It’s always a great day when you find the cause you’re passionate about. Something that gets you fired up and wanting to make an impact in the community. Taking the initiative to actively work to improve that situation is even better.
More than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations are registered in the U.S., from public charities to private foundations (National Center for Charitable Statistics).
There are millions of nonprofit organizations in the world, all supporting various causes and working to improve situations, much like the cause you have in mind. Instead of starting your own nonprofit, though, it can be much more beneficial to find an organization supporting your cause, and fundraising, raising awareness and improving the situation alongside them.
About 62.6 million Americans age 16 and older volunteered through or for a nonprofit organization from September 2014 to September 2015, which is equivalent to 52 hours annually per person on average (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
When we combine our efforts as a community, imagine the bigger impact we can make! Not only would we be making fewer yet stronger organizations instead of more, weaker organizations, but we would also be able to combine efforts from volunteers as the competition between nonprofits fighting for the same causes begins to decrease. Supporting this cause is why Raising Help and the Good Dog Fund exist: to improve the lives of children and families in need by supporting nonprofit organizations, helping do-gooders do more good in the community.
Discover the services Raising Help offers nonprofits to assist their marketing efforts, from Strategy and Development to audience Engagement.
Learn more about Good Dog, and make a donation that will help support a local nonprofit.
After all, a stronger community is a better community.
Contact us for more information!
Your priority as a nonprofit organization is not social media. It’s not spending hours on blogging, or updating your website. It’s not spending time crafting beautifully designed graphics and brochures for your fundraising efforts. Your priority as a nonprofit is to accomplish your organization’s mission (be it fundraising, raising awareness, etc.) efficiently in order to focus your resources on the things that matter most.
Nonetheless, gaps are created between realizing you need some of these marketing and communications pieces in order to fulfill your mission.
And that’s where Raising Help comes in to play. We recognize your good deeds, your desire to prioritize your resources and your to-do lists, and we want to support your organization to strengthen our do-gooders in the community!
We offer a number of marketing services to nonprofits in the community so they can get back to impacting the lives of children and families. And that’s how we fulfill our mission of empowering your nonprofits with the talent and expertise needed to build a brand, raise awareness, foster meaningful change and enhance supporter engagement!
Contact us if your nonprofit could benefit from marketing and communications assistance.
To honor Childhood Obesity Awareness Month in September, we want to offer tips for nonprofits to stand by when raising awareness for national concerns. Topics such as childhood obesity can be sensitive areas for some people to discuss, so keep these tips in mind:
Adding emotion into the campaign can definitely strengthen any movement, but first and foremost, make sure your information is accurate and relevant. This will help to eliminate unnecessary backlash from critics.
Every nonprofit has a reason and a mission. Share your personal story to getting involved in the cause, and help people understand the importance to the issue.
Keep your messaging optimistic, focusing on the results your organization wishes to see instead of the origin of the issue.
Contact us if your nonprofit needs help raising awareness via social media, email, direct mail and more.
Happy National Nonprofit Day! We love celebrating nonprofit organizations in every way possible! In fact, that’s the whole mission of Raising Help – to empower nonprofits with the talent and expertise needed to build brands, raise awareness, foster meaningful change and create financial self-sufficiency.
There are many nonprofits we have worked with throughout the years, and The Grooming Project is one of them! Based in Kansas City, Missouri, The Grooming Project is a pilot program of Empowering the Parents to Empower the Children (EPEC), which works to empower families in poverty to become self-reliant by offering job training, life skills and practical solutions to end their poverty cycle. Learn more about the organization >
At Raising Help, we have been able to support The Grooming Project through their various marketing needs, including creating icons, rack cards and referral cards. View our work for the nonprofit, and contact us for more information on how we can help support your nonprofit organization as well!
If your nonprofit is already on Twitter, you’ve made a great first step! Engaging with your target audience by meeting them on the social media platforms they use is vital to increase brand awareness and gain a loyal group of followers, volunteers, donors and supporters. To keep them interested and following your page, take these Twitter tips into account:
Twitter users will feel much more at ease following a link on a Twitter account that has been verified as an authentic organization. Who knew a simple blue check mark beside your name could mean so much?
By placing the link at the end of your tweets, even after hashtags, users are better able to click on the link and drive traffic to your website. This also maintains a clean look to your tweets.
It may feel better and look cleaner to shorten your Twitter links with bit.ly or owl.ly, but if you are hoping to analyze how much traffic your tweets are bringing your website, avoid shortening them. Google Analytics is not able to effectively analyze shortened links on social media accounts.
Your tweets are much more likely to receive more engagement if they contain an image that catches the eye and draws attention. Just be sure to keep your images relevant to your tweet topics.
Believe it or not, hashtags serve a very important purpose. When you tack on a hashtag to your tweets that has to do with a campaign your nonprofit is doing or an event you’re hosting, tweets can easily be searched for and found. Not only will this help you see how many people are engaging with you and your hashtags directly, but you can also gain more visibility for your tweets by using hashtags that are searched for often.
Need help managing your social media presence? We’d love to help!
Contact us for more information.
One of the biggest support systems nonprofit organizations rely on is having a core group of volunteers that are passionate about your mission and work efficiently to help you succeed. In order to find and maintain this group, it is essential that organizations and board members motivate volunteers in the following four ways:
Your volunteers are most likely going to be people that are a part of the community you are serving, so take the time to get to know them and invest in them. Organize a social gathering with food and fun activities to break the ice and get volunteers connecting with one another and your team. Then, prepare them for success as a volunteer by communicating your needs and expectations with them and introducing them to the team they are working with.
