Soapbox Engage Blog

Are you thinking of starting a nonprofit? Fantastic! We’re always excited when someone has the passion and drive to make a difference in the world.

We’re always ready to cheer for a new generation of leaders. Of course, we’ve served our sector for nearly 20 years, so we also want to be honest and up-front about all the realities of starting a nonprofit. Launching a nonprofit can be fueled by passion, but the question is how much fuel do you have in the tank...and how long before you need to refuel it?

We’ve found that laying the right foundation, and going into the process with an open mind, tends to lead to the most successful organizations. Taking a slow, methodical approach at the beginning will help you avoid some potentially painful mistakes later. Here’s some questions successful nonprofit leaders have asked before starting a nonprofit.

Have you ever seen a fundraising campaign that feels like, well, it’s just kind of sitting there? You know it’s an important cause, but there isn’t any "there" there in the messaging. Nothing is compelling you to take action, bringing together a coherent story.

It can all feel a bit, well, empty.

Launching your fundraising campaign without a theme is almost as tragic as having a cute cuddly puppy without a name, or a house with no foundation. Sure, the puppy is still adorable and cuddly, and the house might have some great features. If there's no way to introduce your puppy to your friends, and no firm foundation to keep the house stable, people have this missed connection that they can’t always point to, but they can feel.

We hope you haven't committed this fundraising faux pas yet, but even if you have, all is not lost. We gathered some of the industry best practices and recommendations by fundraising experts to help you come up with an exciting and effective theme for your next fundraising campaign.

Crowdfunding is fast becoming one of the most popular (and useful) fundraising strategies for all kinds of nonprofits. In 2018, 46% of millennials and 45% of GenXers gave to crowdfunding campaigns. It has the potential to bring in a lot of money, help you expand your network, and raise awareness of your cause all at the same time!

First introduced to help entrepreneurs and inventors attract investors and raise money to launch their business, the approach has grown substantially, with some experts predict crowdfunding will become a $90-$96 billion dollar industry in the next few years!

We created this handy guide to help you avoid some of the common crowdfunding mistakes that nonprofits make when deploying a campaign. We’ve also gathered some industry best practices that will help make your campaigns more successful.

Countless nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) around the world are doing invaluable work to promote justice, care for people, and enact change. The scale of their impact often depends on the amount of support they can build up from various communities.

Advocacy campaigns are one of the most effective ways to mobilize people into action. They raise awareness, educate people, seek to influence decision-makers, attract donations, help build your brand, and much more. A well-designed advocacy campaign has the potential to trigger wide-scale responses, prompt people to change their actions, and even affect government policies.

Advocacy can be misunderstood and difficult to define at times. To further complicate things, there are some rules and regulations about how nonprofits can engage in advocacy. Before you start planning your first campaign, we created this resource to help guide your organization in incorporating advocacy into your work.

Are you thinking about starting a nonprofit? There’s so much to think about and consider! If you're located in the United States, one of the most important early decisions you’ll have to make is what type of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) 501(c) categorization will best suit your nonprofit.

There are actually 27 different types of nonprofit organizations that cover everything from cemetery companies to benefit trusts and everything in between! Most charitable organizations fit into one of three 501(c) categories. Each type has its own rules for tax-deductible contributions, lobbying, eligibility, and other things.

It’s critical to choose the right type of 501(c) for your organization because it impacts far more than just your tax exemption status.

We created an overview of the three most popular types of 501(c) categories to help make your decision process a little easier. To be totally clear, we're not legal experts, so we always recommend consulting with your legal counsel before making any decisions. To be more direct: take the advice of legal experts before taking any action or making any decision!

Most development professionals and fundraisers who work for nonprofits apply for grants at some point in their careers. After all, someone in the organization has to do it! Grants are often an excellent source of money to accomplish specific initiatives.

In 2018, contributions from foundations made up about 16% ($66.9 billion) of the national philanthropic giving. While individual donations still make up 68% of the total charitable giving, grants for nonprofits are an excellent secondary funding source for all kinds of organizations.

