This document discusses the challenges of assessing nonprofit success and effectiveness. It notes that while financial data like overhead expenses are easily available, they do not accurately measure impact because nonprofit missions are not focused on profit. Instead, nonprofits should be evaluated based on outcome data that demonstrates how client well-being improves due to programs. However, outcome data is difficult to obtain, so donors often rely on less meaningful input data like overhead. The document urges donors to learn more about nonprofit operations and culture in order to best understand their impact and effectiveness.
Donor voice open letter to uk fundraisersDonorVoice
An open letter to the UK Fundraising community arguing that the solution to the problems of angry and frustrated donors, negative press and stagnant growth is less about changing what you do but how you do it…
Donor voice open letter to uk fundraisersDonorVoice
An open letter to the UK Fundraising community arguing that the solution to the problems of angry and frustrated donors, negative press and stagnant growth is less about changing what you do but how you do it…
Fund DevelopmentThis chapter will present the basics of fundra.docxshericehewat
Fund Development
This chapter will present the basics of fundraising, including the annual campaign, direct mail, special events, major gifts, and planned gifts. The concept of moving donors from annual giving to major gifts and planned gifts will be presented. This chapter will also explore donor motivation and present a fundraising strategy based on the concept of providing donors with opportunities rather than approaching fundraising as a “begging” activity. Begging is not a strategy to raise funds. The alternative to begging for funds is to have a well-developed fundraising program. Even if the organization employs a professional fundraiser, the administrator is still the chief fundraising officer and, as such, will develop professional fundraising skills or risk becoming the chief beggar for the organization. Securing resources for the organization is ultimately the responsibility of the board of directors, but it is the administrator’s responsibility to develop and oversee a well-developed fundraising program. Effective fundraisers work from a strategic fundraising plan that is long term, has specific goals, and uses a variety of fundraising methods and techniques. The organization’s financial strength can be developed and maintained only through a fundraising strategy that is diversified by using many different fundraising approaches appropriate for their various categories of donors. Fundraising must be approached as any other major project in that it requires the administrator to develop a plan. The planning process for fundraising includes the same steps as any other planning process. As the administrator, you must set goals, allocate resources, develop action steps and timelines. and then evaluate the process. There are many “truisms” in fundraising, but the one most important to remember is that “people give to people, not to organizations.” This is another way to say that fundraising is really “friend-raising.” The people that will give money to your organization are those who share a passion for the mission of the organization and who trust that their money will be used wisely. It is the responsibility of the administrator to develop and nurture relationships that will financially sustain the organization. Another truism is that people will not give anything to meet your agency needs, but they will give when presented with the opportunity to invest in an organization that will make a difference in the lives of others. People will give when they think they can make a positive difference in something they care about. At whatever level of fundraising activity, your approach should be to present opportunities that will make a positive impact in the lives of the people your organization serves and not to present the “needs” of the agency.
11Fund Development
Copyright 2014. SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or app ...
A Nonprofit's Guide to Event Fundraising AnalyticsJono Smith
This 18-page guide is designed to help event fundraisers move beyond only reporting the past and start using analytics to predict the future. A case study featuring the Komen Global Race for the Cure highlights how analytics helped formulate the steps the organization took to transform their highly attended event into a strong fundraising event.
2013 Nonprofit Engagement Data Management Study: A Graphic ReportNTEN
We surveyed nonprofit professionals about the "engagement" data their organizations track, how they use it, what their key challenges are regarding working with this data for their missions, and what their plans are regarding engagement data projects in the next 12 months. This is our graphic report of the results. The study was conducted by NTEN (nten.org) in partnership with Avectra (Avectra.com) in the spring of 2013.
Donor Relationships can be grown and fostered to improve retention and key financial behaviors over time. What is required is a theory based view of how these relationships form and how to measure and systematically impact them in simple, straightforward ways.
Grants are always an in demand commodity. Everyone loves the idea of being able to receive funds to further a mission or program without having to repay those funds. This eagerness is often taken advantage of by individuals and companies who range from slightly unethical to those who are blatantly dishonest and deceitful.
