 Hi everyone. So it's just about the top of the hour. I'll give everybody a few more minutes to get logged in. Before we get started, I just want to make sure that everybody here can hear me and see my screen. You should see the cover slide that says five biggest mistakes small nonprofits make. And you should of course hear me talking. So if that is all well and good for you, if you could just pop a yes into the questions box, that would be a huge help to me just so I know that you can all see and hear me. All right. Awesome. Thank you, Zoe, Rita, David. Thank you so much. I'm going to go ahead and put myself on mute for just a few seconds, let everybody else get logged in and then we will get started. All right. It's just turned three o'clock Eastern time. So I'll go ahead and get started. Welcome to our webinar. Five biggest mistakes small nonprofits make and how to fix them. Hopefully this should be a pretty fun one. I'm really excited about this webinar. So thank you for joining me today. My name is Linda Gerhardt. If you attend Mighty Cause's webinars, you probably know my face and my voice very well. I give about one webinar a month sometimes two. And I'm the senior community engagement manager here at Mighty Cause. And I've been working with Mighty Cause for just about five years. And before that, I worked in the nonprofit sector helping with marketing and communications. So I'm hoping I can combine all of that experience to help everybody fundraise just a little bit better. So here's a quick look at the five mistakes, which we'll be going through in detail. My general philosophy at work and in life is that you should not bring up a problem unless you also can propose a solution. So we'll also be talking through the steps that you can take to course correct if you're making the mistake we're talking about. And just as a bit of housekeeping, we will be doing a Q&A session at the end of the webinar. So if you think of something that you'd like to ask while I'm presenting, just go ahead and type that into the questions box of your GoToWebinar panel and we'll make sure that there's time for it at the end of the presentation. All right, so this is the first mistake that small nonprofits make and that is not sending enough appeals. So to take a deeper look at what's actually happening with this problem, lots of small nonprofits rely on one or two fundraising campaigns per year and hope that this will carry them through. So they're not making fundraising something that they do on a daily ongoing basis. If there's no campaign that you're running, your donors pretty much aren't hearing from you and they aren't getting any asks. And this mistake often means that your fundraising channels are not diversified, meaning that if you're relying too heavily on one fundraising resource, your funding is not diversified. So for instance, a small nonprofit might participate in a giving event like Giving Tuesday or a charity walk in the spring. And maybe that's enough to hit your revenue goals most years. But as we saw in 2020, circumstances can go off the rails very quickly. So when there's not a solid continuous fundraising plan that backs up your campaigns, your nonprofit can find itself in a really sticky situation if you're not making fundraising appeals part of your regular operations. So the most common reason small nonprofits make this mistake is because of limited resources. They don't have a lot of financial resources or human resources. So they don't have a lot of staff, they don't have a lot of people to take on various tasks. So fundraising sort of gets considered extra and the efforts that are made are limited. And then because their fundraising is limited due to limited resources, they continue to have limited resources because they aren't raising any money, which keeps them locked in a cycle of feeling like they don't have enough funding to go out and raise funding. So it really is a vicious cycle that a lot of nonprofits get stuck in. And this also prevents you from growing. It prevents you from becoming larger and having more resources so that you can fundraise better and also do more good in your community. And so you've got this cycle happening and limiting fundraising to one or two campaigns throughout the year is also something that's in play. So if you're only fundraising sporadically, your funding is also going to be sporadic instead of a constant stream of revenue. A lot of small nonprofits will kind of keep fundraising and development work siloed from their program work. Like it's kind of an afterthought or a chore or something they don't really want to do or engage in, but have to to keep the lights on. And they keep it a little bit separate from the groundwork and running programs and services, which means that they really aren't seeing fundraising as a vital element of their nonprofit and they're missing out on opportunities to build donor relationships and stay funded. And what I see most common in small nonprofits is reactionary fundraising. Reactionary everything is kind of a problem at small nonprofits, which is understandable given limited resources. But with reactionary fundraising, something happens and you go, oh no, we need help with this. We don't actually have the resources to deal with this. And then you fundraise for that specific things that you can get through that crisis or that incident instead of continuously keeping the till full throughout the year. Overlying on one source of funding is basically just setting your nonprofit up for trouble in the future. So if you have one primary source of funding, you have to know that it may and probably will come to an end at some point. A grant will come to an end or it will run its course. If you have one or two major donors that are responsible for a good chunk of your funding, they may move on. They could also pass away, unfortunately. And then what do you do if these sources are what's keeping your lights on? Generally speaking, it's a good financial practice to ensure that you don't have 30% or more of your fundraising coming from a single source because you're at risk of having the rug pulled out from under you. It's like when companies rely on investor funding, which we work is a great example of. So eventually those investors are going to come collect. And if you've just been running through investor money without a solid plan to become profitable, you'll end up with a Hulu documentary about you. Or probably not, but you might end up in a really bad financial situation at your nonprofit if you don't have a long-term plan to become sustainable without needing one significant source of funding. So on to the solutions. The biggest thing you can do to correct this is integrate fundraising into all of your operations so that it's an ongoing continuous project rather than something that you do when you have to or do just a few times a year or when you really, really need the funding. Building appeals into what you do. Every person that you come in contact with, every touch in your community is an opportunity to fundraise. And that sort of attitude that every person is a potential donor is really common at large nonprofits and successful nonprofits. So when you have a lot of people and they all have the mindset that every single person that they