We’re living in an unusual labor environment—historically low but rising unemployment rates, high inflation, conflicting signs that may or may not point to an impending recession. We’re also seeing highly active labor movements and changing norms following the significant changes brought about by the pandemic and Great Resignation.
Economic anxieties are at a high, so nonprofits naturally have a lot on their minds. When instability is on the radar, most organizations know to strengthen their donor and partner relationships while seeking new ways to diversify their revenue—but look inward, too.
The internal health of an organization is essential for its overall health. Employee retention plays a critically important role.
Let’s take a closer look at the state of employee turnover for nonprofits. Why is it so harmful, and how can you prevent it?
What’s the average nonprofit turnover rate?
The voluntary turnover rate for the nonprofit sector averaged 19% in 2022. It also sits consistently higher than turnover at for-profit businesses.
Historically, 19% turnover is typical, but looking at recent years, we can see some interesting trends. The turnover rate rose to a high of 21% in 2019 but dropped to a low of 14% in 2020 (NonprofitHR). One possible explanation is that the disruptions of the pandemic and the drastically increased need for nonprofit services during that time kept many nonprofit professionals in their jobs.
Since then, the turnover rate has steadily increased to pre-pandemic norms as part of the Great Resignation, with many employees across sectors finding new opportunities. Perhaps your own organization saw the same trends play out at a reduced scale since 2019—a good reminder that while there are many causes of turnover that you can control, there are also external forces that you can’t.
But just because you can’t directly control the forces that drive turnover doesn’t mean you can’t adapt to them! After the disruptions of recent years, nonprofits are already making positive changes.
Specifically, NonprofitHR’s 2022 retention survey found that more nonprofits are now actively tracking employee retention metrics (+4%) and developing formal retention strategies (+13%) than in 2021.
This is great news—it’s impossible to reduce turnover and mitigate its damage without a concrete plan or data to inform it. It would seem that many nonprofits have learned from the lessons of the pandemic years to improve their employee management approach.
So what were those lessons exactly? What are the extended negative impacts of churn?
Why is employee churn so harmful?
There are many reasons why a high turnover rate is harmful to organizations, and they can amplify each other over time if left unchecked, making it increasingly difficult to retain talent. The key risks to consider include:
- Financial cost. First, losing employees is costly. The hiring process to find replacements takes time and resources.
- Opportunity cost. Time spent rehiring is time that could otherwise go towards revenue-generating activities. Not to mention, it takes time for new hires to begin reaching the same productivity as more senior team members who departed. For example, The Chronicle of Philanthropy estimates that it takes four years for fundraisers to reach full productivity in their roles.
- Cultural and brand damage. Poor retention harms morale, especially if employees feel overworked when empty roles aren’t filled, creating an environment prone to further turnover. These impacts can then spread to harm your organizational brand as a whole, with employees feeling burnt out or disengaged from the mission.
For nonprofits specifically, these risks are heightened. Nonprofits usually operate on tight budgets, making the felt effects of turnover-related financial and opportunity costs especially pronounced. Nonprofits also rely heavily on relationships with donors, sponsors, and funders to sustain their work—relationships built by individual fundraisers or development officers. If these relationships are too siloed, that fundraiser’s departure can make it very difficult to maintain their valuable relationships.
Not to mention, nonprofits need positive public perceptions to continue fundraising and operating their programs effectively. Inconsistent staffing and a reputation as a place where people don’t want to work can cause your community to become disengaged or even lose trust in your nonprofit.
How can you reduce or eliminate these risks?
Enough of the gloomy stuff—what are the steps you can take to prevent these negative impacts from taking root in your organization?
1. Combat turnover.
It seems self-evident, but to avoid the damage of employee turnover, you should actively combat it by prioritizing retention.
Although more nonprofits now actively develop retention strategies, many still don’t. And those that do often haven’t been able to devote much attention to management in the past, so their retention approaches may not be rooted in best practices. What do you need to know about employee retention?
Start by understanding the key elements of an effective strategy. According to Graham-Pelton’s retention guide for nonprofits, these include:
- Benefits and compensation
- Learning and development
- Organizational culture
- Employee engagement
- Career progression
- Recruiting practices
- Management styles
Within these categories fall a wide variety of tactics you can use to engage and retain employees. There’s no one specific arrangement that will work for every nonprofit. Rather, each organization should seek to find the right ratio of tactics that mesh with their cultures, values, and communities. Ensuring that each category is represented will make your overall strategy more effective and well-rounded.
But there are a few big-picture best practices that successful retention strategies share. As you develop your unique configuration of retention tactics, keep these in mind:
- Foster an engaging environment that prioritizes communication and transparency. Explain whyyour organization makes the decisions it does and how employees play roles in its success.
- Create meaningful opportunities for development and progression. Offer actual new skills, responsibilities, and certifications, not just empty new titles or busywork, to help grow new leaders internally.
- Strengthen your recruiting practices. Hiring the right individual for a role will boost the odds of long-term retention. If you feel that your current hiring process is often rushed or not very thorough, give it an update.
- Offer the benefits that you can and that employees want. Nonprofits often aren’t in positions to offer highly competitive salaries and financial benefits, and employees drawn to nonprofit work understand this. But you must still make an effort to stay competitive in whatever ways you can—modest raises, workplace perks, hybrid work flexibility, etc.
- Recognize employee achievements. Make recognition a cornerstone of your culture. Acknowledge valuable employee contributions, express gratitude, and explain to that individual or the whole team why their actions were impactful. A variety of recognition tools and platforms make it easy to build out a sustainable approach.
Building out a retention strategy to reduce turnover in the first place is the single best step you can take to mitigate its damage to your nonprofit.
The best part is that your strategy doesn’t have to be perfect. It should instead be dynamic and adaptive—you won’t know what works best for your unique organization until you try it out, so approach your strategy as a continual learning experience.
2. Reduce knowledge and relationship silos.
With a solid preventative framework in place, we’ll now look at the infrastructural steps you can take to reduce the negative impacts of turnover when it does happen.
The siloing of knowledge and relationships creates undue risks—a departing employee takes their skills and contacts with them. And even if you’re still in touch with a donor after the departure of the gift officer who built that relationship, the relationship may now need to start from square one. To reduce silos, try these best practices:
- Document your internal processes. All kinds of processes and workarounds develop organically over time, but they shouldn’t just live in one employee’s memory—record them in handbooks, manuals, flowcharts, or notes to simplify the work of other (and future) employees.
- Develop concrete reporting protocols, specifically for donations and donor interactions. Clear records of who’s given, when, how much, and all other touchpoints that have occurred are essential for proper stewardship, and they’ll allow your team to seamlessly maintain relationships with donors even if a donor’s primary contact leaves your organization.
