Small Nonprofit: Fundraising Tips, Leadership Strategies, and Community-Centric Solutions for Canadian and American Nonprofits

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What do funders really look for in a proposal? How do they decide what to fund and what not to? These are the burning questions we have when laboring hours and hours of work for a funding application. On today’s podcast, we go behind the scenes with a funder and connect with Stephanie Rebello, Manager of Sustainability and Inclusion at LoyaltyOne to tackle all your burning questions. 

Myths that Stephanie wants us to walk away 

1. Getting a corporate grant is a cheque exchange. Gone are the days that corporate philanthropy is transactional relationship. Corporate funding managers like Stephanie care deeply about how corporate and charitable partners can co-create sustainable values.  
2. Don’t report on bad news. Trust that your funders value resilience and adaptability and have faith in your expertise. When facing problems like the unexpected impact brought about by the global pandemic, be transparent with your funders, tell them the problems you’re facing, outline your pivot plan, and let them know how they can support you. 

Stephanie’s tips on building partnership with funders

1. Propose joint value proposition. Whether it’s for a pitch or a funding application, do your homework in thinking about what the funder can bring to the table and what your charity can bring to the table to co-create values for each other. Oftentimes, charities will have insights into specific communities that the funders would never have, and funders will have certain capabilities and capacities in a specific sector that the charities don’t have. Think holistically and creatively about how those cross sections can bring about collaboration and impact. 
2. Take a co-design approach. One size does not fit all. Understand specific funders’ needs, objectives and capabilities in partnering with you and design the partnership proposal with both your charity and the funder’s perspectives in mind. Be open to get feedback and design with the funder. This process might take longer but the result will be rewarding for both parties in the partnership. 
3. Lean in to your community insights and subject expertise. These are valuable assets that the funders won’t have or won’t know. Lean in your strength and inspire your funders in both your proposal and reporting. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“Ask what are some joint value propositions of what we're doing and what you're doing. One thing I love about working with some nonprofits is that deep knowledge that they have on their community members that I will never have. But I have some of the products, services, some of the data analytics and some of the powerhouse tools and resources. When you put them together, it’s really awesome and you can see some amazing sustainable impacts” 

“We’re seeing such a transition and such a disruption in both the corporate social responsibility sector and the philanthropy sector, because we're no longer looking at transactional relationships. We're now more actively involved with purpose driven work products and services that give back.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Connect with Stephanie on Linkedin

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Social media is one of those things that almost everyone has, but very few use it well. On today’s podcast, we invited Brock Warner, fundraiser and author of the book From the Ground Up: Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits to walk us through how to build a consistent and effective social media strategy. 

Myths that Brock wants us to walk away 

1. All my followers will see every post I post, right? Only about 10% of your followers will see each of your organic posts. For your posts to make it to more people’s feeds, it needs to attract engagement (sharing and commenting)
2. There is a secret for making viral posts: there are so many factors that will inspire people to share, and different audience personalities behave differently. There is no one strategy that will work all the time other than consistently trying, testing, and understanding your audience. 

Brock’s tips on increasing social media engagement 

1. Empathize with your audience and be intentional in your social media posts. Who is your donor base? What are they interested in? What is it that you would like your posts to do for your audience? Take time to come up with hypotheses for these questions and let the answers guide the way you craft your posts. 
2. Build loyalty consistently over time. Post consistently, be available and be transparent to your followers. When people interact with your posts and ask you questions, be there to socialize with them. Test out different kinds of content and see what works. 
3. Connect your social media strategy with your email marketing strategy.  Email remains one of the most effective ways for storytelling and converting audiences to become donors. Plan for evergreen content on your social media with a call to action for them to subscribe to your email list. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“The golden rules apply now more than ever. In fundraising, people give to people telling good stories, relating on a very human level, being open and honest and transparent. These are the things that no matter what the algorithm is people like and are going to resonate with.” 

“For a smaller organization, you can quickly come up with what 40% of your donor base tends to look like and sound like and be interested in. So if you start with putting yourself in that person's shoes. What would that person want to see. Let that guide your decisions about the tone, the voice, the length you use in your social media posts.” 

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Brock’s Linkedin

Brock’s book: From the Ground Up: Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits

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If things are not broken, why change?