come in contact with is a potential donor, that really changes the game. And when you sort of loop fundraising into everything you do, even if you're running a program or providing a service, that can really lift up your fundraising program. And the other thing you can do is to consider some ways that you can add different sources of funding. Some easy ways are like peer-to-peer fundraising, starting a recurring giving program, which we'll talk about in just a bit, adding some new channels to capture donors more passively, like a donation widget on your website, or looking into corporate giving programs. Corporate giving programs can be a little bit intimidating to small nonprofits, but they really don't need to be. There is a company called Double the Donation, who Mighty Cause has worked with in the past and will work with again in the future. And they actually have a database of employee giving programs, which can be a really great resource if you're really not sure where to start with corporate giving or employee giving. And just again, the name of the company is Double the Donation. They are a friend of Mighty Cause, and they can be a great resource if that's something that you're interested in branching out into. Because corporate giving, once you have your name listed as part of a corporate giving program, it really is passive income. People are just giving as part of their paycheck. Employees are doubling their donations. So, you know, that's really a great way to get into having more funding sources and generating more passive revenue. Another thing you can do to start breaking out of the cycle of limited resources is start roping in help, obviously. A lot of small nonprofits can be a little hesitant to loop volunteers into fundraising. Some nonprofits are very set in their mindset about volunteers. That volunteers can maybe greet visitors, sort in-kind donations, do dishes, do yard work and other things like that, but they can actually be a really great help with fundraising. There are a lot of skilled people out there who have experience with various areas of fundraising or components that may be helpful to you. So, reach out to volunteers. Don't forget about volunteers. It's fine to loop them into your fundraising program. And your board is also a resource that many nonprofits kind of forget about or are really hesitant to loop in, but it's an important part of their role and the commitment that they make to your nonprofit. They are, you know, making a commitment to the financial health of your organization. So, if you're really struggling with fundraising and you don't have resources, talk to your board. Many board members are well-connected people who can help you network. You may also have some financial wizards and excellent fundraisers on your board, so don't feel like you can't ask your board about this or to help with this because it's part of their role as board members. And finally, just start fundraising outside of campaigns little by little. Starting a newsletter can be a really great place to start. You're talking to donors, so you're getting them engaged, and most newsletters will also contain a call to action, which is usually an opportunity to donate as well. So, if you've just been doing campaign-based fundraising, start a newsletter or just start adding fundraising appeals to your newsletter. The next mistake that small nonprofits make is probably the one that makes me the saddest, and it's that your website is a mess. So, this has actually happened to me at a small nonprofit. We hired an outside website designer who built the website long before I came along, and there was a lot of staff churn since that website was built, and somewhere along the way, the nonprofit lost access to editing the website, so nobody even knew how to log in. It was just a WordPress site, and it just kind of remained frozen in time, and it was basically useless except for this one part of the website where the designer who had created the website for us had connected one of our programs onto a page that was feeding onto our website. So, that was a really unfortunate situation, and the thing is it's not entirely uncommon. I've heard other stories of nonprofits, especially very small ones, not knowing how to log in to their own website and not knowing how to edit their own website. So, that is usually the biggest piece of the puzzle. In my job, it might be because I go to a lot of nonprofit websites just in my daily work, and it's really not uncommon at all for me to go to a website and not really have any sense that it was updated in the past six months or even the past year. I'm seeing old information, there's no current news or events that they're advertising, nothing there that looks like it's fresh, and it's just kind of a static still website, instead of something that looks like there's someone actually acting as a caretaker and showing this website some love. So, that's really unfortunate to see when somebody goes to your website and they really can't tell that you've looked at it in the past six months or so, and something else I see a lot is websites that are just horribly outdated. They don't work on a phone because it was built using a template from a time before all templates were mobile-friendly, so it's slow, you can't really use it, it's hard to navigate, and overall it's just generally not a good look. And this is something that unfortunately does plague small nonprofits in particular. So, when you're running a nonprofit, especially a small one where you have a lot of work and you have a lot of things that you have to do and you're trying to make big change on a shoestring budget, a website can kind of feel like a nice to have sort of thing, but something that you don't really have the time or technical skill or the money to really worry about, but there is a domino effect that takes place when your nonprofit has a messy outdated website. First off, our websites are basically the storefront to the general public, and it's the first place that most people will go to learn more about your organization. It's usually the first interaction that people have with your nonprofit. So, if I go to a website and the website looks like there are cobwebs in the corner, my first question as somebody who doesn't know anything about this organization is does this nonprofit still exist? And if I'm not sure that your nonprofit still exists by looking at your website, because it's so out of date, I'm certainly not going to make a donation, I'm not going to sign up to be a volunteer or pursue things any further, if I can't look at your website and know that you are currently working in your community and doing things all the time. It's also a professional representation of your work and your cause. So, if it's not shown a little bit of love from now and again, from now and then, and it does not make a good first impression, it could keep you from getting sponsors, from making connections in your community, from getting volunteers, and worst of all, it could turn off potential donors. And finally, people bounce from websites really quickly, especially if it's slow or it doesn't work properly. So, basically a bad website means that people are likely to come to your website and just turn right around and leave, which means