- Keep your data clean. Data hygiene ensures your records are actually useful. Meticulously recording donor touchpoints will only be helpful if any gift officer on your team can successfully interpret them, so notes should be recorded in clear, straightforward language. Quantitative data points should also all be entered into your system in a consistent way.
- Standardize your moves management process. Similarly, your gift cultivation and stewardship process should follow a few standardized steps or phases. You likely already have a clear sense of these phases, but is your team referring to them with the same language? Are they designated in your record system? Systematizing this process will ensure that donor relationships can be quickly understood and continued by anyone on your team when needed.
Consider your regulatory context when looking for ways to reduce knowledge and contact silos. For example, grateful patient fundraising programs are subject to more restrictive patient privacy laws that will impact the specific fundraising and data flows that you can use as an organization.
3. Give employees the tools and frameworks to succeed.
Equipping and empowering your employees to drive the greatest impact will go a long way to improve retention. When team members don’t need to waste time and energy with clunky systems and processes, they’ll feel more engaged and able to focus on their real tasks—engaging with donors and constituents, facilitating programs, and keeping your organization running.
And if turnover does occur, you’ll have more efficient, resilient, and intuitive processes in place that reduce its negative impacts.
First, upgrade tech or invest in tech as needed. A modern CRM is a must, as is intuitive fundraising or donation software that truly meets your needs. If you’re feeling locked into a legacy platform that either isn’t offering a great donor experience or creates more problems than it solves for your team, an upgrade is likely a smart move.
And keep in mind that investing in your own ability to drive impact sustainably is an important part of stewarding your mission. Consider whether it’s possible to budget for needed upgrades and new purchases, remembering that sometimes overhead is essential. Or consider conducting a special capacity campaign to fund new investments—always an option if a jolt of capital will take your growth to the next level and you can make a compelling, specific case for support.
Aside from technology, you should also equip your team with the processes, frameworks, and strategies they need to thrive in their roles, especially if your small organization is growing. Ad hoc solutions and approaches may work for a while, but they’re often not scalable. Not only do they become more disorganized over time, but they also lead to worse employee experiences.
Increased organization and efficiency will be key. Moves management and prospect portfolio management systems are great examples of more advanced practices that organizations pick up and adapt as they mature.
Of course, employee churn isn’t 100% avoidable—some employees will always choose to leave for personal reasons or because they’ve found new opportunities.
What your nonprofit can control are the internal forces that drive churn and its potential negative impacts, and it’s not hard to take the first steps. Outline a concrete retention strategy if you haven’t yet. Consider if you’re unnecessarily siloing important knowledge or contacts and whether you’re offering tools and processes that make work easier rather than harder.
Shop With Purpose: A Guide to Online Shopping Fundraisers
It’s no secret that online shopping is rapidly growing in popularity. Research shows that e-commerce sales generated more than $856 billion in revenue in 2022, and approximately 2.64 billion customers are expected to make at least one online purchase sometime in 2023.
So, what do these statistics have to do with you, a nonprofit professional? They mean that, in your search for innovative fundraising strategies to engage your organization’s supporters and boost your revenue generation, you should consider tapping into the power of online shopping!
In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started with an online shopping fundraiser for your nonprofit. Here’s what we’ll cover:
With the right tools on your side, you can turn an online shopping fundraiser into a lucrative year-round campaign for your organization. Let’s dive in!
Online Shopping Fundraisers: An Overview
An online shopping fundraiser allows your supporters to contribute to your nonprofit by making everyday purchases from participating e-commerce businesses.
To make this fundraiser work, you’ll need to sign your organization up with an online shopping fundraiser program. When supporters use the program’s app to shop online, a percentage of their total sale will go directly to your nonprofit at no additional cost to you or the shopper.
It’s likely that you heard of (or even participated in) AmazonSmile, one of the best-known programs that ran on this model, before its 2023 discontinuation. However, there are a variety of alternatives to AmazonSmile that your nonprofit can still partner with to run your online shopping fundraiser. Plus, these programs often offer benefits that Amazon Smile didn’t, such as higher commission rates and more flexibility in their retailer options.
Benefits of Online Shopping Fundraisers
Online shopping fundraisers benefit both your nonprofit and its supporters. Let’s explore some of the advantages from both perspectives.
For Nonprofits
Some of the reasons why your organization should consider launching an online shopping fundraiser include:
Online shopping fundraisers are also completely free for your organization to launch, and they work for nonprofits of all sizes and in all verticals.
For Supporters
Supporters can also benefit from your nonprofit’s online shopping fundraisers in multiple ways, including the following:
Participating in an online shopping fundraiser can also be a great entry point for supporters to get involved with your nonprofit. If you review your fundraising data and notice that a brand-new supporter has just shopped for your cause, reach out to them with a welcome email series providing more information about your organization’s work and other ways for them to engage in it.
How to Launch an Online Shopping Fundraiser
According to ShopRaise’s guide to shopping for a cause, your organization can start its own online shopping fundraiser in just three easy steps. Let’s walk through the process in more detail.
1. Partner With a Fundraising Program
As stated previously, the first thing you need to do to launch your online shopping fundraiser is find a dedicated platform to launch your campaign. Look for a program that not only has connections to a wide network of retailers but will also handle all business negotiations for you. Additionally, make sure to ask about their commission rates and whether they can scale with your organization.
Once you’re onboarded with the program and they’ve created a branded landing page for your nonprofit, you’re ready to start spreading the word about your fundraiser to your supporters!
2. Market Your Fundraiser
Marketing is essential for a successful online shopping fundraiser, and leveraging multiple communication methods will allow you to reach as many supporters as possible. Provide instructions for how to participate in your fundraiser and reminders to continue shopping for your cause via the following channels:
The program you partner with can sometimes help with this step by creating email templates, flyer designs, and website banners advertising your fundraiser, all featuring your organization’s logo and brand colors.
3. Track Your Results
Through your online shopping fundraiser platform, you’ll be able to view real-time data on your nonprofit’s campaign. Analyzing this information serves two main purposes. First, you can hone your marketing strategy over time to prioritize the channels that drive the most conversions.
Second, you can recognize your top supporters individually. Send them personalized thank-you messages with their names and fundraising totals, and remind them to keep up the good work in shopping for your cause. To protect shoppers’ privacy, these two pieces of information are all your organization will be able to see—only the supporter will know exactly what items they purchased.
Online shopping fundraisers combine two societal trends—e-commerce and digital fundraising—to provide year-round funding for your organization. While it’s important to maintain your usual fundraising pushes, such as events and your year-end giving campaign, supplementing these efforts with online shopping makes it even more likely that your nonprofit will bring in the revenue it needs to further its mission.
