Throughout the last year, a lot changed for the nonprofit world. Engagement and fundraising shifted entirely online, presenting new challenges regarding accessibility and outreach. Meanwhile, movements like the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality reminded us of or opened our eyes to all of the inequities in our country and the potential for improvement in diversity, equity, and inclusive (DEI).
With this in mind, many nonprofits have started looking for new DEI literature and guidance to make their policies as inclusive and effective as possible. Doing so not only helps your organization remain socially conscious, but it also extends your organization’s reach, making for more effective fundraising strategies.
In this article, we’ll discuss the areas within nonprofit fundraising strategies where organizations can work to become more equitable in how they operate. Specifically, we’ll be covering the following areas of focus:
This guidance comes from almost a year and a half of hosting DEI experts and equitable fundraising practitioners on the Bloomerang blog and webinar series. As funders become more and more likely to consider a nonprofit’s DEI efforts as part of their decision whether to make a donation or provide a grant, it will be critical for nonprofits to take this issue seriously.
Let’s dive in.
When it comes to enacting change at any organization, leading from the top is always the best strategy. In order for a nonprofit to exhibit that they are serious about issues of equity, the first goal should be to diversify the board.
Some say that the primary responsibility of board members is governance while others argue that their primary responsibility is fundraising. Boardable’s board responsibility article explains the reality of the situation—a strong foundation of effective governance among your board members opens up the opportunity for the serving individuals to also take on fundraising responsibilities.
So how does diversity play a role in your nonprofit’s board of directors?
Having a diverse board of directors improves its governance abilities, thus setting you up for success when board members turn to fundraising activities. Some of the benefits that you might see from a more diverse board for your nonprofit include:
Introducing and prioritizing diversity among your board of directors helps your organization become more well-rounded, allowing you to gather insights from different perspectives and respond better to the needs of the community.
Similar to board members, diversity among your supporters strengthens your supporter base as a whole.
However, cultivating a diverse audience is still something many nonprofits struggle to do. According to this article, donor lists are not very representative of the diversity in the world.
The further the reach of your organization and the more diverse your audience, the more potential you have to broaden your donor base and appeal to a greater number of people.
So how can you reach a more diverse audience? Here are some ideas to diversify your nonprofit donor base:
You can set quantitative goals for your organization to reach in order to expand your horizons and appeal to a greater variety of supporters. Then, track your progress in your nonprofit CRM to determine when you reach those goals.
All of your organization’s outreach efforts should be accessible to the broadest number of supporters possible, but this is especially relevant when you consider your nonprofit events.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, nonprofits everywhere started offering more virtual events to adhere to the new social distancing regulations designed to help keep people safe. Bloomerang’s list of virtual events provides a sample of these types of opportunities.
As we move forward, nonprofits are continuing to host virtual opportunities because they offer several benefits. They appeal to those who might live farther away from your organization and can’t attend in-person opportunities, and they allow attendees to tune in from the comfort of home. Plenty of organizations are also incorporating virtual elements into in-person experiences, creating hybrid events.
The original shift to hosting virtual events happened very quickly, so many organizations failed to take additional steps to make sure their events were accessible to the widest audience possible. However, now that hybrid opportunities are becoming more popular, nonprofits will need to focus on accessibility when it comes to both virtual and in-person elements of their events.
Many virtual accessibility features are the same as those listed in the previous section, including an accessible event microsite, translations available for videos and in-person speeches, closed captions or transcriptions for virtual audio, and alternative text for visual elements.
On top of these, you’ll need to be sure your in-person elements are also accessible for your audience. Consider the wheelchair friendliness of the space, if you’ll need sign language translators, and how you’ll overcome any language barriers.
Storytelling is an integral part of nonprofit strategies, and for good reason. People are around 20 times more likely to remember something if it’s presented in the format of a story rather than just as facts.
However, we have to be careful with how we create stories. We know that effective stories have a main character, conflict, climax, and impact finale. However, there are more elements to consider than just these. As you write out your nonprofit’s impact stories, you need to be careful to be inclusive in your language and to be non-exploitative in your concepts.
According to Debra Jenkins’ piece on the subject, nonprofit professionals should take the following considerations when they tell stories:
Of course, there are plenty of other considerations you should take into account as you write stories and we highly recommend reading the rest of those presented by Debra Jenkins.
Prioritizing DEI efforts should be a core element of your strategy because you’ll be able to reach more people, represent your community, and appeal to your supporters more effectively. Nonprofits that take equitable fundraising to heart will be better equipped to meet constituents’ needs and gain access to greater support in the future.