Planned gifts are quite literally what they sound like. Well…sort of. The term simply means that somebody has planned to give a gift to an organization at a later date, often after their passing.

Most often, cash (or money in general) probably comes to mind. However, there are a variety of types of planned gifts instead of cash, including:

• Life insurance
• Personal property
• Other real estate
• Retirement plans

Should I be focusing on planned gifts?

Chances are, you probably aren’t putting enough emphasis into your planned giving strategy. If we put 100 fundraisers in a room and asked who felt their organization was putting too many resources toward planned giving, there might be a few hands.

As with everything in life, you should ask yourself, How important is it? In this case, the “it” refers to the portion of planned giving dollars in relation to your overall fundraising goal.

Things that are important deserve your time, effort and attention. Although fundraising is driven by the compassion of your donors, that compassion is cultivated through your time, effort and attention to each donor. See how it comes full circle? It’s a numbers game.

If your organization places enough emphasis on planned giving, you may already have a program in place with different levels of giving options. If so, well done. Make sure to constantly be challenging your processes and asking if what you’re doing is effective.

How should I honor planned gifts after they’ve been secured?

The answer here is the same way you treat all of your other donors. After a planned gift commitment, you still have time to honor the donor and treat them like family. It’s important to show your appreciation in any way possible with the time you have.

Or, if the person who is giving the planned gift has already passed, that doesn’t mean your job is over. There are still family members that will carry on the legacy and you have the opportunity to make them feel like part of your organization’s family.

Invite those surviving the late donor into your organization and treat them like donors themselves. Express your genuine gratitude toward them and convey the impact that the planned gift has had on your organization. Then, keep them up-to-date on how those wishes or plans are being carried out.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Planned Gifts appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Ask the right questions

When it comes to feedback, it’s quality over quantity every time. If you don’t need to know about it, then don’t ask. Make sure every question is useful in some way, and phrase them to ask exactly what you need.
You should be able to back up every question in your feedback survey and explain why it’s necessary. You can use this acronym, LAVA, to make sure your questions will deliver results. Ask yourself, is the answer to this question offering:

• L — A new look at your audience’s opinions that you haven’t considered before?

• A — An opportunity to advance something you’re already doing?

• V — Value to your organization? Can these answers be turned into revenue?

• A — Inspiration for future action?

Not every question will be a grand slam and meet all of these criteria, but shooting for at least one of these guidelines per question will keep your surveys densely impactful.

Show your good side

Presentation matters. If you’re using a third-party provider to create and send your survey then you won’t have too much control over its look and feel. You can take other steps, though, to ensure your survey starts off on the right foot.
Go with the flow. Take a few tips from successful landing pages by giving the elements of your survey the right flow. Don’t ask too much of your survey visitors too early. Put things in a logical order and keep related questions next to each other.
Have the right attitude. Avoid phrasing questions with a bias toward your nonprofit. Asking unbiased questions will get you the most helpful results.
Don’t take definitions for granted. If you reference a specific person, event or idea, don’t expect that people will automatically know what it is—briefly explain before you ask about it. The same goes for words that might have a double meaning or be interpreted in different ways.
Respect their time. Less is more, so avoid long-winded questions and limit the amount of open-ended questions you include. Your survey shouldn’t take more than five to ten minutes to complete.

Keep it simple

Sometimes keeping it simple is more difficult than doing the opposite. Now is not the time to spout off oodles of nonprofit knowledge, though. A clear and concise survey will deliver the most useful outcome.
Keep things simple and direct. Just ask one question at a time. For example, instead of asking, “Was our presentation useful and interesting?” split it into separate parts. People can’t answer more than one thing at once, especially if they’re filling in a bubble or rating something on a scale.
Bad: “Was our presentation useful and interesting?”
Better: “Was our presentation useful?” and “Was our presentation interesting?”
Avoid unfamiliar questions and words. Shy away from any nonprofit jargon that you use often. If a survey visitor is confused about a question, they’re not going to shoot you an email and wait for you to clarify—they’re just going to skip over the question. Especially if it’s an optional, open-ended call for feedback.
Bad: “Do you have any suggestions for how we can better move the needle?”
Better: “Do you have any suggestions for how our volunteer outreach program can keep you more informed?”
Use time references. If your question is too vague, then it won’t provide a helpful result. Take the example below: your visitor may have extensive volunteer experience, but that experience might have taken place when they were twelve. Probably not what you’re looking for.
Bad: “Have you volunteered before?”
Better: “How many times would you estimate you volunteered in the last year?”