4 Fundamental Tips for Hosting a Sports-Themed Fundraiser
Sports have a way of bringing people together that’s unlike anything else. People also tend to be passionate about sports, so when you combine that passion with a good cause, you have a winning option for a fundraising event. Whether you’re raising money for a school team, your nonprofit’s general fund, a new outreach initiative, or other funding need, these tips for a sports-themed fundraising event will engage your community and get folks competing for a good cause.
Tip 1: Be Strategic About the Sport You Choose
The possibilities for a sports-themed event are endless, you’ll want to be strategic when choosing the focus of your sports-related event. The key is understanding your audience and the sport that they’ll best respond to. You don’t necessarily have to limit yourself to a physical sport either—esports, fantasy teams, or bracket challenges are also possibilities. Some popular charity sports events include:
When choosing the sport that will work best for your organization or audience, you might first conduct a quick survey to garner feedback from your donors and constituents to see what interests them. Next, take the following considerations into account as you start planning:
Tip 2: Incorporate Revenue-Boost Elements
Think about how you’ll generate revenue from your event. Participant registration fees, spectator tickets, sponsorships, and donation appeals are common, base revenue sources, but you’ll want to think broader and find other ways to boost fundraising. These revenue boosters often add additional fun and excitement to the event, making registrants eager to participate. GolfStatus recommends the following ideas to raise more dollars from your event:
Tip 3: Sell Sponsorships & Create Partnerships
Sponsorships are an incredibly powerful component of fundraising events. They provide a sizable portion of the event’s income, offset hard costs, add credibility to the event and your organization, and help forge partnerships with businesses for additional support down the road. Sports-focused events are particularly appealing to prospective sponsors—sponsorships are a well-known part of sports culture and provide a ton of brand exposure and lift to the sponsoring business while raising dollars for your nonprofit.
Once the event is over, it’s crucial to follow up with sponsors to thank them for their support and continue to cultivate the relationship for broader organizational support.
Tip 4: Use Technology to Manage Your Event and its Data
The information you collect as part of your fundraising event is powerful and paints a picture of who is supporting you through sports-related events, your organization’s ROI fundraiser, and where you should focus your event fundraising in the future. Nonprofit event planners should make data collection and management a priority and find ways to streamline and simplify its collection and management. Some fundraising metrics to monitor include:
Collecting this important information is easier than you might think with event management software tailored for nonprofit needs. Look for platforms that are designed specifically for the sport your event is leveraging. For instance, if you’re hosting a charity golf fundraiser, you might consider using software with golf tournament planning and execution in mind.
Final Thoughts
These tips will set you up for success if you’re considering a sports-related fundraising event. Start by determining which sport you’ll focus on, look for ways to boost revenue, create and sell sponsorships, and track metrics. With a little preparation and data-driven thinking, your fundraiser can be a hole-in-one and make everyone feel like winners!
6 Tips to Create an Ambassador Program for Your Nonprofit
The nonprofit marketing space isn’t as straightforward as it once was. It’s easier than ever for nonprofits to connect with their supporters, but that also means there’s a lot of competition for donors’ attention.
One effective way to make your organization stand out is to create an ambassador program. Ambassadors can take the reins during fundraising or marketing campaigns, promoting your organization to their personal networks. This form of peer-to-peer marketing is highly compelling because people are more likely to support a cause that’s recommended by someone they know and trust.
To ensure your ambassador program gets up and running quickly and yields a high return on investment, we’ll explore these top tips:
Supporters often want more than just to help promote your nonprofit’s cause — they want to feel like members of your community. An ambassador program gives them an outlet to express their passion for your mission and share their enthusiasm with others.
1. Identify the right recruits.
Effective nonprofit influencers can be found almost anywhere. The best recruits for your ambassador program will all share one trait in common: a deep sense of commitment to your cause.
Search for individuals who have a strong existing relationship with your organization and are particularly vocal about their love for your cause. Potential ambassadors could be:
Use software solutions like your donor management system and volunteer management platform to identify long-time, highly engaged supporters. Filter your database by length of involvement or number of interactions to find your top supporters.
Then, personally reach out to these individuals with an invitation to join your ambassador program. Reference their past involvement to explain why you’re reaching out. For example, you might say: “Eliza, we are so excited to invite you to join our new ambassador program. Your passionate volunteer involvement and past peer-to-peer fundraising experience make you a perfect fit for our new program.”
2. Brand your ambassador program.
You’ll have an easier time bringing recruits on board when your ambassador program looks official and professional. Create an eye-catching brand for your program by thinking through the program’s:
Incorporate these brand elements into your promotional materials, such as your social media posts and personal emails to potential participants.
For example, here’s a flyer for a fictional environmental nonprofit ambassador program with a cohesive brand:
This flyer features the organization’s brand name, logo, and a QR code that potential participants can scan for more information.
You can also boost the sense of community by creating branded merchandise for your program, such as hats, T-shirts, or name tags. Offering new ambassadors matching items will help them feel like members of an exclusive team.
3. Create clear roles and expectations for ambassadors.
Ultimately, your ambassador program shouldn’t just provide new engagement opportunities for supporters — it should also tangibly support your marketing and fundraising efforts.
Take the following steps to ensure your ambassador program bolsters your existing strategies:
When potential ambassadors understand what your program entails, you can narrow down your recruit list to just individuals who feel comfortable with the role expectations. And with clear metrics to guide your program, you can determine whether it’s a worthwhile use of your time and resources.
4. Empower ambassadors with training and resources.
Invite your new ambassadors to a training session to help them get up and running in their new roles. Depending on how spread out your ambassadors are, you might host a video or in-person meeting. Reiterate the role expectations and let ambassadors get to know one another with some icebreaker activities.
Also, craft a training manual for ambassadors to follow while promoting your organization. Your manual should include your brand guidelines and ambassador program regulations. You should also include marketing materials that ambassadors can use in their promotional efforts, such as:
Let ambassadors know that they can come to you at any time with questions or concerns. You may even set up a mentorship or buddy program within your ambassador group to ensure each participant has at least one peer they can turn to for support.
5. Promote recognition and a sense of community.
Fostering a strong community among your ambassadors can encourage program retention. Plus, when ambassadors have fun supporting your mission and feel engaged in your cause, their promotional efforts will be much more genuine.
Pull from your donor recognition playbook to develop an appreciation approach for your ambassador program. Show your gratitude by:
Celebrate your ambassadors’ accomplishments through meet-ups and events such as a happy hour or picnic. You can even host an award ceremony to honor your most successful ambassadors and thank them for their hard work.
6. Evaluate and adapt your program as needed.
As your ambassador program gets underway, you might find that certain strategies aren’t working out as expected. Remain flexible and adjust your program when necessary to continue offering a high-quality experience to participants and ensure that your program effectively supports your nonprofit.
Continuously evaluate your program by taking the following steps:
Supporting your ambassadors every step of the way is one of the most effective ways to ensure a high ROI for your program. Take ambassadors’ feedback seriously to ensure you’re continuing to meet their needs and providing a positive experience.
