Small Nonprofit: Fundraising Tips, Leadership Strategies, and Community-Centric Solutions

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes fundraising in a small nonprofit can feel start-stop. You put in effort and maybe see results, but then as soon as you slow down, the money stops coming in.  But on today’s podcast, guest Mike Duerksen, Founder and CEO of BuildGood, shares with us his “flywheel” method for creating a fundraising program that operates on momentum, so that the longer you fundraise, the les...

Send us Fan Mail And the small charities can slow down a little bit and stop automating. I remind people that direct response, whether it's direct mail or if it's online, I don't care what it is. It is an opportunity for conversation. You are talking to other human beings that we call donors. And that's an opportunity to have something, a meaningful connection with someone who...

Send us Fan Mail “Your first goal is let's create a win where we can begin to work on these relationships, where we can begin to build some trust, and then we're going to come back and we're going to see what the next step is. ” - Michelle Shumate networks for impact with Michelle Shumate In today’s episode, we are joined by Michelle Shumate from Northwestern University and the auth...

Send us Fan Mail " What are those moments where we can captivate our audience in a different way,  because otherwise, they would just be standing around. And how can we use those moments to also encourage donations in giving? ” — Rebecca Alfred Optimizing your event revenue in surprising ways with Rebecca Alfred Fundraising events can be hard for small organizations. The time and effort to ge...

Send us Fan Mail There's more fear than there was courage. We had to sort of change into, you know what, we're trying something new. We are not asking the clients to give to their own campaigns or to give to anyone else's campaign. We are asking them to tell their story to their friends and family and invite their friends and family to support us . — Deborah Gold From a plan to impl...

Send us Fan Mail "Grant writing is one of those things that small organizations love and hate. I would say the idea of grant funding, that is, funding programs that feels like large amounts of money coming in and one ask is really a dream for so many small organizations, but they struggle with how to do it.” — DeaRonda Harrison get those grants with DeaRonda Harrison Are you still hesitant to...

Send us Fan Mail “And number one question I would get usually is how many emails should I send in a year? So if you're starting from that big picture and I was like, oh, great, great, and I want to write a book, how long should it be? And you get why is that an appropriate response? And it's like, well, you shouldn't write bad content. And it turns out you can write seven books abou...

Send us Fan Mail “Patience is getting beyond yourself. If there's a lack of patience, it's because you're putting yourself as a priority to any situation that there is.” - Patrick Rodriguez tending the seeds that you sew with Patrick Rodriguez In our work in the nonprofit sector, it often feels like things need to happen right away - the needs are, after all, urgent. But today on th...

Send us Fan Mail “I'll talk often to clients about the idea of building a culture of succession so that we know from the get go that when we hire someone into the organization, that our hope is to offer development pathways. It doesn't necessarily mean climbing the ladder, but an opportunity for professional growth and naturally with professional growth, we need to be open and honest aro...

Send us Fan Mail “We're not changing for the sake of change. We're changing because we wanna do something different or grow or improve .” - Ashley Fontaine get unstuck with Ashley Fontaine We’ll all be there - stuck! In a rut. Bored. Trapped. It feels like this is just part of the nonprofit experience. But this can be hurting our missions. And ourselves. In today’s episode, Ashley Fontai...

Send us Fan Mail You might have heard about the benefits of testing in your fundraising. Tweaking copy and sending to two different groups to see which performs better. Testing different web pages to see which gets more conversions. Maybe you’ve also tried to survey your donors to see what they like. This can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! On today’s podcast join Cherian Koshy to deep div...

Send us Fan Mail “What am I doing in modeling for future leaders? I firmly believe everyone is a leader. Everyone has that ability just innately from birth. And so what are we doing to support the next leaders of the community, of the nonprofit sector in particular? - Jarrett Ransom NONPROFIT SECTOR ROLE MODELS WITH JARRETT RANSOM Join our conversation with Jarrett Ransom, known as The Nonprofit N...