Boosting Your Major Gifts Fundraising - Professional Advancement QuizRoewen Wishart CFRE
Just started a new major gifts job or wanting to switch roles? Wondering where to begin with major gifts? Needing a “circuit breaker”?
Are you a board member or CEO - wondering if there’s something simple but important which isn’t happening the right way?
Try this professional advancement quiz. Our suggested answers to these four questions might surprise you.
What’s the most effective first step where major gifts prospects are lacking?
What case material is most useful for staff to engage with donors to encourage major gifts?
What is useful for staff to prepare before a cultivation meeting with prospective donors?
What’s the one irreplaceable staff role in major gifts planning and execution?
Boosting Your Major Gifts Fundraising - Professional Advancement QuizXponential
Just started a new major gifts job or wanting to switch roles? Wondering where to begin with major gifts? Needing a “circuit breaker”?
Are you a board member or CEO - wondering if there’s something simple but important which isn’t happening the right way?
Try this professional advancement quiz. Our suggested answers to these four questions might surprise you.
What’s the most effective first step where major gifts prospects are lacking?
What case material is most useful for staff to engage with donors to encourage major gifts?
What is useful for staff to prepare before a cultivation meeting with prospective donors?
What’s the one irreplaceable staff role in major gifts planning and execution?
Fund DevelopmentThis chapter will present the basics of fundra.docxshericehewat
Fund Development
This chapter will present the basics of fundraising, including the annual campaign, direct mail, special events, major gifts, and planned gifts. The concept of moving donors from annual giving to major gifts and planned gifts will be presented. This chapter will also explore donor motivation and present a fundraising strategy based on the concept of providing donors with opportunities rather than approaching fundraising as a “begging” activity. Begging is not a strategy to raise funds. The alternative to begging for funds is to have a well-developed fundraising program. Even if the organization employs a professional fundraiser, the administrator is still the chief fundraising officer and, as such, will develop professional fundraising skills or risk becoming the chief beggar for the organization. Securing resources for the organization is ultimately the responsibility of the board of directors, but it is the administrator’s responsibility to develop and oversee a well-developed fundraising program. Effective fundraisers work from a strategic fundraising plan that is long term, has specific goals, and uses a variety of fundraising methods and techniques. The organization’s financial strength can be developed and maintained only through a fundraising strategy that is diversified by using many different fundraising approaches appropriate for their various categories of donors. Fundraising must be approached as any other major project in that it requires the administrator to develop a plan. The planning process for fundraising includes the same steps as any other planning process. As the administrator, you must set goals, allocate resources, develop action steps and timelines. and then evaluate the process. There are many “truisms” in fundraising, but the one most important to remember is that “people give to people, not to organizations.” This is another way to say that fundraising is really “friend-raising.” The people that will give money to your organization are those who share a passion for the mission of the organization and who trust that their money will be used wisely. It is the responsibility of the administrator to develop and nurture relationships that will financially sustain the organization. Another truism is that people will not give anything to meet your agency needs, but they will give when presented with the opportunity to invest in an organization that will make a difference in the lives of others. People will give when they think they can make a positive difference in something they care about. At whatever level of fundraising activity, your approach should be to present opportunities that will make a positive impact in the lives of the people your organization serves and not to present the “needs” of the agency.
11Fund Development
Copyright 2014. SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or app ...
A Nonprofit's Guide to Event Fundraising AnalyticsJono Smith
This 18-page guide is designed to help event fundraisers move beyond only reporting the past and start using analytics to predict the future. A case study featuring the Komen Global Race for the Cure highlights how analytics helped formulate the steps the organization took to transform their highly attended event into a strong fundraising event.
2013 Nonprofit Engagement Data Management Study: A Graphic ReportNTEN
We surveyed nonprofit professionals about the "engagement" data their organizations track, how they use it, what their key challenges are regarding working with this data for their missions, and what their plans are regarding engagement data projects in the next 12 months. This is our graphic report of the results. The study was conducted by NTEN (nten.org) in partnership with Avectra (Avectra.com) in the spring of 2013.
