Nolo’s Fundraising Tips for Busy Nonprofits

A whopping 63.4 million Americans (age 16 and older) volunteered for charitable causes last year (2009), despite -- or perhaps in response to -- economic hard times.

As if that weren't impressive enough, it represents an increase of almost 1.6 million volunteers since 2008, and the largest one-year increase in the volunteer numbers since 2003. Women, particularly working mothers, were among the most active.

For more details and numbers, see the Volunteering in America 2010  report by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

In the meantime, the key question is, ARE YOU READY? Volunteers can perform a number of valuable tasks for an organization, from the menial to the skilled professional, in some cases reducing the need for paid staff.

Yet because many volunteers report being turned away by groups unable to handle them, or worse yet, quitting on their own because they didn't feel their time was being meaningfully used, you've got to think ahead of time about how to best choose, train, assign, and supervise them. I've learned this lesson the hard way, having had volunteers walk out because they were bored by the tasks assigned them -- and I've myself quit volunteer jobs because I felt my time was being wasted standing around waiting for instructions. 

Creating a volunteer program that both helps your organization and satisfies the volunteer's desire to feel needed, well used, and perhaps reach other goals such as learning new skills -- or even meeting other single volunteers (see previous post, "Volunteering for Charity May Lead to Romance!") -- isn't easy. But there's a lot of good advice out there on how to make it work, starting with this article, "Nonprofit Volunteers: Top Five Tips to Keep Them Coming." 

Is it my imagination, or was there a lot less regulation of bake sales when I was a kid?

I've been noodling around the Internet, and a surprising number of cities and counties -- from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois to Lewiston, Maine -- require nonprofit groups (and others) to get a permit before holding a bake sale.

Not all areas charge for the permit, and the majority still let you go ahead without one. But even the no-permit areas are paying increasing attention to the health issues surrounding selling food to the public, and expect bake sales to comply. And I wouldn't want to be the group that makes the paper because of a "permit bust" or a Salmonella outbreak.

Who knew that the humble cream pie was such a villain? I'm seeing it over and over again, on everyone's "DO NOT SELL!" list even for groups that have a permit. Apparently all the milk and eggs make a lovely recipe for not only custard, but for bacterial growth when left outside a refrigerator.  

In the absence of any national rules, here's what I'd suggest if you're planning a bake sale:

1. Call your local health or food service department to find out the permit and any other rules. Follow them.
   
2. Take your own steps to avoid being the cause of health problems, such as reminding your bakers to be extra careful about cleanliness in the food prep process, wrapping or covering everything in plastic at the sale, and serving with tongs.
3. Ask bakers to create labels with full and accurate lists of ingredients, in case buyers have allergies. (Peanuts, wheat, and dairy are common concerns.)
   
4. Whatever you do, don't serve cream pies. Or pumpkin, or meringue.
   

How did we all survive childhood, I wonder?

Lest we think the news is all grim these days, here are reports of some nonprofits that have launched successful fundraising efforts despite the poor economy.

For example, the Salvation Army of Livingston County, Michigan reportedly brought in more than $180,000 in Red Kettle Campaign contributions over the holiday season, surpassing its 2008 total of $158,000. It took 900 volunteers working more than 1,150 hours, including bell ringers who stood out in the cold and snow for hours at a time, but they ended up overtaking even their own money-raising projections.

In Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the Needy Fund -- which collects money for local individuals residents to them pay for food, rent, mortgage payments, utility and heating bills, medical bills, and more -- is said to have surpassed its holiday fundraising goal of $625,000, having reached $665,611 by December 31st.

Up in Canada, the "Polar Bear Dip" (billed as Canada's Largest Charitable Polar Bear Festival, in which 600 participants this year jumped into icy cold Lake Ontario on New Year's Day) brought in a record $230,000 for charity. It will go toward third-world water projects.

Is there any common thread between these? To me it looks like basic people power. Even though many people these days have far less to give, a lot of them (or us) joining together to give of their time, or at least a little bit of money, can add up to a lot. And if there's a bright side to the recession, it may be that we're all developing more compassion for how quickly one's luck can change, and becoming more willing to help others who've gotten the worst of it.

Here's hoping for more good news in the new year!  

 

 

According to the article by Gary Strauss, "TV: It's prime time for volunteerism," in the Tuesday, October 13, 2009 issue of USA TODAY, there's a movement afoot: to promote, not only through public service announcements, but by actual examples in scripts of prime-time TV plots, the great things about volunteering for a cause.

