3 Creative Volunteer Recruitment Strategies for Nonprofits

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Rapidly Rehousing: A Nonprofit’s Use of Modular Homes

When Cyclone Gombe devastated Malawi, it left many families displaced without housing. Ethel Chamba, a single mother already struggling financially, lost her home. Unable to rebuild, she and her children lived in unstable conditions with relatives. Traditional rebuilding takes years, leaving victims vulnerable. However, Habitat for Humanity challenges this by quickly providing modular shelters. Through an innovative partnership with Nostos Homes, Habitat built a modular community in rural Malawi in just a week. Families like Ethel’s now have secure, quality housing. Rapid shelter stabilizes and supports disaster victims.

Nonprofit Hub celebrates the work of Nostos Homes while they strive to combat one of the biggest challenges of our time. Nostos Homes is a UK-based charity led by young people and provides sustainable homes for families forcibly displaced worldwide. The organization and its leadership garner extensive international recognition and support, with endorsements from various entities such as the World Bank, IFC, Goldman Sachs, HRH Prince William, Royal Commonwealth Society, and The Diana Award. The work of Nostos has also been acknowledged as a finalist for The Org Impact Awards.

Devika Narayanan is the Chief of Staff of Nostos Homes and leads strategic partnerships like these for the organization. Her creative problem-solving skills have assisted the nonprofit in its growth and success.

Habitat’s prefabricated modular construction enabled a swift, effective response. Nostos’ steel-frame, insulated-panel homes are made off-site then transported and assembled on location. This modular technique allows much faster deployment than traditional building. While brick and mortar construction takes months or years, a modular community of 8 houses can be completed in under a week. The customized, resilient units also cost half as much as comparable permanent housing. Consequently, the speed, flexibility and affordability of modular construction helped Habitat rapidly provide over 350,000 nights of shelter.

For vulnerable families, a home provides more than four walls—it also means safety, stability and dignity. After months of instability, Ethel Chamba said her modular Habitat home gave her children hope and peace of mind. Access to shelter helps restore livelihoods, health, and education. When rapidly rehoused after disasters, people can rebuild lives rather than remain displaced. Habitat’s work demonstrates modular innovation’s immense potential to address housing shortages globally. Whether displacement stems from disasters, conflicts or inequities, quickly providing quality housing is key to supporting families and communities in crisis. By using modular construction, Habitat helped victims in days instead of the usual years by moving them out of displacement. This model shows partnerships and technology can respond at scale to pressing shelter needs of vulnerable global populations.

Habitat for Humanity’s rapid rehousing of Malawian cyclone victims highlights modular construction’s life-changing potential. Innovative housing solutions can help nonprofits respond swiftly and effectively to shelter crises. This powerful model demonstrates cost-effectively scaling efforts to provide quality homes, restore stability, and rebuild lives. By challenging traditional slow housing relief, Habitat’s innovative modular technology delivers rapid results and a path forward for humanitarian organizations addressing global displacement.

Read more about this incredible initiative here.

*This featured article was originally published on nostoshomes.org.

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Set Some Expectations

Telling your board to be engaged may be like telling a child to eat a reasonable amount of candy. In other words, it’s very subjective. The directors serving your organization may feel they are engaged simply by attending meetings or making contributions. If you want or need more from them, it’s critical that you communicate those expectations clearly. Here are a few ways to get started:

• Set board goals quarterly for volunteer hours, attendance, donations, or facilitating new connections. 
• Include expectations as part of your onboarding process for new members.
• Hold annual board reviews. Use a 360-degree review process that includes feedback from many stakeholders. For example, donors, volunteers, team members, and fellow directors can participate in providing board feedback.
  

Give Individual Assignments

Much like a high school group project where one member does all the work, your board dynamic may be one of a few shining stars and many passive players. Although you may have done a stellar job of communicating your expectations (see above), not all board members rise to a group challenge. Blanketed requests for help rarely yield 100% participation because it’s easy to hide in a group or wait for others to go first. Instead, try to create individualized assignments for your board. If you focus your requests on maximizing each member’s specialty, interests, and even personality, you’ll create opportunities for more meaningful engagement. 

