According to the Philanthropic Giving Index (PGI), a report by the Center on Philanthropy, the climate for fundraising in the US has declined almost 9 percent for the first half of 2009, continuing the downward trend from 2008. In fact, positive fundraising attitudes among the professionals polled for the report has declined by 29 percent since one year ago.

The report reveals that 86 percent of fundraising professionals say the U.S. economy is having a negative or very negative impact on fundraising now—a gain, when compared to the 93 percent who believed so in December of 2008. 60 percent expect the negativity to continue over the next six months, while 23 percent say the economy will have a positive affect on fundraising.

The PGI is similar to the Consumer Confidence Index, which is used by economists and forecasters to measure Americans’ buying habits. The Center polls nonprofit fundraising professionals to compile the report, which also shows that the current giving environment fell to the lowest level ever since the study began in 1998.

Fundraisers for arts, culture and humanities organizations and human services nonprofits feel they will have a more difficult road ahead, while educational and religious fundraising professionals are more optimistic about the current situation.

Donors are still giving, although the pace and amount has slowed. Nonprofit managers need to continue with consistent, focused messaging and marketing efforts to stay top-of-mind in their supporters’ and donors’ minds. Building relationships with prospective donors is also extremely important—as is finding creative ways to make it easy for donors to give.

Fundraisers report that Internet and email fundraising, along with direct mail, are the most successful venues for getting donations. Foundation grants and major gifts are falling, 23 percent and 39 percent, respectively since December 2007.

The good news is that expectations for the next six months are better, while still short of true optimism. Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) will likely face continued difficulties in raising funds. But, it’s difficult to predict how the recession will impact charity giving—because the only thing predictable is uncertainty!

Ideas and suggestions around fundraising abound—if non profit managers had a dollar for each one, they probably wouldn’t need to fund raise! But if you’re like us, you agree that there is no such thing as too many good ideas. So here’s another one: when asking donors for money, tell a single story.

In his book, “The Life You Can Save,” Peter Singer of Princeton University gives examples of human beings going to great effort to save the lives of others—one-on-one. But in the larger picture, millions die from starvation, disease, and malnutrition—when the rest of us have the resources to save them.

The example points to how human nature works at its basic level. When we’re presented with the choice to rescue a single person who is right in front of us, most would do the right thing and help. When the need becomes too big, or faceless—as in the problems of lack of clean water, medicine, and food among poor populations on the other side of the globe—we tend to think we can’t do anything about it.

Telling the single story is a powerful tool for non profit organization (NPO) marketers and managers. How are you approaching your fundraising efforts? Are you presenting a problem that seems just too big to solve to your prospective donors?

Try featuring a single effort, challenge, group, or person when communicating your NPO’s funding needs. Tell a success story—how your organization improved the life of one person, or one dog, or one neighborhood. Tell a story about what happens to a single bird in the forest when its habitat is destroyed. Focus on the people in one family who lost a treasured home in a tornado.

Remember how human nature seems to work: while individuals are willing to save the person who’s drowning right in front of them, they are apparently unwilling to donate money to save one who’s dying half a world away.

It might seem that volunteers are just like free employees. Volunteers don’t get paid, they don’t get health insurance, and you don’t pay taxes or workers compensation for volunteers. They don’t cost your nonprofit organization anything because they’re not on the payroll, right?

Well, not completely right. True, volunteers are unpaid. But good volunteer management means acknowledging that volunteers are not completely free to your organization—so treat them accordingly.

Volunteers are an investment: Recognize that recruiting, screening, training, and retaining volunteers takes time and resources.

Volunteers are an asset: Your volunteers save your organization’s needed funds by performing work you would otherwise be obligated to pay for.

Volunteers are needed elsewhere. If your volunteers feel underused or underappreciated, there are plenty of organizations they can give their time and talent to.

Volunteers must be supervised. Your organization may need to designate a full- or part-time employee to just this area—incurring all the costs of salary and benefits, recruiting, screening, hiring and training that person.

Volunteers must be appreciated. Showing thanks can take many forms: small gifts, plaques or certificates, free tickets to events, or even free meals. There are costs associated with all of these items.

Volunteers incur expenses, too. Travel, parking, auto reimbursement and other expenses must be taken into consideration when looking at overall volunteer costs.

So don’t make the mistake of seeing volunteers as having zero impact on your bottom line. They are immensely valuable assets that do cost your nonprofit organization time and money. Treat them right, and your investment will be repaid many times over!

In our last post, we discussed the merits of starting a blog for your nonprofit organization (NPO). Blogs are a great way to keep in touch with and engage your supporters. You can also gain permission to update them on your NPO through email blasts and newsletters.

In this age of digital communication, it’s vital that you regularly engage the people interested in your organization. But you can’t do it without a healthy mailing list. How can you expand a wimpy mailing list to make your efforts pay off?