Take a step back

Once your survey is finished, it’s time to take a second look. You have the general skeleton; now it’s time to excavate each piece just a little further. Look at each question on its own and ask if it’s providing what you need. Is it helping you fulfill your end goal?
While you’re looking at questions with a critical eye, weed out the “nice to know” and even the “interesting to know” from the “valuable to know.” Look for things that (1) yield a deeper understanding, (2) give context on an issue and (3) provide insight into a blurry area. Ensure that even simple questions like, “What’s your age?” are essential to the information you’re searching for.

Now that you’ve got your questions pruned and ready for the taking, your survey should be ready for sending, right? Not so fast. Awesome questions make for a great feedback survey, but testing takes it to the next level.
Testing doesn’t have to be a big shebang, either. Ask someone else in your space to go through and note if they see any red flags. If you’re the only person developing a survey, you might overlook some things in the process. Getting a different perspective on your work lets you know what you’re missing that other people see.

Originally published 1.31.17 — Updated 1.30.18

The post How to Get the Most From Feedback Surveys appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

When you take away all the bells and whistles, you end up with the foundation of your blog: the content. Your blog is going to have an awfully hard time being exceptional if its content is a flop.

Much like training prepares a runner for their big race, taking time to prepare beforehand will set your blog up for success. Here are some ways to ready your blog’s best material.

Tee it Up

Start off by taking note of your resources. What do you have in terms of information, manpower and networks? Those will determine where you get your inspiration, how much you can create and how it’ll spread. When you take time for this you’ll uncover your assets and the places you’re better off shying away from.

Once you’ve decided on your “thing,” ask yourself what value it’s providing to your readers. Is it primarily educational, or are you using it as a platform to share stories? This will give you a better idea of how to create and shape the content that’s to come.

Beef it Up

Once your blog has a function, you can brainstorm what it needs to include. Create a list of topics related to your nonprofit and some potential places to find new topics. You can hit the ground running if you know what you’re looking for.

Take the Nonprofit Hub site: we built it as an educational resource for nonprofits and other organizations. Within that, we developed expertise in areas like fundraising, donor retention, social media and more. We focused on research, expert opinions and our own experience to generate regular content in those areas.

In a rut for coming up with categories? Think about how you can incorporate these things into your blog:

• Sharing stories of your nonprofit’s successes and failures.
• Analyzing case studies. How can they apply to you and your blog’s audience?
• Inviting guests to write posts for your blog.
• Digging deeper into previous ideas—find something factual and go further than the original author.

Split it Up

Easy-to-read content means engaging content. A big block of text is like a brick wall—it’s not too fun to look at, and it’s just about as hard to get through. Don’t make readers trudge through what you’re saying. One of the easiest ways to spice up your content is by breaking it up. There are lots of ways to do that.

• Start off with a bang. A fascinating introduction can make or break your blog posts. If readers hit snooze from the get-go, then they’ll move on to the next best thing.
• Add some visuals. A picture says a thousand words, and it takes a fraction of the time to digest. A few carefully-picked photos can go a long way.
• Captivate with headlines. Headlines are another great way to split up your content. They’re like milestones throughout your post, and they can give readers an overview of what’s to come.
• Make a list. If you’re looking to lighten your load, then a list is just the thing. They can consolidate heavy paragraphs into something more understandable, and they remove the added responsibility of coming up with transitions.

Each of these items has a profound impact on the way that readers take in your content. Each post is a little like a work of art—the more people like looking at it, the longer they’ll stay to admire it. Each feature takes just a little extra formatting and thought, so make the effort—the blogosphere will thank you for it.

Keep it Up

Now that you’ve got a foundation for building your blog, you can add a few bells and whistles to help it go the extra mile. Design and search engine optimization are both elements that take blogs to the next level, but don’t forget why you created your blog in the first place. Content comes first, then the frills. Make sure you’ve got the basics down pat before you start tackling a whole new beast.

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Behind every great blog is great content. Before anything else, think long and hard about what type of content you want to provide, how you can produce it and what it will add to your organization. Preparing great content will set you up for success long past the starting line.

