If you are depending on special event income to fund your mission, it’s likely you’ve noticed the last five years have felt like you are moving up the down escalator.

Perhaps you have noticed that sponsors are gripping their pocketbooks with a tighter fist, attendees are not as plentiful as they once were and high-end table buyers are downsizing their commitments. What’s more is that it doesn’t really matter whether it is a high-end gala or a walk. Keeping staff motivated and raising the big dollars with special events can be an expensive and staff-intensive endeavor that is growing more difficult to sustain in our world’s diminished economy.

Yet, donors are still available but are far more discriminating about where to invest their charitable dollars.  Here are some items that donors want when making their decisions:

• Results. Donors want to know what happened with the dollars you used to have. What did your organization do to move the marble?
• Personalization. Do you know me and what I like to support? 
• Knowledge. Do you keep me informed of mission progress without always asking for support?

So how does an organization make this transition? Here are some steps to get started:

Collect and organize

Hopefully, you are already collecting as much contact information as you can from…

One of the primary gauges we use for digital communications is post reach and engagement, including number of views and amount of individuals who have interacted with a “like” or comment. As a nonprofit, your message is most likely tailored toward a specific cause, whether it’s through news, links, or photos.

Your ultimate breadwinner for social media engagement is photos. People LOVE photos and that’s the way it has always been. Do you remember being younger and loving books packed full of photos? The same rule applies with social media! Always tell/share your story with a photo, the more original the better.

If you have a news update or link, take or find a photo that fits with your nonprofit’s mission and enhances the update. This increases the likelihood of people reading your post. Also, get creative and show the “behind the scenes” of your organization. People respond well to seeing staff and activities going on at an organization and it increases transparency. As a smaller organization, we regularly showcase employees who are celebrating birthdays and anniversaries on social media which, in turn, increases employee appreciation.

ICAN recently completed a $5.6 million capital campaign and throughout the process we posted construction update photos. The community consistently responded with positive feedback because the photos allowed them to feel part of the…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

These days,"social network" is a term that often refers to a social media community, such as Facebook, and thus is not a term that many managers would take seriously unless they were discussing a social media campaign. In fact, we all live in social networks, every day, and the implications are important for organizations, professional networking and leadership development. The ways in which social networks are designed for interaction among the members of an organization can create a network of support to improve teamwork, as well as create the highest level of information flow to stimulate ideas.

A social network is defined as "an organized set of people that consists of two kinds of elements: human beings and the connections between them," (Christakis, pg. 13). The connection between two people within a social network is referred to as a tie. According to Mark Granovetter, "the strength of a tie is a combination of the amount of time, emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding) and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie" (Granovetter, p. 1361). A tie is defined as strong or weak based on these factors. Each type of tie has advantages and…

What is your nonprofit doing right now to attract my money? As a 20-something, I have encountered few nonprofits that reach out in a meaningful way for my charitable dollars.

Understandably, most nonprofits (and probably yours) design fundraising campaigns for my parents and grandparents knowing that they indeed have more charitable dollars than I do. But I would argue, Generation Y or “millennials”, those born in the 80’s and 90’s, are poised to be the next big thing in charitable giving. Establishing relationships with millennials today can yield immediate results and is absolutely vital to the long-term success of your nonprofit.

Going after the charitable dollars of millennials may seem like “small fish,” but keep this in mind, millennials are now the largest generation in terms of population. Today, there are 79 million millennials in the US, compared to 76 million boomers. Additionally, as my generation moves out of their dorm rooms (or, more aptly, into their parent’s homes) and into the professional world, we will quickly have the kind of incomes that merit your nonprofit’s attention.

Being an Executive Director of a small organization, I often get asked how I recruit board members and where I find them. I think my tactics can be applicable for any geographically-based nonprofit, a start-up organization, or any smaller nonprofit seeking new members.

When I am seeking new board members I start with our own volunteer base. I sit down with the Board President and Volunteer Coordinator to identify those individuals who are going above and beyond their volunteer duties, are passionate about our mission, and have proven to the staff that they are committed to our organization. These are the individuals who often express their gratitude to the staff every time they stop in, they walk in with a huge smile on their face, act as a community advocate, and believe in our mission. These are the unsung heroes of the organization that deserve to have a larger role because they are exactly the type of board member that you want.

Dysart Community Center is located in the Northwest Valley, so when recruiting new board members, we look local. It does not make sense for us to recruit individuals from East Phoenix because it is a rather long drive for a volunteer commitment. Therefore, we focus our efforts on those who live west of the I-17 and look for other community groups with community-minded individuals. For example, we seek out local service groups such as Kiwanis, Rotaries, etc., and also partner…