that you kind of lose those people and they're not going to interact with you any further. So, I wanted to talk about the essential components of a good website, because unfortunately, this is an area where I think a lot of nonprofits just kind of don't know. They look to big nonprofits to see what to include, but don't have the resources to actually create a website from scratch and aren't sure what to include at all. So, the first thing is an easy to navigate mobile-friendly design. Most of us don't sit down at a desktop computer and peruse the internet. We usually are on our phones, so it needs to be mobile-friendly. If your website is not mobile-friendly, it's basically useless, because the only people who can really utilize it are people who are on a desktop, which is just a small percent of people who are looking for information on the internet. Having an about page or a section where you talk about who you are, what you do, what your mission is, or even literally just post your mission statement on that area, on that page, is really essential just so people can get a sense of who you are, what you do, and what you're all about. You can sort of tell that story throughout your website, but just having a dedicated about page where people can learn the basic facts is really important. Having some avenue to contact your nonprofit, it should be clear how to get in touch with you. It should be clear that you want people to get in touch with you. Sometimes small nonprofits, especially, they actually kind of don't want people to reach out to them because that's more administrative work. That means that that's voicemails that they have to answer, and that's emails they have to answer. They can sort of hide that, but unfortunately, that's kind of off-putting to visitors if it's not welcoming and it's not clear how to contact you. There's a lot of ways that you can have people contact you. A lot of nonprofits will use a contact form. If you have a contact form, please make sure it's working and check it periodically because unfortunately, these forms can stop working pretty frequently, which is sometimes a failure of technology and sometimes it's just that the person who had the login to the website where the contact forms were being sent left and now nobody knows how to log into it. So just check in on a contact form if that's what you're using, but definitely make sure, at least in your footer, that you have your address, your general email inbox, a phone number, and then any operating hours if you're open to the public. One thing that is important that I don't often see a lot on small nonprofits' website is disclosing who your board members and your staff are, so listing who is on your board and your essential staff members. So your executive director, anybody that has a director title, basically the upper management at your nonprofit and people who are going to be interacting with the public like the volunteer coordinator, if you can include photos and a little bit of a bio, that's also really great and it makes your website welcoming and allows people to sort of get to know who is involved with your organization. Your donate button is really important and I'm so sad because I often see this missing from nonprofit websites. You should have a donate button in your nav bar. So you have a navigation bar somewhere on your site. It's usually at the top where people can navigate to your different pages. Donate should be one of the options on that navigation bar. So where that goes can vary. You can install a widget. You can use a button. You can use a full donation form, but just make sure that there is an easy, clear way for people to donate because if it's hard and people have to hunt for how to give you a donation, they're not going to do it. Nobody's going to hunt to give you money, unfortunately. So just make sure that it's clear and I really recommend having it on the navigation bar that takes them to a place where they can donate. And then also having a page for how to get involved. You want more people involved. You want people to volunteer. You want people to join your recurring giving program. You can link to your Amazon wish list. However, people can get involved. Make sure that that is an item on your navigation bar so that it's a call to action. Get involved. Here's how you can do it. So these are kind of the must have things on a good nonprofit website. So onto the solutions. The first is redesign your site. If your site is hopelessly out of date and you kind of need to gut the whole thing, that's okay. You can do that. It doesn't need to be super complicated. There are platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix that make it a lot easier than it used to be to design a website. You don't need to know HTML. You don't need to be a programmer. You don't need to be a developer. You can use these platforms to easily build an attractive functioning website. So if you need a gut job, you can check out WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix as your platform and easily build a website without having any special knowledge. And you can slowly add any missing components. So if your website's a little bit on the thin side, you don't need to add all of these things overnight. You can tackle one thing at a time. Make a list of what needs to be added to your website and just knock it out one by one. Just add a page here and there. And the other thing you can do is ask for help. You don't have to do it all yourself. There are a lot of people out there who work in web design and programming who would be happy to volunteer to assist you in building or updating your website. So talk to your, put a call out for volunteers. And if you really are hard-pressed to find somebody, you can ask your board. And there are also people that you can hire. Of course, you have to pay the money. But if you're really lost and you're really hard up for help, there are people who specifically catered to nonprofits who can help you design a website. Just make sure that you have the login recorded somewhere that won't get lost. So in terms of donations, an easy thing that you can do, especially if you're already a Mighty Cause user, is to add our donation widget or a donation form if you're an advanced subscriber to your website so that you don't miss donations. It's absolutely essential and I cannot emphasize this enough. It is absolutely essential that your website act as a channel for donations. So upgrading your donation processing on your website is an easy thing that you can do to improve your website. And you can make it a goal to update the homepage once per month. So you don't need to have lots of things that get updated but refreshing your homepage on a regular basis. You can use an image carousel or have a little section for what's new where you can share images and information. Those are things that you can use to easily refresh your website so that when people come to your website, they say, okay, it's May and they're advertising something that's happening in June. So I know that this organization is looking at their website and that this organization still exists. That's the feeling you want people to have when they come to your website. So just make a commitment to spend a little time each month making