How to Increase Your Non-Profit’s Reach

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How to increase your non-profit’s reach

Increasing your non-profit’s reach is the simplest and most effective way to increase its revenue. Does your organization rely on an annual fundraiser to survive? Are you using your resources to develop, market, and run it?

UP YOUR REACH

Avoid staff burnout and limit overtime. Most non-profits set a format and stick to it because they believe, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Times change, people change, societies change, and eventually so does your donor pool.

WHO ARE YOUR DONORS?

The first step: Find out who your donors are.

Did you notice when your donors changed?
What did you first notice?
Was it when donations started drying up?

DIVERSIFICATION

Diversification is important in fundraising. To create a diverse pool of donors, take a deep look and ask these questions. Try to use their words to describe them.

Who you are trying to reach?
How do they relate to you?
What can you do to relate to them?
How can you support them?

SHARED AFFINITIES

People tend to support organizations with shared affinities. Look at ways to increase your non-profit’s reach by growing your donor pool. Are your donors part of the group your organization serves?

One example is the families of children with disabilities. Of course they want to contribute to charities supporting their children.

Sometimes the main sponsors are NOT directly affected by the organization’s outreach. An example is a business that contributes to a non-profit serving homeless children. Where is the connection in this case? Is it because of the activities the sponsors can do in order to help, or is it about building their reputation by associating with the non-profit?

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND YOUR SUPPORTERS

What is your organization’s culture?

How are your supporters alike?
Do they live in the same areas?
What about their interests?
Are they in the same socio-economic bracket?

There’s a lot to be said for extending your reach. For example, a food bank that was funded by church members extended their reach by joining the local Chamber of Commerce.

DIVERSIFY YOUR OUTREACH

Many nonprofits first become viable when they increase their visibility beyond their traditional supporters. How do you do that? One way is by diversifying how you reach out to them. Another way is by diversifying what your organization offers people and organizations.

HOW DO YOU FUNDRAISE?

Look at how your non-profit currently fundraises. Where can you change up the concept? Something that amazes me is how some organizations are still doing the same thing that they did 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago. It may have stopped working a long time ago, but you won’t know that unless you track your return on investment and KPI records.

We worked with a non-profit that provides medical services to remote villages in Nicaragua and Ecuador. They have dedicated medical providers who donate their time and expertise. In addition, they set up satellite offices to develop the healthcare infrastructure of small, remote villages. They are always on the lookout for different ways of doing things. When they reached out to us for their annual fundraiser, we were intrigued. What could we offer them that they hadn’t already done or seen?

PALM READINGS TO ENGAGE DONORS?

They asked us to do palm readings. That’s simple. But how could we turn it into a game-changer? The first event we did for them was fast and furious. There was an opportunity to extend their reach and really think through the process of what they were trying to do and find different ways to do it.

PIVOT AND PROFIT

For their 2020 event, discussion had started earlier in the year. It became obvious that an in-person event would most likely not be an option. They pivoted swiftly, hiring a company to provide an online auction service. This was great for them in many ways. First of all, they used it to create excitement. Most importantly, they used it to reduce staff time spent on creating, selling, and collecting for auction items. This saved them time and helped them raise more money than they had in the past.

NO IDEA IS WASTED

Because everybody was working so hard on pivoting, we didn’t have time to flesh out an idea that had been “percolating’ in my head: to offer coffee as part of the coffee cup reading experience. The director of the non-profit owns a coffee business. We had started working on sending kits to coffee purchasers and that also included a coffee reading. A virtual coffee reading with a real coffee kit!

HOW ARE YOU TRYING TO INCREASE YOUR NON-PROFIT’S REACH?

Our timeline was too short to make this work. Also, most of the volunteers were young families. Due to the pandemic, they were more stressed out than ever before—balancing jobs, childcare, and education on top of regular family duties. They didn’t have time to make a cup of coffee, drink it, and have a reading.

Hopefully, the seeds we’ve planted will help you find better ways to help you reach your organization’s goals!