But what are some fundamental assumptions and myths that we believe in working in the charitable sector that hinder us from enabling changes and delivering impact? On today’s podcast episode, Rickesh Lakhani, Executive Director of Future Possibilities for Kids and a passionate champion of grassroots organizations, joins us to bust these myths and question status-quo that does more harm than good. 

Big questions about the sector we tackle on this episode 

1. Is it ethical to invest in our staff? Investing in our staff and our team is key to the long term sustainability of our organizations. Moreover, investing in the organization’s infrastructure, system and process is equally important. 
2. Do we have to choose between being donor-centred and being community centred? Fundraising is supposed to enable us to do our work for our communities, not hinder it. Donor-centricity doesn’t mean to please donors at all cost. Do not be afraid to have difficult conversations with donors when their approach of philanthropy does not align with your values and might cause harm to the communuty. 
3. Who can give?  We often make assumptions about who has the capacity to give and who doesn’t. We also often normalize the practice of 100% staff and board giving but don’t customize the strategy and approach for the organization. There are many ways people can contribute to the organization, and there are also donors that can and will give but the organization precludes them right from the prospecting stage. 
4. Can charities do harm? Just because charities set out to do good, it doesn’t mean they can’t do harm. Doing good and doing harm can co-exist. If we let people in the sector get off the hook just because they intend to do good, we are reinforcing racism, seixsm, and other systemic issues.
5. Is our work political? By law, charities’ work needs to be bipartisan, but it doesn’t mean our work is apolitical. By nature, our work is political as we push for social changes. Charities can add values to enabling social changes and responding to societal crises like the pandemic by being nimble innovators and community connectors.

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“If we are not investing in our infrastructure, our system, our process, our people - our future, how are we going to tackle the magnitude of the work that we set out to do?” 

“I don’t want the kind of fundraising that donors can have so much power that they can harass a staff member and walk away.  I don’t want the kind of fundraising that reinforces the stereotypes of communities. I don’t want growth that is at the expense of our employees.” 

“People who do community work are some of the most resourceful people I know. Imagine giving them enough funding and resources - what might be the impact and changes they bring?” 

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Connect with Rickesh

Rickesh’s Twitter

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Good financial health is the cornerstone of a sustainable nonprofit. As nonprofit leaders, we all know the importance of financial management, but budgets and audits still give us the worst headaches. How can we build up our financial management muscles and confidence? On today’s episode, Betty Ferreira, Founder of GoodCasting who has trained and coached many nonprofit leaders on financial management, shares with us how we can figure out our organization’s finances without headaches and tears. 

Myths that Betty wants us to walk away

1. You have to be good at math to manage your finances. Managing finance doesn’t necessarily require you to be good at math. A lot of it is exercising your logical thinking muscles. 
2. You have to have all the answers whenever you’re talking about finance with your board. Don’t aim for perfection. Aiming for perfection will trap you into the habit of avoiding talking about your organization’s finance with your board of directors. No one has all the answers. Work with your board together on figuring out your finances. 

Betty’s tips on figuring out your finance

1. Know that you can transform your organization’s business model and financial structure. Many inherit the business model and financial structure from their predecessors and assume that they can’t change them. You can (and in some cases, should) absolutely make changes to the financial structure to suit the changing needs of the organization. 
2. Have a thorough and transparent discussion about finance with your board. It’s tempting to provide the minimum and most succinct version of your financial statements to your board. But in order for them to do their job of providing financial oversight, you should present them more comprehensive information including the financial position statement of your organization. Expect that this process will take time and effort in going back and forth with your board. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“Doing the match and sorting out your finance is connected to social justice -- they’re about your organization’s resilience and impact.”

“For both fundraising and finance management, don’t wait for the crisis to build the competencies” 

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Find Betty at GoodCasting

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Donating with cryptocurrency is an emerging trend. With a lot of information (and hype) out there about cryptocurrency, it can be confusing and even a bit scary when considering whether your charity should start receiving cryptocurrency donations. On today’s episode, two experts in this field, Anne Connelly and Jason Shim, share with us how to get started with cryptocurrency fundraising. 

Quick facts about cryptocurrency donations

1. You can sell the donated crypto currency right away, or you can hold on to it and sell it to harness a higher profit. Note that cryptocurrency is more volatile than stocks or bonds but charities can leverage on the volatility. 
2. You issue a tax receipt for cryptocurrency donations at fair market value at the time of donation. Crypto currency donations are currently considered as in-kind donations in Canada. 
3. You’re not the first charity to do this. There are Canadian charities that have already started to accept cryptocurrency donations. Pathway to Education Canada, Simon Fraser University, and more.  