Once your ambassador program gets up and running, it can be a powerful addition to your marketing strategy. Your ambassadors can help you connect with new potential donors and spread awareness of your mission more effectively. With these tips, you’ll make sure they have everything they need to perform their roles at a high level.
4 Online Fundraising Campaign Ideas to Boost Your Reach
These days, almost everything has gone digital—even fundraising. Hosting your fundraising campaign online is beneficial not only for the existing donors in your community, but also for reaching new donors. An online campaign can expand your reach beyond your community, acting as an innovative way to engage supporters from across the country and even the world.
To get started, you’ll need a compelling fundraising campaign idea that aligns with your nonprofit’s goals and meets your unique audience’s interests and motivations. Not sure where to begin? Explore our roundup of the top online fundraising ideas guaranteed to spur donations and help you achieve your fundraising goals:
Host a combination of these campaigns or use them as inspiration to plan a unique online fundraiser at any point of the year. Let’s dive in!
Peer-to-Peer Fundraiser
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a fun and engaging way to get your supporters directly involved in the fundraising process. During a peer-to-peer fundraiser, you’ll hand over the fundraising reins to your most loyal supporters, empowering them to create their own fundraising pages. By tapping their personal networks to help meet their fundraising goals, your supporters will effectively introduce you to brand new donors, boosting your donor acquisition rate.
To maximize the success of your online fundraising campaign, the OneCause guide to peer-to-peer fundraising best practices recommends leveraging these best practices:
Once your fundraiser concludes, remember to thank all of your peer-to-peer fundraisers who helped make it happen. A handwritten thank-you note or shout-out on social media can go a long way in helping your supporters feel appreciated and eager to champion your cause again in the future.
Matching Gift Campaign
According to 360MatchPro’s guide to corporate philanthropy, a matching gift campaign allows your nonprofit to double the impact of donors’ gifts with the help of corporate support. In a matching gift campaign, corporate donors will match gifts during a certain period of time. For example, if a donor gave $100 to your nonprofit, a corporate sponsor might match this at a 1:1 ratio, resulting in $200 for your nonprofit.
To get started with matching gifts, follow these steps:
Make sure to promote your matching gift campaign widely and well in advance so supporters know when it’s happening and how they can get involved.
Text-to-Give Campaign
A text-to-give campaign is one of the easiest ways to raise money online. It enables donors to give donations at any time on their own devices. Supporters simply submit donations right from their phones, making the donation process inherently convenient, simple, and rewarding.
You can use text-to-give donation channels for everyday fundraising, not just during an event. Using it is easy—all your supporters need is a specific keyword and the short- or long-code that they’ll text (which should be provided by your text-to-give solution). This will automatically take mobile donors to your nonprofit’s donation page.
Be sure to find a good software solution that can support virtual transactions and customizations specific to your nonprofit. Specifically, look for a text-to-give solution that offers features like:
On top of having the right fundraising technology, you also need to make sure you’re doing everything possible to build up your contact list. Promote your text-to-give campaign widely to encourage all your supporters to opt-in. A multichannel marketing plan can help you put your text-to-give campaign at the forefront of supporters’ minds, so consider generating content related to text-to-give on your social media, website, and email newsletters.
Crowdfunding Campaign
If you’re looking for a campaign that will make a big impact without asking your donors to empty their wallets, a crowdfunding campaign might be right for you. A crowdfunding campaign raises smaller amounts of revenue from a large pool of donors—think $5 per person. If you ask a group of 100 donors to give that much, you will walk away with a hefty donation, and your donors won’t feel fatigued.
Most crowdfunding campaigns happen online, so you’ll need to establish a strong digital presence for your fundraiser. Consider creating a fundraising microsite with the following elements:
After your crowdfunding campaign wraps up, be sure to show your appreciation to all of your participating donors and share how the donations will be used. By cultivating relationships with these donors, you can increase the likelihood that they’ll continue to come back and donate to your organization again and again!
Wrapping Up
As you think through which fundraising idea makes the most sense for your organization, consider your audience and what will excite them the most to give. Then, channel that idea into a well-designed online campaign that will help you spread awareness and bring in more funds.
Before you dive into your new campaign, make sure you’re working with the best fundraising technology so you can run your online campaign seamlessly. An all-in-one fundraising platform will provide your nonprofit with everything you need to succeed, whether you’re hosting an in-person, online, or hybrid campaign. Happy fundraising!
How to Optimize a Google Grant Account in 7 Easy Steps
The Google Ad Grant is an invaluable tool for reaching potential donors and supporters online. While receiving the grant and setting up your account is a great first step, it takes more work to leverage the full potential of your free ad spend.
For the best results, you need to maintain and optimize your account. Here are seven steps to get started:
Whether you’re a seasoned digital marketer or a nonprofit professional new to Google Ad Grants, these insights will help you improve your online visibility, attract more donors and volunteers, and make a greater impact in the communities you serve.
Before diving into the seven strategies for optimizing a Google Grant account, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.
What is a Google Grant Account?
The Google Ad Grant provides eligible nonprofits with $10,000 worth of in-kind advertising on Google Search each month, helping them reach a wider audience and connect with more potential supporters online.
After applying for the grant and being accepted into the program, nonprofits receive an account through which they can create and display ads on Google without the need to make any payments.
The Importance of Optimizing a Google Grant Account
If you want to make the most of $10,000 in free ad spend per month, you need to be willing to adapt and make improvements on an ongoing basis. Here are a few reasons why optimizing a Google Grant account is important:
Remember, even with the Google Ad Grant, your nonprofit is competing with paid advertisers for ad space. Optimization helps level the playing field, allowing you to stand out and succeed in the highly competitive digital advertising landscape.
7 Steps to Optimize Your Google Grant Account
Now that you understand the importance of optimizing a Google Grant account, let’s explain how to actually do it!
1. Partner with a qualified Google Ad Grants agency.
Without prior experience, optimizing a Google Grant Account can be a daunting task. Thankfully, there are Google Ad Grants agencies that provide valuable expertise and insight into the process.
Here are just a few areas of our recommended agency, Getting Attention’s expertise:
By working with an agency like Getting Attention, you can leverage the expertise of professionals who specialize in mission-driven marketing and digital advertising. This partnership will help your nonprofit create more impactful ad campaigns and attract support for your cause.
For more information on the benefits of working with a Google Ad Grant agency, watch this video:
2. Conduct regular keyword research.
Keyword research helps nonprofits understand which search terms and phrases are most frequently used by their target audience and allows them to optimize their ad campaigns accordingly. By regularly conducting keyword research, you ensure that your online content is optimized for the search terms and phrases that are most relevant to your cause.