an update to your homepage if you do nothing else. And then the bare minimum that you can do is check on your website once per quarter. And what I mean by this is not just refreshing your homepage but making sure that your website is functioning, that there's not a lot of information that's out of date. If something needs updating, take care of that, check your contact form, check your site links and so on. And just make sure that it's functioning. And doing these things will just greatly improve your website and your web presence, which again is kind of the store front for your nonprofit and the first interaction a lot of people will have with your organization. So these are really important and hopefully these are really simple things that you can add into your operations. All right. So I said we were going to talk about recurring giving and the third biggest mistake that small nonprofits tend to make is not focusing on recurring giving. So here's the problem. Small nonprofits are often really focused on donor acquisition because the mindset goes that if we have more donors, we will have more funding. And that does make some logical sense. But the reality is that it does cost more money and takes more effort to acquire a new donor than to just retain an existing one and nurture the people that you already have. So recurring donors have a much higher lifetime value than first time donors. So working on nurturing the donors that you already have and encouraging them to give on a monthly basis is your key to having sustainable funding. But a lot of small nonprofits, they just focus on getting as many donors as possible, as many new donors as they can. There's also the vicious cycle of limited resources rearing its ugly head again. I know that donor stewarding takes work. It takes investment and it takes a lot of attention. You know, you may not have a donor pipeline set up and not have a roadmap for where donors are supposed to go. And unfortunately, what happens when you don't think you have the resources for this is that you end up losing your donors, you end up wasting effort, time, and money trying to keep new donors coming in through the door. And that keeps your funding small. It keeps your resources limited. So that is another iteration of the vicious cycle of limited resources. So recurring giving programs. A lot of people think they're really complicated, but here is what you need to have a recurring giving program. You need the ability to allow donors to set up a monthly donation. If you're a mighty cause user, you're already set because they can do that through all of our donation tools. You need a plan to check in with these donors and engage with them throughout the year. And you need a way to recognize and thank your sustaining donors. And that's literally it. That's all you need. You can go bigger if you want to, but this is the basis of a recurring giving program. And most small nonprofits can do this. So don't over complicate it or think it's much bigger than it is. You really just need to do these three things and then you'll have a recurring giving program set up and you can start building it. So why recurring giving programs matter? I feel like I beat the drum about this a lot, but it really is important. So recurring donors, you'll often hear people refer to them as sustainers. And that's for a very good reason. They are the basis, the foundation of sustainable funding. So they are not optional. They are essential to sustainable funding. It's also the key to growth. If you want to grow beyond your existing base and have more financial stability, more resources, if you want to do more at your nonprofit and for your cause in your community, you will need people who make a monthly continuing investment in your work. Recurring donors are also engaged donors. Donor engagement is really the goal of any fundraising initiative. And recurring donors are people who on a monthly basis make an investment in your cause, even if it's just $15, $20, they are giving on a regular basis. And these people, this group of donors can become champions for your cause. They can become ambassadors for your cause and your mission. They can become peer-to-peer fundraisers. And if you have a pipeline set up and you have a roadmap to get them there and you work hard in engaging them, they can become major donors down the line and even one day leave you a large bequest. So that is the pipeline we're talking about is getting them to set up that first recurring donation to deepening their involvement in your nonprofit. And donor relations is basically just relationship building. And it takes a lot less effort to maintain a good relationship with somebody who's already on board with you than convincing someone who's never heard of you before that they should make a donation and invest in your cause because you've already got these people. They're already warm to what you want to tell them. So the solution for a recurring giving program, really the mighty cause, widget or donation form are your friends here. You can really easily set up recurring donations. They process automatically. So you do not have to do anything. You will be notified if there is something happening with the donation, like it was canceled or something needs to be updated with it. But the users can also manage it through mighty cause. So it's very easy for them. If they want to change the date that their donation comes out of their account, they can do that. If they want to change the amount, hopefully make it bigger. They can also do that through mighty cause. So the benefit of using our widget or form is really that it makes it a more passive process for you because the actual transactional parts of it we take care of. And the donor can also take responsibility for if they need to update something. We make it easy for them to do that. You can add a place to your website asking for recurring donations. That's really the first step. If you want to start a recurring giving program is just explain why people should donate to you on a recurring basis. Ask them to do it and ask them to give on a monthly basis. So that would be the first step. If you want to get the software off the ground, go to your website and create a little page where you talk about your recurring giving program. And really the key to it is just to ask. Sometimes small nonprofits, they're just like asking for a donation, donation, donation, but they don't take the extra step of saying, hey, you've donated to us two times. Would you be willing to make that $15 donation every month? Because for the most part, people are willing to do that. They'll pay that much for Netflix. They'll pay that much for social good as well. You can run a campaign that's focused on recurring giving if you're feeling ambitious. So you can either make that the focus of your next campaign or an add-on and just make it an additional element of your campaign. And then you could also create a formal program for sustaining donors. So that would involve creating a name, giving it a snazzy, jazzy name, outlining a few different levels of recurring donors, and maybe giving them a little title there are champions, there are heroes, et cetera. And just maybe adding a little logo. You can use a program like Canva to create an attractive