Make the ask: Provide a sign-up sheet at business events, health fairs, farmers markets, and community events so interested attendees can provide their email address. Make it clear that they are agreeing to receive news from your NPO. You could even provide a small incentive, like a bumper sticker or key chain with your organization’s logo, to everyone who signs up.

Utilize your website: Along with a form for in-person events, your website should have a newsletter sign-up form on every page. Make it easy for supporters to find it, and they’ll fill it out. Be sure to make it a quick and easy process. Test it often to make sure the form functions properly.

Leverage fundraising events: When people sign up online or purchase tickets for fundraising events, capture their email address at the same time—and let them know they’ll be receiving occasional correspondence.

Don’t miss opportunities in your office: Allow people to sign up for your newsletter at your reception desk.

Speaking events: If a member of your NPO’s board of directors or management team is speaking to a group, provide a sign-in or guest book to capture the names and email addresses of interested attendees.

Ensure privacy: Include language such as “Your privacy is important to us. We will never sell or disclose the information you provide us with.” This helps you overcome a great hurdle to obtaining email addresses. People want that assurance.

Finally, ask your newsletter recipients to pass it along to their friends and families who might be interested in your organization. You’ll find many signups will occur as a result of receiving the recommendation of a trusted friend or colleague.

Keeping in touch with your donor base, volunteers, and supporters is an ongoing job for nonprofit directors. It seems that just a few years ago, printed and mailed newsletters were the mainstay communication method for nonprofit organizations (NPOs). These days, we’re more likely to see emailed newsletters or shorter email “blasts” that keep interested folks informed.

But what about keeping your supporters engaged?  Marketing has migrated from making numerous impressions to creating ongoing dialogs. To do this successfully, you need to rethink your strategy and method of communication.

Have you considered writing a blog? Blogs are not only easy to keep updated with fresh content and event listings, they also provide a way for your donors and supporters to communicate with you.  By allowing your audience to follow, subscribe to, and comment on blog posts, you’re giving them the opportunity to make a deeper connection. After all, if they’re on your mailing list, they are already supporting the cause, and likely to engage even further.

Here are some tips to get started with a blog:

Be Consistent: Check in with your NPO’s marketing team or graphic designer before you start. They may want to be help you set up the blog to ensure it stays within the established standards for your organization’s brand, logo, colors, etc.

Do a Little Research: There are thousands of articles on the web that will show you how to start a blog. WordPress and Blogger are two popular platforms that make it easy, with templates and customizable plug-ins that can have you up and blogging in minutes.

Check Out the Competition: Look around on the web to see how other nonprofit organizations handle their blogs. You may get some great ideas about what to do—and what NOT to do—with yours.

Write to Your Audience:  Blogs can be as formal or casual as you want. Using a standard newsletter format is a good way to get started. Include items of interest, news updates, and reminders of upcoming events. You can even add surveys, photos, book reviews, and lots of other features that your readers may find helpful.

Post Often: Don’t have a “dead” blog. People want to hear from you. But how often is enough? How much is too much? You’ll find your rhythm, but for starting out, one post per week is the minimum frequency you should aim for.

Be Patient: It takes time for a blog to gather steam. You might feel that nobody is reading your posts, but check the statistics and you’ll likely see a growing audience. Just stick with it, promote it to your donors and supporters, and your readership will grow!

2008 was not a good year for charitable donations. Giving declined by 2 percent last year in the US, according to a report released this week by Giving USA Foundation^TM. The decline in donations was the first since 1987, and the largest since these records have been kept.

While nearly every sector saw big decreases in giving in 2008, human services and foundations were hardest hit, down 13 and 19 percent respectively. The declines stem from decreases in individual giving, but fewer foundation endowments and grants had a big impact as well.

Nobody knows for sure when the economy will turn around, or when charitable donations will rise again. But things could change rapidly if the economy strengthens and people regain confidence in their employment and financial situations.

In the meantime, there are still ways you can encourage your donors to give as much as they can—but you might need to mix up your approach a bit. Try these ideas for reminding your supporters that your nonprofit organization still needs their help:

1. Ask. It’s that simple. Don’t be afraid to ask for donations.

2. Write clearly and concisely. When communicating with your support base, state your NPO’s needs clearly, and include a call to action (see #1, above). Assume they will give and thank them for their contribution.

3. Be consistent. Don’t make the mistake of reaching out often for six months, then not at all for the next six, only to follow with a flurry of communication again! Set up a regular schedule so your donors know what to expect.

4. Report results. Donors want to know their contributions are changing things. Be sure to tell them how you’re doing on a regular basis. They will look forward to hearing from you.

