Sell solutions, not problems

For those of you who believe that marketing your nonprofit mission is all about explaining a problem…

Wise up!

Donors at all levels want solutions that solve the problem, not perpetuate it. For new or smaller nonprofits, establishing that you have the resources to do that is one of your biggest hurdles.

That's not to say that you shouldn't include the high points of the problem as a explanation for your solution. After all, there has to be a reason to ask for other people's money, whether you are selling a car or a cause.

That's what the statement of need is for, but if your whole pitch is about telling people what they probably already know, you're going to lose their interest quickly.

Unless your mission is very unique or seldom addressed, donor education on the problem is sometimes regarded as just so much more PR hype. More importantly, it wastes valuable space in your proposal.

For local nonprofits, much or your funding is going to come initially from your local area; usually at  the city, county or sometimes state level. 

A case in point

To  combat a stray dog problem,  county commissioners passed an ordinance requiring all dogs be spayed or neutered to receive a license, or that the owners get a $350 annual kennel license for unaltered animals.

As often happens when governments get involved, the policy had unintended consequences. The population of unlicensed and freely breeding dogs skyrocketed.

A local but small  mid-South animal rescue had been trying to build a no-kill shelter for almost five years, with little success. They had four acres of donated land, but little else. The cheapest plans they could put together were still coming in at $2.7 million dollars for construction and all the corresponding preparation costs, including an environmental impact study.

The problem wasn't so much irresponsible pet owners as it was the cost of the surgery. Even at the so-called county discounted average price of $175.00 per animal, most owners in the economically distressed county just couldn't afford it.

The rescue wanted to switch tactics. They contacted every vet in the area and asked them if they could offer  spay and neuter services for $75.00 per head in return for guaranteed payment. 87% of them agreed.

The new mission of the rescue was to collect funds to offer prepaid vouchers to the owners to give to the veterinarians. The owner would contact the rescue, receive a voucher number, take that to the vet within 30 days of issuance, the vet would turn in monthly confirmation of the surgeries  to the rescue, and they would then pay the vets. They will call the campaign "More pets, less puppies"

At present, there are still some logistics to be worked out, such as what to do with animals that have no owners, but initial response to the concept has been outstanding. Pledges have tripled in just a few months.

Why this works

County residents already knew about the problem. They wanted it fixed, but not at the expense of maintaining another shelter forever and ever.

This idea offers a real solution to animal overpopulation. It short, people can see the time when the need for the program will dwindle down to a minimum level.

Results are germane to the county residents. No one wants to have their dog impounded and destroyed, but economics is still the driver of family budget decisions. People who are tired of packs of free roaming dogs can see an end in sight.

Veterinarians, some of whom  had been doing some surgeries for free as a public service, will realize more income, most of which goes back into the community in the form of wages and local purchases.

 

Even the county benefits, since their animal control personnel can spend more time on abuse cases instead of rounding up whole packs and litters of dogs. What little extra revenue was coming from dog licenses will be more than covered by a reduction in county personnel costs for overtime.

Focusing on impact

Rethink your approach to your mission. See if your programs can be redesigned to offer real solutions to the root cause of the problem. Give donors a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel, instead of just a longer tunnel.

Communicating success - If you did it, brag about it!

Who doesn't like the story of the "Little Engine That Could?" The 1930 children's book has stayed a favorite for 75 years because it teaches children that trying hard and often gets you to the top.

It's doubtful that the book would have even survived a week if it ended on a note of failure.

Most people root for the underdog, but what really moves them is when the underdog becomes the top dog.

That's the story your nonprofit should be telling.

When you are trying to raise funds, whether you're a nonprofit or a for-profit, people want to know that they are backing a winner or at least a solid competitor.

Often the difference between getting funding and going broke is your ability to prove you have a lasting impact on whatever problem you are trying to solve.

Nonprofits have a particularly good audience for success stories, because even little successes, if they are cumulative, motivate people to help.

We hear a lot about impact statements, but too many people want to prove their impact with numbers only, leaving out the emotional side.

OK, it's a good thing to be able to say you served 1000 more meals this year than last, but what difference did those meals make in someone's life?

Every nonprofit should make an effort to go beyond the numbers. Follow up with the people you fed or tutored or that you helped to finally get a job. What positive outcomes did they have beyond a meal, their first paycheck  or a passing grade on a test?

Stopping with the immediate end result of a program sells your whole operation short.

Go out and contact some of the people you helped, or the homes where you placed an animal a year or more later. What happened after the initial good deed?

Sometimes the outcomes aren't as rosy as you hoped they would be, but that's part of the story.

One nonprofit that worked with rescuing female domestic abuse victims did just that. What they found was that about 30% of the abused women had gone back to school and another 35% had found steady employment, but most of the others had either gone back to their abusers or entered into another abusive relationship.

That's part of your story too. Use it to show why you still need support.

Put the stories on your website, start a blog or send out newsletters, but get the word out.  