logo that you can use to signify this is our recurring giving program. And you can also think about things like tokens, key chains, stickers, those kinds of things are really popular with recurring giving programs. They're not essential though. And you can also think about things like, can I recognize our recurring donors in our lobby somewhere if you have people with a lobby that has some foot traffic? Can you give them a special spot on your website? Can you add them into your newsletter and so on? So there's a lot of things that you can do really without much investment to create a recurring giving program and get people giving on a regular basis. So the fourth thing that you're doing is you're not investing in your organization's future. So the problem is the reactionary fundraising that I was talking about, the little bit, little fires everywhere. Your nonprofit is constantly in fight or flight. You're constantly reacting. You're putting out fires. So sometimes when every single day you come into work and you do not know what disaster awaits you and what problem you'll have to solve, the high level strategic planning that nonprofits need to do in order to tackle big social problems in order to make impact, that kind of gets pushed to the side because you're so busy fighting the fire that's in front of you. And so that's what can happen very easily at small nonprofits. It's kind of endemic to small nonprofits, this reaction mode that everybody's always in. And it kind of prevents that high level planning that you really need if you want to grow. Another thing, and this is more of an administrative problem, is using one million free tools. So I've seen some really unwieldy systems that small nonprofits use because they're just looking for the free tool that they can get easily without having to pay for. So the payoff for that is that on the administrative side of their nonprofit, they have this wild system for managing their data and managing their donations with programs that don't talk to each other, that only a few people can understand and know, and new people are like, what are you even doing? So not investing in tools that will support your nonprofit as you grow. It's also a big time suck. So when we complain about like, oh, I don't have time for doing this, sometimes that time is wasted migrating data manually from one place to another, to be completely honest. So the question to this, and I'm sure that this was probably running through a lot of people's minds as they were listening to me talk about that, is how do we invest money that we don't have? And I am 100% sympathetic to that question because you're juggling a lot at a small nonprofit, you're doing so much. So it's really a matter of taking a look at where you are spending your money. Where are we spending it? Can we adjust a couple of things so that we can make an investment in something that will support our growth? And that's why it's an investment, you're not going to get an immediate payoff like you would with a free tool that you're using, but you are going to have something that will support you in the long term. You can talk to your treasurer on your board and just your board in general. It's important to invest in infrastructure. Like just in general, you need to invest in infrastructure and life. But at a nonprofit, it's really vital if you want to see your organization grow and see if you can work with your board and your treasurer on a budget that will allow you to invest in some tools that can support your growth and professionalize your fundraising. So for instance, a CRM, which is a client relationship management tool where you manage your donors or Mighty Cause Advanced. Mighty Cause has a CRM tool of our own along with other fundraising tools that can help you enhance your fundraising. And see if there's a budget that you can set that's not really going to be a hindrance to you, but will allow you to invest in things that will support you as you grow. And then you can calculate the annual cost of upgrading your fundraising infrastructure. What are you spending now and what do you want to spend more on? And then consider reaching out to your sponsors, your donors, and maybe one particular donor is interested in helping you out with that. Sometimes they might be sitting on your board, but just sort of see what the actual cost is because sometimes there's a knee-jerk reaction of, oh, we don't have money, but sometimes the money's there. You just have to sort of readjust your priorities a little bit so that you can spend the money on the thing that will help you grow as an organization. So missing the forest for the trees is a thing that happens when you're sort of in this reaction mode. You can kind of lose sight of the mission of your non-profit and what the overall big picture work that you're trying to do. You can get caught up in the daily emergencies reacting to something urgent and just using up all of your energy and time and resources into putting out fires. And that's done at the cost of your high-level strategic plan and your larger mission. So when you think of now instead of anything else, when now is the only thing that you can sort of focus on, that comes at the cost of your future because you can only see what's in front of you and not what's immediately in front of you and not what's in front of you a few years down the line when you could be making a much bigger impact on your community or on your cause. And the thing, and this has happened to me before and I see it happen to people at nonprofits all the time, your nervous system cannot sustain working in a constant fight or flight mode and you will burn out if you're just surviving rather than trying to grow and coming up with something sustainable that you can steadily grow with and steadily do good with. And it happens to non-profit staff, that's why small nonprofits and nonprofits in general have a lot of staff churn is because people burn out when you're so focused on what needs to be done right now, what's the emergency, oh my gosh I need to help, like that's not a fun way to work and it will eventually burn people out. So that's something to be mindful of as well because then if you lose staff members due to burnout you have to spend the time interviewing and hiring new people. So the solution to this is to build a plan. Some of you may already do this but then the advice would be to make sure that you're sticking to the plan but work with your board on a five-year plan to build a sustainable nonprofit and to talk about how you plan to grow and where you would like to end up. So your board, this is part of their job as well so they should be willing and happy and eager to work with you on a five-year plan so that you're not just lost in the now, you're actually thinking ahead to the bigger things that you want to accomplish in your work. You can also consider where you'll need to invest, you know, some tools like maybe a CRM is not right for you but something else might be like investing in a full-time staff, investing in some fundraising tools like email marketing software or upgrading your donation form or your donation page, hiring a volunteer coordinator and building a robust volunteer program. So think about, you know, not just where can we spend money