Keep these tips in mind as you choose your keywords:
It’s also important to update the negative keywords that you want to exclude from triggering your ads. For example, if your nonprofit focuses on environmental conservation, you may want to add “hunting” or “pollution” as negative keywords to ensure your ads are shown only to the most relevant audiences.
3. Create well-structured ad groups.
Google Ad Groups are a way of organizing ads within your account. An ad group typically contains a set of ads that share similar targets, such as keywords, locations, or devices.
Well-defined ad groups allow for better targeting, ensuring that the right messaging is delivered to the right people.
Here’s an example of how a marine conservation nonprofit might organize ads according to the two different programs they offer:
Ad Group 1: “Marine Wildlife Conservation”
Keywords: Marine wildlife conservation, ocean conservation, marine species protection
Ad Copy: “Help Protect Marine Wildlife. Support Our Ocean Conservation Efforts Today!”
Ad Group 2: “Beach Cleanup Volunteers”
Keywords: Beach cleanup, ocean cleanup volunteer, coastal cleanup
Ad Copy: “Join Our Beach Cleanup Volunteers. Make a Difference for Our Oceans.”
Continuously review and refine your keyword list for each ad group. Add new relevant keywords and remove irrelevant or low-performing ones.
4. Write compelling ad copy.
Well-crafted ad copy encourages users to click on the ad to learn more about your organization. To maximize your click-through rate (CTR), take these steps:
If you’re in need of inspiration, review other top-ranking ads to see what they’re doing right.
For instance, let’s say you’re trying to target keywords related to food insecurity. Do a quick Google search to see what’s ranking number #1 for these queries:
Then, craft your ad copy with these top-ranking ads in mind, possibly emulating those popular “How to” statements in the headline.
5. Establish a landing page strategy.
Landing pages that you link in your ads should be designed to convert visitors into donors, volunteers, or supporters. For the best results, ensure that your landing pages are:
Conduct A/B testing (also known as split testing) on your landing pages to identify which elements resonate best with your audience. Continuously re-test and optimize these elements over time to improve the page’s performance.
6. Use conversion tracking.
Google Ads conversion tracking allows advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns by tracking specific actions that users take after clicking on their ads. Not only is setting up conversion tracking beneficial to your ad performance, but it’s also a requirement of the Google Ad Grant. Here’s how it works:
In the Google Ads dashboard, your team can view conversion data, including the number of conversions, conversion rate, and cost per conversion. Armed with that data, evaluate the performance of your campaigns and identify which ads are driving the most valuable actions.
7. Stay up-to-date on Google Ad Grant policies.
The main policies of the Google Ad Grant program include maintaining a minimum 5% click-through rate (CTR) across the account, adhering to a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid limit of $2, and using only text-based ads without images or videos. Nonprofits must also comply with Google’s website policy, ensuring transparency and relevance in their ad campaigns and website content.
Since these policies are subject to change, it’s important to stay informed. To keep up with Google Ad Grant policies and maintain compliance, follow these steps:
Set regular calendar reminders to check for policy updates and review your Google Ad Grant account’s compliance.
A Final Note About Optimizing Your Google Grant Account
Although optimizing a Google Ad Grant account requires consistent time and effort, it will ultimately lead to increased visibility for your nonprofit.
If you’re still not sure where to start, remember there are Google Ad Grant agencies like Getting Attention that will work alongside your nonprofit to create a digital advertising strategy that aligns with your goals.
For more information on Google Ad Grants, check out these additional resources:
How to Apply for the Google Ad Grant: A Comprehensive Guide
If you’re a nonprofit professional looking for an affordable way to expand your organization’s online presence and reach a wider audience, then you’re in the right place. The Google Ad Grant offers eligible nonprofits up to $10,000 a month in free advertising on Google.
But with so many organizations vying for the grant, how do you stand out from the competition and secure the funding you deserve? That’s where this guide comes in.
Whether you’re a tech-savvy marketer or a nonprofit newbie, we’ll teach you how to apply for the Google Ad Grant and ensure that you’re prepared to maximize the benefits of free ad spend. Let’s get started!
FAQs About the Google Ad Grant Application
Before we dive into the specifics of the Google Ad Grant application process, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.
1. What is the Google Ad Grant?
The Google Ad Grant is a powerful digital marketing tool that provides eligible nonprofits with up to $10,000 in free ad spend per month. The grant can be used to create search ads in order to drive more traffic to the nonprofit’s website or to attract more donations and volunteers.
Here’s how it works: With a Google Ad Grants account, you create ads to show on Google Search. When a user searches for terms relevant to your nonprofit’s cause, your ads will appear either independently or in positions below paid ads.
For more information on the Google Ad Grant, watch this video:
2. What are the benefits of applying for the Google Ad Grant?
The Google Ad Grant program empowers nonprofits to target specific keywords relevant to their cause and optimize their online presence. That way, when someone searches for a term related to your mission, your content is most likely to appear at the top of the search results and attract their attention (as well as their support).
Plus, the Google Ad Grant program provides access to free ad spend. Rather than having to allocate a significant portion of your budget to digital marketing, you can invest in other critical areas of your organization’s operations and programs.
3. How long does the Google Ad Grant application process take?
The timeline for the application process can vary based on several factors, including the responsiveness of your nonprofit, the completeness of your application, and the volume of applications being reviewed by Google.
How to Apply for the Google Ad Grant in 5 Steps
Now that you know what the grant is and how it can benefit your nonprofit, let’s explore how to effectively apply for the Google Ad Grant:
1. Verify your organization’s eligibility
To be eligible to apply for the Google Ad Grant, your organization must:
Keep in mind that eligibility requirements may vary slightly depending on the country or region where the nonprofit operates. Review the specific guidelines provided by Google for Nonprofits in your respective country to ensure you’re compliant.
3. Complete the Google Ad Grants enrollment process
Visit the Google Ad Grants website and follow the instructions to enroll your organization. Provide the necessary information about your nonprofit, such as:
It’s important to fill out the eligibility form accurately and completely, as incomplete or inaccurate information may delay or prevent your nonprofit from being approved for the Google Ad Grants program.
3. Build a strong website
Ensure that your website has relevant and high-quality content that aligns with your organization’s mission and the keywords you plan to target in your ad campaigns.
In addition to designing informative and engaging pages that provide value to visitors, you should:
By following these tips, you can enhance the user experience, increase engagement, and maximize the impact of your Google Ad Grant campaigns. Remember to regularly review and optimize your website based on user behavior and campaign performance data to continuously improve your results.
4. Craft compelling campaigns
Develop an effective advertising strategy to promote your organization and its initiatives. This involves:
Continuously test and optimize your ad campaigns to improve performance. Conduct A/B testing by creating variations of your ads and measuring their effectiveness. Test different headlines, ad copy, call to actions, and visuals to identify what resonates best with your audience and drives higher click-through rates and conversions.