Yes, you read that right. It's part of a project called "I Participate," and if you keep your eyes open and your tube plugged in, you might notice, for example, crime solvers on Ghost Whisperer donating blood; doctors on Private Practice treating the homeless; 12-year-old Louise on Gary Unmarried making videotaped greetings for U.S. troops; and more.

Of course, the question on everyone's lips is whether this will make a difference. But hey, Strauss points out, when the character Fonzie on Happy Days got a library card, kids all over the U.S. ran out to do the same thing.

All of which leads to another question: If more volunteers start coming your way, will you be ready? The world is full of disgruntled volunteers who started with great intentions, then dropped out because they were bored, frustrated, or felt like they weren't really make a difference.

This seems like a good time to remind readers of the basic principles of orienting and keeping volunteers (which are covered in far more detail in my book, Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits), including:

• Figure out their personal motives for volunteering, and try to satisfy those at the same time as you get some work out of them -- even if they just want to get some exercise or meet other singles!
• Train them well, and ask for a specific time commitment. Counterintuitive though it might seem, demanding more of volunteers can make them understand their own importance to your organization.
• Make their commitment as convenient as possible to fulfill, including finding ways they can work odd or irregular hours if possible.
• Make it fun! You probably need a lot of tedious tasks done, but don't lay these on too thick. Also figure out how to integrate more interesting work into the time volunteers spend at your organization, such as working directly with people or animals.
  
• Show appreciation much more often than you feel is normal. Everyone likes to hear a "thank you," or receive one in writing. Singling out volunteers in newsletters, throwing volunteer appreciation parties, or simply saying "See you next week -- and thanks again for all the great help!" are great ways to do this.

With committed volunteers at your side, you can get oodles more done, and need to fundraise less.

Reading the University of Washington alumni magazine (Columns) of September 2009, I was drawn to the story of Phil Smart -- soon to be 90 years old -- and his views on volunteering.

In fact, the subject of volunteering is so important to Smart that he's written two memoirs about it -- called Angels Among Us and The Real Angels Among Us (the proceeds of which benefit Seattle's Children's Hospital). (Hey, I volunteered there during high school! I mostly remember helping kids blow bubbles during recreational therapy.)

Anyway, here's the apparent crux of Smart's thinking: Every day can be conceptually divided into three eight-hour chunks. Two of those three chunks are usually spent working and sleeping.

But it's the third eight hours, he says, that define each of us as a person. Smart has chosen to spend many of those hours volunteering (mostly at the aforementioned hospital, at the bedsides of sick and dying children). Of his time with the kids, Smart says, "They taught me life and death and everything in between."

Of course, the first thing that occurs to me and probably everyone else is that we don't exactly have an extra eight hours waiting to be filled -- those hours get eaten up quickly by commuting time, errands, making dinner, maintaining relationships with friends, and so forth. Still, it's an intriguing notion. And when you think about it, things like making dinner and seeing friends DO define us as people in important ways, and reflect sometimes unconscious priority choices.

So where does volunteering fit in? I know the answer for myself, and hope the efforts of Phil Smart and others to speak out will inspire others to devote at least a little time to a cause.

So, the Girl Scouts have gotten themselves into a flap about whether they should be forbidding use of the Internet as a way of selling cookies. It seems that door-to-door is okay; and marketing your cookies on the Internet is okay; but once a girl (in this case, a particular girl named Wild) starts actually letting customers order online, that's either unfair to other girls or a safety risk. Not exactly a bright dividing line.

You'll find the whole story, called "The Cookie Crumbles," written up by Kurt Soller in Newsweek. He raises the important points that Internet sales are not necessarily safer than knocking on strangers' doors, and that a little entrepreneurship should probably be rewarded rather than slapped down, especially in a world where kids will need to know how to use the Internet (at least until the Next Big Thing comes along).

Another point that didn't get raised in the article, which may also underlie the unease with Internet sales, is that the girl in question had her parents' help in setting up the website, and not all Girl Scouts have that opportunity. That's a little troubling, but hardly new. I remember being irked as a kid when other parents took the cookies to work and sold them, while my dad worked at home and had no office to peddle sweets at. Here's hoping the Girl Scouts find a way to make this a "teaching moment" about Internet usage for all concerned, rather than get into an impossible enforcement effort.

And while we're on the topic, when is a major nonprofit going to come up with healthier snacks to sell?

Confession first: I based that headline on a sample of one. Namely me.

But I've noticed over the years that one of the secret pleasures of volunteering is feeling like I'm part of the "inner circle" of a cool group that's providing a great service.

Most recently, in volunteering to walk and socialize with dogs at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, I actually get to meet the adoptable dogs before members of the public do. Like the two here: The smiling Pomeranian is Popcorn, and the cone-wearing one, whose parentage I don't know, is Pippi. If I were looking for a dog right now, I'd be in a prime position to choose my new friend (not that it didn't take all my willpower not to tuck these two into my car and drive off... ).