It’s fine to set expectations when addressing the full board. But make sure you provide a customized way for individual directors to take part. This will improve accountability, and it will also demonstrate to your board that you value their individual gifts.

Show Honor

We all love to feel honored. It’s human nature. We patronize businesses where they know our names or our favorite order and we gravitate toward friendships that build us up. It’s hard to want to honor your board when they aren’t doing their fair share. However, proactively providing them with acknowledgment may inspire them to step it up. It’s hard to hide a lack of commitment or service when you’re standing in the spotlight.

Some easy ways to honor your board:

• Add them to your website
• Call them out at events
• Give anniversary gifts for each year of service
• Introduce them to top funders and partners

Also, praise individual board members as they do good things. Calling out gifts of time, service, or funds, and praising participation may inspire fellow directors to step up their game. Board engagement will increase in no time.

Create Ease of Access

If a board feels disconnected from their fellow directors or the organization, they’re less likely to become involved. You may want some buffer between your governing body and the day-to-day operations of your nonprofit, but you don’t want that buffer to become a barrier. You can keep them in their lane by giving them with meaningful ways to engage. Here are a few suggestions:

• Regularly provide a list of volunteer opportunities for board members and personalize opportunities as much as possible (see above).
• Create real-time financial statements using Google Sheets or QuickBooks Online so that the board can review them on their own time.
• Use a Slack Channel to communicate with boards in a designated channel where they can also interact with each other. 
• Consider using a program like Engagement Communities to house board documents, educational content, and calendars of board meetings.

Keep in mind that a simple courtesy like printed board packets can help directors feel equipped to participate. If nothing else, ask your directors what your team can provide to help them feel prepared for their work.

Provide Education

What you’re perceiving as disengagement may actually be intimidation. New directors may refrain from interacting because they simply don’t know what to do. Unfortunately, Roberts Rules and nonprofit accounting are not common knowledge. In fact, experienced directors may shy away from financials, policy, or other topics because of intimidation.  

A little bit of education can go a long way and do wonders for board engagement. Begin providing high-level education on topics that are unique to nonprofit work and relevant to board governance. This could include audits, planned giving, and nonprofit accounting practices. Also, check out our Board Basics Series for 15-minute training that can be incorporated into your regular meetings. If you’re planning to use Robert’s Rules to govern your meetings, provide a quick-start guide to help directors learn the ropes.

Ultimately, building the confidence of your board will equip them to serve your cause and become endeared to it. Keep in mind that some board members are truly checked out. There is no amount of education, confidence, or honor you can provide to help them fulfill their obligation. In that case, focus your energy on those who demonstrate interest and energy for your mission. Those are the ones who will help you do more good.

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All your hard work driving supporters to your website to make a donation can be wasted if those supporters are faced with complicated and time-consuming donation pages once they get there. If donating isn’t easy, they’ll abandon ship and you’ll lose revenue—in an instant.

Now’s the time to get your donation pages ready for the holiday season. If I’m a donor heading to your site to make a year-end gift, here’s what I’m thinking:

Don’t Make Me Give You My First-Born to Donate

In other words, lose any unnecessary fields on your donation form. The more information you require, the more you kill your conversion rate. People are especially busy during the holiday season, so make giving quick and easy. When you’re done reading this, go to your site and try making a donation yourself. Is it painless? Or is it a pain? Now’s a good time to simplify your donation process if necessary.

Give Me One Single, Focused Call to Action

As much as I love your organization, I don’t want several options here about other things I can do, like sign up to volunteer, read your mission statement or watch a video. Those are all great things and I may have time later, but when I’m on your donation page, I’m there to do one thing: give you money. Keep my focus on the task at hand with a clear call to action.

Creating a Natural Conversation on Your Donation Landing Page

Every time you ask your site visitor for something – whether it’s a donation or just an email signup – you are entering a mental conversation. To increase the potential for success, it is important that the thought sequence of that conversation take place in the proper order.

Briefly imagine if you were approached by a stranger on the street, and they said, “Hey, my name’s Tim. Can I have your business card? I’m going to call you later!”

