Is your fund-raising strategy relevant in today’s economy?

In my last post, I addressed the issue of showing that your mission and your strategy are still relevant. Donor focuses may be changing, and some donors are becoming disenchanted with what they see as repeating a failing strategy, while expecting different results. This blog is targeted those of you that don’t have multi-million dollar budgets, but even medium size nonprofits can benefit from reviewing their goals.

Many small and newer nonprofits address local concerns. In the perfect world, these NPO’s would be supported by local or at least regional grant-makers. To some extent, that will continue to be true. Who better to care about the less fortunate in a community than the members of that community? The question becomes not so much whether they will continue to support you, but at what level?

Current pundits are predicting that no matter what “budgetary reforms” take place nationally, they will have a negative impact on the nonprofit world, and there is certainly at least anectodal evidence to support that viewpoint. For instance, if the unemployed lose extended benefits, there will certainly be more people hungry and homeless, driving up demand for services. On the other side of the coin, if there is an adjustment of income brackets and tax rates, it may well impact those at the lower end of the earnings curve. If they have to pay more in taxes, there will be less discretionary income available for everything, and that includes charitable giving. The very wealthy will probably be able to absorb the costs without much impact on their charitable giving, but those people that previously had been giving the average of three to four percent of their income to charity will now see that money going toward taxes. 

Larger foundations may begin to move toward funding nonprofits that focus on eliminating causes of need, rather than alleviating the symptoms of a larger problem.

The point of all this is that your board may need to evaluate your current funding strategy and address different ways to accomplish the mission. For example, if there are several nonprofits in your area dealing with different aspects of domestic violence, perhaps you could collaborate on a single program to address the initial triggers, such as economic pressures caused by joblessness, by providing support for continuing education to retrain or improve worker skills. This may well open up stronger revenue streams that any of you can access as single agencies. Some nonprofits may be able to integrate a for-profit partner into the mission to access program-related investment funding.

If your nonprofit is proactive, rather than reactive, you may even find that you will emerge far stronger and able to help even more beneficiaries than before. If you need help, Cloudlancer Writing Services is happy to be of service.