Nonprofits have had a rough few years, as most of their donors have struggled in the down economy. Volunteer managers and fundraisers have been beating the bushes for help and money, and may feel at the end of their respective ropes. But there are always new methods of attracting attention to your cause, which can help improve funding and the flow of volunteers, as well.

If you’re ready for some fresh tips on how to stay in front of your local and regional media, read on.

Sponsor a contest: Drum up support by holding a fun contest. The prizes can be donated by local businesses, or you could offer a scholarship to a graduating high school senior.

Honor someone: Recognize a community leader, a member of your board of directors, a longtime volunteer or local philanthropist. Schedule a ceremony, luncheon or banquet. You’ll not only garner a lot of press, but you’ll also have an opportunity to ask for donations.

Piggyback on supporters’ efforts: Make a deal with businesses that support your efforts, no matter how large or small. List their logos in your marketing efforts, mention them on Facebook and Twitter postings, and promote them whenever you can—and then ask them to do the same. It’s a win-win.

Work with a like-minded charity: Pairing up with another nonprofit on a project or event makes it bigger in the eyes of the press. Not only will the event draw attention, but the collaboration will, too. You’ll have the advantage of a larger pool of potential donors, and the opportunity to educate a new audience on your mission.

These ideas may not be revolutionary, but when added to your daily efforts of promoting your cause by building community, they may be just what your organization has needed.

Remember how important it is for you to remain in charge. If one volunteer starts undermining your authority or treating others unfairly,  or you could see a decline in morale and increased turnover.

Charitable giving will probably remain flat in 2011, according to a Chronicle of Philanthropy survey of 180 businesses. After 2010’s 13% increase in cash donations, businesses are not expected to maintain the increases. Some see a possible increase in product donations, which when added to 2010’s total, increased giving by nearly 20%.

Out of the 107 Fortune 500 companies surveyed, 74 said they expected 2011’s giving to remain about the same as 2010’s, while 27 expected an increase and six expect a decrease.

The head of the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals, a group that represents company grant makers, said that companies are just holding steady and it will take until at least 2013 before companies give like they did prior to the recession’s start at the end of 2007.

Other findings in the survey include:

• Cash donations totaled $4.9 billion in 2010.
• Wal-Mart gave the most cash of any company in the survey, at $319.5 million. Wal-Mart also pledges food and other gifts, with a $1.75 billion commitment to food banks and other organizations that provide the poor with groceries.
• Goldman Sachs and Citigroup posted increases as their corporate profits soared. Goldman Sachs giving increased 353% to $315.4 million, and Citigroup gave more than $100 million in cash.
• When combining cash and products, Pfizer topped the list with $3 billion, followed by Oracle at $2.3 billion and Merck at $1.2 billion.
• Businesses are receiving more requests for basic help, as with utility bills, from non-profits. The president of the Wells Fargo Foundation called this “a very big shift.” Prior to the recession, he said, charities sought strategic, long-term grants. Keeping up with requests will be a stretch in 2011, he suggested, after Wells Fargo’s giving increased by 8.5% in 2010.

Many corporate grant makers say the economy is changing how and what they give, and causing them to focus their charitable dollars more, by focusing on non profits that better match their business objectives, and offering more skills and products as cash becomes tighter.

Auctions—either live or online—are a popular way for nonprofits to raise money. They can be a lot of hard work, but auctions can be fun, too. There is a right way to run an auction: you’ll know you did when you see a big audience, they have a great time and you hit your fundraising goal.

If your organization has an auction coming up or is considering one, here are 7 tips to consider that could make it more successful!

1. Remember, it’s supposed to be fun! Create an atmosphere of excitement that will keep your volunteer committee inspired to continue through the planning process. It’s a big job to do an auction successfully, so make it fun and energetic.
2. Give people a reason to attend. Is it a celebrity guest? Amazing auction items? An intriguing theme? If you become known for surprises, trips or fabulous wine, people will look forward to coming every year.
3. Don’t try to run the auction alone. It takes many hands to gather the auction items, solicit donations and support, advertise the event, prepare the space, hire the auctioneer and the other thousand pieces that go into fundraising auctions.
4. Rushing won’t help. Allow plenty of time: six to nine months is considered the minimum.
5. Choose quality over quantity for auction items. An items that goes for $50 will take as much time to merchandise and sell as an time that goes for $500.
6. Find the right volunteers. Approach it like a business. Figure out the jobs that need to be done, write job descriptions and match volunteers to the jobs they’re most suited to. For example, retailers can design the displays, graphic designers can do the invitations and programmers can help with the database operations.
7. Keep great records so next year’s fundraising auction is just as successful—and easier.

If you decide to host a fundraising auction, do your homework and do more preparation, planning, and promoting than you think you’ll need.

Fundraising events for non-profits are seldom hassle-free. But they are almost always extremely important to the bottom line. With so much riding on a successful fundraiser, it makes sense to be as organized and thorough in planning as possible. Not only does it make the event easier on everyone involved, it can help bring in more much-needed funds right away, and set the stage for increasing support for your non-profit in the future.