5. Submit your application
Once you submit your application for the Google Ad Grant program, it will be reviewed by Google to ensure compliance with the program guidelines and policies. As previously mentioned, the approval process varies but typically takes a few weeks. During this time, Google may request additional information or clarifications.
Then, you’ll receive a notification from Google regarding the status of your application. If approved, you can begin using your Google Ad Grant to run ads and promote your nonprofit!
A Final Note About the Google Ad Grant Application
The Google Ad Grants program offers a valuable opportunity for nonprofit organizations to promote their missions online with free Google Ads. If you need assistance throughout the application process, consider working with our recommended Google Ad Grants agency: Getting Attention.
Their team of experts will ensure that your nonprofit meets the eligibility requirements, submits a successful application, and leverages the Google Ad Grant effectively.
For more information on the Google Ad Grant, check out these additional resources:
Defining Employee Recruitment — Nonprofit Catalog
Picture this: You’re running your most successful phone-a-thon fundraiser in years. Your marketing strategy really hit home, and your phones are ringing off the hook. There’s one problem, though. You simply don’t have enough employees to manage the incoming calls.
You have tons of donors ready to give, but you lack the operational capacity to manage their generosity. What’s the end result? Missed opportunities and a decline in donor retention. Maybe this example is a little extreme, but the principle is true. Nonprofits that avoid recruiting high-value employees tend to run some serious risks.
Great employees not only help you crush your to-dos, but they also bring a fresh level of passion and commitment to your organization. In fact, 88% of millennials consider their job more fulfilling when they have opportunities to have a positive impact on society.
Kickstarting the employee recruitment process can seem daunting at first, but it helps if you break the process down into manageable steps.
What is employee recruitment?
Employee recruitment is the process of connecting with potential new employees to assess whether they’d be a good fit for an organization’s open positions. This process can take a while to perfect and will look different as your organization evolves.
Ideally, recruiting employees is a win-win for your organization. Nonprofits fill positions with capable employees and individuals find a place to work that aligns with their values and schedule. Finding these employees can be trial and error, that’s why it’s important to implement a detailed employee recruitment and review process.
Why do organizations need recruitment strategies?
Filling positions can be time-consuming and challenging. By setting hiring and recruitment strategies, you can acquire the right talent, drive growth, and adapt to changing circumstances without spending as much time as you would otherwise.
Let’s break down some of the most important reasons to develop a recruitment plan:
A solid employee recruitment and hiring plan can support your organization in a variety of ways, from staying on top of industry changes to generally finding good fits for your team. In turn, you’ll be able to fill immediate staffing needs and impact the long-term success of your organization.
What are the steps of the employee recruitment process?
An employee recruitment process can be tailored to each position and changed over time. However, it’s helpful to have a general guideline to refer back to. Let’s take a look at some defined steps:
Throughout this process, keep your options open by casting a wide net. You may have your heart set on a couple of candidates, but keep in mind that plans change for a variety of reasons. Your main goal should be to recruit as many qualified candidates as possible. The next section will show you how to conduct interviews that effectively filter through these candidates.
8 tips for a successful interview process
After you’ve set up interviews with potential recruits, you must ensure that your interview process is well-thought-through to find the right candidate for the job. Make sure that each candidate understands and aligns with your organization’s values, whether they involve giving back to the community, strengthening your diversity and inclusion initiatives, or being responsive to customers.
Follow these tips to hold productive interviews:
In-depth interview processes proactively assess a candidate’s qualifications. Once you have decided on your candidates, be sure to extend them a warm welcome to your team. Keep in mind that regular employee performance reviews are also necessary to keep your team in tip-top shape. Once hired, employees expect consistent and honest feedback for their work.
How do we keep recruited team members engaged?
Recruitment takes a lot of energy and funds, so you want to ensure that the candidates you pick stay for the long term. Here are some tactics you can use to boost your recruitment’s ROI and keep team members engaged:
Open communication between management and directs
Make your organization feel like a close-knit team by encouraging open communication in the workplace. Schedule consistent one-on-one meetings between new employees and managers to help them surmount challenges, boost confidence, and progress in their roles. Doing so allows them to have more frequent conversations about their work approach and feel supported at your company.
At the same time, encourage managers to share regular feedback with their directs, recognizing outstanding performance and sharing areas where they can improve moving forward. This approach removes any uncertainty or guesswork among employees regarding their performance.
Offer upward mobility
A stagnant work structure may lead to employee burnout and disengagement from your organization. Studies show that employees experiencing burnout are 3.4 times more likely to leave the company and nearly 2 times more likely to feel disconnected from company culture. Fortunately, you can minimize the risk of burnout and disengagement by giving employees the opportunity to grow and take on more significant responsibilities over time.
One easy way to accomplish this is to offer professional development opportunities. These may range from a mentorship program to online courses. As a result, you’ll not only keep employees invested in their roles, but you’ll also help them improve their performance in those roles.
Embrace employee recognition
Employee recognition is a vital component of a thriving workplace, enhancing overall job satisfaction and fostering a sense of belonging. While feedback from upper management is important, it’s equally crucial to empower employees to recognize each other’s contributions, too. Consider the following strategies:
Whichever recognition approach you take, strive to make employees feel valued not only by their colleagues but also by the organization as a whole. Acknowledging employees’ efforts and achievements on multiple levels leads to higher engagement, stronger teamwork, and improved morale.
Involve employees in decision-making
Employees want to know that management values their ideas. With this in mind, open the floor for them to provide suggestions about your organization’s culture or strategies by sending out regular surveys soliciting their feedback.
Consider asking questions in these key areas:
Even if you don’t accept all suggestions, it’s important to acknowledge and express gratitude to employees for taking the time to provide their input.
Respect work-life balance
While your employees work for you to make a living, work should not be their entire lives. Respect work-life boundaries by clearly delineating your expectations for work hours and limiting work-related communication on the weekends.
Furthermore, encourage employees to take breaks and consider offering flexible work hours so they can adjust their schedules to maximize productivity. Promote their overall well-being by initiating wellness activities and providing mental health support resources to employees.
Empower employees to be independent
You chose your job candidates because you see potential in them to make an impact on your organization. Enable them to explore projects they’re interested in, take ownership of their assignments, and make independent decisions. They’ll feel much more confident and fulfilled in their roles, and you may even cultivate future leaders within your company.
Create a workplace giving program
Three out of four U.S. employees want to work for a company that makes a positive impact on the world. By launching a workplace giving program, you’ll be able to retain the employees you recruit and attract even more top talent to your company.
There are many types of workplace giving you can pursue, such as matching gifts and volunteer grants. Through these programs, your company will contribute a certain amount of funds to nonprofits that employees donate their money or time to.
To facilitate these philanthropic initiatives, consider investing in workplace giving software. These technology solutions make it easy to organize your program, engage employees, and report on impact.