Finding grants that fit your organization's mission can feel overwhelming. They come in every shape and size you can imagine! Identifying the best grants to apply for can require some serious research, time, energy, and maybe even a little self-reflection.

There are many resources and services to help you identify and apply for the grants that best fit your organization. We rounded up a few resources and tips to help you get started!

Do you work for an organization that seeks to enact real, measurable change around a specific cause, policy, or position? A significant part of the work of many nonprofits includes advocacy. You're probably very invested in raising awareness, lobbying, and using other methods to change (or create) laws, influence people’s opinions, and bring about social change.

Whether your organization is directly or indirectly involved in advocacy, advocacy campaigns help nonprofits raise awareness about their mission and mobilize supporters to take action. Advocacy also helps organizations raise money!

Every advocacy campaign is different, with a wide range of goals, causes, advocates, and other variables. With the right preparation, you’ll be able to run a powerful, effective advocacy campaign. We put together a basic strategic plan to help you get started on your early advocacy campaign planning.

A key reason you’re not converting as many website visitors to donors is due to poor performing website pages. Too often, you’re left feeling like you’re doing everything right, but still aren’t seeing the impact you want. If only there were an easy way to gain powerful insights into your website’s visitors to help you figure out what to improve.

Luckily, that tool exists, and it’s free!

Many organizations successfully use email marketing, blogging, and social media to attract visitors to their websites. Unfortunately, a lot of nonprofits don't use Google Analytics to understand how people interact with their site once they get there.

We get it! Google Analytics can be overwhelming and hard to understand. But, if you know what to look for, it is an invaluable tool for your organization! Here are the basics of what you need to know about Google Analytics so you can get the most out of your nonprofit's website.

Did you know that 30% of all annual charitable giving happens in December? Ten percent of those donations come in the last three days of the year! Professional developers probably aren’t surprised by those statistics. Most nonprofits understand how critical year-end giving is to their annual fundraising goals.

With millions of dollars potentially at stake, nonprofit organizations must have an excellent strategy to get some of those coveted year-end donations. The great news is it’s never too early (or late) to start planning for the best year-end giving campaign yet!

We gathered some essential statistics every fundraiser should know about year-end giving and a few strategies to help you crush your fundraising goals.

Nobody likes paperwork, but some of it is actually important. Donor receipts are one of those necessary evils that nonprofit organizations need to pay attention to. Not only are they required by the IRS, if done correctly, sending donor receipts can be another great "touchpoint" with your valuable donors. And it doesn’t have to monopolize your staff’s time!

It’s critical for nonprofits of any size to develop a process to personalize and send donation receipts to their donors. We gathered all the essential information about donor receipts and some best practices to help you create an effective system for your organization.

While you're reading, it's important to note that you should consult your own legal and accounting professional before implementing any ideas listed here, and this should not be considered legal advice. Okay, with that, let's continue!

"Giving Days" are fun, community-wide variations on crowdfunding. It’s a 24-hour period when a nonprofit focuses on mobilizing its network to raise money for the cause. The best known "giving day" across the globe is Giving Tuesday, of course; however, more cities, regions, universities are hosting their own Giving Days to benefit nonprofits in their geographic area.

While Giving Days aren’t really new, they've grown in popularity over the past few years. Now, many organizations participate in at least one local or regional Giving Day as part of their annual fundraising plan.

Giving Days benefit the entire community as well as the charities that receive vital funding! With the right planning and preparation, your organization can raise a lot of money by participating in (or hosting your own) Giving Days. Perhaps more valuable is the publicity and visibility that comes with these types of events.

We unpacked some of the reasons why Giving Days are worth your time and gathered some tips and tricks to help you get the most out of participating in a Giving Day event.