Originally published 10.26.16—Updated 11.14.17

The post Four Steps to Writing the Best Content on your Nonprofit Blog appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Maeve Strathy is a Fundraising Strategist for Blakely and the creator of her own fundraising blog, What Gives Philanthropy. With ample experience under her belt, Strathy has figured out a key to successful donor retention strategies in the nonprofit sector.

“It’s, in a nutshell, about focusing on the needs of the donor before the needs of your organization,” Strathy said. That means that your decisions shouldn’t simply revolve around what’s most cost-effective. First and foremost, you should do what benefits your donors, Strathy said. Having a “put donors first” mindset will do a lot for your fundraising—they’ll put you first, too.

With that in mind, Strathy shared some helpful tips with us on how to give donors priority when developing an effective retention strategy.

Add Some Personality

You should be having one-on-one communication with your donors as much as you can. Strathy said that nonprofits should make a point to call at least one donor every day. Personal touches with donor interactions are immensely worthwhile. It’s not only meaningful, but it does wonders for donor retention.

For major donors, you have to opportunity to get creative. Strathy explained an instance where she was working on thanking a major donor who didn’t like events. Instead, the team put together a scrapbook of different ways the donor had helped the organization. “It took time and resources, but it’s what the donor really wanted,” she said.

Embrace Complaints

One of your biggest donor obstacles is posed when donors are less than impressed with your organization. How do you overcome it? Do you pursue those dissatisfied donors, or do you move on and set your sights somewhere else?

Strathy had some great insight on how to handle dissatisfied donors. “You want to pay a lot of attention to those people who call you, even if it’s to complain,” she said. “They want to be acknowledged, heard and they want you to listen.”

Despite coming from a place of complaint, dissatisfied donors hold a lot of importance for you and your nonprofit. If one of your donors has had something bad happen to them and they make the effort to tell you about it, it shows how invested they are in your organization. So what’s the next step? Here are some of Strathy’s tips on managing discontent:

1. Start out by listening; hear out their complaints.
2. Make a point to apologize on behalf of your organization.
3. Take this as an opportunity to further engage this donor—figure out what has gone wrong and consult them about how you can fix it.

Show Some Gratitude

You can never go wrong with showing a little gratitude. Make sure donors know how important they are—you can’t do your work without them. “Let your donors know how critical they are to your success,” Strathy said.

For Strathy, handwritten notes are one of the best ways for nonprofits to thank their donors. No matter their length, hand-written notes are a simple way to express sincere and authentic gratitude to your contributors.

“The key is to write for them,” Strathy said. When you’re writing thank-yous on behalf of an institution, it’s easy for your voice to end up sounding extra professional. Instead, Strathy advises to maintain personality in your writing. “Imagine writing your grandma a letter; you wouldn’t write it the same.” Being authentic goes a long way for donors. It forms more genuine connections with your audience, which will pave the way for longer-lasting donor relationships.

Originally published 3.31.16—Updated 10.13.17

The post Tips to Successful Fundraising: Put Donors First appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

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In order to pick and choose strategies that are right for your nonprofit, it’s easiest to start by looking at the big picture. In this nonprofit marketing roundup, we assembled the best of our nonprofit marketing advice, going from a broad view all the way down to the nitty-gritty details.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Nonprofit Marketing appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

In celebration of National Volunteer Week, we compiled our top five tips to motivate your volunteers and keep them coming back. Feel free to download these graphics and share them on your own social media!

Say Thank You

The most effective way to pave the way for a long-term volunteer relationship is to show your gratitude and say thank you. It’s simple and oh, so effective. Saying thank you doesn’t always have to look the same, either. Some things you can do to thank your volunteers include showing them the bigger picture if they’re working on mundane tasks, feeding them (because who doesn’t love free food?) or publicly thanking them on social media. I’ve even seen organizations host award shows for volunteers, rewarding them for everything from “Hardest Worker” to “Best Shoes.”

Build a Community

Everyone loves to be included, and your volunteers aren’t any different. Build a community and invite them into that community. It will help volunteers feel both appreciated and a part of something, rather than volunteering for a few hours and moving on with their life. Building communities will also help your organization create a tribe and deepen relationships with your supporters.

Equip and Train

If you don’t give volunteers the right tools and training to be successful at the task you give them, it will leave volunteers feeling like they’ve failed and frustrated. Equipping volunteers with the right tools—whether they’re actual, physical tools or software—will help you get the level of work your organization needs to thrive. It’ll help volunteers feel like they accomplished something and did their job well, too. Plus, you’ll get a higher quality of work on the back end.