Donor Relationships can be grown and fostered to improve retention and key financial behaviors over time. What is required is a theory based view of how these relationships form and how to measure and systematically impact them in simple, straightforward ways.
Grants are always an in demand commodity. Everyone loves the idea of being able to receive funds to further a mission or program without having to repay those funds. This eagerness is often taken advantage of by individuals and companies who range from slightly unethical to those who are blatantly dishonest and deceitful.
Boosting Your Major Gifts Fundraising - Professional Advancement QuizRoewen Wishart CFRE
Just started a new major gifts job or wanting to switch roles? Wondering where to begin with major gifts? Needing a “circuit breaker”?
Are you a board member or CEO - wondering if there’s something simple but important which isn’t happening the right way?
Try this professional advancement quiz. Our suggested answers to these four questions might surprise you.
What’s the most effective first step where major gifts prospects are lacking?
What case material is most useful for staff to engage with donors to encourage major gifts?
What is useful for staff to prepare before a cultivation meeting with prospective donors?
What’s the one irreplaceable staff role in major gifts planning and execution?
Boosting Your Major Gifts Fundraising - Professional Advancement QuizXponential
Just started a new major gifts job or wanting to switch roles? Wondering where to begin with major gifts? Needing a “circuit breaker”?
Are you a board member or CEO - wondering if there’s something simple but important which isn’t happening the right way?
Try this professional advancement quiz. Our suggested answers to these four questions might surprise you.
What’s the most effective first step where major gifts prospects are lacking?
What case material is most useful for staff to engage with donors to encourage major gifts?
What is useful for staff to prepare before a cultivation meeting with prospective donors?
What’s the one irreplaceable staff role in major gifts planning and execution?
1. Assessment of Nonprofit Data
When you donate to a nonprofit organization, of course you want to know that your money is being
spent wisely and in the best interests of the beneficiaries of your donated dollars. The best way to get
that information is often widely debated.
There is a lot of information regarding how to measure certain aspects of a nonprofit organization. Let’s
do a little exploration here to shed a little bit of light on the issue to show how difficult it can be to
assess the success of any nonprofit, and to urge potential donors to look a little deeper at what an
organization is all about before committing their resources to its programs.
Like any for-profit business, nonprofits generally have financial statements and annual reports that you
can access that give you a broad idea of how your money is being allocated. Unlike the for-profit
business world, nonprofit organizations cannot accurately be measured by the amount of profit they
generate because their goals do not include trying to keep shareholders happy with growing their
bottom line.
For nonprofits, there is no standardized way to measure success. In the nonprofit world, rather than
being an indicator for a successful quarter, any large bottom line may be a clue that the organization is
not fully applying itself to its mission. Since profit is off the table for nonprofit assessment, it is easiest
and typical to focus on another very tangible aspect in any business – the overhead – to assess whether
a company is successful or not. A great deal of attention has traditionally been paid to this line item for
nonprofits, as well.
Whereas the success for Morgan Stanley Financial Services might include top-dollar rent in a high rise in
Manhattan, for a nonprofit to assume such a lofty residence would draw a lot of fire from donors who
would rather see their money put toward helping people or animals, or whatever mission the nonprofit
has claimed. I would agree that a pricey address is off target for most nonprofit missions. But let’s
consider that while some overhead is necessary, overhead of any kind has been given a bad rap in the
nonprofit sector because it is considered "fluff".
So what is the true measure of success for charitable organizations? Hard numbers, facts and statistics
related to a nonprofit's programs do not always reveal the level of success of a nonprofit, and that data
can be difficult to get and to understand.
Most nonprofits use input data, output data and outcome data to attempt to track allocated funds and
community impact within their programs, projects and events. We can take a closer look at those data
sets to see exactly what they mean and how they are used.
The Devil is in the Details
Input data reveals how much was allocated to conduct a program, project or event. This includes
money, time, materials, equipment and even volunteer hours. This produces a measured profile of the
overall cost of organizing any particular program or event. Many inputs are usually found in financial
statements and can represent much of the organization's overhead. This is the data that has received
the most attention, and is widely – and erroneously – used to appraise how "worthy" an organization is
of donations.
