Category Archives: Nonprofits

Webinar on 12/11: On Today’s Menu: Your Successful Grant Proposal

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Nonprofit WebinarsHow can you whip up a successful grant proposal? You’ll need just the right proportions of research, planning, drafting, and editing. And don’t forget to garnish with tasty feedback and a dash of good timing!

Foundations and corporate funders are always looking for ways to make good investments in your community. To partner with them, you have to show exactly how you can help make that happen! Webinar participants will get a special discount on Dalya’s award-winning book, “Writing to Make a Difference: 25 Powerful Techniques to Boost Your Community Impact.”

Who should attend: This webinar is ideal for: nonprofit directors, staff, board, volunteers, and consultants who help raise money from foundations and corporations; jobseekers are also welcome.

Level: Beginner and Intermediate

In this webinar you will learn:

  • How to prepare for the grantwriting process
  • What to include (and exclude)
  • What most engages (and repels) grantmakers
  • Where to find resources for your next steps

Attendees will also receive 3 follow-up documents:

1) “Spot the Weaknesses” Summary

2) One-page Sample Grant Format

3) Recommended Resources List

Please join us Wednesday, December 11 at 12pm PT (3pm ET)! Sign up HERE.

What do previous attendees have to say about this webinar?

“This was a very useful and informative webinar. I have sat on many webinars that do not provide such clear, specific information and I appreciate your sharing your expertise. Thank you!”
 
“I am very excited about the prospect of writing successful grants for my organization — as opposed to fearing it!”

Evoke a vision of your success

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success[Dalya’s Note: This is an excerpt from my award-winning book, Writing to Make a Difference: 25 Powerful Techniques to Boost Your Community Impact.]

Your readers want to be inspired by the world you would like to see. Your organization, of course, will play a role in realizing that vision—so help your readers visualize it right now.

Ask_yourselfAsk yourself: If your organization were to meet with great success and fully accomplish its mission, what would that look like?

You may want to ask this simple question of your colleagues as well. Perhaps your organization even has a formal “vision statement.”

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Examples

Here are a few vision statements of values-based organizations:

1) Foundation Center: A world enriched by the effective allocation of philanthropic resources, informed public discourse about philanthropy, and broad understanding of the contributions of nonprofit activity to increasing opportunity and transforming lives.

2) Global Exchange:  We envision a people centered globalization that values the rights of workers and the health of the planet; that prioritizes international collaboration as central to ensuring peace; and that aims to create a local, green economy designed to embrace the diversity of our communities.

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You might also develop a more informal image of what you are working toward. For instance, some organizations have held community gatherings or stakeholder retreats to paint murals or assemble collages representing the world they want to create.

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Highlight the strengths of your mission

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stand out[Dalya’s Note: This is an excerpt from my award-winning book, Writing to Make a Difference: 25 Powerful Techniques to Boost Your Community Impact.]

Remind your readers continually of what is innovative about your mission. No one likes to reinvent the wheel or be part of something garden-variety. Show that you play a special and essential role in your field: a role that cries out for involvement from your readers.

Ask_yourselfAsk yourself: How is your mission unique within your field, and how does that give you a special niche?

Your mission may be to implement an entirely new solution to an age-old problem that has been haunting your community. Or maybe you are striving to improve or expand what already has begun to work. Either way, identify what it is about your mission that makes it extraordinary.

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Examples

1) Por Fin Nuestra Casa (Spanish for “finally, a home of our own”) has the mission:

“To raise the standard of living for families who currently reside in dangerous or substandard conditions.”

Not so unique, you might think. But they then flesh it out:

“We advance this cause by creating shelters from low-cost recycled materials. PFNC utilizes surplus shipping containers resulting from the United States’ consistent trade deficit. These containers serve as the building block of PFNC housing, but go through an extensive conversion process to make them a home. PFNC offers an affordable housing solution that is scalable and fully portable. Each PFNC unit includes First World amenities for a price of less than $10,000 (US).”

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Spotlight your mission repeatedly

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Stage_Spotlight[Dalya’s Note: This is an excerpt from my award-winning book, Writing to Make a Difference: 25 Powerful Techniques to Boost Your Community Impact.]

Have you advanced your organization’s mission today? Your readers are eager to know about it!

Every marketing or fundraising piece you write needs to speak to the advancement of your organization’s reason for existing in the first place. That is, every page should remind your readers that you never forget what you set out to do in your community.

Every values-driven organization has a specific mission to make a positive difference in the world. My guess is that you already know what yours is. You may not have memorized your official mission statement, but you are clear on the essence of your organization. Your mission, after all, is a key part of your organization’s brand..

To each of your readers, your mission, or perhaps some particular aspect of it, is the heart of the matter. They want to hear that it is central to everything you do. They want to know that your work continues to be relevant to their lives and the life of their community, even as times and circumstances change.

There is no shame in reminding yourself of your organization’s mission statement once in a while. Some people I know even plaster it on the wall or make it their screensaver to keep it at the top of the mind and on the tip of the tongue.

Your mission should inspire and motivate support and commitment from those who share your concerns. Your organization’s name alone should cause your mission to spring to mind.
However, if you—and your colleagues—do not revisit your mission statement regularly, and ideally fine-tune or update it on occasion, you can get stuck in out-of-date patterns of branding. This is true for both start-up organizations (whose missions are usually still evolving) and more established groups. For instance, a client organization of mine had focused for decades on the needs of all low-income families, but recent demographic changes in their county compelled them to focus on new immigrants, with their associated cultural and linguistic challenges.

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Why Your Fundraising Copy Isn’t Fundraising

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[Dalya’s Note: This guest post by Vanessa Chase was originally published on May 20, 2013 on her website, Philanthropy for All.]

We go to great lengths in annual giving (and development) departments to build quality relationships with donors. Thank you calls, handwritten notes and other genuine tokens of appreciation are extended to donors when they make gifts. Perhaps your non-profit has a healthy flow of gifts at the end of the calendar year when people seem to be naturally inclined to give. But what about the rest of the year? Do you find yourself disappointed by appeals with low response rates during the Spring and Fall?

Sometimes, all of the other things you do to steward and cultivate donors are overshadowed when that donor has an appeal letter in their hands. In that moment, copy is the deciding factor.

The Frustration of Low Response Rates

The Direct Marketing Association estimates that a successful retention appeal garners a response rate of 5.53%. From my experience, I think this is a low-ball estimate. But it does vary from organization to organization, so it’s really best to set your own benchmarks. If you have an appeal that falls below your organization’s average, it can be super frustrating when you’ve put in tons of time writing, editing, designing and segmenting data only to have a low response.

There can be a number of reasons for low response rates, but the aspect of your appeal that offers the most room for improvement is your copy. Continue reading →