The End of History and the last Charity
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Last year (2016) we conducted a survey of Charities and non-profit organisations that included a one on one interview with twenty organisations, looking at their fundraising problems.
One thing came through very clearly, demand for services is up and funding is down. Many organisations are facing closure and some have already closed since we conducted the survey
Why is Community Fund Raising Getting Harder
Over 80% of organisations felt that their problems became worse after the Global Financial Crises in 2009 when Federal and State governments started to rein in their grants to non-profits and large corporations also reduced the amount they donate to community non-profits.
Quite separately but ultimately related to this topic, others indicated that volunteers are becoming harder to find and as a result there is a trend for volunteer fund raisers to be replaced with paid collectors from professional fund raising companies who take a large portion of the funds collected.
Online Fundraising Strategies Are Still Being Developed
Another big issue that many organisations raised was that online fund raising is not as successful as the organisations would like it to be. Many felt they had not yet mastered the techniques and strategies required to shift their major fund raising efforts “online”.
Typically, Charities and non-profits are passionate about what they do, they are often creative about ways to deliver their services but when it comes to developing innovative marketing strategies, especially online marketing strategies there are few that stand out.
Marketing Vs Fundraising
While most non-profits recognised the importance of investing time and resources to better:
- Broadcast their message,
- Build a loyal fan base, and
- Obtain donations
Many do not see these tasks as a marketing exercise but rather as a PR and communication function. They felt that marketing is not their strength and very often there is only a small budget for marketing (especially when you exclude what is costed for PR and communications) and many have either a small or no marketing team.
Smaller organisations are in a worse position with no budget, no marketing strategy and no time for marketing as everyone is busy delivering their core services.
These are all indications of a variety of problems that together with other social issues have caused a perfect storm that is devastating charities, non-profits, community organisations and religious groups that require donations to survive.
Fundraising for Services or Salaries
Most people don’t work for or volunteer to help an organisation because they want to go into marketing or sales, they want to help change the world. But the need for revenue is starting to trump all other needs.
In one article on a non-profit industry blog a worker at a small organisation related how most of his time was spent fundraising for his own salary.
New Challenges for Non-Profits – As If You Don’t Have Enough Already
So while charities and non-profits are under so much pressure it is hardly surprising that “keeping up with the latest trends” is not top of their task list. But the world is changing and if you think things were hard yesterday, tomorrow will be even harder.
Dr. Gloria Horsley, founder of Open to Hope Foundation, says that organizations need to focus on key trends, and nominates 3 in particular:
- Humanise Your Marketing
- Use Mobile Technology to Simplify Donations
- Seek Fresh Perspectives and a Human Connection
The Gen Y Challenge
Yet another issue Charities and Non-Profits need to deal with is the up and coming “Gen Y” the Millennials, the Internet generation, or sometimes referred to as the “iGen”.
Gen Y gives the least amount of money to charity. Traditional forms of campaigning such as street fundraising, newspaper and television adverts, are not resonating with Generation Y.
Charities receive little in funds from Generation Y – the millennial age group born between the early 1980s and mid 2000’s. In fact, they give less to charity than any other age group. Here are some statistics from the US:
But this age group cannot be ignored, they are the philanthropists of the future and it is actually the age group most likely to increase its giving over the next few years according to a Next Gen White Paper.
But if traditional forms of campaigning – such as street fundraising, newspaper and television adverts are not working for this generation and therefore charities are missing out, what is the solution?
There Are Solutions for Non-Profit Fundraising Challenges
It is easy to list the problems but are there any easy solutions for non-profit and community organisations that need to find online fundraising strategies and tactics that work?
Yes there are!
But as you can see from the above list, the fundraising problems are diverse in nature and so the solution must also be diverse. There is no single silver bullet that will address all the issues.
That’s why the solutions that Community Funding Strategies (CFS) has developed are wide ranging and we envisage the best solution like the cocktail of antibiotics a doctor will use to treat an infection, must also be a cocktail of marketing strategies.
As marketing consultants for over 25 years, specialising in Internet marketing since 2000, we felt this was an area in which we can help.
CFS have fund raising ideas for non-profit groups of all sizes
While there are many large non-profit organisations who are faced with these dilemmas, there are many more small ones so we have made the conscious decision to work with both large and small organisations.
For the first time local, charities, schools and a wide range of micro non-profits that have not had access to meaningful solutions or the help they need to implement them now have a range of online fundraising strategies that can help them with their fund raising.
On this website we will showcase some of the sophisticated online strategies we have developed. The video on the homepage is one example, in it we use built in artificial intelligence to explain to you how we can help your organisation with your future fund raising and help secure your future.
Video with Built In Artificial Intelligence – Delivers Only the Relevant Information
However, while you watch the video, imagine how you could use a video like this to better target your message to people who have diverse needs or questions they want answered.
With this system, you can ask them what information they need and then deliver only the information that is relevant to them.
If you would like to receive more information or arrange a free consultation please use the contact us form to provide your contact details and we will call or email you to arrange an appointment.
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