but what is most meaningful for our nonprofit in conjunction with our five-year plan and then just focus on the long game. Something that is really helpful in really no matter what industry or sector you're in is asking does this support us in the long term. So when something pops up, an emergency pops up or an opportunity pops up, use the filter of does this support our mission in the long term and if the answer is no then sometimes you may need to say no to things but that kind of filter can really help you hone in on the things that will help you grow and help you achieve your mission. So this is the last one and I think it's an appropriate one to end on but the fifth mistake is you're sending receipts instead of thanks. So the problem here is that a lot of people treat donations like transactions at nonprofits and certainly they are but what I mean by that is they got the donation, the monies there, they sent their receipt, there's a little thank you message on the receipt if you're using Mighty Cause so you can cross that off the list it's done except it's really not because that's just a jumping off point for a larger effort to retain this donor and get them engaged in your work. So it's kind of I think part of the first problem that we were talking about where nonprofits feel that they don't have the resources so instead of seeing each new donation as an opportunity to build a relationship and get people engaged and nurture them as supporters of your work you're kind of just doing whatever you need to do to get past it and get this off your list so you're kind of doing the bare minimum to thank your donors so that you can say that you did it and move on to the next task. So the other thing that happens is that you just kind of thank them and then send them their receipt and then they're gone and you don't have a long-term plan for engaging and stewarding these donors so you're kind of treating each donation as a self-contained transaction with a beginning and an end rather than a beginning that still has not reached its end yet. So that's generally the problem with this mindset and part of why it's a problem with small nonprofits specifically because of course large nonprofits have entire departments of people who their full-time job is thanking donors and engaging donors. You of course don't have that at a small nonprofit so it's not it's understandable that you can get into that pattern with donors. So the effects of that are that donors don't feel appreciated and they don't come back. Donors they donate for a lot of reasons most of it's not pure altruism most of them want to feel appreciated and seen and thanked so if they don't get a fulfilling experience from donating to your nonprofit they are not likely to donate again. You're losing opportunities to build long-lasting relationships with donors. As I mentioned if you have a pipeline in place where you know the entry point is making that first donation and the end point might be becoming a major donor or even leaving a bequest if you're just kind of stopping at the thank you and the receipt you're missing out on all of those future stages with that donor and you end up kind of chasing your tail like the little dog in the slide. It's another cycle donors churn because you don't have a follow-up plan so then you're like oh gosh I have to get new donors and you spend all this time and money and energy getting the new donors and then because you don't have a plan in place those donors also churn because you weren't following up and then you're just kind of locked in this endless cycle of trying to get new donors but then not actually engaging the donors that you've got so then you are in the position again of having to get new donors and it's exhausting for you and it's not necessary it's not a necessary cycle so it's very easy to break out of. Really when we're talking about the issue here it's the issue of a sort of misunderstanding or you know wrong understanding of the donor relationship. So donor relations it's all about building strong relationships you're getting to know people you're getting them involved and invested in your work and it is a reciprocal relationship. You get something as the nonprofit you get their financial support and they get something out of it too which is that they get to be a part of your cause they get to support your work and they get to feel good about the things that they helped make happen with their donations. So sometimes we can sort of see it as a one-way transactional relationship but it is actually a reciprocal relationship where it's there's an ongoing dialogue going between you and your donors if you're doing it correctly. So when you have that stopping point where you just say hey thanks bye they don't come back and they don't feel seen and they the relationship kind of dies. If you're not stewarding your donors you will not be able to grow. We've been talking about this the whole webinar but you need to build a foundation to support building a sustainable nonprofit and that involves building strong donor relationships having a donor pipeline that increases their involvement in your work and you know creating a nonprofit that is solid has a solid base of donors and funding sources that can sustain you. And as I was talking about earlier donors just don't they don't just want to receive they're there because they care they want to get involved they want to be part of what you're doing and you know in return for their donation if you're just sending a receipt that's not actually what most donors want although of course they will ask for receipt in most cases they want to know that you see them you appreciate them that they're part of your work and that they're helping make good things happen and they are an important part of your work they're vital to your work if you don't have donors you don't really have a nonprofit so it's really understanding what the donors want out of the relationship the receipt is not really what they want a key chain is not really what they want what they want is to feel like they're part of something and doing good in the world. So the solution to this number one is to build an onboarding plan so new donors so how do you welcome them to your nonprofit that is the starting point for stewardship so things like a welcome series of emails actually getting on the phone and giving them a call and saying hello thank you so much for supporting us can you can you tell me a little bit about yourself how did you find us or even mailing them a welcome packet can really start that relationship off on the right foot and keep them engaged using a CRM to manage your relationships with donors is something that you'll definitely want to do if you're looking toward growing as a nonprofit so we have one at Mighty Cause called Supporters you can get that with an advanced subscription and we also have a Salesforce integration so if you want something that's more in line with Salesforce to manage your donors you can have that as well we integrate with Salesforce and a CRM which is basically a donor database is what is going to help support you as you grow because eventually if you keep growing spreadsheets are not going to do it anymore QuickBooks is not just going to be the solution for managing your donors you're