I'm sure nonprofits can do more to capitalize on sentiments like mine, both to recruit and keep more volunteers, and to get donors interested as well. I've already heard of theater companies that give major donors a "backstage tour". What else can your group do?

I'm still in the mode of reading and summarizing scholarly articles so you won't have to. This next one is from the summer 2008 issue of Nonprofit Management & Leadership (vol. 18 no. 4). (Yes, I'm a little behind.)

This time around, it's an excellent article titled "A Nonprofit Manager's Guide to Online Volunteering," by Beatrice Bezmalinovic Dhebar and Benjamin Stokes. The authors evaluated more than 300 organizations' use of online volunteering services, talking to both staff members and the volunteers themselves.

Their conclusions are simultaneously more and less heartening than I would have expected.

On the positive side, a few groups have been able to use this seemingly random method of reaching out to people to get some serious help, particularly with technological, operational, or fundraising matters. Some have even built entire programs around online volunteers. The online services can create natural matches between nonprofit organizations that are either remote, small, or new, and volunteers who are busy during normal working hours, live far from opportunities for volunteering, or are physically disabled -- but want to help. Not too surprisingly, most volunteers chose assignments with limited time commitments, in most cases only one to five hours of work a week.

On the non-so-great side, most organizations find that a lot more volunteers say they want to help than actually follow through. Even those who complete an assignment rarely come back and do a second one.

But it quickly emerges that the problem can't simply be chalked up to flaky volunteers. Like any staff member, volunteers need training, management, and feedback. The article provides some concrete suggestions for giving this, including suggestions like:

• ask volunteers about their qualifications before assigning them anything (they actually tend to like being taken seriously this way!)
• send a "Thanks, but we've filled that volunteer slot" email to applicants whose services you don't intend to use
• start with short test assignments
• be clear about the scope of work and your expectations
• keep in touch at least once a week (or more) about how things are going, and
• tell the volunteers (effusively and often) when you're happy with their work and that it's making an important difference to your organization.

As with so many other human relationships, communication seems to be the key. The overriding lesson I took from this article was: While the Internet can be an amazing way to link nonprofit organizations and volunteers, it can also create a barrier between you. Nonprofit managers will get the most from online volunteers if they keep nurturing the human side of this relationship.

Oh and, for a bonus, here are links to the list of volunteer matching websites set forth in the article:

• http://www.idealist.org/volunteer/index.html
• http://www.mentornet.net/
• http://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/index.html
• http://www.serviceleader.org/new/virtual/
• http://www.volunteermatch.org/

Here's a lovely article by Marjorie Ingall about the personal benefits of volunteering, called "What goes around comes around," from the December 2008 issue of SELF magazine. It's a good one to leave lying around where your nonprofit volunteers can see it... or perhaps hang on the bulletin board by the copy machine.

The author starts out saying, "I'm not proud. I'll admit that I started volunteering, in part, to meet men." Of course, she cites various other benefits she found, from the endorphin lift created by doing good to the free Oreos she gets after giving blood. But who doesn't want to know how her romantic quest progressed? Good news, here: She ended up dating a fellow volunteer at the New York Association for New Americans.

No, I'm not suggesting that you turn your nonprofit volunteer program into a dating service. But isn't an important part of any volunteer stint to feel connected to other people (or animals)? It's worth examining whether your nonprofit's volunteers really get a chance to make those connections. Sometimes simple changes can give everyone a more satisfying experience, from having volunteers (and staff) wear name tags to creating team projects.

And by the way, your volunteers, donors, and others have a new way of telling others about their experience at your nonprofit -- the website www.greatnonprofits.org/, which both accepts and posts reviews. The site is profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle in the article, "New Web site a network for nonprofits."

As reported by MarketWatch, Schwab Charitable recently released eight tips for donors wanting to stretch their charitable dollars during this giving season. While many of the tips are more financially sophisticated than the average donor is likely to use, one of them is simple enough for anyone: "Give time and expertise."

In fact, people I know who've recently lost jobs have mentioned volunteer work as a way to fill the gap and make new contacts. As a nonprofit, now is a great time to reexamine how you're using volunteers, and what opportunities you can offer that will help both your organization and the volunteer.

For those of us still working full time -- and working harder than ever, to keep our companies productive during a down economy -- the right choice of volunteer work can offer a great balance to a busy day. I'm still enjoying the break from work that volunteer dogwalking gives me; here's on of my latest furry friends. His name is Capo, a Chihuahua mix available at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society.