2. A closer look at these numbers shows us much more. Accurate accounting requires that nonprofits
define and report their expenses under management, fundraising and programs. While program
expenses are generally perceived in a positive light by donors, fundraising expenses are seen as
overhead, and therefore, perceived as negative by donors and prospective donors.
While overhead is necessary, and many versions of "acceptable" expense ratios have been entertained
over the years, the reality is that they are of little value in assessing an organization's real success in
association to its mission. To dig deeper as to why cold numbers do not work for measurement of
nonprofit success, we can look at other values generated by charitable organizations.
Output data represents the measure of the "response" to the inputs, and is more difficult to obtain.
Examples might include how many people attended an event, the number of training session held, the
number of people who received a brochure with critical information, etc. While outputs produce
quantifiable program services provided, it does not really measure the actual benefits. For example, let's
say that we know that 50 people received a brochure with critical information. We cannot produce an
accurate number of how many actually read the brochure, or if the ones who read it moved to action as
a result of it, or if they even comprehended the message in the brochure. Output data can sometimes
only go so far in terms of reporting benign numbers. While it is important to know that resources
allocated (input) for a program reached those intended, the impact cannot be accurately assessed from
output data.
Performance is the Accurate Measuring Stick
The only true measure of any nonprofit's success would be through the outcomes generated as a result
of inputs and outputs. Outcomes measure performance. They demonstrate how much better off an
organization's mission-focused clients are as a result of the efforts through inputs and outputs. This
data is much less tangible, and will never be found in an organization's financial statement. To obtain
this information, one must do their homework and really get to know the nonprofit’s operations and
culture.
Because outputs and especially outcomes are difficult to assess, it is easy to understand why donors
typically focus on the hard numbers that are available and represented in input data (overhead) to
measure the success of a nonprofit. This can be an incredibly inaccurate ruler for determining the power
behind any nonprofit. I would argue that strategic use of an organization’s overhead assets produce the
very best outcomes for a nonprofit’s mission. An example of this might look like this:
While one cat rescue organization might spend $1,000 a quarter on overhead, another comparable cat
rescue spends $2,000. Both of these organizations' expenses are in the form of cat supplies, cat food
and cat care. If you measure success by comparing overhead numbers, you might choose to donate to
the rescue that only spends $1,000 per quarter on their cats, believing that they are more frugal and
assuming that more of your money is being put to the cat cause. However, there is no way to ascertain
from the raw line item numbers if the cats benefited from that money. Did any cats get adopted? Are
they living 5 cats to a cage? Have they seen a vet? Are the cats neutered? Do they have fleas? Does
that $1,000 include vaccines? Or is $500 of that $1,000 being spent on cat toys, cat treats and cat
Halloween costumes?
Input data cannot answer those questions. Only outcome data can tell you if your donated dollars are
really being spent in the best interests of the cats. Outcomes reveal that money is being spent wisely
and with integrity.
3. The cat example shows how input data can be an unsuitable measure for a nonprofit success because it
does not have a direct relationship to an organization's performance and power in the (cat) community.
Making it Work
Ultimately, donors want to positively impact the beneficiaries of their good will donations. Nonprofits
have an obligation to those “investors” to provide the best strategy to accomplish that goal for them by
enacting programs that truly align with their stated mission and influence change for their clients. That
means making sure that one dollar donated converts to $2 or $3 worth of impact. To make that impact,
thought leadership for nonprofits needs the latitude to create new and adaptive methods of leveraging
those dollars. Simply lowering administrative costs and overhead and handing out money to those in
need are not creative or sustainable models of business.
I would urge donors to attend an event or visit a nonprofit’s headquarters to ask questions and get a
better sense of how they impact the community. Most nonprofits have an obligation to craft solutions
that profoundly alter the life course for children, adults and cats. It is up to the individual donor to do
the work to discover whether the nonprofit’s mission and activities consistently and efficiently align with
those obligations. A spreadsheet will not reveal those answers to you.