These days, fundraising is just a part of participating in youth sports programs. Whether you join a city or county league, school team, or sports club, most athletes know the drill--sell the required number of candy bars, discount cards, or rolls of wrapping paper so they can play the sport they love. Most families have busy schedules and get tired of the "usual suspect" fundraisers. So, they resort to buying all the product instead of schlepping it around the neighborhood, or just writing a check for the minimum fundraising amount.

Fundraising can be a great teaching tool for young athletes! Choosing fundraisers that athletes and their parents actually want to do will help children learn valuable life skills, and your team gets the most out of your fundraisers.

We rounded up four fundraisers for sports teams that we think everyone will actually be excited to participate in (and will raise the money your team needs).

There are more nonprofits than ever, which means there is more competition for donations. To complicate matters further, donors are more informed and savvier than ever. They know good fundraising, and they are cautious givers. Donors have access to more information, thanks to the internet, and are becoming more sophisticated givers.

Donors want to know how nonprofits use their generous financial contributions. If we’re honest, that’s not an unreasonable expectation! Most nonprofits agree that fiscal responsibility is a good thing. In the past, financial transparency was an excellent "bonus" feature to an organization’s fundraising methods, but not really a necessary part of the process.

Today, donors expect to know how your nonprofit handles finances. Organizations must demonstrate that they are a worthy investment.

This might seem like a daunting task. After all, most nonprofit budgets are far more complicated than the usual household budget. But, with a little preparation and effort, you will be able to share your financial statistics with your donors confidently and in a manner that actually builds trust!

If you're in the development department at a charter school, you know how challenging fundraising can be. Yes, there's public funding, but so much of the great work you're doing for your students comes from additional funding sources, and those sources are being more scarce each year. In fact, most charter schools now rely on fundraising efforts to cover building expenses and subsidize their operating budget.

Many charter schools rely on major annual fundraising events like a fun run, golf tournaments, a glamorous dinner with live music, or a gala and silent auction.

No matter how your charter school decides to go about fundraising, there are many challenges to navigate and overcome. Here are some practical ideas and apps that are sure to help you conquer your fundraising goals and minimize the difficulties.

Did you know that more than 293 billion consumer and business emails were sent per day? Some analysts say that number will surpass 347 billion by 2023 (and some of us probably feel like we delete about that many every week).

About 3.8 billion people use email regularly, making it one of the best (and most cost-effective) ways to fundraise online. In 2017, emails drove about 28% of all online revenue, but the response rate to fundraising emails is under 1%.

Of course, those statistics are skewed by national and global organizations that send millions of emails regularly. Still, it's more important than ever to make your email stand out in the crowded inboxes.

One of the easiest ways to improve your open rate is to write an excellent subject line! There are plenty of ways to go about this, and the options are only limited by your own creativity.

We rounded up some tips, tricks, and best practices for writing fantastic email subject lines that will surely spice up your response rates.

Well, that was a pretty action packed end to last week. Within about 24 hours, I worked my way through some breaking community news, including an engaging Ask Me Anything session with the Salesforce SVP for Nonprofit Cloud, and the departure of Kevin Bromer from Salesforce.

I'm still slightly exhausted, but not tired enough to go through the photo albums to find some classic Kevin photos. The photo below isn't the common way I'd expect to see Kevin, but it's an awesome "Hey, check it out, I get to do the 'What's working?' part of an NPSP Day!"

Without getting too sappy, I'll say that Kevin has been one of the most vocal, boldest, and biggest supporters of the NPSP and open source community that I've had a chance to work with in the Salesforce ecosystem. It was an honor nerding out with him during the creation of the early NPSP community governance plans, at the early sprints I organized, and amongst new users of Salesforce. His parting words below sum up nearly a decade of work, and shine a light in the right direction moving forward.

This week, I'd recommend you make it a double of whatever you're drinking, because there's a ton of important content to go through. Cozy up, silence your phone, and get ready to dive into the deep-end of knowledge and feedback this week.

Don't forget, you can have the goodness of the PUB Crawl delivered into your inbox each Monday morning by subscribing today!