As your employee base changes over time, so should your engagement strategies. Gauge the effectiveness of your strategies as time passes by sending surveys, researching new trends, and staying open to suggestions from your employees.
Additional Resources
Incorporating Events into Your Member Recruitment Strategy
Event planning is one of many important parts of effective association management. A well-planned association event not only boosts your revenue and engages existing members, but it can recruit new ones as well.
Members make an association. And recruiting new members is just as important as retaining current members! Recruiting helps association growth and keeps numbers up when old members leave.
In this guide, we’ll discuss five essential ways your organization can incorporate events into your member recruitment strategy to enhance your results.
1. Determine your target audience
Before you begin planning an upcoming event to increase member recruitment, it’s important to understand your association’s target audience. There are different reasons for someone to attend an association event. Here are some common motivations:
By understanding how to appeal to potential members’ values and interests, you can choose the right type of event to attract them.
2. Plan how you’ll engage potential members
Plan your association event with potential members in mind. You should always be thinking about the specific individuals you’re trying to draw in. It’s always a good idea to plan as much of your event in advance as possible. This way, everyone helping at the event knows exactly what they’re meant to be doing and how they can connect to potential members.
Consider hosting an event that both members and non-members are free to attend. Or consider inviting potential members to attend a members-only event as guests. No matter the event, you can prepare welcome packets containing important membership details to pass out to these non-members at the event.
To provide added convenience to potential members, consider making your event hybrid or virtual so that even those who may be unable to attend in person can participate.
At this point in time, most people are very familiar with attending virtual events, which makes it easy and convenient. This also broadens your audience and lets you reach more people. You can reach people who may live further away but are still excited to join.
Having this option is a great way to attract people who are interested in your association but haven’t been able to make it to in-person events previously. They’ll be even more excited for this one!
3. Enlist your current members to help at your event
Make the most of your existing members’ connections by enlisting them to help with member recruitment at your next association event.
Having current members there is a great way to introduce potential members to your association. It’s also a great way for potential members to form connections within the association through current members. A personal connection goes a long way.
Ask for volunteers from your members to become ambassadors at the event. They can encourage potential members to join your association by:
Furthermore, encourage existing members to invite a non-member acquaintance, work colleague, or friend who might be interested in becoming a member.
Using existing networks is a great way to find new members. A person coming to an event through someone they know is more likely to join up if they have a personal connection to your organization already.
4. Emphasize member benefits
Make it easy for event attendees to embark on their membership journey to your association by highlighting specific member benefits at the event. Show them why they should join!
At the event, you can include benefits in your welcome packet. You can also consider passing out one-page sheets listing the benefits. Having the benefits highlighted in their own handout can be helpful to make them more clear.
You can also go into more detail if they’re separate, rather than trying to fit it all into the welcome packet, which should be concise. Provide a link to your website on anything you hand out, or another place where they can learn more.
Just a few member benefit ideas you can highlight include:
Member benefits will be different for every association. Again, think about your audience. Who are they? What do you think would benefit them? What do you think they’d be most interested in?
5. Follow up with event attendees
In addition to your usual thank-you emails to everyone who attended your event, follow up specifically with your non-member event attendees about joining your association.
Give them a clear path, both during and after the event, for how to join your organization. Make the process as easy and clear as possible. Nothing stops a potential member more than a lengthy and difficult-to-understand application process. Having a straightforward application process should always be an important part of your member recruitment strategy.
There are many things you can fit into a thank you email. Here are some suggestions:
Show them that you care about their experience with your organization by sending out post-event surveys to gather their feedback and make improvements for future events.
Events can give potential members a clearer picture of what membership in your association looks like. Therefore, it’s critical to plan an enjoyable and memorable event experience for all attendees. In this article, we’ve given five ways to help you improve your member recruitment strategy. Following these five tips will help turn your next recruitment event into a success!
Understanding the Fundraising Consultant Hiring Process
Working with the right consultant can change the trajectory of your organization’s fundraising. No matter what kind of support you need, whether it’s planning a capital campaign or conducting a fundraising assessment, a fundraising consultant can help.
But how do you find the perfect consultant for your organization, and how exactly do you hire one? To help you understand what the fundraising consultant hiring process looks like, we’ll cover the most important elements:
Once you go through the hiring process, your nonprofit will end up with a valuable resource who can help you make lasting changes to your organization’s fundraising approach. Let’s dive in so you can start reaping those benefits!
Assessing Your Organization’s Needs
Similar to the process you go through when choosing new fundraising software to invest in, you’ll first need to determine exactly what you need from the consultant. Assess your resources, goals, and recent campaign performance to determine which areas of fundraising you need help with.
Some common focus areas that fundraising consultants can assist you with include:
After determining the type of fundraising support you’ll need from your consultant, be sure to define specific goals for their involvement. What outcomes do you want to achieve with their help? Set concrete goals, such as securing 10 major gifts within the next year or increasing the total value of individual donations by 20%.
Request for Proposals (RFPs)
Next, you’ll use the goals you set to create an RFP, or Request for Proposals. RFPs are documents your organization creates to outline why you’re searching for a consultant, explain what you’re looking for, and ask prospects to send in proposals for consideration.
RFPs keep your search on track and give prospective consultants a clear idea of the services you require. To write one effectively, Donorly’s fundraising consultant hiring guide breaks down everything your RFP should include:
Once you’ve created a draft, run the RFP by your board for final approval. After researching options and selecting consultants you’re interested in learning more about, you’ll send your RFP to each one. Each consultant will then use these guidelines to create their own proposals, which you’ll use to determine the best fit.
Consultant Research
Now that you’ve outlined your needs and goals in your RFP, you can begin searching for potential consultants!
There are multiple avenues for consultant research. Start by reaching out to your colleagues and connections at other nonprofits to ask for recommendations. You might attend nonprofit panels that fundraising consultants participate in to hear about their services. Or, conduct research online using general Google searches or by visiting reputable websites like The Giving Institute or AFP’s fundraising consultant directory.
As you research consultants, pay attention to each one’s:
Take notes on every consultant that stands out throughout your research, then bring your team together to discuss your findings. Based on these factors, narrow down your options to a list of 5-10 consultants you think could be the best fit.
Making Your Decision
As soon as you have your list of prospective consultants, you can jump into the process of sending RFPs and evaluating the candidates. To make a decision, follow these steps:
To make your final choice, consider factors like the quality of the consultant’s previous work, how their proposal aligns with your needs, and their personal fit with your nonprofit’s culture. According to eCardWidget, your company culture is made up of your organizational values, attitudes, and practices. It’s important that everyone working with your nonprofit aligns with its culture to ensure satisfaction.