5. Timing is everything. Make your outreach pay by avoiding July and August, when summer activities keep giving to a minimum anyway. Four to seven times per year is about right for most organizations.

6. Ask for feedback. Once per year, ask your donors if your outreach efforts are in line with their expectations. Are they hearing from you too often? Not enough? Do your donors prefer phone, mail or email? You’ll get plenty of valuable suggestions if you just ask for them!

Even though the foreseeable future is not a completely rosy one for nonprofits, the good news is that people are still giving—and this bad economy cannot last forever!

All Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) rely on their volunteers. But some NPOs, by the nature of their work, sometimes put their volunteers in harm’s way. You want to know you’re doing everything you can to keep your volunteers safe—and not only because it’s the right thing to do. It’s important to the financial health of your NPO to minimize all risks, including risks to volunteers’ safety.

Share these tips with your volunteers. Then, enforce them every day.

Don’t be a target. Regardless of the area your volunteers are working in, it’s important not to draw attention. Have volunteers leave their jewelry at home, and their purses or backpacks in locked storage at the office. They should carry only a driver’s license or other ID, plus the keys they need to operate the vehicle they are driving.

Buddy up. Have your volunteers work in pairs at minimum. Partner older or frail individuals with someone younger and stronger.

Be aware of surroundings. It’s important to keep looking around when walking down unfamiliar streets. Warn volunteers not to walk with eyes focused on the sidewalk or they’ll be easy to sneak up on. Help them identify safe havens like stores, fire stations, or service stations in the neighborhood they’ll be working where they can seek help if necessary.

Avoid walking, driving, and stopping on poorly-lit streets. If they must stop, your volunteers should do so in a well-lighted parking lot at a busy place, such as a department or grocery store.

Cop an attitude. Tell your volunteers to walk with heads held high, to look like they mean business, and to maintain a healthy degree of mistrust. It may be against their nature to be rude, but it could be important to their safety in certain situations.

Parking safety:  No leaving keys in the ignition. Try to park under a streetlight on a busy street, or even better, in staffed parking lots or garages. Don’t park next to large trucks or RVs. Check the back seat before entering the car. Do not leave valuables in the vehicle.

Check-ins are a must. Everyone must call into the office at regular intervals when working in the field. Record your volunteers’ cell numbers so you can call them if they miss a check in. Consider having a couple of extra cell phones added to the organizational account to give to cellular-free volunteers. Everyone should have the means to make emergency phone calls at all times. If a volunteer is working in an area with no cell coverage, have them call from a landline and then record that number.

These basic safety tips can keep your volunteers from becoming targets or victims of crime when working on behalf of your organization. By practicing caution each time they are in the field, it becomes second nature. And don’t anyone slack off on safety; remember that minimizing your NPOs financial risk is part of good management. And for an even higher level of protection, screen potential volunteers before you allow them to work with your clients, volunteers or staff.

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) need every advantage they can get. Fundraising is a constant challenge. Finding new volunteers and board members is, too. And then there’s the day-to-day management of running a nonprofit: employee issues, client challenges, regulatory headaches and grant writing.  

If there are ways to make it easier, why not take advantage of them?  Tools are available to make your website more engaging—and could make other aspects of running a NPO a little (or a lot) easier, as well.

Look at your nonprofit’s website with a critical eye. Check each of these areas and consider how well your current site is working for you, and where you see a need for improvement:

Newsletter/information sign up: Ideally, this feature should appear on your website’s home page. Don’t make interested parties search all over to give you their contact information! Make it easy for users to engage, so you can start a long-term relationship through newsletters or email updates.

Donations: If there is no tool on your current website for donors to give to your NPO, that is a big no-no. These days, online is only way millions of people shop. And it’s the way millions prefer to give to charity. When it comes to online donations, if you don’t build it, they will not come. They will go away and your NPO will lose that donation.

Easy answers: Can visitors easily find good information about your organization? Is the site well organized? Do you have an FAQ page or area on the site? If a visitor comes away with more questions than answers about what your NPO does, what it stands for, whom it serves, and what you need, then the site has failed at least that person. They are unlikely to come back, or tell their friends about your NPO’s work. And there are likely many, many more who’ve had the same experience.

A Compelling Story: Is the website making a personal connection? Do visitors get a sense of the ways your organization improves the lives of real people? Or is visiting the website a dry, impersonal experience? Tell the stories of the lives your organization has touched. Use photos of real people (not real clients, of course, if that would be inappropriate or legally risky) to make a human connection with your website’s visitors. Tell them what you’ve done well, the challenges you face, and what you need.

Updated Information: Is your website still featuring an event that occurred last week? How about last month or six months ago? Get rid of that old information—nothing makes a website staler. Visitors expect fresh content each time they enter your site. Why would anyone come back if it contains the same story month after month? Consider adding a blog, which can be updated frequently with stories, events, successes, and calls for action. And, if you can’t update your website yourself, then it’s time for a redesign. Ask around your community of donors and volunteers for someone with programming experience who would be willing to build a simple content management system (CMS) for your website. 

