow restricted to just the direct program expenses. Every semester I have my graduate students focus on the mission nexus, how to translate seemingly hard operational expense items into direct mission and vision catalyst items. They come away from it with their eyes open and realizing the lost value of operational expenses.
Leadership Reflections For Growth
Are you prospering? Have you felt connected, nurtured and successful with the team of people and organization around you? The quote at the start of this newsletter reminded me of the Redwood trees on the Pacific coast of the United States.
Importance of Thank You Videos
From my experience, thank you and cultivation videos are widely overlooked. They should not be, though. They are very impactful tools.
Rethinking Impact Measurement
Measuring impact is not about perfection. It is about building an internal process that pays attention to key aspects of your organization’s work. Without that information, we will all be tempted to define success using someone else’s words, values or context. Authenticity matters when communicating impact--if we don't know what we do well, how can we engage people in our mission?
How Do You Define Success?
And yes, you can measure messy, unstable and long-term stuff. Don’t start with outside voices and benchmarks. Start by asking the people who come to work every day to make your mission happen, "How do you define success?" Ask the people you serve, “What has made the biggest difference for them?” Ask questions about why you do your work the way you do. You may learn that some things need to change, but in the process you’ll have galvanized the people who care the most and want to see your work succeed.
Fundraising Opportunity and Planned Giving Insight
I hope spring is bringing renewal for you. I so enjoy spring and the opportunity it brings for renewal. Whether it is approaches to strategy or my shrubs in the yard, spring brings a great time to experiment and realign.
Foundations of a Healthy Nonprofit Partnership
For this month, I thought I would share what the participants have defined as the characteristics of a healthy nonprofit partnership. This list has been refined and revised by each yearly cohort for over 5 years now. I thought it would be insightful for you. You can use it as your own diagnostic.
Closing the Year With Purpose
As Christmas and New Year’s comes this year, try to take time to just be. Reflect on what you are a part of and see the impact you have had. Realize that you are in a community with others with common passions and desires that galvanize a movement of change
Strengthening Donor Connection
Remember that you make a difference, not just in what you do, but in how you communicate it. Be a light this fall by sharing your message and your impact.
Reimagining Board Giving
“You all know I believe that the board should be part of donor relationship engagement in some form. The board should be involved with the donors cultivating, stewarding, and yes for some, inviting donors to give intimately.
Intimacy of Impact
Just like the farmer and his harvest, when you’re led with true meaning and joined with those who share in that meaning, the outcome is an intimate and organic relationship. And through that intimate and organic relationship, the harvest will become abundant.
The True Cost of Impact
As you know, all operational or overhead costs are in reality, mission-centric. If we are spending money on something that does not have mission impact, then we should not spend money on it. The challenge we have is not that indirect expenses are not mission-centric, but that we often don’t invest time in translating the value of those perceived non-mission centric items to the mission for the donor.
Remember Your Impact
Now is a time to see connection, to look with eyes of compassion, truth and justice, which your organizations do. You show people what matters in communities and help people see they can do something positive.
New Giving Rules
Individuals who make larger gifts will now be able to deduct a larger level of their giving. Currently, an individual may deduct up to 60% of their adjusted gross income (AGI) for charitable deductions of cash. The stimulus increases that. Individuals can now make gifts of cash that represent a total 100% of their AGI for the year 2020.
Building Lasting Impact
Remember, a donor who gives for 25 years usually will give a lot more than someone who is a donor for 5 years. Think about the long-term, lifetime giving value of your relationships.
13 Ways to Increase Donor Giving
I narrowed all of the research down to 13 critical things that were present in all of the research, no matter what the focus of the constituency.