How can I communicate my nonprofit’s impact with donors? – SHARITY

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Powering Nonprofit Success Through Participatory Processes:

Did you know that organizations prioritizing participatory processes and deliberately decreasing barriers see a significant increase in program effectiveness? This Fall, I’m excited to delve into how this framework powers real-world success through our three-part webinar series, Insights for Impact!

On September 18th, Dr. Inderjit Vicky Basra, President and CEO of the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center, and Jessica Raymond, former Chief of Staff of the YWCA, joined Sharity Global Expert Anne Miskey to offer real-world examples of ways participatory processes elevated their organizations’ mission and impact. Dr. Basra emphasized the importance of including direct and indirect experts in decision-making conversations. She noted, “…layered communication makes the change.” When those in the community who experience the challenges your organization strives to address work alongside those with academic or professional experience in key areas, your organization can begin to affect systemic change. Jessica added, “When we talk about advocating for people and engaging their voices…here is the mic! You sit at this table, you tell me what you need from us, you make the decision…”

Key takeaways from the conversation included:

Write equity into your policies and procedures.
Avoid “tokenizing” the community you serve. Ensure that if you ask something of your community members, such as asking them to share their stories, you are developing and strengthening a mutually beneficial relationship with them.
Identify ways your organization may connect direct experts, those with lived experience, with donors, elected officials, and other community leaders and influencers.
Engaging all voices allows you to review and evaluate the impact of your programming with an open mind and heart.
Give credit to all the experts helping you execute your mission. Whenever possible, compensate and recognize direct experts, those with lived experiences, for their work on behalf of your organization, just as you would an indirect expert with academic or professional experience.

Dr. Basra summed up the importance of engaging all voices when she described the success her organization has had with connecting survivor mentors with the recently rescued. “[Survivor’s] concepts around hope look very different because they’re sitting across from somebody, that at some point, was in the same space that they are in…Their survivor-mentor becomes a beacon of hope!” Anne added, “The little ways you can connect your donors in real ways to people” will bring about transformation.

How can I communicate my nonprofit’s impact with donors?

Ask Me Anything Summary

First question is, how can I communicate my nonprofits impact with donors?

Well, that’s a big question.

Hi, I’m Carol with Sharity, and I’m here with an Ask Me Anything and Claire just asked, how do we communicate our impact to donors? Well, that’s a really big question, and it might seem like a simple one, but there’s lots of different ways that you can communicate your impact.

But the first thing you have to do is you have to actually know what you’re impact is. And really, it goes back to how are we’re measuring whether or not our programs are doing anything for people. Are we just serving people and counting the services that we provide them as outputs?

Are we actually talking about how we transform people’s lives? I always ask my clients one question: If you had to actually sell this program to someone, you were going to tell someone, look, I want you to spend six months of your life taking our classes.

What would the outcome be? What am I gonna benefit for having spent all this time with your organization if you can’t sell me, the client, which we normally are not asked to do as nonprofits. But if you can’t sell me about how this is gonna benefit me personally and change my life, then you’re probably not communicating your impact to your donors either.

So start with that one simple question. And if you wanna learn more about impacts and outputs and outcomes, you can check out our free webinar specifically on this topic.

And if you have any other questions, just send us a message in the comment box or direct message us here on social media. Or you can go to our website and send us a contact. I look forward to hearing from you.