Remember, people want to give you money only because you help someone or something else. They aren't going to donate just because you need to pay the rent. Now go out there and start bragging!

Are you sure your nonprofit needs money?

No matter the mission, the most often repeated line in most of my email is:

"If we just had more money we could (Fill in the blank)."

There is no doubt that money greases the wheels of philanthropy, but if you don't understand the  challenges of delivering your services, all the money in the world won't help.

Take the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. No shortage of money there. Yet a reprint of a Seattle Times article, posted January 3, 2015 in the Philanthropy News Digest, tells us that even the commitment of a quarter of a billion dollars doesn't guarantee success.

One interesting quote from the article mentions that the Foundation underestimated the difficulty of achieving their desired results due to the lack of even the most basic infrastructure in the areas they were trying to serve, indicating that someone was a little short in planning skills.

On a much smaller scale, a charity working with domestic violence victims was involved in a program to provide computer training, with the desired end result being that the women wouldn't need to depend on their abusers for income.

While they had some success, their program was only graduating about 12% of its participants, and was having trouble attracting funding after the initial $25,000 grant they received. The results just weren't there to impress new funding sources with the program's effectiveness.

When they approached me to find them at least $100K in funding for more computers and class space, I had to tell them that their results just didn't justify asking for that kind of money. To their everlasting credit, instead of firing me on the spot, they asked "why?"

The problem was that they had not anticipated that many of these women had less than a tenth grade education, and for some of them, even that education was over 20 years old.

While teaching them to use a keyboard was pretty easy (most of them had cell phones and knew how to text) some of them couldn't read well enough to understand the online help or even how to find it. All the classes did for them was to reinforce the idea that they were losers, and they simply quit coming to class.

It was like teaching someone how to use a hammer to drive a nail, without any knowledge of what driving that nail actually did to build a house.

It's easy to jump from "let's form a nonprofit" to expecting that your program will immediately get to its desired end result.

Money doesn't necessarily fix the ills of the world. It takes a lot of time and hard work, and sometimes more than a few false starts before you begin to achieve results that can attract more funding.

In the case of the nonprofit illustrated above, they had to back up, add a step, and focus on offering simple basic tutoring to improve math, reading and comprehension skills, an approach that did net them about another $20K in funding from their original grantor almost immediately.

As frustrating as it was, in the end the ladies they wanted so desperately to help got a lot more out of that approach, and many (81%) went on to successfully complete the computer skills classes and get jobs.

This all goes back to understanding the process of being a nonprofit. It's easy to see a problem, but a lot harder to plan a fully designed and effective program that  produces results worthy of continued funding.

The good thing about that problem is that you don't need much money to solve it. You do need a solid organizational plan, a willingness to learn to recognize and overcome obstacles and the patience to achieve it in baby steps instead of giant leaps.

If you do your homework, you can actually outperform even the Gates Foundation, and that's surely something you can be proud to report.

What impact statements say about your nonprofit

What do the people you help think of your nonprofit?  How about your partners?

That's a question I ask when I am working on impact reports. You'd be astounded at how many people can't provide the answer.

Impact statements are an important part of getting grants at any level. 

If you operate a nonprofit, you obviously get something concrete out of it. Whether it's emotional satisfaction or a feeling of being part of a larger cause, there has to be something in it besides a monetary return.

The problem is, no grant maker wants to know what good you derive from your organization.

To some extent most impact statements are about statistics, but numbers don't tell the whole story.

Take the case of a nutrition-focused nonprofit. Their mission was to provide not just more food, but better food to the low-income population in their area. To that end, they held what you might call healthy eating food drives, gave cooking classes and were looking for support to purchase more healthy foods like raw vegetables and fruit.

They had all the numerical data documenting how many meals they had provided, nutrition tables and comparisons of calorie substitutes. They were very proud that they "introduced people to foods they might not have considered previously." They were also trying to start urban gardens.

What I noticed was that they didn't seem to be serving near as many people as the statistics would indicate that they should. Some months, they actually threw away food that had aged past it's safe shelf life.

When I asked the opening questions above they had no answers, because they had never asked them of their clients.

After a lot of prodding, they agreed to collect some data, and the results shocked them.

People didn't like their approach. It was described variously as preachy, stuck up, and out of touch with the community members they wanted to help.

For instance, one respondent shared that she couldn't keep a lot of fresh food on hand, because her refrigerator was 40 years old and had a very tiny freezer. She used a lot of boxed and canned foods, because that's what she could store.

Another said that her "stove" was a hot plate, so she couldn't fix anything that needed an oven.

Still another lady wrote back and said "My kids aren't going to eat brussel sprouts or alfalfa shoots, so why should I waste the gas to go get them?"

And one that typified why their mission wasn't working in the community…"I work two jobs now. When would I have time to do all that canning, and why would I when I can buy the same thing in a can at the store?"

No matter how noble your cause, or how great it makes you feel, if you can't prove to grantors that it benefits others, they aren't going to support you.

Ask for honest feedback. Your impact statement will benefit, and so will your clients or beneficiaries.