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The “Secret” Scoring Rubric Grant Funders Use to Decide Who to Fund Read time: 3-4 minutes Have you ever wondered how grant foundations decide who gets funded? It is not (usually) just gut instinct. Many funders use a structured scoring rubric to grade every application they receive. Every section gets a score. Those scores add up. That is how funding decisions get made. The problem? Most funders never share their rubrics publicly. So most nonprofit leaders are writing grant applications…

How to Turn One-Time Volunteers Into Long-Term Advocates Read time: 3-4 minutes Volunteer retention is one of the biggest challenges nonprofits face. Getting someone to show up once is hard enough. Getting them to stay, grow, and eventually become a lifelong advocate for your cause? That’s a whole different challenge. What I’ve learned from studying organizations that do this really well is that volunteers don’t stay because of the task… They stay because of how the experience makes them…

Planning a Fundraising Event This Year? Try These Strategies To Boost Donations Read time: 3-4 minutes Fundraising events can be strange sometimes. You can spend months planning every detail, fill a room with people who genuinely care about your cause, but then the donations at the end of the night don’t quite match the energy in the room. 😕 When that happens, it’s easy to assume people just weren’t interested enough in supporting the mission. But the truth is…fundraising events are about…

Creating a Loyal Donor Base:3 Strategies From theBanana Ball Baseball Craze Read time: 3-4 minutes What does a baseball team have to do with building a loyal donor base? Let’s discuss. 😎 Jesse Cole is the owner of the 🍌 Savannah Bananas, a baseball team with a waitlist of hundreds of thousands of fans and a following that most organizations can only dream of. His secret? He stopped thinking about the baseball business and started thinking about the fan experience business. The results speak…

3 Metrics That Reveal Your Nonprofit’s Future Fundraising Potential Read time: 3-4 minutes In the hustle and bustle, it’s tempting to measure our fundraising progress by one thing: How much have we raised? But I want to argue there’s another question that’s just as important: Are we building the kind of community and systems that will make fundraising easier and more sustainable over time? Because strong fundraising doesn’t usually come from one great campaign or one big ask (focusing…

The Hidden Cost of ‘Scrappy’ Nonprofits Read time: 3-4 minutes As a nonprofit, being “scrappy” is often worn as a badge of honor. Doing more with less. Keeping overhead low. Stretching every dollar as far as it can go. Resourcefulness is absolutely a strength. But… there’s a point where investing too little in your organization starts to hurt the very mission you’re working so hard to advance. Saying it louder for the people in the back: 📢 Healthy infrastructure doesn’t take away from your…