70 Nonprofit Trends for 2015

The tie-ins with cause marketing are endless, especially as more retailers adopt services like Apple Pay so shoppers can make purchases directly from their phones.

3. Nonprofits will have new rivals for cause marketing dollars. Cause marketing will get much tougher for nonprofits in 2015. Here’s why: Companies and individuals don’t need them as much as they did before (sorry, nonprofits):

• Companies are rapidly expanding their cause-related activities and exploring ways to be more sustainable and responsible. While partnering with a nonprofit is one way to earn a halo, it’s no longer the only way. Not by a long shot.
• Companies are adopting a nonprofit agenda without the nonprofit partner. Panera has its Care Cafes. Patagonia offers to repair its customers’ clothes instead of selling them new ones. Uber has committed to hiring 50,000 veterans in 2015. The car service has also created the UberMILITARY Advisory Board to build out a team of subject-matter experts to put forward new initiatives to help military communities. What’s missing from these three programs? A nonprofit partner.
• • The Ice Bucket Challenge and other viral fundraisers allow companies to target do-gooders directly, without the aid of nonprofits. These “Halopreneurs” are savvy millennials who are motivated, influential and wired for success. Halopreneurs can address issues they care about without working directly with nonprofits. In short, they don’t need to join a cause-walk or attend a gala to help.

This doesn’t mean that nonprofits won’t ultimately benefit from company and individual fundraisers. They will. But they’ll be more dependent than ever on others to make things happen.

Miriam Kagan, senior fundraising principal, Kimbia
4. Nonprofits are increasingly looking for corporate opportunities to partner, sponsor, support, etc., their missions, events and fundraising. As the industry at large builds more ties, not only will the work of finding partners and developing the right offers for them become more important (and having the right staff to do so), but how those partnerships are structured, what the partner’s role is and how those relationships are promoted to the general public will become something more and more nonprofits have to work on, not just the big ones that already have those relationships in place.