Nonprofits are the heart and pulse of a beating economy. Making money in for-profit enterprises is good we have to remember that there are missions, impacts, and causes we need to be passionate about and to support.
The sad truth is that many of these nonprofits are mismanaged. This often isn't intentional or malicious, it's just the reality that the nonprofit world is different than what many of us are used to. And that's OK.
Below are six strategies to managing your nonprofit more effectively. These will help you build a better brand, get more donations, and create a legacy that lives long past your time. Read on and stay strong in your cause.
#1 Get Google Ad Grants for $10,000/month free advertising.
This is perhaps the single most unknown treasure in the nonprofit world. Google Ad Grants is a program available to eligible nonprofits that allows you to make use of $10,000/month in free AdWords.
Google AdWords are the paid-for advertising that is at the top of your search results. People pay to get their product, service, or company listed here. Every time somebody clicks the ad, Google makes money and you get a visitor.
You have to be registered with TechSoup first, but once you are, go through the application process, set up your account, and create ads.
Congratulations, you now have a $120,000/year digital marketing budget. Now, go crush it.
#2 Enroll in G Suite for nonprofits.
Again, big kudos to Google for offering their services free to nonprofits. G Suite for Nonprofits is available for eligible nonprofits. Once you are signed up, you get benefits such as:
-Google Drive for shared documents & content
-Google Sheets (like Excel) & Slides (like PowerPoint)
-Google Docs (like Word)
-Google Calendar & Hangouts (chat)
-Gmail (e-mail)
You can see the top ten benefits from G Suite for nonprofits here. Start using these free benefits and take your nonprofit to the next level.
#3 Configure Salesforce for nonprofits to manage donors.
Donor management can be one of the biggest hurdles for nonprofits. Often times, Executive Directors are juggling spreadsheets, managing hand-written notes, and trying to remember the last time he spoke with that one donor.
Get rid of that chaos and industrialize your capability with Salesforce. If you have never heard of Salesforce, they are the world's #1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. They're amazing. Every big Fortune 500 company uses them.
Thankfully for you, Salesforce offers a complete package no-cost to nonprofits. Nonprofits that use this package generally see a 24 percent increase in donor retention and 36 percent increase in constituent engagement. This is a tremendous tool and you should start using Salesforce for nonprofits immediately.
#4 Design beautiful graphics and memes with Canva.
Sometimes nonprofits struggle with designing content, social media memes, newsletters, thank you notes, and everything else design-related.
Eliminate the hassle and stress of creating everything yourself manually and painfully, or hiring expensive graphic designers. Canva for Nonprofits allows you to empower your team to create high-impact social media graphics and marketing materials.
Canva offers its premium version free to registered nonprofits, which is a tremendous opportunity to leverage. Not only that, Canva offers a no-cost design school that will teach you the basics of design and how to create beautiful content.
#5 Implement a social media strategy with Hootsuite.
Managing your social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, can be time-consuming and confusing. Hootsuite is a social media management platform that uses a dashboard to manage your different social network integrations. Hootsuite is also passionate about giving back, so they offer wonderful discounts to nonprofits.
In addition, Hootsuite provides education to nonprofits that allows you to optimize your social media strategy via Social Media Coaches. This helps you to learn and measure social media ROI, delegating tasks, managing permissions, and collaborating with team members.
Hootsuite is powerful, has a mobile app, and can help transform your nonprofit into the digital age.
#6 Use great photos for free with Pexels.
No more unprofessional photos, copyright infringement, or using really bad and really common stock photos. Pexels is a free and easy-to-use database of beautiful, professional photos and videos. Everything is submitted by users and able to be used without copyright permissions or infringement.
So, the next time you need a great photo for that marketing piece, use Pexels. Not only that, if you are building a great landing page on your website and need a clean and modern video to play in the background, use Pexels. It doesn't cost any money, but it will give your nonprofit the look you need to stand out and get more donations.
What to do next?
This is a lot of material but you have what it takes to make your nonprofit great. The world needs the game-changers and those who think differently, the folks who commit their whole heart and mind and soul to a mission and cause. That's where you come in.
Be focused, stay positive, and use these 6 strategies to make your nonprofit the best in the world.