Respect Their Time

It’s in the name: volunteers are volunteering their time and talents. No one is making them volunteer (usually). Making a point to set time parameters for specific tasks will help a volunteer know what to expect before going into a volunteer task. Sticking to that time frame will build trust and respect in the eyes of your volunteer, which will help them feel comfortable coming back and volunteering for you again.

Show Their Impact

I recently spoke with a friend about this, and one of the most frustrating things they’ve dealt with as a volunteer was spending five straight days in another city helping out with disaster relief. They helped rebuild a house that was destroyed by a tornado, but never got to see the end result. To this day, they wonder if the 40 hours of work that week was worth it, or if it really made a difference to the end goal. Keep volunteers around and help them feel appreciated by showing the part they played in the impact your organization strives for.

Volunteer recruitment and retention isn’t an exact science. It’s a relationship and a friendship you’re constantly building and maintaining with supporters, but these tips are a great place to start. A volunteer is one of the most “bought-in” supporters of your organization, so letting them know how important their work is, thanking them and building communities around your cause are key in getting reliable volunteers. Respecting your volunteers and their time will help to keep them coming back. Giving them the right tools and training to be successful not only benefits your volunteers, but also increases the quality of work you’re receiving.

The post Top Five Tips from National Volunteer Week appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Finding a good volunteer is like finding buried treasure. It’s not always so easy to get to where X marks the spot, but it’s certainly worth the work.

Volunteers are valuable in themselves, but keep in mind that a committed volunteer could mean a committed donor, too! Either way, their commitment to your nonprofit is key. To keep that commitment alive, we have some tips for keeping your volunteers motivated and coming back time after time.

Say Thanks

Whenever you thank your volunteers, always be sure that you’re showing honest and genuine appreciation. By showing them how much their work means to you, you can pave the way for a long-term relationship.

There are many different ways to say thanks. At the very least, acknowledge them when you see them in person, whether that’s in your workspace or while you’re out and about. Handwritten thank-you notes are another valuable approach. Whatever you do, make sure to follow up their volunteer experience with some words of gratitude. Retaining a volunteer is similar to retaining a donor in this way. By saying thank you, you’ll gain loyal supporters for the long run.

Build a Community

Invite volunteers to join your nonprofit community! Get to know them and make them feel welcome. A neglected volunteer won’t come back, but social connections will keep volunteers tied to your organization and your cause.

Food is always a great option for getting your community together. Organize a social for your volunteers or have a bite to eat before they get to work on a project. While you’re sharing a meal, you can get to know one another and ask for feedback in person. A few boxes of pizza can go a long way. If you’re looking for a new way to feed a big crowd, the farm families of Cabot Creamery have an easy-to-make mac and cheese for your next gathering. The recipe is often served on their Farmers’ Gratitude Grille. Try it out!

Volunteers don’t just have to find community inside of your organization—they can find some outside of it, too. The Reward Volunteers program helps new volunteers get connected with your current ones and engage with others in your community. You can also list your nonprofit’s volunteer opportunities there to spread your volunteer community even further.

Equip Them

Communication is key, especially with new volunteers. Having an open-door policy helps your volunteers do their best work and feel comfortable asking questions. Even if it’s not often, try to communicate with them before and after they volunteer, and allow them to do the same. It might add a few extra emails to your plate, but it’ll help things run smoothly once they’re in the door and ready for action.

Once they’ve arrived to volunteer, introduce them to the people in your space. Make time for a quick hello from some staff members, your executive director and other volunteers before they hit the ground running.

When you’re ready to get started, explain their task in detail and demonstrate it if necessary. Stick around for a while to be present for questions that might come up, and make yourself available if any other issues arise. Don’t be afraid to give your volunteers a challenging job either! It might take some extra time on the front end, but giving them significant work will make them want to come back again. Sealing envelopes won’t.

Respect Their Time

Don’t invite a volunteer in until you have something for them to do. Letting a volunteer sit around is a waste of your time and theirs. They’re making themselves available for free, so take full advantage of their help while they’re available.

It’s important to keep in mind that volunteers aren’t your full-time employees. Be considerate and accommodating of their schedules. Be up front about communicating your needs, too. Share how long a task will take, when it’ll be available and when it needs to be done. Providing alternate opportunities is also a great option—it includes your volunteers that have tight schedules but still want to give their time.