Anne and Jason’s tips on getting started with cryptocurrency donation

1. Set up your system to receive cryptocurrency. Start with choosing a platform that can receive cryptocurrency and embedding the system to your website. After that, think about what are other ways in your communication channels and touch points that you can set up the receiving of crypto donation and promote it. 
2. Reframe about the way you think about who can give and the way they give. Crypto donors are often young and digital minded. They may behave and think quite differently than traditional donors.
3. Evaluate perceived risk versus actual risk. Don’t get caught up in sensationalism in media headlines. Do your research. Try buying one bitcoin on your own to see what the process is like. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“This is something that every charity is going to have in the next 10 years. When you look back on the adoption of credit cards, the charitable sector also had people who were really afraid of that at first. With Bitcoin right now, people are nervous about it but I guarantee within the next 10 years if your donor database doesn't integrate crypto currency donations, you'll be finding a new database.” 

“Here’s a really amazing window of opportunity right now, where if you build it they will come. And that's because there's so few charities out there that actually do accept cryptocurrency donations. With wealthy crypto donors, their first step in finding a charity to donate to is literally googling charity that accepts Bitcoin and then picking from five or six that are on the list.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Anne Connelly 

Jason Shim

Anne and Jason’s new book: Bitcoin and the Future of Fundraising 

Anne’s Blog (including guides on how to buy cryptocurrency)

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Dealing with conflicts often invokes uneasy feelings or even fear. But healthy debates and conflicts can bring thought diversity and new perspectives to the table. So can we stop avoiding conflict and manage them with more ease and courage? On today’s episode, personal development coach and mediator Claudia Aronowitz shares with us practical tips on conflict management. 

Myths that Claudia wants us to leave behind

1. “I need to know what to say during an argument!” Don’t listen to the other person in conflict with you just so that you can have the perfect come-back line to prove your point. That is not constructive for moving along the conversation. Don’t be afraid of silence in an argument. Give space to listen. Ask more, talk less. 
2. We need to leave emotion out of the door when we try to de-escalate a conflict. Acknowledging the emotion in a tense conversation is key to de-escalation. When emotion runs high, it is ok to take a time-out break. 

Claudia’s tips on managing conflicts 

1. Acknowledge the other side and agree to disagree. Listen and acknowledge differences of opinion and perspective and stay curious. You do not have to agree with everything, but you can always acknowledge the other person’s point and emotion.  
2. Understand and anticipate your triggers. Observe what kind of behaviour, signals, and patterns trigger yourself. If you can get a better understanding of your trigger points, you will be able to anticipate when and how you get triggered. 
3. Paraphrase what the other person is saying and summarize it out loud. If you can paraphrase what the other person engaging in a conflict with you is saying, you are showing the other person you're actively listening and understanding the person’s point of view. This is helpful for de-escalation in a difficult conversation. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“There are always two sides in a conflict. Ask yourselves what are the things that you’re willing to do to deal with that conflict. Because if we change, the relationship changes. If we start dealing with conflict differently, the other person on offense will come around and start understanding that something's shifting.”

“To prepare yourself for a conversation involving conflict, you really need to work through the steps of what do you want to say? How are you going to listen? How are you going to get the information you need? And in a situation involving power dynamics, do you need somebody else to come to the meeting with you? “

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Claudia Aronowitz

Values Exercise Worksheet

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Prospect 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 behind

1. You 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. 
2. 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 research

1. Actively 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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 Episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Preeti Gill on Linkedin

Preeti Gill on Twitter

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Managing 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 behind

1. People 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
2. “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 

1. 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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 Episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Andrea Shirey at One Nine Design

Better Board Strategy Guide

Executive Director Board Report Template

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Reaching 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 behind

1. There 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. 
2. “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 program

1. Develop 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

EthnicityMatters

Report on Multicultural Canada and the Future of Giving

Bobby Sahni on Linkedin

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Myths that Bruce wants us to leave behind

1. Because 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. 
2. 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 storms

1. Build 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Imagine Canada

Bruce MacDonald on Linkedin

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