What is donor capacity and how is it measured? – 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.

What is donor capacity and how is it measured?

Ask Me Anything Summary

What is donor capacity and how is it measured? so donor capacity is the ability of your donor to give a gift. and it’s important, you know, the difference between wealth versus income. someone can have a really high income, but if they spend all of that income on fancy cars and an expensive house, they may not have the wealth to be able to transfer and invest in your mission.

So the capacity of that donor is the ability to give a certain level of gift, typically over multiple years. usually in the nonprofit field, we look at 3 to 5 years. given the current changes in the environment, we’re really looking at 1 to 2 years.

So knowing your donors’ capacity is really important because here’s our most important rule of thumb: never, ever, ever walk into a meeting without understanding your donor’s capacity and having a dollar figure in your head.

You always make that ask for specific amount and then negotiate that afterwards. if you need help with that, we can run your donors through our iwave screening software and find out exactly how much you should target each individual donor for based on their capacity.