Diversify Your Fundraising

We hear this suggested all of the time. Diversify your fundraising.

A common response to this is “easier said than done”.

Or “I have no idea what you’re talking about”.

Many nonprofits received some type of COVID funding from the government. This may have skewed giving for a year or two. For example, if you received $50,000 from COVID funds for two years, you’re most likely not budgeting that for year three unless you know somehting I don’t.

While figuring out how or if you are going to replace those “extra” funds, it’s a good time to consider a plan to diversify your fundraising. Better said, your fundraising revenue.

Many organizations in human services rely on some type of government funding. I recently spoke with an organization’s executive director about overall funding, and 50% of their funding came from some type of governemnt grant (federal, state, county, city).

I have always believed that the best funding to rely on is funding from individuals. This is where I suggest increasing your diversification

I could write pages on this, and to honor your time, will offer a few ideas on how to increase your individual giving:

Thank quickly. And personally. The auto-response email from an online gift does not count.

Ensure your donors know the impact of their giving. Let me know if you need more information around this one.

Invite donors to give monthly.

Keep your donor data clean.

Continually work on building relationships with your donors, which all of the above support.

These five examples will help you grow your individual giving. This, in turn, will help you diversify your fundraising-generated revenue.

Other categories, of which I will write more about another time, include revenue from planned giving, special events, local business giving, peer-to-peer fundraising (which affects individual giving), and giving from civic/faith groups (think Rotary or your place of faith). Increased revenue from all of these sources will help diversify your revenue.

Thank you for reading!

*Take a risk. Be of service. Support your friends and colleagues. Be kind.*