You probably would give this person a weird look, and think, “No way, I don’t know you! Of course you can’t have my contact information! Leave me alone.”

We would never give away something valuable to us, like our contact information, just because someone asks for it. The same is true online.

Not only does it matter how we ask, but the order in which we ask for someone’s information is crucial. When we ask for it out of order, we create anxiety in the mind of the person on the other side of the screen.

Let’s look at a couple of experiments we conducted with nonprofit organizations to help re-order the conversation in order to create a more logical flow, and increase conversions.

Getting the elements of your donation landing page in the right order

This is an email acquisition page for an e-book offer for a higher education organization. They have a good headline at the top of the page, and they use a three-column layout that mirrors their branding throughout the site. As you can see, they include third-party credibility indicators at the bottom of the page.

Do you notice any problems?

Notice your eye-movement as you work through page. A visitor has to read the copy in the first column, then move back to the top of the page to view the book, and then come back up again to complete the signup form. Up, down, up, down, up, down.

The horizontal layout forces you to slow down to work through the page, and affects the thought sequence leading to the final call-to-action.

We wondered if reorienting the thought sequence would affect the conversion rate on the page.

First, we put all these elements in a linear path from top to bottom on the page to create a more effective flow. We changed the headline to convey value, gave the copy contextual placement near the form, and moved the email acquisition form into the eye-path of the visitor. Then, we moved the book image and credibility indicators to the right column as supporting content. Below the first paragraph is the call-to-action restated as an opportunity to respond.

The treatment produced an increase in conversion by 10.8%.

From this experiment, we learned that matching branding throughout the site is not enough to influence someone to convert. We have to arrange the elements on a landing page so that they maximize the perceived value of an offer, and minimize the perceived cost.

Let’s look at another experiment.

Getting the thought sequence in the right order

This is an experiment that the Texas State Historical Association conducted on a landing page for an eBook download. The design below is something I call “above the fold.” For some reason, we’ve been taught to include all the important information in a header at the top of the page.

The “above the fold” idea was originally created for traditional newspapers so that a folded paper on a newsstand would still display the daily headlines. To see more, the reader has to physically pick up the paper and unfold it.

This problem doesn’t exist online, and yet, so often we follow this same practice! Scrolling up and down through a page is different than unfolding a newspaper, so our websites should function differently.

In this experiment, we reordered the elements on the page, removing the “above the fold” design and created a vertical sequencing path from top to bottom.

The treatment produced a 7.7% lift in conversion on the page.

What we learned from this experiment is that vertically stacking the elements on a landing page can help the reader to naturally flow through the conversation. It’s a natural behavior on a website to scroll down, so we should not be afraid of having elements placed “below the fold.”

Wrapping up…

Re-ordering page elements to create a top-to-bottom flow is a simple, easy change you can make on any page. Think of it like a real, face-to-face conversation you’re having with the person on the other side of the screen. It should be natural and have a logical flow.

The order of the conversation is crucial to establishing this flow. Don’t jump the natural sequencing process and require too much of your page visitors too early. This creates excess friction and anxiety in the mind of the user, and will cause them to abandon your page.

Do you think your donation landing page is optimized? Find out if there are elements on your landing page or donation page that are keeping your visitors from converting by taking the free friction self-assessment from NextAfter.

Looking for more resources to improve your donation landing page? Here are 5 Questions to Ask Yourself to Make Your Donation Page More Effective.

Authors

Tim Kachuriak
CEO & FOUNDER – NEXT AFTER

Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy, and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. A nonprofit thought leader, Kachuriak is the author of the book Optimize Your Fundraising, lead researcher and co-author of the Online Fundraising Scorecard, Why Should I Give to You? (The Nonprofit Value Proposition Index Study), and The Midlevel Donor Crisis. Kachuriak has trained organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences.

Kachuriak is also the co-founder and board member for the Human Coalition, a member of the board of directors for Open Doors USA, an Advisory Board Member for the SMU Digital Accelerator, and an Advisory Board Member for the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact. Kachuriak lives in Prosper, TX with his wife Rebecca, and their four children: Max (14), Charlie (13), Gracie (11), and Joe (5).

Randy Hawthorne
FORMER ED & EDITOR – NONPROFIT HUB

As a Professional Certified Marketer, Randy shares his passions of marketing and education with nonprofits to help them implement marketing and organizational leadership principles so they can grow their organizations. Randy lends his marketing and organizational leadership expertise to a number of nonprofits in his community. Outside the office, Randy works with high school and college students and mentors young professionals to develop their leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

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If ethics were cut and dry, there wouldn’t be ethical dilemmas; we wouldn’t have to use our moral compasses. Unfortunately, life is a little more complicated than that. In the nonprofit sector in particular, there are various ethical and moral dilemmas that could creep in and bog down your goal to do more good.

At the AFP Mid-America Conference on Fundraising, Robbe Healey spoke to seven ethical dilemmas nonprofits will face. Healey is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Ethics Committee, Vice President for Philanthropy for Simpson Senior Services and Founding Member of Aurora Philanthropic Consulting. Healey has worked in philanthropic fundraising and nonprofit management for more than 35 years.

The number one reason donors said they don’t give is because they don’t trust the sector. Choosing the right path could help change that perception. Let’s take back the trust that good organizations deserve by brushing up on the top ethical dilemmas facing the sector.

1. Tainted Money

A nonprofit can’t turn away money, right? After all, any gift helps you get one step closer to your mission. But the truth is that not all gifts are created equal. It’s a difficult situation when somebody is trying to offer money that may have a conflict of interest.

For example, you wouldn’t accept money that has been stolen or embezzled. You might think twice before accepting money if it were coming from somebody who goes against everything your mission stands for. Always consider where the money is coming from and whether there would be a conflict of interest because of your mission.

2. Compensation

Never, and we mean never, connect the amount of funds raised to compensation. The motivation for fundraisers should be to help further the mission, not to make more money. Instead, the focus should be on building and nurturing relationships with current and prospective donors. Don’t make personal gain the driving force.

3. Privacy

Privacy is important. Only keep the information that is necessary for your donors. Never get more than you need or use it for anything other than what you told donors you’d use it for. Be especially mindful of lists that you collect for email marketing pieces and more. Make sure the opt-in option is clear and that unsubscribe options are accessible. A small number of unsubscribers won’t hurt as much as mistrust from your entire audience.

Furthermore, make sure your information is stored safely and securely. If your nonprofit uses the Google Suite, make sure personal and sensitive information is housed somewhere else. Having an understanding of basic cybersecurity best practices will help you avoid potential dilemmas.

4. Appearance of Impropriety

Sure, it’s not illegal; but that doesn’t make it right. There are various activities you’ll need to be aware of that could come across to your constituents as shady even if they aren’t considered illegal. For example, AFP lists the example of a fundraiser directly benefiting from a benefactor’s estate gift. While not illegal, the sector would look down upon ethical dilemmas like this type of behavior. Be wary of certain situations that might be perceived in the wrong way.

5. Stewardship

Donors want to know that you’re using the funds for what you said you’d use them for. Don’t promise donors one thing and then turn around and use the funds for something else. If you must change the usage of your funds, check with the donor first and abide by their wishes. Sometimes donors have certain requests for estate gifts following their passing, in which case it’s critical to use the gift appropriately. When you do what you say, your supporters will appreciate the honesty and be more likely to continue giving.

6. Honesty

Remember what you learned as a kid—honesty involves telling the whole truth. That means leaving out specific details will inevitably blow up in your face (we’ve all been there). Tell the whole truth to your staff, donors and constituents, and nothing but the truth. Honesty goes a long way.

7. Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest could arise from multiple aspects of your organization. It could involve financials or the interests of members on your board. Be aware of situations where someone has more at stake than the best intentions of the organization. Do what you can to avoid conflicts of interest and maintain a credible reputation for your organization.

Remember, ethics require always listening to your moral compass; not just when it’s convenient for your organization. Not all ethical dilemmas will be apparent and some will be harder than ever. If you have ethical dilemmas you aren’t sure how to handle, seek outside guidance from somebody who can give an unbiased opinion. Also, check out the Code of Ethical Standards from AFP.