Tips That Can Make Anyone A Fundraising Event Guru

1. Set your objectives: know exactly what you hope to accomplish, the minimum fundraising goal that must be met and any other expectations that your board of directors or management might have.
2. Set a budget: This can be the sink-or-swim item on your planning list. You must know what the spending limit is before you purchase a single postage stamp. Base it on previous events, and add or cut to individual line items as necessary.
3. Start recruiting volunteers and sponsors early. This goes along with the budget—when you look at each budget item, ask yourself if there is a volunteer that can provide the service or a sponsor that can provide the product. Ask early and often. It’s a great feeling to cross a line off a budget because you managed to secure it free of charge!
4. Start making spreadsheets. Simple Excel spreadsheets serve as checklists and planning documents. They can save your life!
5. Select the right venue: Consider number of attendees, easy access, parking and accessibility for all. Make sure the main room won’t be too crowded, or you could see your attendees leaving long before the event is over. Get references from previous events and check up on service, food, comfort level (not too hot, not too cold) and accommodations.
6. Reach out: Not only do you want to contact your entire list of supporters, but you want to let the general community know about your event, too. Get signs and banners made and hung around the venue and in other high-volume spots. Send press releases to the local newspaper and community blogs. Set up Facebook and Twitter accounts and make sure you update them weekly, then daily when the event draws nearer. And ask your friends and family to spread the word through their Facebook and Twitter accounts, too. It works!
7. Get it in writing: Make sure you have the venue, caterer, speaker, auctioneer and anyone else involved in your event under signed contract. Don’t promote the event without them!

A recent survey of U.S. companies showed that planning for community involvement, including contributions, has “moved out of crisis mode and into a recovery mindset.” In other words, drastic budget cuts in charitable giving have slowed among these companies, and they are again thinking about helping their communities.

What does this mean for non profit organization (NPO) executives and volunteer boards? Perhaps some breathing room. If your NPO made it through 2009 intact, you may see increased corporate support in the rest of 2010.

Still, according to the report, 20% of the 114 companies surveyed in December 2009 and January 2010 are planning on reducing their budgets for charitable giving. But that’s a significant drop from 53% in the same survey taken in 2008-2009.

The good news on the volunteer side is that most of the surveyed companies plan to increase the resources devoted to volunteer programs. Event sponsorship, however, will continue to take a hit. Corporations will want to help with personnel hours instead of dollars. Continue developing relationships with corporate leaders and let them know how their employees can help your organization.

Capital campaigns and arts and culture organizations will continue to be hard hit, since more companies plan to focus resources on education and environmental causes.

But the positive news is that the companies surveyed overwhelmingly say they are less likely to reduce their contributions-related administrative budgets (down from 34% last year), and less likely to cut grant size (8% this year, 21% last year). Another bright spot: only 11% of surveyed companies plan to make fewer grants in 2010, compared to nearly 34% in 2009.

So, while non profits will continue to work hard for contributions, there could be pleasant surprises along the way in 2010!

For most non profit organizations, annual events are a big opportunity to raise a large chunk of their operating budget. So most NPOs have a lot riding on these big annual or semi-annual events. How can you make them pay off when you might have few resources?

The key is planning. If you’re new to your NPO management position, gather as much information on how the event was run in the past: find out who was on the committee, what was each person responsible for, what fell through the cracks, and what was successful. Do this for each area of the event: location, catering, entertainment, publicity, donor outreach, volunteer recruitment, auction check-out, etc.

If you were in charge of last year’s event, look at it with a fresh eye. Solicit feedback from committee members, volunteers, and attendees. Put out an email survey to your mailing list through Survey Monkey or a similar service. You want to know if people enjoyed the event, and why—or if they didn’t, you need to hear that, too. “What can we do better/different?” is always the most valuable information to know.

Here are some other ideas for successful event planning:
Pick a date as soon as possible—and don’t let it be too far in the future. Sometimes, having a short timeline means the biggest details are taken care of right away. Longer lead times can lead to procrastination—and possibly losing out on a location or caterer. With a firm event date closing in on the committee, they are forced to work creatively, quickly, and to know exactly what needs to be done.

Involve your audience: create a community around your event on social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter. A Facebook fan page is a great place to announce the event, invite feedback, solicit volunteers, and ask fans for help in publicizing your event. When attendees accept your invitation, their friends will see your event on their pages. This way, you’ll see the numbers of people who are aware of your event grow exponentially. Social marketing is a great way to spread the news quickly among the people who already know about your organization, and the ones who have never heard of it.

Be passionate, and find passionate volunteers to help. You can’t host a successful event if the organizers aren’t all that interested in it. If you’re not passionate about it, then maybe it’s the wrong event for your NPO—so you might want to start thinking of something different for next year. But if you are so into the event that you can’t stop talking about it—that’s a great sign! Ask your friends and contacts to help you and infuse them with your enthusiasm. Passion is palpable, and makes people want to respond.

Big events are fun for your supporters, valuable to your non profit organization, and usually exhausting for the organizer—but they are also necessary to the financial health of most charitable organizations. So take a look at these and other tips to make big events as successful as they can be!