Show Impact

Volunteers love seeing the impact their work has made. You can easily do that by giving them a shout-out on social media. Snap a few photos and show some volunteer appreciation to your followers.

Try to brainstorm some other ways to spread the volunteer love! Fill volunteers in on your nonprofit’s goals, or let them know how they helped in a personal email or a community newsletter.

You can also recognize volunteers by rewarding them for their effort. There are lots of creative ways to repay them without having to empty your piggy bank. You can encourage your volunteers to track their hours on Reward Volunteers to earn rewards for their service. By logging their time, volunteers can score prizes for themselves and win money for the nonprofit they serve! Your nonprofit can also get detailed reports on the hours your volunteers are contributing.

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Volunteers are a crucial part of your community, so don’t let them go by the wayside! They’re giving their time to your nonprofit. You should give something in return.

Keeping your volunteers motivated shows them that you care. That can be done in a lot of ways, like saying thank you, equipping them for meaningful work and inviting them to be a part of your community. By doing even the little things, you’ll keep your volunteers coming back time and time again.

Reward Volunteers is a free, easy way to track the time you spend volunteering. By logging time and sharing it via Facebook, volunteers can win prizes from companies that are committed to rewarding folks who give back to their communities. The more time logged and the more likes and comments a volunteer receives, the more chances they have to win prizes for themselves and the organizations they serve.

Nonprofits can also create accounts, list opportunities, schedule volunteers and track their hours. Reward Volunteers can connect to any volunteer management system and track volunteer hours for sponsors, prize donors and employers. Try it out!

The program was developed by the farm families who own Cabot Creamery Co-operative. Cabot farmers are often the first to volunteer in their local communities and they seek to honor the important efforts of volunteers across the country.

The post Tips to Motivate Your Volunteers and Keep Them Coming Back appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

The impact of volunteerism can be felt in communities of all shapes and sizes. No matter the size of the community, though, the impact of volunteerism is always huge.

Wherever it occurs, volunteering exists to help others. But volunteerism’s best-kept secret is this: it’s good for you, too. We did some digging to find out all the reasons why volunteering rocks.

1. Boosts self esteem

Volunteering helps build a strong safety net for when you’re experiencing trying times. With those strong social ties, you’re always surrounded by a community that’s willing to help you out when times get tough. When you volunteer, you become a part of someone else’s safety net, too. By helping others, you’ll build a greater sense of trust and self esteem.

2. Expands your connections

The relationships you can create while volunteering are endless. You connect to others through volunteering, and if you do it regularly, you can maintain those valuable social networks into the future.

You can make new friends and keep the old by engaging in a common activity like volunteering. With a larger social network, you’ll have more resources at your fingertips, which leads to better physical, mental and emotional health.

3. Makes you feel good

If you’ve ever volunteered before, you’ve probably experienced this: volunteering makes you happy! Researchers at the London School of Economics found that people become happier by volunteering more. When you give your time to others, you attain a personal sense of accomplishment, which accounts for some of the positive effects that volunteering has on your mood.

There’s a threshold to reaping the full benefits of volunteering, though. In order to soak up all the positive effects of community service, you need to set aside some time for it. Volunteers who commit at least one or two hours every week reap the fullest benefits from their service.

4. Contributes to a longer life

Volunteering does more than boost your mood—it also has effects on your physical well-being. Volunteers encounter greater longevity and less frequency of heart disease. Volunteers may be at a lower risk for memory loss, too. The social interaction can significantly reduce the progress of Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. Happier and healthier life? Count me in.

5. Gives purpose

As people get older, they experience a higher risk for isolation. Volunteering combats that statistic by adding a sense of purpose to your life. The same goes for people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental illnesses. No matter who you are, there are plenty of ways to give your life new meaning by helping others.

6. Combats stress

Volunteering goes beyond just being something fun to do; it decreases stress, too. Studies on the “Happiness Effect” of volunteering show that you become happier the more you volunteer. When you assist others, your body releases dopamine in the brain, which has a positive effect on how you feel. Volunteers also experience lower levels of depression.

7. Gives a good example

Volunteering as a family is a great way to teach important lessons to your children. Kids are always learning from the example you set for them, so make sure it’s a good one! You can show the impact of volunteering through your actions. By giving back to the community, you can lay the foundation for service in the years to come.

Volunteering doesn’t just have to inspire kids, either! You can share your experiences through programs like Reward Volunteers, which lets you connect with other volunteers, find new opportunities and win prizes for your community service. Through sharing your service, you can inspire others. Bringing smiles to other volunteers will bring one to you, too.

8. Teaches new skills

Live a little! Volunteering gives you the opportunity to explore new skills and interests that you might not get to enjoy otherwise. You can broaden your horizons while helping others at the same time.

If you’re looking to change things up a little, you can also try out a new job or role without having to commit to something long-term. Volunteering gives you the inside scoop on how some organizations operate, and it can hook you up with some helpful references if you’re serious about making a job switch.

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From improving your physical well-being to boosting your mindset, volunteering does a world of good. Most times, you can see the impact of giving your time right off the bat.

If you haven’t gotten your start in volunteerism, there’s no time like the present. Don’t know where to begin? The Reward Volunteers Program can help with that. You can connect with others and find volunteer opportunities in your area, making your first step in to volunteering as easy as pie.

With all the health perks associated with volunteering, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t give it a shot. By helping improve your community, you’re also helping yourself. It’s a win-win! Once you get in the swing of things, you’ll be a happy and healthy volunteer in no time.

Reward Volunteers is a free, easy way to track the time you spend volunteering. By logging time and sharing it via Facebook, volunteers can win prizes from companies that are committed to rewarding folks who give back to their communities. The more time logged and the more likes and comments a volunteer receives, the more chances they have to win prizes for themselves and the organizations they serve.

Nonprofits can also create accounts, list opportunities, schedule volunteers and track their hours. Reward Volunteers can connect to any volunteer management system and track volunteer hours for sponsors, prize donors and employers. Try it out!

The program was developed by the farm families who own Cabot Creamery Co-operative. Cabot farmers are often the first to volunteer in their local communities and they seek to honor the important efforts of volunteers across the country.

The post 8 Long-Term Health Benefits of Volunteering appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Nonprofits exist to solve problems. The trouble is, we’re creating more problems for nonprofits than they’re able to solve. Right now, traditional approaches to charity aren’t doing the trick; they simply aren’t moving the needle. Social change is happening at the rate of molasses—we need to be dreaming bigger to create bigger impact. That starts with a shift in the way we think about charity.

Pallotta started off by looking at differences in leadership compensation. Nowadays, there’s an unspeakable gap between the salaries of for-profit and nonprofit CEOs. Instead, Pallotta said that charity leaders should be paid based on the value they’re producing.

As his talk went on, Pallotta continued to transform the way we think about charity. He told us that changes in the nonprofit sector can start with these five things:

Reward.

Nonprofits need to stop using money like it’s a crime. Instead, we should be using it to motivate our leaders! By investing in leadership, we can encourage big change.

Advertising and marketing.

Donors don’t want to give their money for advertising. They want to give it to a cause, but advertising only increases the reach and impact of your cause. Without more exposure, your pool of supporters will become stagnant.

Risk in pursuit of revenue.

Sometimes, it’s okay to fail. “If you prohibit failure, you kill innovation,” Pallotta said. Dreaming bigger comes with its risks, but it comes with massive payoffs, too.

Time.

Some programs and initiatives take a while to get off the ground. Nonprofits shouldn’t be too hasty in writing things off just to keep costs down. If you see potential, leave room for growth.

Profit to attract capital.

Earning revenue is a healthy practice for many nonprofits. We’re doing good for the world, but we also need to be doing good for ourselves.

After we ran through those points, Pallotta gave some compelling insight on overhead. Despite what many nonprofits convey, overhead on its own is a poor indicator of your impact. Nonprofits get stuck talking about overhead in terms of boring expenses and administrative costs, but overhead is also part of your cause. Nonprofit employees are overhead, too—and without us, there wouldn’t be anyone fighting for the cause. Nonprofits should stop looking at costs and start looking at the amount of good they’re doing instead. “Don’t ask if a charity has a low overhead,” Pallotta told us. “Ask if it has a big impact.”
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The people impacted by nonprofits don’t need low overhead, expenses or budgets. Instead, they need high performance and high impact. We can take the first step toward that by dreaming a little bigger. If you push the limits, you never know what great potential you might reach.

If you want to hear more from Dan Pallotta, make sure to check out our Hubcast episode and his two TED talks!

The post Cause Camp Highlight: The Way We Think About Charity is Wrong appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.