Fresh content, easy sign-up, well-organized information and compelling stories are just a few ways to add a lot of punch to your nonprofit organization’s website. You’re sure to see an increase in traffic, engaged users, volunteers and donors as a result!

A quick trip around the internet reveals that online fundraising contests are more popular than ever. It’s easy now for even smaller non profits to have a big presence on the web, spreading their message to more interested people and increasing their support base.

Mega-retailer Target is currently holding a contest where Facebook members get to help decide how the Minnesota-based retailer splits $3 million among ten charities. Target has long advertised that it gives away $3 million every week, but this is the first time it has created an interactive method of distributing the money, which will be according to the percentage of votes received by these then charities: National Parks Foundation, Feeding America, the Salvation Army, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, HandsOn Network/Points of Light Institute, Kids in Need, the PTA, Operation Gratitude, and the American Red Cross.

The Bullseye Gives contest, which runs through May 25, is a great way for these organizations to mobilize their supporters to vote for them and affect the amount of money they will receive. It stands to reason that the charities with good social networks and channels in place to quickly and easily communicate with their base will lead in voting.

By almost forcing organizations to utilize digital communications and social marketing, a contest like Target’s can help even smaller non profit organizations (NPOs) put tools in place that will ultimately improve their fundraising efforts for the long term.

GlobalGiving is an online clearing house that connects donors with community-based projects that need support. Their current offering is a contest called the American Open, which gives U.S. nonprofits the chance to be featured on the GlobalGiving website, increasing their fundraising opportunities. In addition, the site offers these NPOs connections to a network of donors, corporate giving programs, and foundations.

Two celebrities recently announced online fund raising campaigns using Twitter, the popular online message service. In April, actor and Oscar ceremony host Hugh Jackman created a Twitter contest asking his followers to convince him (in Twitter’s signature 140-character messages) why their favorite charity should receive a $100,000 donation from him. He ended up splitting it between Operation of Hope and Charity Water. And Bob Woodruff, the TV news reporter seriously injured while covering the Iraq War, hopes to raise over 1.5 million dollars over Memorial Day Weekend using Twitter. The money will go to his foundation, which aids injured veterans and armed service personnel.

Smart non profit executives keep their eyes open for contests like these, which pop up on both the local and the national scene. Online contests and initiatives can be an easy way to add funds to charity coffers—even in tough economic times like these.

Volunteers can lighten the load on your Non Profit Organization (NPO).  If your organization has been forced to lay off staff, you may need to start a new volunteer program—or ramp up the one you have.  Volunteers can be a solid foundation to help your NPO survive the current economic downturn.

Why are Volunteer Coordinators Needed?

Too many NPOs are short on personnel, with individuals taking on more work than they can handle. Volunteer coordinators fulfill an important role by easing the demands on staff, helping the organization save money, and increasing community awareness. If possible, it’s best that the volunteer coordinator position is not combined with any other job title. If the coordinator is spread too thinly, the entire volunteer system can collapse. 

Planning for Success

Patience and good communication skills will go a long way toward succeeding at the volunteer coordinator’s job. First, they must know the needs of the organization and staff.  It won’t do any good to create a receptionist position when a driver would be much more useful to the staff. Interviewing staff members is a great way to determine where the holes are, what work is piling up, and where they need the most help.  Be sure to clarify which jobs and tasks will remain with staff, and which will be performed by volunteers, so that everyone understands their roles.

Communicate Expectations

Every volunteer’s job should be an imperative part of the organization, with specific tasks and responsibilities.  Give them a job description to follow. Determine whether it is a short- or long-term (lasting at least a year) position, so the volunteer knows what to expect. Check in and find out if they are enjoying the work; if not, help them transfer to a position they’re suited for.

What Do Volunteers Need?

First, all of your volunteers should know the purpose and mission of the organization. Share the goals the board has established. A volunteer may be the first and only contact a potential client or donor has with your agency, so it is vital that they know how to communicate this information clearly. Plus, they will feel empowered to properly perform their job and help the organization meet its goals. Volunteers want to feel useful! Give your volunteers complete attention, and keep the lines of communication open. Let them know their importance to the NPO, and how their work benefits everyone. Be available for questions and be extra patient for the first few months, as everyone learns their new roles.

Recognition is important, too. The entire staff should make volunteers feel welcome and supported.  Occasional treats, small gifts, and special acknowledgement for a job well done can go a long way to keeping your volunteers interested and engaged in the organization’s ongoing mission.

Taking on volunteers is a big step for a non profit. Planning well makes it easier and more effective for everyone.