7 Ways To Improve Your Nonprofit
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There is no denying the role that nonprofits can have in society today. From addressing environmental issues and eliminating poverty to healthcare access for those who cannot afford medical care, education supplies, and even legal help for the less fortunate, nonprofits are valuable to society in many different ways.
But just because you are not running a business to make money does not mean that things can’t continuously be improved so that you operate at your best and allocate resources where needed so that you are not wasting time, money, and resources.
To continue moving forward and achieving your mission as a nonprofit, you need to be focused on making continual improvements and changes to help you reach your targets and those who need your help the most.
But where exactly do you need to keep making changes to help you keep moving forward and making changes that will only enhance what you do and allow you to do more with what you have?
Be Open
You need to be open to new and different ideas to help you do what you do. Many nonprofits limit themselves to standard operating practices, which, while good, can stifle creativity and free thinking from staff members and volunteers.
Encourage people to think outside the box and welcome new ideas and thoughts into how you can change things up or make things easier for you and those you help to facilitate hitting your goals and getting help to those who need it.
Be Adaptable
With your open mind, you need to be adaptable to accommodate changes in demand, different challenges that arise, or anything else. A survey carried out during the recent pandemic found that over 40% of nonprofit leaders cited adaptability as one of the key traits they used to help them navigate and achieve success during that time.
But what can you do to help you improve adaptability?
Redistribute staff and volunteers to highlight their strengths and particular passions and skills.
Offer training so that more people can carry out more tasks, and if you need to restructure, you can easily reposition specific people or departments.
Integrate new and evolving technology into your website or apps to improve communication and organization and remove obstacles and barriers so you can enhance your operations across the board.
Have realistic goals and motivate everyone to reach them in the right ways using their imagination and creativity to overcome challenges and blocks that can hold them and the organization back.
Focus On New And Younger Donors
Millennials and younger generations now comprise around half the population, so you need to aim your efforts at these audiences to help you gain donors and bring in those important funds. While tried-and-tested methods might be working for your older audience and existing donors, as they age out of the population, you need to refocus your efforts on other generations.
However, this isn't a bad thing, as millennials and Gen Z have proven they are invested in charitable causes. You just need to appeal to them on their level.
Millennials, for example, will be easily swayed if you have a good social media and digital presence. They can easily see what you are about and how you make an impact. Both millennials and Gen Z are excited by social responsibility causes and want to implement change in the world, so you need to show them how you're doing just this and what part they can play in enacting change in the world around you, be it on a local or global level.
Good tactics to incorporate for attracting younger donors are;
Creating shareable content that they want to engage with and send to their peers.
Providing a range of payment options for them to donate to the cause—Venmo, PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay are all great options—will help you make it easier than ever for them to do so.
Allow for smaller but even regular donations, as younger generations will tend to donate smaller amounts at various nonprofits than large one-off donations regularly. Both are vital and equally important, and being able to express gratitude for any size donation will encourage the younger generations to make this a regular thing.
Regularly Review Current Processes
The world is ever-changing, and this means that the processes and procedures that you have in place now might not work in a month, 6 months, or a year's time. You need to constantly look at ways you can improve or adapt what you do, and help you operate to meet changing needs. This might be because you're experiencing an influx of clients needing your help, or you have had a boost in volunteers wanting to support you, so you need to restructure to make the most of their eagerness to help. Or you might be ready for a big fundraising drive, and you need to look at how you achieve your financial goals and distribute the funds. Whether you use nonprofit accounting software, utilize apps like Slack to improve communication, or look at current procedures and identify what is and isn't working and how you accommodate changes or preempt issues, you need to review what you do so you can continually make it better.
Involve Everyone
There is nothing more demoralizing for people striving to do good in the world than higher-ups making decisions that are rolled out without any input from those on the ground doing the work. While they might have more profound knowledge and insight, sometimes these ideas don't translate well in practice. Involve everyone in the decision-making process and give them a say regardless of their role. This is because they are the ones dealing with the issues day in and day out, enacting change and giving out support on behalf of other organizations. The more involved they are and the more valued they feel, the more they will buy into what you do and be willing to go that little bit further in pursuit of change.
Listen
While the metrics you gather and collect over the course of a quarter or year can be extremely insightful and beneficial to what you do to allow you to improve, so too can the input from those around you. Listening to the people involved in helping you do what you do each day, the donors and even the people you help can enlighten you as to what is working well, what you might need to change, and where your efforts might be best focussed going forward They can help you uncover trends in social activities, thoughts, feelings and changes in an ability to donate. The more you listen to everyone involved in making what you do a success, the more information you can have that will help you keep moving forward and improving to deliver help where needed, when needed.
Personalise
As mentioned above, to keep innovating and improving what you do, you need to focus on younger generations, and there is nothing they love more than personalization in everything they do and engage with.
This means personalizing your message to meet the audience and donor interests. Conduct surveys to uncover what they really want to know and how they want to make an impact and then deliver the required information. Personalize emails and check out social media content that aligns with the results of surveys or information garnered. Far from being generic with your outputs or outreach campaigns, make it as personal as possible and see how it can improve your results, thus improving how you operate.