going to need something a little heavier and supporters is a good step into that and Salesforce is also really popular with nonprofits and then building gratitude into your operations making thanking donors just part of what you do as a nonprofit so if you're sending an email you're building gratitude into that email for all the people who show up to support you so making sure that it's in your newsletter it's in your emails it's on your website that you're using because of you messaging because of you messaging is kind of corny and I hear that a lot but it works PBS has been using it for years and it is because it works donors want to hear that the things that you accomplish they're part of that and that's what because of you messaging does creating an annual report is a way to engage donors and to you know improve the relationship it creates a culture of accountability so a snazzy annual report where you can celebrate all of your successes and all of the amazing things you did that all of your donors enabled you to do it's also a really great place to include some financial transparency so you can talk about your finances you don't have to share everything but just give them a snapshot of your spending because that creates trust with donors plan in for regular communications you're going to need to check in with your donors once per quarter is usually enough unless you have a donor who's very involved but just plan to check in with them once per quarter finding ways to recognize your donors keeping your eyes open for ways that you can show them gratitude maybe when the world is a little bit more back to normal we're slowly getting there but having a happy hour for all of your recurring donors so they can meet each other and get to know each other or having some sort of lunch at your your premises those are things that you consider throughout the year that will really improve and build the donor relationship especially now that face to face time might be a possibility soon in the future face time with people at your nonprofit is really important to building a good relationship with donors so having them invited places is really helpful and then just making donor engagement a top priority at your nonprofit like a website it's not just a nice to have kind of thing it's something that you you need to do as a nonprofit if you want to stay funded so make a plan to engage your donors how look at how you're engaging them how you could be engaging them but currently aren't these are things that you can do so that you're not just stopping at sending the receipt and saying thank you you're actually building meaningful long lasting relationships with donors and building a solid foundation of support at your nonprofit all right so that is it for today I know I went over time a little bit so I apologize thank you for sticking with me through that I did want to take a moment to mention our next webinar on Thursday May 27th I will be hosting a webinar on peer-to-peer myth busters you know we're going to be talking all about peer-to-peer so if you were interested in like how peer-to-peer can enhance your fundraising and if you have some hesitations about it we'll be busting all of the most common myths related to peer-to-peer fundraising so it's also a really good entry point if peer-to-peer is something that's new to you and you'd like to learn more about it so you can register for that at mightycause.com slash guide slash webinars that is our webinar library we have a list of upcoming webinars that you can register for and I'll also just send a link in the follow-up email with the recording and slides for this webinar all right so I just wanted to make some time for questions and if you do need to exit because we've gone over time a little bit no worries you will get the recording of this webinar including the Q&A in the email that I'm going to follow up with so give me just a moment to sort through and see if we've got already things already here let's see oh this is a really great question this is from Becca are listing board members and staff on your website how do you avoid the public using this information negatively we have the occasional passionate community member who thinks that we steal their animals and don't give them back okay so I'm actually from an animal welfare background Becca so I know precisely what you're talking about and I would say just limiting it to your high-level staff so your executive director your board members people who are trained to deal with the public who have some public relations training board members are usually able to speak very knowledgeably and calmly and authoritatively about you know your cause and executive directors can certainly be you know they can they can calm down somebody who's freaking out but just make sure that you're not including their personal email addresses if somebody is harassing them on social media they can block them I wouldn't be too concerned about it you know I you know that certainly can happen but somebody who's determined to find you will find you anyway they could find you through LinkedIn they could find you through social media and I think that the the good is bigger than the risk because you're allowing people to get to know you and it does create a culture of trust people know who your nonprofit is who's working for your nonprofit and you could just make sure that every person that you list make sure that they know first of all that you're going to be listing them and that they have a say in what information is shared and maybe even have them write a little bio of themselves but yeah that's a risk especially with animal welfare nonprofits as I can personally attest to they get very very passionate and we even sometimes get people emailing us at Mighty Cause talking about you know an animal rescue or shelter that they had some sort of incident with and you know of course we can't do anything but I think the net good of having a list of staff members and volunteers is is higher than the risk and maybe just have a plan in place for if that happens and maybe send out a memo saying hey if somebody messages you on social media you can either direct them to whoever is supposed to be dealing with the public or they can just block them if they are being abusive and harassing but hopefully the net good is is higher than than the risk okay so you mentioned that doubled the donation is a friend of Mighty Cause what is the recommended method to contact them I would just take a look at their website you can google them double the donation I don't have a specific contact there I can point you toward but they're you know a company that we've worked with we used to have an integration with them and we you know have kept in touch with them over the years and we may be doing some things with them in the future but yeah you can just check out their website and see what they offer and see if that's sort of what you're looking for and reach out to them through their website and just to answer the questions about the recording and the slides I will make sure that you get a recording of today's presentation as well as the slide deck in a follow-up email I just need a little bit of time to upload the video to YouTube and actually put together the email so that might go out