I know many of you are stressed over the impact Covid 19 and the Gourde/Dollar situation has been having on your budget, so donor relations is more important than ever. The newsletter will include some fresh ideas for fund-raising and their potential impact for your NGO. It will also touch on some common issues on websites and ways to address them. These observations come from spending quality time on 330 websites and many 990 tax forms. This is a long read but I hope you find it profitable.
This edition includes:
What to do between now and end of 2020
How to improve the donation page
How to make the NGO more visible to donors
How to save money on accounting
How to find untapped community partners and donors
How to use Amazon and Facebook to increase donations
What Matching Gifts are and how they work
Why your NGO should participate in Giving Tuesday in 2021
What to do between now and the end of 2020
Most NGOs get up to 30% of their yearly revenue in the 6 to 8 weeks before the end of the calendar year. In the last 3 days of the year NGOs can see 10 to 25% of their revenue come in. So focusing on end year giving is essential to the financial health of your NGO. David Duncan, a philanthropic professional, suggests making a list of those who gave the year before but haven’t yet this year and sorting it from highest to lowest. And then start calling the top 10% Your goal is to express gratitude and to share the latest work of the NGO and to find out if they would like to continue to partner with you. Given the crisis of the past year it is of course best to find out how the family is doing first. If there have been difficulties or setbacks it will give the religious among you a pastoral opportunity to comfort them, ask how to pray for them and them on to the next name.
If you prefer to do a direct mailing - understand that mail sent bulk is much more likely to be tossed unopened than that sent first class.
If you are concerned that few in today’s economy will be in a position to give - be aware of the record highs in the stock market. Those who are heavily invested may have reason to be even more generous and may be looking for an opportunity to gift appreciated assets for tax reasons If you are unfamiliar with this - it’s when a donor gifts stock which you then immediately monetize through a broker such as Charles Schwab.
This is also the time of year when you “ hijack” your website and put the donation button front and center. Most coming to your website in the waning days of the year are coming to make donations so make it easy for them. For more information on improving the donation page, see below.
(This advice comes from David Duncan of CDF Capital Foundation. )
What to Include On Your Donation Webpage
EIN:
Include this IRS identification on your donor page at the very least. If for some reason you don’t want to include this - at least include the *exact* name you have listed with the IRS so your group is findable on the IRS or charity watchdog sites.
Location of Operation:
Unless you are in the Haitian witness protection program be as specific as possible as to your location in Haiti. Vague references to the mountains of Haiti do not reassure a donor that the NGO does in fact have an in-country operation. The description should be detailed enough that an informed Haitian could find it.
Location of Headquarters:
Include a mailing address - again, it speaks to transparency and lends legitimacy to your NGO to potential donors doing their due diligence. (FYI - on the 990 forms you file with the IRS you list a public legal address.)
Email address:
The contact form is a quick way to connect but other types of communication are best done via email and that is the preference of a number of people. (I personally have not had good results attempting to reach NGOs using the contact form. The response either never comes or comes in an untimely manner.) For those concerned with receiving spam via bots from listing the email directly on the website, use a hyperlink that hides the email address until clicked on, or spell out your email, such as “example at gmail dot com”
A Contact Name:
If you haven’t listed your team and bios elsewhere on the site - give a name here. Donors like to know there are real people behind the NGO.
Additional Ideas:
Here are 12 more ideas on improving your donation page
(Image Source Dacostario, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Making Yourself More Visible to Donors
Making Yourself Visible to the Charity Watchdogs
Guidestar lists all charities registered with the IRS. It rates the charities based on how much information they have included on their site. The more information, the higher the rating. Most of the information can be transferred from a 990. Typically smaller NGOs don’t file the long form 990 but file a 990-EZ or 990-N. If you plan to register with Guidestar it may make sense to file at least the 990-EZ. Registering with Guidestar will also make you visible to a number of donation sites.
Charity Navigator rates charities with 1 million USD and more in contributions. It looks at things such as how much you are paying for fundraising vs the amount of contributions for example. It gets its info from the 990 and the charity’s website.
Great Nonprofits is a Yelp type site for nonprofits. You claim your nonprofit, add some photos and info and then invite your donors and volunteers to review you.
Using the IRS to Publicize Your Charity’s Work
On both the 990 and 990-EZ there are places to advertise your good work.
The idea is to describe in a succinct manner goals attained and using numbers to do so. You may not want to put something this specific or granular on your website but this is the ideal place to do it. For example, describe exactly how many students you helped this year compared to last year. This is worth doing because some of this info is the first info a potential donor will see on a charity watchdog site and you want to put your best foot forward.
Be aware that the IRS has provided a tool for you to add more narrative or explanation for almost any field via Schedule O. So if you have more to add that doesn’t fit the small space allowed on the 990 or 990EZ you can include it in Schedule O.
In the 990
Section I - line 1: “Mission or Significant Activity”
Many times a mission statement here is so vague as to really give no idea what the organization does. Please be more specific. This is one of the first things a donor will see when investigating your nonprofit at a watchdog site so make it good. I would suggest focusing on a short description of the year’s significant activity rather than a regurgitation of the mission statement.
Section III - line 1: “Briefly Describe Mission”
This is a good place to put your mission statement.
Section III - lines 4a/b/c:
This is where you list your 3 largest programs. I often see the barest of descriptions of here - one word and a dollar value. If you are having trouble coming up with more words, just think about your end of year board meeting. Perhaps it's been a tough year. In explaining the details to the board you will likely say “at least program x persisted in spite of the generator fail” or “ at least program y increased by 10%” This is the kind of information that should make it into the program service accomplishments description.
In the 990EZ:
Part III - line 28 is where you describe your accomplishments. Everything said for the 990 applies to the 990EZ.
