August 29, 2011

At some point, most nonprofits ask the question, “Who are my donors?” It seems intuitive that if you know the characteristics of your donors you can market to them more successfully. Answering this question usually means “profiling” your donors. While this might sound easy, the process is not always straightforward.  CLICK HERE, or contact gretchen.littlefield@infogroup.com for more answers!

By Melanie Lockwood Herman

It’s hard to picture a “typical” nonprofit workplace. Nonprofits operate from traditional urban office environments, as well as summer camps in bucolic rural settings and even large warehouses filled with pallets of donated products. A nonprofit vehicle could be a minivan, a tractor-trailer, a forklift or a small bus. With all that variety in mind, it makes sense to go back to basics to improve the safety of facilities, people and the very mission of your nonprofit.

Remember the human factor in safety – A checklist, safety briefing and protective gear are of little value if ignored, misinterpreted, or overlooked by your staff and employees. At the heart of every safe workplace is a team of alert, caring staff. Make sure that staff members know the safety of your nonprofit mission depends on their active participation in safety programs. Also consider how people will be affected before implementing any new safety measures. Wherever possible, engage a diverse group of staff in exploring the safety implications of new programs or activities, or changes in service delivery strategies or methods. Here’s a start on that checklist.

Different communications tools work in different time frames. For example, it’s not practical to send out more than a few direct mail pieces during the course of a year, while email is more of a monthly or weekly communication stream.

Facebook or blogs are weekly, or a couple of times a week, but you can easily post to Twitter several times a day. Photo and video sites, on the other hand, are not particularly timing-specific. You could post weekly or more frequently, if you wanted to, but you could also simply post photos or videos when you have them.

As organizations penny pinched and rolled back their direct mail campaigns, some didn’t, while some saw actual growth.

During a recent panel discussion at the 2011 Bridge Conference, Mike Vcelik of Boys Town, outlined how his organization was able to find success even among the flailing organizations around them.

Although it is tempting to think of giving as a monolithic, never-changing bloc, giving patterns do evolve over time. Speaking during  Fundraising Day in New York, Gail L. Freeman, president of Freeman Philanthropic Services LLC, showed how giving can change over time.

Citing information published by the Giving USA Foundation from material researched by the Philanthropy Center at Indiana University, Freeman outlined the following changes by type of recipient organization, looking at changes from 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2007-2009 cumulative: