Partner Post

This post was originally published on Firefly Partner's blog, and is being shared with their permission. If the title of this blog post resonates with you, you have lots of company. Most nonprofit organizations have a degree of dissatisfaction with their online engagement tool – primarily because there is no perfect platform.  Advocacy, email marketing, events, fundraising, eCommerce, and CRM are all fairly standard components of an online engagement program at most organizations.  These elements are really critical to the success and core functions of the modern nonprofit.  You just want to provide a great experience for your supporters and use [...]

Nonprofit organizations do so many things really well:  First of all…they impact lives! Every. Single. Day.  The paid staff and leadership for nonprofits work tirelessly long hours and often get paid much less than they could if they worked in the private or corporate sector.  Or, maybe they’re a volunteer board member serving faithfully.  Either way, all involved give liberally of who they are for the mission. For nonprofits to break free of traditional constraints and transform into high-performing, high-growth organizations, there is a need to clearly define what limits growth and become intentional with solutions to effectively expand these limits.  [...]

Today’s donors are very tech savvy. Almost two-thirds of us are now smartphone owners – even the boomer generation has embraced them – and these devices are a primary access point to the online world for many. The use of paper checks continues to decline in favor of electronic payment methods and credit/debit cards. In fact, since 2013, mobile giving to a charity’s websites has increased by 80 percent. We are a digital society. Source: creditcards.com As connected individuals, the donors of today are more impulse-driven, they’re on the go and they expect great experiences – or they will walk away. From shopping, to dating, to [...]

Every nonprofit event has some hiccups, so we’ve come to expect them. But imagine if you didn’t have to stop five, ten, or a dozen times throughout your event to troubleshoot the guest list, or fix a data entry error. Imagine how much faster registration and check-out would move. How much of that time could be better spent giving the best service possible to your guests? All it takes is a tiny bit more preparation, practice, and organization. Make these five small changes to your process, and you’ll find you can breathe much easier on the big night.   Maintain Physical [...]

Hosting an event for your organization is an excellent way to build relationships with your supporters and to enable them to introduce their own networks to your cause in a fun environment. Surprisingly, post-event follow-up is often overlooked, but is still critically important.   While many debate the value of nonprofit events given the high costs, data supports the idea that an event is an excellent opportunity to build a more actively engaged community - one that volunteers, donates, and supports your organization in multiple ways. Your follow-up is an acknowledgement of their participation and can build on the relationship between [...]

Time and time again as we are working with our nonprofit clients we hear a common challenge: We don't have the budget to do that. Whether it's investing in a new website, buying a better camera, spending money on a fancy social media metrics dashboard, or even having a full-time social media employee, the refrain is all the same - small nonprofits are strapped for cash and have a limited budget.   We get it, we really do. At CSL, the majority of us have worked at nonprofits or startups so we understand competing priorities when it comes to your limited [...]

Major gifts are the financial backbone for your organization. Follow these 8 best practices to grow your own major giving strategy.   Perform a prospect screening. This is a good place to start, as it feeds directly into the major donor identification process. Prospect research can reveal a wealth of information about potential and existing donors. Whether you hire a screening company, bring in consultants, take on the task in-house or some combination thereof, it’s going to be crucial to candidate identification.   Form a major giving society. Launching a major giving society is an excellent way to recognize and reward [...]

If you are serving on a nonprofit board or are considering doing so, it is important to keep in mind that along with the great work of that organization, it’s also your responsibility to understand that nonprofit’s finances. There are a variety of differences between non- and for-profit accounting. The more familiar you are with the differences, the better prepared you will be as a board member.   Why is it so different? It’s important for nonprofit organizations to understand their accounting needs to be able to maximize their resources and spend more time raising awareness for their cause and less [...]

You’ve done it. You’ve managed to cut through the nonprofit clutter and catch the attention and interest of a potential donor. Eager (or at least willing) to open their wallet and donate, they’ve landed on your website’s home page. Now that they’re here, the question is: can your website close the deal? If your answer is an emphatic yes, good for you! You’re part of a growing contingent of nonprofit organizations who have come to the realization that putting time, energy and money into an effective and attractive website is an investment in not only converting donors, but in achieving a [...]

Building With, Not For, Your Communities At Timshel, we know that to design great products, we have to understand what our stakeholders value. This is true whether we’re designing an engagement platform to help nonprofits and advocacy groups connect with their supporters, or a tool that helps rural health workers with little to no experience with technology collect and disseminate patient information. So how do we understand what our stakeholders value? That’s where human-centered design (HCD) comes in. To make sure we truly understand the problem that we’re trying to solve, we have to understand it from the standpoint of the [...]