Donations

Donations

I believe that finding donations can be the easiest part of running a nonprofit. There is no arguing that donations for a nonprofit or even those that work for the nonprofit is what makes it successful.  It is also true that finding funding is one of the single largest challenges for most nonprofits.  Developing donors through fundraising events, grant writing and more organized functions are great.  But what if you wanted to find individual donors that that can give support to your nonprofit from their own personal wealth?  Of course, I am talking about the wealthier individual who has a heart for nonprofit work.  These individuals are many times tough to find or even when you find them their donations are already committed to other nonprofits.  More importantly is how do they make decisions about where they give their contributions and how can your nonprofit attract more of them?

I believe that developing these donations can be much easier than most nonprofits make it. To help you be successful in this endeavor, I will explain how many individuals decide where their donations go and how to appeal to them. Then you can find more information in the Simple Nonprofit Starter Bundle.

All donations originate by someone making a decision on who they are giving the funds to.  That is true with funding from individuals, corporations and grant funders.  Somebody makes the decision.  These decision makers most likely think very hard about who they are going to give money to.  If you want their donations you are going to need to think like them and deliver the answers for which they are looking.

Donations From Donors

Many individuals who consistently give donations to nonprofits do so primarily in two ways: giving to large nonprofits who in turn award grants and giving to individual nonprofits.  To access the funds they give to the grant makers you will need to learn to write grant proposals requesting the funds.  The best way I know of to learn grant writing is through this online grant writing workshop. To access the funding that individuals can give directly to a nonprofit you will need to understand what they are looking for.

Many who start nonprofits focus solely on what their charitable purpose is and how they are going to accomplish it.  They give very little thought to how a donor is going to view their organization or even want to donate.  Donations do not magically appear just because a nonprofit was formed.  It has to appeal to those that will donate money.  When initially developing a nonprofit, serious consideration should be equally to how the nonprofit will accomplish its charitable focus and also how the nonprofit and its programs will appeal to donors.

Most likely, developing the nonprofit’s vision on how it will accomplish its charitable purpose will be the easier of the two.  Now let’s look at how the nonprofit can appeal to those from which it hopes to get funding. There is a cost to doing business in any industry and the nonprofit sector is not exempt.  There is a lot that a nonprofit can do to appeal to donors and corporations that cost very little. Likewise, there are some things that must be done right that is better left to experts.

Here are things many individual donors, corporations and grant makers are looking for when considering to whom they give donations:

Donation Dilemma