The consultant hiring process can feel like a big time commitment, but think of it as an investment. The more careful thought and dedication you put into the process, the better results you’ll see when you find the right fit. Fundraising consultants can give your organization the tools to thrive for years to come and ultimately do more of what matters, so they’re worth taking the time to find.
The Damage of Nonprofit Employee Churn & How to Prevent It
We’re living in an unusual labor environment—historically low but rising unemployment rates, high inflation, conflicting signs that may or may not point to an impending recession. We’re also seeing highly active labor movements and changing norms following the significant changes brought about by the pandemic and Great Resignation.
Economic anxieties are at a high, so nonprofits naturally have a lot on their minds. When instability is on the radar, most organizations know to strengthen their donor and partner relationships while seeking new ways to diversify their revenue—but look inward, too.
The internal health of an organization is essential for its overall health. Employee retention plays a critically important role.
Let’s take a closer look at the state of employee turnover for nonprofits. Why is it so harmful, and how can you prevent it?
What’s the average nonprofit turnover rate?
The voluntary turnover rate for the nonprofit sector averaged 19% in 2022. It also sits consistently higher than turnover at for-profit businesses.
Historically, 19% turnover is typical, but looking at recent years, we can see some interesting trends. The turnover rate rose to a high of 21% in 2019 but dropped to a low of 14% in 2020 (NonprofitHR). One possible explanation is that the disruptions of the pandemic and the drastically increased need for nonprofit services during that time kept many nonprofit professionals in their jobs.
Since then, the turnover rate has steadily increased to pre-pandemic norms as part of the Great Resignation, with many employees across sectors finding new opportunities. Perhaps your own organization saw the same trends play out at a reduced scale since 2019—a good reminder that while there are many causes of turnover that you can control, there are also external forces that you can’t.
But just because you can’t directly control the forces that drive turnover doesn’t mean you can’t adapt to them! After the disruptions of recent years, nonprofits are already making positive changes.
Specifically, NonprofitHR’s 2022 retention survey found that more nonprofits are now actively tracking employee retention metrics (+4%) and developing formal retention strategies (+13%) than in 2021.
This is great news—it’s impossible to reduce turnover and mitigate its damage without a concrete plan or data to inform it. It would seem that many nonprofits have learned from the lessons of the pandemic years to improve their employee management approach.
So what were those lessons exactly? What are the extended negative impacts of churn?
Why is employee churn so harmful?
There are many reasons why a high turnover rate is harmful to organizations, and they can amplify each other over time if left unchecked, making it increasingly difficult to retain talent. The key risks to consider include:
For nonprofits specifically, these risks are heightened. Nonprofits usually operate on tight budgets, making the felt effects of turnover-related financial and opportunity costs especially pronounced. Nonprofits also rely heavily on relationships with donors, sponsors, and funders to sustain their work—relationships built by individual fundraisers or development officers. If these relationships are too siloed, that fundraiser’s departure can make it very difficult to maintain their valuable relationships.
Not to mention, nonprofits need positive public perceptions to continue fundraising and operating their programs effectively. Inconsistent staffing and a reputation as a place where people don’t want to work can cause your community to become disengaged or even lose trust in your nonprofit.
How can you reduce or eliminate these risks?
Enough of the gloomy stuff—what are the steps you can take to prevent these negative impacts from taking root in your organization?
1. Combat turnover.
It seems self-evident, but to avoid the damage of employee turnover, you should actively combat it by prioritizing retention.
Although more nonprofits now actively develop retention strategies, many still don’t. And those that do often haven’t been able to devote much attention to management in the past, so their retention approaches may not be rooted in best practices. What do you need to know about employee retention?
Start by understanding the key elements of an effective strategy. According to Graham-Pelton’s retention guide for nonprofits, these include:
Within these categories fall a wide variety of tactics you can use to engage and retain employees. There’s no one specific arrangement that will work for every nonprofit. Rather, each organization should seek to find the right ratio of tactics that mesh with their cultures, values, and communities. Ensuring that each category is represented will make your overall strategy more effective and well-rounded.
But there are a few big-picture best practices that successful retention strategies share. As you develop your unique configuration of retention tactics, keep these in mind:
Building out a retention strategy to reduce turnover in the first place is the single best step you can take to mitigate its damage to your nonprofit.
The best part is that your strategy doesn’t have to be perfect. It should instead be dynamic and adaptive—you won’t know what works best for your unique organization until you try it out, so approach your strategy as a continual learning experience.
2. Reduce knowledge and relationship silos.
With a solid preventative framework in place, we’ll now look at the infrastructural steps you can take to reduce the negative impacts of turnover when it does happen.
The siloing of knowledge and relationships creates undue risks—a departing employee takes their skills and contacts with them. And even if you’re still in touch with a donor after the departure of the gift officer who built that relationship, the relationship may now need to start from square one. To reduce silos, try these best practices:
Consider your regulatory context when looking for ways to reduce knowledge and contact silos. For example, grateful patient fundraising programs are subject to more restrictive patient privacy laws that will impact the specific fundraising and data flows that you can use as an organization.
3. Give employees the tools and frameworks to succeed.
Equipping and empowering your employees to drive the greatest impact will go a long way to improve retention. When team members don’t need to waste time and energy with clunky systems and processes, they’ll feel more engaged and able to focus on their real tasks—engaging with donors and constituents, facilitating programs, and keeping your organization running.
And if turnover does occur, you’ll have more efficient, resilient, and intuitive processes in place that reduce its negative impacts.
First, upgrade tech or invest in tech as needed. A modern CRM is a must, as is intuitive fundraising or donation software that truly meets your needs. If you’re feeling locked into a legacy platform that either isn’t offering a great donor experience or creates more problems than it solves for your team, an upgrade is likely a smart move.
And keep in mind that investing in your own ability to drive impact sustainably is an important part of stewarding your mission. Consider whether it’s possible to budget for needed upgrades and new purchases, remembering that sometimes overhead is essential. Or consider conducting a special capacity campaign to fund new investments—always an option if a jolt of capital will take your growth to the next level and you can make a compelling, specific case for support.
Aside from technology, you should also equip your team with the processes, frameworks, and strategies they need to thrive in their roles, especially if your small organization is growing. Ad hoc solutions and approaches may work for a while, but they’re often not scalable. Not only do they become more disorganized over time, but they also lead to worse employee experiences.
Increased organization and efficiency will be key. Moves management and prospect portfolio management systems are great examples of more advanced practices that organizations pick up and adapt as they mature.
Of course, employee churn isn’t 100% avoidable—some employees will always choose to leave for personal reasons or because they’ve found new opportunities.
What your nonprofit can control are the internal forces that drive churn and its potential negative impacts, and it’s not hard to take the first steps. Outline a concrete retention strategy if you haven’t yet. Consider if you’re unnecessarily siloing important knowledge or contacts and whether you’re offering tools and processes that make work easier rather than harder.