*Originally published May 2016

The post 7 Ethical Dilemmas Facing Nonprofit Organizations [Updated] appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Did you also know that 49% of nonprofit employees expect cost cuts this year and 54% of nonprofit leaders have implemented changes to organizational goals and activities? 

Now more than ever, it’s vital for nonprofits to diversify their funding sources. If your nonprofit doesn’t have a diversified funding strategy, you leave yourself vulnerable when a major source of funding dries up. 

That’s where the power of grants can come in. In this blog post, we’ll first explore why grants are important to nonprofits. We’ll then cover what challenges nonprofits often face seeking grants and what steps a nonprofit can take to start pursuing grants before wrapping up with five tips to start or continue to scale your grantseeking efforts. Let’s dig in!

Why grants are important to nonprofits

Grants can be a great way to diversify your nonprofit’s revenue. This is because grants are useful for a variety of funding opportunities. Whether you’re looking to bolster your education or outreach efforts, or find support for general operating expenses, grants are invaluable. Those 87,000+ grantmaking foundations have to give every year. 

In fact, foundations must give 5% of the average market value of their net investment assets every year—meaning there is grant money out there for your nonprofit. 

What challenges do nonprofits face seeking grants? 

The challenge that nonprofits face, though, is not knowing how to find the good fit grants that can support their programs and initiatives. That’s where knowing what data to dig into is important. If you knew exactly what free and paid resources are out there, you’d be able to more easily pinpoint the 5-10 opportunities that are worth your nonprofit’s limited time. 

Many nonprofits also don’t have a system of steps they can use to get to the point of regularly submitting grants. They often resort to either tasking an ill-equipped staff member or intern to submit a grant proposal when that person has limited experience understanding the grantseeking process. Or, nonprofits will spend several thousand dollars hiring a grantwriting consultant and experience mixed results (where they fail to secure a grant). They might even win grants but don’t fully understand exactly what their consultant has done for them. This leaves them again without a system to scale their grantseeking efforts.

What steps can a nonprofit take to prepare for grants? 

There are five simple steps you can take to prepare your nonprofit for grants:

1. Make sure you’re discoverable.
2. Ask for your board or community’s help.
3. Strategically outline your funding strategy.
4. Think of your programs in projects.
5. Adopt a decision-making framework.

Step 1: Make sure you’re discoverable.

Making sure you’re discoverable can be as simple as ensuring your nonprofit’s website is up-to-date. Be sure to feature your mission and vision statements, impact on your community, and contact information. A question to ask yourself when you visit your nonprofit’s site is, “Can I easily understand what my organization’s purpose is and is it easy to measure the impact it has had on our community?” 

If you cannot answer this question within a minute of visiting your site, it’s time to update your site to communicate that more directly. For inspiration, it can be helpful to peruse the websites of similar organizations in your community. Perhaps you could also look at nearby states that serve similar populations to those you serve. This way, you can get a feel for how organizations with aligned missions position themselves towards funders. 

Step 2: Ask for your board or community’s help.

Asking for your board or community’s help can mean taking a list of grant opportunities and seeing whether or not someone connected to your organization already has a relationship and can introduce you to that funder. A great way to do this in combination with your grant prospecting workflow is to use your favorite grant prospecting tool. Identify 5-10 good fit opportunities by reviewing the funder’s 990 report, and then generate a report from that tool to review at your next board meeting. Not every grant tool can do this, but you may find ones that are helpful in this regard.

Step 3: Strategically outline your funding strategy.

How can you strategically outline your funding strategy? Take time out of your week to call a team meeting and asking questions. What are our goals for individual giving vs. grants this year? What percentage of funding do we want to target coming from private foundations vs. federal or corporate opportunities? 

Beyond just setting funding goals for the year, you may find it valuable to leverage the SOAR Model to better plan your nonprofit’s priorities. The SOAR Model comes from the Libraries of the University of Missouri and focuses on reviewing your organization’s strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results.