Did you know? 72 percent of volunteers serve only one organization or cause (CNCS).
Volunteering can take a lot of hard work and energy out of people. Nonetheless, when the tasks are fun or when the volunteer feels deeply and genuinely appreciated and essential to the success of the event or of the team, the result and impact is always worth the extra effort. Never forget to thank your staff and volunteers, helping put a face to the nonprofit and maintaining the community that you’re working to build.
Remember that volunteers don’t have to be there. They are choosing to help support your mission for free, on their own time. That being said, make sure you have work for them to do from the minute they arrive so they feel needed and are not simply wasting their time. Accommodate to their schedules, and offer alternative opportunities for them when they have tight schedules to work with.
Did you know? It is estimated that volunteer time could be calculated at $23.56 per hour (Independent Sector).
When volunteers get to see the impact your organization is making, they will feel more connected to the nonprofit and the cause, and are more likely to keep coming back to help your team. Find creative ways to get them involved, whether that be allowing volunteers to be a part of the fundraiser donation reveal or asking for their input on how to increase effectiveness for the next event.
With these four tips, you’ll be able to bring in more volunteers, and help them stay connected and motivated to support your organization more than ever. If you need help reaching out to and engaging with potential volunteers through social media, eCommunications and more, learn about how we can
support you at Raising Help >
Contact us for more information.
At Raising Help, we know it takes a lot for nonprofit organizations to do good work and make and impact in the community. That’s why we get creative to make a difference, offering our services to improve organizations’ strategy, development and engagement so they can get back to doing good works.
Cobb Community Alliance to Prevent Substance Abuse (CCAPSA), an organization that works to combat and prevent the onset of abusive substance usage in Cobb County, needed a sound social media strategy and a fresh new website with organized and updated content and visuals in order to better reach their target audience and raise awareness on substance abuse in the community.
Raising Help jumped at the opportunity, and created a clean new website for them,
which you can see here >
In order to approach their social media needs, we completed the following:
Learn more about how we help organizations engage with their audience >
Contact us if your nonprofit could use a fresh new website or a strategic communications plan! We thrive on doing good for do-gooders like yourself!
The work of nonprofits is the work of setting and achieving goals with limited resources. The way you achieve those goals is by following a set plan or path, but before you can establish a meaningful plan, you need to set a budget. This blog specifically focuses on the fundraising aspect of your organization.
Here are a few tips to plan your nonprofit’s fundraising budget:
With so many users on social media networks, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be utilizing these free sources for fundraising efforts. Use strategies such as sharing your story, engaging with your audience and maintaining a visual presence online in order to maximize your potential on these platforms. Analyze which networking sites your target market engages with most, and create engaging material that they can’t help but read and react to. Depending on your organization and your audience, some social media sites to look into include: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube!
It costs money to raise money. So, in order to better plan your fundraising budget for this year, look into previous years and see how you did as a whole. Also identify where your peak seasons were. Research which are repeat gifts, and which are unlikely to be given again. Once you determine these numbers, you can better examine how much budget to set for fundraising efforts in the coming year based on what was previously spent and with what outcome.
There are a variety of software options you can utilize in order to create a smooth online donating process, plan fundraisers and events for your organization and house your donor contact list and profiles. Software like this, such as Aplos Donor Management, Salsa CRM and Bloomerang, can cost your organization one to two hundred dollars a month depending on the services you need.
Whether your organization has extra room in the budget for fundraising, or has to stick to free methods and word of mouth, Raising Help loves helping do-gooders do more good work. Give us a call at 678-737-7333 or contact us if you have questions about enhancing your fundraising efforts!
We love helping nonprofits any way we can! Recently, we were able to help Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta tee up for success as the organization prepared for its annual “Putt for Promise” fundraising event. We were able to craft 70 signs welcoming attendees and members, showcasing the event sponsors and providing Did You Know? facts about BGCMA’s members.
Check out a few of our pieces displayed during the event, and connect with us if you could use help with your nonprofit’s strategy, development and/or engagement techniques!
One of the biggest relationship builders is also often taken the most for granted: communications. We all assume we can do it well, and usually don’t take the time to wonder if we can improve our communications efforts. The following are ways communicating with your nonprofit board effectively benefits both your relationships with the board and your organization in as a whole:
Strengthen credibility and trust.
Maintaining great communications with your board allows them to trust you and feel like you are not hiding important information from them. Keep them in the know as frequently as possible, leaving no questions unanswered.
Always remember quality over quantity.
While it is good to keep everyone in the loop, you do have to find a balance of what is and is not necessary in meetings. If the board feels as though you are simply communicating with them for the sole reason of checking communications off of a to-do list, then frustrations may begin to boil to the brim as efficiency and expectations from meetings might not be met.
Silence is a form of communication.
Don’t ignore the silence, but instead learn to understand what it means within your board. Does any silence concerning certain topics, events, strategies, etc. have a positive, unified tone, or is it a negative, disagreeing tone? Don’t be afraid to confront the silence and ask your board members what their specific thoughts about a matter are individually.
There’s value to personal conversations.
In our world of technology, it can be easy to send emails, e-newsletters, memos and calendar invites online, but at what cost? Spending time with your board in person, even if just to share what could have been said in an email will help both of you get to know each other better, understand tone and opinions more while also creating personal connections.
Don’t let your communications with your board slip through the cracks. Start taking these steps to improving the relationships with your board members, even if they are already good!
And if you do ever need online communications help via emails, newsletters, etc., let us know!
We’d be happy to help strengthen your branding, communications and strategy, and help your brand further its mission!