Jewish Community Centers (JCC) all over the country provide valuable services and resources. Each JCC contributes uniquely Jewish approaches to fighting for justice and making the world a safe, healthy, and enriching place for people of every age and background. Perhaps more than ever before, our neighborhoods need the resilience and tireless pursuit of justice and peace that the Jewish Community Centers offer.

There are many strategies to raising the money required to fund the excellent educational, cultural, health, and social programs for which JCCs are so well known (not to mention the scholarships that ensure everyone in the community has the opportunity to benefit from JCC programs and services).

Many Jewish Community Centers rely on major annual fundraising events, like a community block party or a "Roaring Twenties" themed night of cocktails and dancing for the majority of their donations. Other JCCs host golf tournament fundraisers and charity fun-runs.

Perhaps your community takes a more direct fundraising approach and sends mailings asking for donations. Some JCCs have membership programs and rely on generous monthly donors to finance their programs and services.

No matter what fundraising tactics you choose, there are unique challenges that can make fundraising difficult and may even negatively impact your efforts. Here’s some ideas and apps to address these challenges and make your fundraising strategies more effective.

Can you think of a website you recently visited that was beautiful and easy to navigate? How did it make you feel? It probably caused you to stick around longer, browse a little more, or consider adding a few extra things to the shopping cart.

Now recall a website you visited that was of poor design or quality. Did you stick around? Did you find what you were looking for? Did you trust the content or products?

Websites are increasingly essential for the success of any nonprofit and for-profit business. A useful website provides important (and engaging) information, reinforces an organization's credibility, and helps the fundraising efforts.

In the same way that a good website can build trust and help get the word out about your mission, a bad website can actually be harmful for your organization!

The great news is you don't have to be tech-savvy or hire a full-time web designer to have a beautiful, high-quality website! You also don't need to shell out thousands of dollars for a custom website design right away (though we do recommend that down the road).

With the help of a website builder, or a content management system (CMS), even the most tech-challenged people can create a functional website without breaking the bank. We've rounded up three website builders that are easy and cost-effective for nonprofits who want to build a basic website to tide them over until they can invest in a custom website for their organization.

When your company is worth more than $1,200,000,000,000 (I had to count the number of zeros, just to make sure I had it right), you have a unique opportunity to shape a better world. Some might go as far as to say it’s a responsibility to do so.

But what do you tackle?

Well, if you’re Microsoft, and you can scale the benefits of your services and products around the world, the sky’s the limit! Getting focused, and delivering actual solutions that can be used to do good requires insight and expertise working with those on the front lines. Plus, a good bit of leadership.

It’s no surprise then that Microsoft announced the launch of Microsoft Philanthropies in December 2015 to lead this charge, with among other things a plan to donate $1 billion of the company’s cloud services. Then, in September 2017, Microsoft Philanthropies announced the launch of Microsoft Tech for Social Impact (Microsoft TSI), with a focus to help more nonprofits around the world more fully leverage the power of the cloud.

As we enter 2020, the Microsoft TSI train seems to have picked up steam as the nonprofit community takes notice. But what exactly does Microsoft TSI plan to do?

What comes to mind when you read "annual giving campaign"? If you're thinking of a mass-mailing that an organization sends once or twice a year to everyone who ever provided their mailing address, then we'd like to invite you to buckle up, and join us for a ride.

Nonprofits used to rely heavily on just a few fundraising letters each year to raise enough money to cover the day-to-day costs of running the nonprofit. Today, successful annual giving campaigns are more robust and include a variety of fundraising tactics throughout the year.

There are many benefits to annual giving campaigns. Contributions to your annual campaign are considered "unrestricted funds" meaning your organization can use these funds to cover any expenses within your nonprofit. If done correctly, annual campaigns can help organizations develop stronger relationships with their current donors.

Before you get overwhelmed at the thought of fundraising all year for your annual budget, hear us out! This doesn't need to be an all-consuming thing. With the right organization, tools, and strategies, your nonprofit will be able to run a very effective annual giving campaign without running your staff ragged.