The 6 Must-Have Pillars of a Nonprofit

No matter the size of your nonprofit, you will not be successful at delivering on your mission or securing the funds you need unless these six areas are in place and effectively operational in your organization.

1. A Culture and Philosophy of Fundraising That Views Donors as Partners Versus Cash Sources

When any person in your organization has a negative attitude toward donors, it migrates down to the fabric of your nonprofit and affects those donors negatively. 

This could be:

• Your donor acquisition program leader who thinks their program is all about the numbers and return on investment, ignoring the relational and informational needs of donors.
• The person in accounting who misplaces a $10,000 donor check from a donor after delaying processing it. 
• Your major gift officer who doesn’t feel comfortable asking because they misunderstand what fundraising is all about. 
• The program person who does not have time to report back on what a donor’s giving has done. 

The list goes on and on. I have seen it all in every department of a nonprofit. Everyone in your organization must value and think the right thoughts about your donors.

2. Strategic Plans That Nurture the Donor’s Relational Journey

Your strategic plan is not just a plan to deliver on the mission and secure the funds — it also must proactively feed, support and nurture the donor’s journey with you. The program and fundraising occupies 95% of so many plans, with donor care only being 5%. This speaks volumes about how the insiders think about donors.

3. A Division of Labor That Treats the Donor as a Partner 

You would be surprised how many organizational charts and job descriptions ignore the donor journey. It’s almost as if donors did not exist. And what is true about this is that, many times, the donor does not exist in the minds, hearts and work plan of the organization. A successful commercial company would never treat its customers this way. But many of us in the nonprofit world do.

4. Donor Offers in Place for Every Program Category and Subcategory 

It’s fascinating how many nonprofits do not think about the relationship between the program content and information to what the donor needs as relates that content and information. 

In any commercial retail environment — either a brick-and-mortar or an online store — the products for sale are organized by category and subcategory. Why? Because that is how shoppers think and shop. It is organized to meet their needs. 

But in the nonprofit world, we don’t organize program information that way, and here is why: If the nonprofit presented all the program categories and subcategories to donors as packages or donor offers, this would result in an emphasis on restricted gifts. Most leaders and financial people do not like restricted gifts. Instead, mainly to cover overhead, they want unrestricted gifts. 

So, rather than attach overhead to every program category and subcategory to get rid of the need for unrestricted gifts, they continue down the outdated track of avoiding restricted giving. The result is an offer to donors that is not as attractive. They package the cause and write the ask copy in general terms, suppressing giving. 

I have seen so many situations where a $5,000-a-year donor gives $300,000 or a $20,000-a-year donor gives $500,000 because the nonprofit aligned the ask to the specific interests and passions of the donor. They created a product the donor wanted to buy. That’s smart. You must have a donor offer for every program category and subcategory to maximize donor giving.

5. A Budget That Results in Proper Donor Pipeline Flow and Net Revenue to Effectively Finance the Nonprofit’s Operation

You would not believe how often the distribution of fundraising and communications expense budgets has no relationship to the proper flow and maintenance of the donor pipeline. In some cases, too much budget goes to acquisition and not enough goes to mid-level and major giving. Or, the reverse, where an authority figure wants to beef up mid-level and major gift programs, so will cut or eliminate donor acquisition funding.” This is not a strategically built and distributed budget. You must align expense funding to your donor pipeline and what it needs to run effectively.

6. A Vision That Balances Growth and Mission Execution With Caring and Effective Donor Relationships

You must operate your nonprofit on the five initial principles, which reflect what your organizationis doing, as well as have a vision and long-term plan to keep the proper balance between the effort of mission execution and donor care. This is so critical because the passage of time tends to erode your organization’s value system and pushes your nonprofit off track. This is why you must have a long-term plan in place to protect against that.

There you have it. Six principles that need to be in place if you are going to be successful at managing your organization effectively. And, in no order of importance, I define success by:

• The effective and efficient management and execution of your mission, purpose and objectives.
• Successfully raising the money you need to fund the organization at best-practice cost and ratios.
• Retaining donors and their economic value because you are treating them as partners versus cash sources.
• Retaining staff and volunteers because they are working in a place that honors and respects their clients, donors, staff, volunteers and vendors. There is an operating philosophy in place that is authentic, respectful and honoring.

Stop and create an inventory of where your organization stands as it relates to these six principles. More than likely, you will have work to do. I suggest you get busy with that.

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of NonProfit PRO.