tomorrow afternoon keep your eye out for that is your giving widget only for paid organizations so I well so check out our pricing page you do have some options at multiple different levels so I would say go to mightycause.com slash pricing and you can actually see a list of everything that's included because it does vary based on you know what plan you're on so that gives you an idea of the plans but we're a donation processing platform first and foremost so every person every nonprofit who uses mighty cause has a way to make a donation and you can just see what's included in the plan that you're on on the pricing page that's mightycause.com slash pricing and that's not just to be obfuscating I don't like there's a lot of tools that I can't remember offhand so just check the pricing page and see what's included in your plan um let's see how do you define small nonprofit that's a question from David that's a really good question uh you know there are some definitions from places like the council of nonprofits and it varies so most of the the nonprofit organizations that use mighty cause in the whole you know mac the big view of the nonprofit sector most of them are considered small nonprofits so under a budget of under a million dollars or two is usually kind of what the the sector as a whole looks at as a small nonprofit because we primarily serve small nonprofits at mighty cause we're we're talking usually annual budgets that are well under a million dollars when we talk about small nonprofits so sometimes under 250 dollars per year most small nonprofits uh kind of know that they're small um you know we don't want to include anybody in that that doesn't feel like that category suits them and certainly it varies by community but at mighty cause we kind of uh you know define it as any nonprofit that is using our platform because we serve small nonprofits primarily um and usually has a budget of under a million dollars that is kind of the broad definition but any nonprofit that considers themselves a scrappy small organization would be considered a small nonprofit but if you google it there are some actual breakdowns that you can find um that kind of divide people divide organizations up by budget but that is the full sector perspective so most organizations on mighty cause would probably be included in this small nonprofit breakdown let's see okay i i do apologize for going over the 30 minutes if you do need to leave um i'm sending the recording you can always just fast forward straight through to the q and a so i apologize for um going over my time i just had a lot to say so i just wanted to make sure that i got through all of it um let's see does it cost money to set up a website and maintain it um generally yes but it's not as much as you would think um you need to buy a domain which is the the url basically um and you can do that through google domains and it costs like five dollars to buy a domain um and then you usually need to pay for a service to host your website um so wordpress wix square space they're all really affordable so you do need to pay for it you need to pay for the actual technology that's hosting that your domain for you know your host that's actually hosting the website but it's actually probably a lot less than you would think um if you wanted to actually like build your website from scratch that's a pretty big investment but just going with a website hosting platform like uh like wordpress is probably the most popular among nonprofits there is a small cost involved but it depends on what kind of features you want how much control you want that a very basic website that has a few pages on it is not going to not going to run you a whole lot of money um and it also comes down to your requirements so like um i was talking about animal welfare before our shelter system had to integrate with a specific particular program where we updated the animals that were available and that was a specialized thing so that costs some money but if you're just looking to get information up you can probably do it for under 200 dollars or under 150 dollars depending on what options you choose so it's it does cost money but not as much as you think and usually there it's an annual subscription um let's see sorry i'm just going through all of the um questions thank you everybody for all of your nice comments that makes my day to see that people are really getting something out of this webinar so let's see okay i think that's it there are a couple of questions um let's see templates to send physical ask letters as well as tools um we don't have those kinds of templates you can actually find quite a few of them online which is one of the reasons like if you're looking to mail an ask letter to somebody um there are so many available if you just google it like um you know solicitation letter template um you can find a lot of examples of that um so we just didn't want to reinvent the wheel because there are so many examples of that already available for free on the web um so Connie if you're looking for those kinds of templates i would just google solicitation letter template or donation letter template and you can find lots of examples of how those letters look um so that you you feel like you have a solid basis for what other orgs you're doing but hopefully that is helpful to you we don't have that just because we're trying to make sure that we provide content that already isn't freely available um we have a page through cranes may may days of giving i don't is that given may i'm not quite sure what cranes may's days of giving is um does this page stay live after the campaign is over again i'm not um this might be referring to given may um that's a this one we have going on right now otherwise it's not one that i'm familiar with but for giving days in general on mighty cause if you have a campaign page it'll stay active as long as you want it to you'll have an organization profile that is a year round evergreen page for your nonprofit that is going to stay active as long as you are on the platform and even after unless you tell us to turn it off and if you have a campaign page and you don't hit your goal or you want to do a stretch goal after your giving day is over you can certainly keep that page live so if it's a mighty cause giving day um then definitely your um your your page still stays active even after the event that it's participating in is over the only thing that's different is that if you raise money after the event is over it wouldn't be added to the event totals or in most cases be eligible for prizes that are offered through the giving day all right yes so it was that was given may and i'm actually the project manager for a given day given may on the mighty cause side so if you have any questions about given may i am i'm happy to answer them for you um but i think that's it for questions um again thank everybody so much for bearing with me as i went over my time i just can't help myself i love to talk about fundraising um but thank you for spending the afternoon with me and i will make sure that everybody gets a recording and a you know link to the slide deck so you can download it um and i hope to see a lot of you here on our next webinar about peer-to-peer fundraising um have a great day and happy fundraising