Send us Fan Mail “If you're learning about what indigenous protocols are applicable and relevant to your work? That's a journey. If we're learning how to balance decolonization and philanthropy, that's a journey. And I feel like that's also aligned with what I understand, or the people who I've worked with from the indigenous communities looking at how they've ap...

Send us Fan Mail One of the biggest tenets of empathy is just listening and doing an act of deep listening. So understanding where people are at. You know how to be able to engage with them in a way that makes sense. If you have the patience and ability to just be in a moment with people, understand what they do. I think that can, that can work wonders. - Kyle Empringham FUNDRAISING THROUGH AN EMP...

Send us Fan Mail “Sometimes you have to have the courage to say that you are walking away from a potential supporter because it's not missionly aligned.” - Janaiha Bennett BROAD AND DEEP RELATIONSHIPS FOR FUNDRAISING SUCCESS WITH JANAIHA BENNETT In today’s episode, we are joined by  Janaiha Bennett from Youth Leadership Foundation to teach us how to develop relationships with our donors and h...

Send us Fan Mail Re-release curated by: Morgan Domijan, Peerfect Fundraising Solutions Every year before GivingTuesdays, a lot of fundraisers and Executive Directors are scratching their heads and wondering whether they should do something on GivingTuesday, and if do do something, what can make their organization’s messaging stand out? On today’s podcast, Lys Huggesen, the VP of Partnerships at Ca...

Send us Fan Mail Re-release curated by: Morgan Domijan, Peerfect Fundraising Solutions On today’s podcast, David Love, seasoned fundraiser also known as the Godfather of Good, shares with us his take on the role of fundraisers in achieving change in the world. When we centre our work around the mission and the journey that we are on as an organization and how that aligns with the journey our donor...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: Lacey Kempinski, Balanced Good These are scary times. The world is in crisis as we work hard to contain the COVID 19 outbreak and minimize its impact. Our organizations are being challenged in ways we could never imagine. For some of us, our clients are at high risk and we are working around the clock to support them. For others, we have been forced to lay o...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: Lacey Kempinski, Balanced Good How do we recover from the exhaustion and pain of the pandemic? How do we lead our organizations into the post-pandemic world with responsible leadership in service for our communities? On today’s episode, social impact leader Chi Nguyen gives us the real talk on how to approach our leadership and the way we show up with a femi...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: Jordana Merkin, Voice for Good Working with a consultant can be beneficial for nonprofits. They enable organizations to focus on keeping things running smoothly and efficiently by freeing up time for the bigger picture. But how do you find the right consultant for your organization?  In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about working with consultants with...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: Jordana Merkin, Voice for Good What makes a good leader? If you’re an executive director in a nonprofit, you're probably thinking about how you can be more effective and motivate your team to create a bigger impact. But what are these qualities you should have to inspire others?  To learn more about what makes a great leader, I sat down with Mathieu Yui...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: IMAGINE CANADA From lack of opportunity to develop leaders or train managers to pay transparency, there are so many issues and topics about HR that we never seem to have time to do or be able to make the proper investments. It's going to be a big problem for our sector because our work is only as good as our teams. Our organizations are only as strong a...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: IMAGINE CANADA Guess what - the next generation of workers are not millennials! We’re so past the conversation of millennials in the workplace and now is the time to think about how you’re hiring and engaging the next generation. This new generation values diversity and inclusion, as well as the ability to have an impact. This is in great alignment with the...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: Kim Peterson, Cedar Fundraising I know you have a long list of “to-dos” that never seems to end. I can also guess that on that list, somewhere towards the end (and seemingly never moving) is to create a  Case for Support for your organization.  Well, today you’re in luck because our podcast guest Leah Eustice is a pro when it comes to writing a Case for Supp...

Send us Fan Mail RE-RELEASE CURATED BY: Kim Peterson, Cedar Fundraising In times like this, it’s so important that we stay connected. The same goes for our donors. They want to hear from you about how you and your organization are doing. I know what you are thinking: donors already have a lot on their plate right now. Why would they want to hear from me? On today’s podcast, David from The Common G...