The key question to answer when reviewing your strengths is what can your organization build on? When answering the question on opportunities, you must be able to comprehensively answer what are our stakeholders asking for? Addressing your aspirations is all about what it is that you all care deeply about. And lastly, results are about answering how you know your nonprofit is succeeding.

Schedule a team meeting with your organization to run through the SOAR Model more in-depth. This reflection should help ground you. Then, update any previous fundraising goals and start implementing and tracking your outcomes.

Step 4: Think of your programs in terms of projects.

Thinking about your programs as projects can also make a big difference in your grant proposal. Often, nonprofits write about their programs, which are ongoing initiatives that help them fulfill their organization’s mission. However, they’d benefit from instead positioning their programs as projects. 

The distinction is that projects have more finality in since they are usually associated with outcomes. When you position your programs as projects, you make your proposals more fundable. This is because funders can understand exactly what you are doing, and how you are measuring your impact before and after they fund you. 

Projects are typically shorter-term initiatives with clear outcomes that ultimately help your nonprofit fulfill its mission. 

Step 5: Adopt a decision-making framework.

Lastly, adopting a decision-making framework means finding a logic model or decision making matrix that works for you. For example, you may decide to adopt a weighted rubric where you consider different factors relevant to your nonprofit. 

Your criteria in this case might include but not be limited to: what percentage of grantees for a foundation were new vs. returning, if the grant proposal process is easy or if it requires multiple team members’ time, the strenuousness of the reporting in the case a grant is awarded, or what areas of impact this funder traditionally funds most and if it aligns with your organization.

After you’ve created your first take on your decision-making framework, you’ll want to run your last two or three grant proposals through that framework. The key question to be asking yourself is whether or not your organization should have pursued that grant if you had used the framework at the time you applied for the grant. 

Once you’ve run your initial framework through this stress test, you can adjust your framework as you and your nonprofit team deem fit until it is well calibrated to your organization. You’ll know when you’re there when the framework has helped you clearly decide go and no-go situations that mirror the consensus of your grantwriting teams. 

What are some grant writing tips to help nonprofits scale their grantseeking process? 

Nonprofits who see the most success with grants are able to achieve their results because they develop a system. They know that if they apply to a certain number of grants, their win rate should amount to a certain number of dollars. They also know what their renewal odds are for grants, meaning they can forecast and set clear goals looking ahead of their current funding year. 

Here are a few grant writing tips to help your nonprofit start to develop a system for grantseeking:

Tip #1: Assess your grantwriting team’s tooling.

Too often, grant writing teams have a disjointed workflow. They use one tool for grant prospecting, another tool for grant deadline reminders, and another tool for grant management. This can ultimately lead to more busywork rather than productivity.

Calling a team meeting and considering what tools are truly meeting the needs of your nonprofit and which ones are creating more busywork can be helpful. Furthermore, exploring alternative workflows that help consolidate tool use can streamline your process. Some grant tools help you bring grant prospecting, tracking and management to one place. 

Tip #2: Assign clear responsibilities before, during and after a grant proposal is submitted.

Make sure your team members know their roles and responsibilities in getting a grant proposal past the finish line. Sometimes smaller organizations bottleneck everything to their Executive Director, but this does not scale. It is far more efficient to list out all of the common things that must be done for a grant proposal and then divide and conquer.

For example, when it comes to preparing the budget, one person or a dedicated team should be responsible for that portion of the proposal. If you cannot clearly answer who you go to for a certain part of your grant process, stop working on your proposal. Instead, focus on improving your distribution of responsibilities. 

Tip #3: Create and document your grantseeking SOP. 

Systems run on clear steps. This means that specific inputs should lead to key outputs. If it’s unclear what your organization’s process is for applying for a grant, then it’s time to sit down and document each step. 

From here, you should be able to know the things you do before you submit a grant application, the steps you take when submitting, and the procedure you take when dealing with grant reporting. This is where tooling like an Asana, Clickup or Instrumentl can be helpful. You can then set up tasks for your team based on where you’re at in the grant writing process. 

