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

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We 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 behind

1. Failure 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. 
2. 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 forward

1. Take 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Nikki Bell 

Pizza for Losers

Fundraising Everywhere

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Offering 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 behind

1. Naming 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. 
2. 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 

1. 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Find Vincent at ViTreo Group

BrainTrust Philanthropy Podcast

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How 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 behind

1. If 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. 
2. 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:

1. 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Hawa Mire

Find Hawa on Twitter

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How 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 behind

1. Let 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.
2. 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 sustainability

1. Show 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. 
2. 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.
3. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Find Kylie at Community Solutions

Finally, a Guide on Program Sustainability!

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Conversations 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 behind

1. You 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. 
2. 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 donors

1. Track 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. 
2. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Allen on Linkedin

Environics Analytics

PRIZM - with a free online postal code look-up to understand Canadian neighborhoods

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Donor 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 behind

1. Stewardship is a lot of work. Great and consistent stewardship can save you work from stressing over how to get donors and make asks.
2. 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. 
3. 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 fundraising

1. Your 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. 
2. 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. 
3. Be personal in your communication. Connect with your donors authentically with your own voice. Put away template letters with ultra-professional and corporate tone. 
4. 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 episode

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“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 Episode

The Good Partnership

Find Roxane and Rochelle at Story Point

Free Resource for Your Organization To Manage the COVID Crisis

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How do you go beyond the land acknowledgement?

In recent years, we see more and more nonprofits including decolonization as their strategic priorities. But if we do a gut check, how’re we actually committing to decolonization everyday?

On today’s podcast, Tim Fox, Vice President of Indigenous Relations and Racial Equity at Calgary Foundation, shares his lived experience of facilitating the Calgary Foundation to commit to transformative changes and learning. Tim urges us to challenge us to think beyond decolonization as a short term project that has easy fixes. He encourages us to reflect on how we might make ourselves open and vulnerable in sharing our responsibilities for decolonization and commit to life-long actions. 

Myths that Tim wants us to leave behind

1. If we do this and that, it will get us to decolonization. There is no quick fix. Systemic oppression has existed for hundreds of years, and decolonization is generational work. It’s not enough to just do land acknowledgements. It’s not enough to just include indigenous communities in your funding catchment areas. With actions like that come responsibility to intentionally learn and understand the Indigenous communities. 
2. Indigenous, black and people of colour have all the answers for decolonization. It is not the responsibility for BIPOC people to lead decolonization. BIPOC people are there to walk alongside with settlers to facilitate change. The responsibility for leading change rests with settlers. As well, the idea that some people are experts and have all the answers in and of itself is an assumption encoded with settlers’ logic. 

Tim’s tips on transformative unlearning and learning

1. Recognize and try different processes of learning. Shifting away from the linear learning process of getting knowledge from experts or listening in workshops, Tim encourages us to be open to different methods and ways of learning, such as the circle learning process and art of hosting. 
2. Letting go of the idea of perfection. Don’t set a deadline for decolonization work, and walk away from the mindset that there is a perfect way to do this. Allow yourself and your organizations to make mistakes, acknowledge them, and keep push through. 
3. Be open and vulnerable. If you’re not an Indigenous person or a BIPOC person, put yourself in situations and settings where you’re the minority. Be vulnerable and don’t be afraid to be uncomfortable. 

Resources from this Episode

 The Good Partnership

The Calgary Foundation

Indigenous Ally Toolkit

Tim Fox

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“Just because we've been told one story about philanthropy, or about ourselves as fundraisers, it doesn't have to be true. We can change the narrative.”

We become what we believe in. In this special episode, Cindy Wagman, the Founder and CEO of The Good Partnership and host of our podcast talks about why it is so important to tackle our mindset when fundraising, and how to do that without compromising our values and authenticity. 

Myths that Cindy wants us to leave behind

1. Fundraising is hard and icky. The more that we tell our brain that fundraising is hard, the more that our brain will reinforce this notion and make it feel icky. It's a negatively reinforcing loop. 
2. You have to become someone else to fundraise successfully.  Having a growth mindset for fundraising does not mean you need to be inauthentic or sell out your values and mission. Pretending to be someone else when fundraising is exhausting, and no one can sustain that in the long term.

Cindy’s tips on hacking your brain for fundraising success

1. Align your mindset first, then build habits and tactics. No matter how many tactics you learn for fundraising, if you’re putting on the brake (ie, negative mindset), you’re not going to get the results you want. Align your mindset first then lean into the tools and tactics. 
2. Give your brain space to change. The more you force yourself to change, the harder it is to change. That’s natural survival mechanisms. So when trying to create new pathways of thinking for your brain, be patient with yourself and set aside self judgements. 
3. Stay true to your values.  One of the biggest turning points for many students at  Flipside Fundraising is gaining the understanding that their values and mission are what inspire funders and donors to support them. So stay true to your values as you align your mindset for fundraising success.

Want to learn more about Cindy’s secrets for raising over 8 million dollar for small nonprofits, join her on this FREE live webinar on October 20 1 pm EST. (If you can’t make it, sign up anyway to get the recording afterward)

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

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Advocacy is in the DNA of our sector. Every day, whether it’s a front line social agency, or an arts organization, nonprofits are doing great advocacy work at the community level. 

How can we as a sector lift each other up and support each other’s advocacy efforts? 

Joining us today for this discussion is Cathy Taylor, the Executive Director of the Ontario Nonprofit Network.


Resources from this Episode

FREE Webinar - Fundraising Secrets

The Good Partnership

Ontario Nonprofit Network

Cathy on Linkedin

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In this special episode of the podcast, one of the students from our spring 2020 Flipside Fundraising cohort, Yvonne Harding, Resource Development Manager at Assaulted Women’s Helpline, to share the transformation she has experienced after she changed her fundraising mindset with the lessons learned in Flipside Fundraising. 

If you want to be like Yvonne and turn fundraising from something you dread into something that is meaningful, productive, and successful for you and your small nonprofit, apply for the Flipside Fundraising scholarships today. The scholarship recipients will receive life-time access to the program and its materials, launching in November. Deadline for scholarship applications is October 9 11:59 PM EST. The application will only take you 3 minutes!

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