Save Money On Your Accounting
Complete your 990 online free online
Complete your form 990 online https://efile.form990.org/
This resource is provided by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute. It fills in some fields automatically and checks the math and sends it electronically to the IRS. This is free for nonprofits with less than $100,000 in gross receipts. Larger nonprofits pay on a reasonable sliding scale.
Non-Profit Discounts on Bookkeeping Software
Sign up with TechSoup to get online access to quickbooks for$ $75 a year as opposed to $30/month. TechSoup is a conduit between nonprofits and software companies. It also provides the following at significant savings:
Donor management and fundraising software
Security software
Productivity software
Collaboration software
Increase Funding
The following are sources for funds that do not require you to deal with the typical onerous grant process. Such programs require so much staff skill and time that they are usually inaccessible to small and medium organizations. The ones below will require various levels of paperwork but not as much as a traditional grant.
Black Organizations
Fraternities and Sororities
Given that your organization’s service population is of African descent you may be an attractive service project to a Black sorority or fraternity. These groups give an enormous amount of hours of service to their communities every year. They are powerful people - they just helped elect Kamala Harris. If you have Black board members, ask if they belong to one of these groups and explore this idea with them. (if you don’t have Black folks on your board, you may consider addressing the demographic makeup of your board.) This article gives some background on the Divine Nine - it's a long read but interesting if you have been unaware of them.
Service Organization
Progressive Black Men is a service organization based in Florida - home of many Haitian nonprofits.
Churches
Black Churches in the past did not have a strong missions program mostly due to finances and the pressing issues at home. But with the rise in income this is changing. Such churches could be approached by a Black member of the organization. This is a list of Black denominations in the U.S.
Community Organizations
Community organizations like the Rotary are always looking for service projects. You would approach a local chapter for either funds or volunteers for a specific project - no general operating funds. They typically have certain types of programs they prefer to fund. It is listed next to the link.
Rotary
Our Causes (Education and clean water)
Fraternal Order of Eagles
Charities Requesting Grants (International and offers grants)
Lions Club
Lions Club International: Home (International: vision and hunger)
Family Foundations
These are required to pay out at least 5% of their assets per year and many pay more.
“Most small foundations do not want or need a big proposal package. An LOI (Letter of Inquiry) will work much better. Some 80 percent of the foundations surveyed said that they preferred to receive a "poorly written request that represented the real words of the applicant" to an elegantly crafted proposal written by a professional grant writer. The key is to be direct and honest. Trust the foundation to ask for more details once it is interested in your project.”
This gives more details on how to approach a family foundation.
This is a list of family foundations by state.
Amazon
Amazon Smile
This is a program where Amazon will donate half a cent for every dollar spent. This expert says don’t bother.
Amazon Charity Wishlists
There are 17 Haitian charities with wishlists on Amazon but many are empty or have unrealistic items. This article gives best practices.
Facebook
Peer to Peer fundraising on Facebook brings in an average of 3% of a charity's budget. It typically works by having someone post that they are participating in a fundraiser and then their friends - to support their friend- donate to the charity. This is a podcast that goes into more detail: The Nonprofit Exchange Episode: Engaging Digital Platforms for Nonprofits
Matching Gifts
If you don’t have at least a description of the matching gift concept on your website, you are leaving money on the table. “Matching gifts are a type of corporate giving program that essentially double an employee’s initial donation to an eligible nonprofit organization.”
This is an extensive overview of the matching gift concept.
Statistics:
65% of Fortune 500 companies have a matching gifts program
$4 to $7 billion in matching grants is left on the table
84% of donors are more likely to donate if their gifts can be matched
71% more donors respond to fundraising appeals when mentioning matching gifts
The process:
The employee makes the donation
The employee submits a matching claim to their employer
The employer determines eligibility
The employer sends a check to the charity
95% of organizations that cater to children are eligible - provided they are not proselytizing while delivering the service. If a religious organization requires prayer or religious instruction while in school it is likely not going to be eligible. If it is a religious organization that simply sponsors children to go to a local school - this is likely eligible.
Types of corporate giving:
Matching contributions
Volunteer grants based on hours worked (can be a fun run for example)
Volunteer team grants based on hours worked
Donation of skilled employees
In kind grants
The minimum a charity should do is put a matching gift notice and how to on its website. You can also purchase online programs that will facilitate the process for you and the donor. For $499, Double the Donation will give you a widget to put on your website that makes it easy for the donor to find out if their employee matches contributions and links right to the employer site where the employee can input the details immediately.
For charities in Florida, Disney provides a great opportunity for matching contributions. Prior to Covid 19 it had 77,000 employees in the state. It matches employee contributions up to $15,000
This is a review of databases that help with processing matching gifts.
Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday is the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. It is designed as a philanthropic response to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year I have seen Haitian NGOs recieve $2,000 to $70,000 on this one day. Unfortunately it is too late for this year but now at least you have a year to plan. This is the official Giving Tuesday website and provides logos and graphics for you to use in your marketing.
Here are some Giving Tuesday Statistics (from NPTechForGood)
Donor ages: 45% are Baby Boomers, 24% are Gen Xers, 19% are Millennials, 11% are Matures
Children and youth are the 4th most popular NGO to donate to at 10%
62% of donors prefer to give online
57% who donate are enrolled in a recurring giving program
12% who donate are enrolled in a workplace giving program.
74% of GivingTuesday donors volunteer
Of those who were inspired to give by a social media message, 52% found Facebook the most inspiring.
Giving Tuesday donors say the communication methods most likely to inspire them are consistent emails at 47%
Don’t forget if you want to connect with other NGOs to share resources or knowledge check out the database of 330 Haitian educational NGOs.
Congratulations and many thanks for sharing this with us: www.apfhaiti.org