Every quarter, review your process and update to account for any hiccups that happened during the grant proposals you submitted over the course of the quarter.

Tip #4: Dig into the funder 990s to identify good fit funders for grants.

Too often, nonprofits have no idea what to do when it comes to identifying good fit funders.

Form 990s are rich with data. If you’re looking to do this for free, you might access a site like ProPublica and review the 990 PDFs for similar organizations to yours, common grant award amounts, or key people to potentially contact. If you’re using a more sophisticated grant tool, you should dig into the funder profile to review what percentage of grantees were new vs. returning, what the average or median grant amounts were, or what the most common areas of giving were. 

Some grant tools have advanced data insights to help you identify good fit funders. 

Tip #5: Pick up the phone and call the funder before you apply. 

Grant writing isn’t as complicated as you might think. Before you start working on a proposal, you should try to pick up the phone and call the funder to learn more about the funding opportunity. If the funder doesn’t pick up, send them an email. In today’s day and age, nonprofits are quick to invest their limited bandwidth on opportunities where they frankly didn’t have much of a winning chance to begin with. The goal here is to see what information you can collect before you put your “pen to paper.” 

The Wrap Up: How to Win More Grants for Your Nonprofit (for Beginners)

If you want to win more grants, you need to invest in your grant efforts. 

Grants are not a “set it and forget it” funding channel. It’s usually best for nonprofits not to pursue grants until they are at least at $90,000 in operating revenue and have formal 501c3 status. It’s also helpful to have sufficient bandwidth to work on grants before you start your grantseeking efforts.

By now, though, you should have what it takes to get started. In the case where you’d like to learn more about how to win more grants, be sure to check out the recorded webinar on How to Go from Zero to Hero with Your Grant Strategy, a Nonprofit Hub and Instrumentl collaboration. 

About the Author

Will Yang leads growth at Instrumentl, the institutional fundraising platform. Instrumentl brings grant prospecting, tracking and management to one place. Nonprofits that use Instrumentl apply to 78% more grants within a year of adopting it and are able to find more good fit grants for their organizations. If interested, check out Instrumentl’s Nonprofit Hub member’s only offer to save on an annual subscription.

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Let’s take a look at some common beliefs that nonprofit leaders may have. No shame or judgment is intended with any of these as we all exhibit some aspect of at least one or two of them. The good news is that the key to limitless potential is removing the roadblocks.

Limiting Belief #1: My Four and No More (aka An Insularity Complex)

An old saying notoriously used around churches is “my four and no more!” meaning that an organization or church would only support what happens inside its own four walls. While it’s rare to find this mentality in modern churches or nonprofits, it’s not uncommon to identify communities that have insular practices. Insular communities network, collaborate and seek education. However, they tend to do so only within the confines of their community boundaries.

While this may be convenient and cultivate strong relationships and connections, it doesn’t foster ingenuity or expand understanding like connecting with new individuals and organizations does. In order to keep growing, we need the fresh ideas and experiences that only come with being exposed to new perspectives and solutions. Who knows? That problem your nonprofit has been trying to solve in your community may be a thing of the past for another organization that is closely aligned in mission, but thousands of miles away. The good news is that with today’s technology and professional associations (like Cause Network!), you can connect and learn from those outside your community boundaries. 

Limiting Belief #2: Frugality is a Virtue

In an interview for a previous ED position, I was asked to provide an example of how I demonstrated “extreme frugality.” This was back in the days of coupon-clipping, and while I momentarily pondered that as a response, I knew it was not “extreme ” enough for the interviewing board members. Ultimately, I shared that my husband (not me) reuses Ziplock sandwich bags on occasion…you know, if the contents are not wet or crummy. As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt my face go flush and I began to sweat. Perhaps that was an overshare? Thankfully, the individuals conducting the interview nodded in approval and delight. The entire episode also sent a clear message about the culture of the organization: frugality ruled.

I entered a leadership position where one day I could be at a speaking engagement or meeting with a top donor and the next I was plunging a toilet or painting because we couldn’t hire help. My capacity—what little there was—became equivalent to capability from the board’s perspective. Why hire costly expertise or outside help when things were getting done? If anything, we simply needed to bring in more volunteer help. Or, maybe an intern or two?

