The one-size-fits-all mentality may work with buying a hat but it is not an effective way to attract new donors to your nonprofit. 

It is possible to diversify your revenue and bring sustainability to your organization by attracting new donors. These individual donors will want to support your organization and its mission. 

We have identified three key items that you can immediately implement to attract new donors to your organization.

1. Choose to engage the donor’s head and heart to make the investment decision. 

While some donors want to hear about the tear-jerking story, other donors gravitate to the infographic that clearly demonstrates the direct numbers impacted by the mission of the organization. And to make things a little more difficult, some donors appreciate both – the heart felt story and the hard facts combined with data. 

We have found that you will achieve your best results from a donor appeal letter when you genuinely know your audience. Keep in mind that this is not only the words on the paper – it is also how your solicitation letter made them feel. You want your donors (and prospective donors) to remember their feelings, even after the last punctuation mark on the paper. 

When marketing to a donor demographic that you have not identified their giving preference, go with the heartfelt story. Make sure you are able to clearly…

Nonprofit organizations have added pressure in the area of Leadership Development due to smaller staff sizes, with smaller salaries. This means people are expected to do more for less. Volunteer bases, while passionate, also sport high turnover. Volunteer managers are constantly training, on top of everything else they do. Between being understaffed, stretching resources and constantly training new people, little energy is left over to put into leadership development. 

Even in the age of technology and virtual meetings, the most impactful moments of development happen in regular face-to-face meetings on a daily basis. Your conference room (or coffee shop table) is sacred space. Use the moments in and around meetings to foster the kind of leadership that will support your organization.

Here are a few toxic signs of ego to watch out for that will invade your sacred meeting space and derail leadership development:

Steamroller:

To steamroll a conversation is to take the focus off a subject and turn it into being all about one person. If you witness a person is consistently taking over a conversation to talk about themselves, you can veer the focus back by kindly acknowledging what they were saying using reflective language, and then saying, “but this meeting is about X and we need to hear from Mr. Y.” It may not work the first time, but you’ve taken the first step to establishing a precedence for your…

When it comes to fundraising for nonprofits, donors are key. While reaching out to donors for funds, it is essential to treat them as partners. You should constantly keep them in the loop about things you are planning to do and how you plan to go about your campaign.

Donors have several motivations for choosing a cause. It could be something they feel passionately about, or it could also be their desire to be part of a community while sharing the vision of the leader of the project. It could be because of tax-deductible donations, or several other factors. You should be able to provide reasons to the donor for connecting with your cause. Once they are a part of your cause, it is equally important to reach out to them on a regular basis to make them feel a part of your community.

Here are a few ways to make your campaign more donor centric: 

Show donors how they can help solve a problem

Evidence shows that people are more likely to donate if they believe they can create a difference through their support. They strive to help solve something that they associate themselves with. Target your audience with a pitch that has specific requests.

Remind donors how you are changing things

It is important to make your donors aware of how your cause is making a difference, even after the donation. Keep them aware of the how/when/what/where of the project. Let donors know each…

Nonprofits rely heavily on giving from private citizens to have the funds necessary to carry out their mission and strengthen their communities. The tax law and jobs act (TCJA) presents many changes for nonprofits to consider in 2018. Charitable giving provides necessary support to nonprofits by providing vital services to communities, and the most giving by far comes from individual donors.

The Tax Policy Center projects that individual charitable giving will decrease by between 4 and 6.5 percent in 2018. The following changes to the law are some of the most critical when considering the effect they may have on charitable giving to nonprofits. 

• Standard deductions are increased to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples.
• Exemption of estate tax has been doubled to $11 million for individuals and $22 million for couples.
• State and local income and property taxes are now limited to a $10,000 deduction.
• For those who itemize, the limit for cash donations is raised from 50 percent to 60 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI).
• The Pease Amendment, which limited overall itemized deductions, is now repealed.

Let's examine each of them.

Key changes

Among nonprofit organizations, human service nonprofits, in particular, serve public interests to improve the community. Each community brings diverse challenges for the government, nonprofit, and private sectors to address; and these complex social issues are rarely solved by single organizations. Aid programs may be necessary to benefit the individuals currently in poverty, but it does not provide a lasting solution (Dees, 2008). Many leaders are working towards collaboration; however, “larger cultural contexts remain firmly anchored to the myth of the heroic individual leader” (Senge, et. al, 2015). Understanding how a nonprofit leader can catalyze and guide systemic development to foster collaboration may lead to creating effective change on a greater scale. (Senge, et. al, 2015). 

Nationally and in Arizona, systemic challenges are present. For example, the poverty rate in the United States increased from 12.4 percent in 2000 to 15.5 percent in 2015; and was even higher in Arizona where the 2015 poverty rate was 18.2 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016).  While poverty was rising, so were national high school graduation rates. In 2011, the U.S. graduation rate was 79 percent and the rate in 2015 was 83.2 percent. The Arizona high school graduation rate dropped from 78 percent in 2011 to 77.4 percent in 2015 (National Center for Education, 2016). Scharmer (2008) accuses these failures to the blind “deeper dimension of leadership and…