As I write this, I can sense some nonprofit leaders nodding their heads in understanding. This is not an uncommon story. Too often, we’re prioritizing frugality over excellence. Doing more with less should not equate to doing more work with less impact. Let’s let the frugality myth go and stop limiting our potential in order to preserve a budget. 

Limiting Belief #3: I Know Everything I Need to Know (aka Know-it-All Syndrome)

As arrogant as it sounds, it’s not uncommon for nonprofit leaders to feel their expertise surpasses that of their peers or outside experts. Often, when a leader has founded an organization or experienced great success while leading it, they feel they’ve somehow “arrived” in terms of nonprofit sector superiority. The idea of a mentorship, webinar, or investment in a conference is dubbed a waste of time or money unless they’re the one teaching or mentoring. Unfortunately, settling for what you know or what you’ve experienced before is a very limiting behavior. When you place yourself above learning from others—be it through formal training or casual conversation—you shut off a channel for inspiration and stimulation. Eventually, ruminating on your own success and ideas will get boring…for you and for those you are already familiar.

No matter how much you’ve done, what degrees you’ve earned or what achievements you’ve reached, there is more to learn. Some of the brightest, happiest, and most engaged nonprofit leaders and professionals are the ones who regularly challenge themselves with new perspectives and areas of knowledge. Stuck on a problem? Feeling sluggish in your decision making? Switch gears and learn about another area that can help your work. Do one webinar a week. Read a book. Join a peer network. Intellectual stimulation is needed no matter how brilliant you are. Often, a simple shift of focus can refresh your mind and supercharge your problem solving. 

Limiting Belief #4: We’re Too Small/I’m Too New

The formative years of a nonprofit organization or a nonprofit career are hard. If it feels like every organization is ahead of you or everyone is more experienced, well, they probably are. Hang in there. Unlike the frugality we covered earlier, being new actually is a virtue. You’ll receive more grace, have unique opportunities, and probably get way more excited about things than your senior counterparts. Enjoy it! Do not let your newness or current size limit the plans or aspirations you have for your career or your cause. Switch your perspective and your narrative: 

Want to go for a big grant? Present yourself as the humble but worthy underdog. 

Meeting with an intimidating major donor? Ask them for their mentorship and expertise, and trust that their financial support will follow.

Nervous to launch a new program? Ask a foundation or peer organization to partner with you on a pilot version first. 

Being new or small is not limiting—it’s a launching pad. 

Limiting Belief #5: I’m Not Good Enough 

The first time I heard the term “imposter syndrome,” I was dumbfounded that someone else felt like I did. As the term caught fire on nearly every blog and talk show around the world, I realized everyone must feel this way at some point. It’s the idea that if our team members, donors, board members, or anyone really knew us, they’d flee. The idea that we’re “not good enough” to fill the role we’re in now or aspire to be is a bogus lie that’s now widespread. It has to stop. 

Don’t get me wrong…you have to work for your position and any success that follows, but you don’t need to become worthy to do that work. You are worthy by being human! Your cause is worthy because you believe in it. Never let someone else’s perception of your potential limit what you do. 

Years ago, I attempted to pursue a grant that my predecessor failed to win despite applying several times. The grant was a beast: a year-long process, hundreds of pages, and countless requirements, but the prize was significant. It would change the lives of the individuals served by the organization I was leading. When I expressed to the board that I wished to pursue the grant, the response was cutting: “Why do you think you’ll win when your predecessor didn’t?” Instantly, I felt inferior…an imposter in the boardroom. Thankfully, I had far more encouraging mentors in my life who pushed me to go for it. I did, and the organization won the top grant prize in the nation. What if I had let the board’s limiting belief or my own feelings of inadequacy dictate my actions? 

The Possibilities Are Limitless

Whatever limiting beliefs you have, do your best to reshape your thinking. You’re working in a sector that has constraints unlike any other, but it also has more heart and potential than any other. We can’t afford to carry limiting beliefs into a career with unlimited possibilities.

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