Tag Archives: money

two exceptional resources re: donor cultivation

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There are two sites that I think are exceptional in talking about donor cultivation and building meaningful, ethical relationships with donors that lead to long-term support. These two resources can help move your program’s mindset away from “Where is that magical list of people/corporations/foundations that might donate to my organization” – which, by the way, does not exist – and, instead, move to creating much more effective, ongoing strategies for attracting support and new supporters. Taking time to read these free blogs once a week is as good as attending any conference or workshop regarding fundraising for nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, schools, community projects, etc.

One site is made up of excellent communications / outreach resources from Philanthropy Without Borders regarding donor site visits, empathy and ethics in fundraising and how to make the “big ask” during a site visit. Two of my favorite articles:

Another terrific resource: blogs by blogs by Mary Cahalane (Hands-On Fundraising). Mary has been a very successful fundraiser and believes strongly on cultivating relationships with donors, not just asking for money. She talks a lot about making emotional connections with donors and other supporters and about ethics in managing fundraising staff.

  • Mary also offers this gem from her Ultimate Guide on Donor Experience: We need to avoid focusing on the quick transactions and the shiny objects that are cropping up and begging for our attention. Without proper stewardship of both our donors and the data that represents them, we will never be able to perform our responsibilities and deliver on the promise of our mission.

Also see:F

Funding for Technology

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I just updated a web page I have on my own web site that’s meant to help nonprofits, charities, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations and programs to fundraise for technology needs – for hardware (like tablets, smart phones, laptops, etc.), software, a system to subscribe to, etc. The advice is focused on what information you need to have read to share with donors, how to frame your story about the need for this technology in human terms, and how to identify potential supporters.

I originally developed the page, and continue to update it, because I get emails from people who want to know where to find “the” list of foundations or corporate giving programs that fund software or hardware at nonprofits. And there really isn’t such a list – foundations and corporate giving programs are looking to fund program activities/causes, not equipment, specifically. Grants go to particular kinds of programs – those to help children, the environment, the arts, women experiencing domestic violence, a community in need of better cohesion, etc. But if you can show how technology is a program cost, how it helps you better serve people or your cause, it has a much better potential to attract funding. In other words: show how this is #tech4good. 

I say on the page:

Technology can help an animal shelter better track their animal in-take process and get animals ready for adoption more quickly. Technology can help make a professional theater better track ticket buyers who might be good prospects for donations. Technology can help a program supporting homeless teens to better identify trends and needs. Make your pitch for funding based on what technology will allow you to do regarding your organization’s clients – not so much about what the technology is. Again, a corporation doesn’t want to fund the purchase of 10 tablets for your organization – but a corporation would love to fund a resource that helps, say, homeless families, and if you can show exactly how the purchase of those 10 tablets will allow that, then funders will be much more attracted to such.

Have a look and share your thoughts in the comments below.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

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Volunteering to build community cohesion

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One of the reasons I loathe the way the Points of Light Foundation and other organizations promote the value of volunteering – with a monetary value and number of hours – is because it ignores the far greater value of volunteering and the far better reasons for an organization to engage volunteers.

I’ll say it yet again: engaging volunteers isn’t always just to get a task done. Sometimes, volunteering has much larger, more important goals – like a group volunteering effort done to help demonstrate solidarity and understanding between different groups. Volunteers can help build community cohesion and better community understanding. Volunteers can help change minds – without ever asking volunteers to change their minds.

Do you really think the best, most efficient, cheapest way to build affordable housing is by gathering a different group of volunteers each day to build a house together? No – no, it’s not. If that’s why you think Habitat Humanity does what it does, you are REALLY missing the larger point of their mobilization of volunteers.

Here’s yet another example of what I mean when I go on this regular tirade: in Washington County, Oregon, members of an Islamic mosque’s congregation and members of a Jewish temple’s congregation got together to volunteer for a Habitat for Humanity build project in November 2018. Here’s a tweet about the event, with a photo:

This happens all the time, all across the USA. Habitat chapters LOVE bringing together different groups to volunteer side-by-side. Is the value of that the number of hours they volunteered and the monetary value of those hours? No.

If your organization is recruiting volunteers just to get tasks done, you are missing out on the value of volunteers.

And on a side note: four months later, this tweet had only two “likes” and no retweets. Every person on the build site should have been invited to retweet and “like” this if they are on Twitter. Every staff person at Habitat with a Twitter account should have been invited to retweet and “like” this. Don’t post something as wonderful as this and hope it might get noticed – ask your staff and volunteers, including your board members, to share it! Here’s more advice on using social media.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

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14 simple things to do to your web site to attract more donors

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Quit looking for the magic app or crowdfunding platform that will attract online donations for your organization. Attracting online donations is NOT a software challenge: it’s an information challenge.

Here are 15 EASY things your nonprofit, non-governmental organization, charity or other mission-based organization can do right now via your web site that will make your organization more attractive to online donors, who may be current volunteers, new volunteers, family of board members, someone across town or across the country:

  1. Make sure your organization’s full name appears as text on your home page and your “about us” page (not just in the graphic of your logo). This will make your organization’s information easy to find online. Many times potential donors will look for you online based on your organization’s name – you want to make it easy for them to find.
  2. Make sure the location of your organization is on you home page and your “about us” page. You don’t have to give the street address if, for some reason, you don’t want to make your physical address easy to find (such as in the case of a domestic violence shelter or home for foster children) but you do need to say the city, the state or province and the country where your organization is based. Many times I have looked for a particular nonprofit in a particular place and I cannot tell on the web site if the nonprofit is the one I am looking for because it never says what region it’s in – and there are so many nonprofits and NGOs with similar names.
  3. You need to have as much information on your web site about what your organization has accomplished as you do about it needing funds. And don’t just talk about activities: talk about RESULTS from those activities. People want to fund organizations that make a difference, not organizations begging for money, especially organizations that have dire messages about soon closing their doors.
  4. Note what your organization’s costs are. If I make a donation, what is that donation paying for? If most of your funds go to staff salaries, that’s okay: talk about the expertise of your staff, the hours they devote to working directly with those you serve, what they do in their work, etc.
  5. Make sure your web site is free of misspellings and grammar mistakes. If your web site isn’t a good representation of your organization’s work, why would I donate?
  6. Make sure your web site has no outdated information. If I click on “upcoming events” on your home page, and the first item is about an “upcoming” event that actually happened nine months ago, I’m not going to be inclined to donate, because if you cannot maintain an up-to-date web site, perhaps you struggle delivering your programs or managing money as well?
  7. Make sure your web site is mobile ready – it should work on a smart phone, not just a lap top.
  8. Do not say on your web site that you involve volunteers to “save money” or list a monetary value for volunteer hours, because as a donor, my reaction could be, “Why should I make a donation? They should just get volunteers to do the work for free.”
  9. Make sure your web site has everything it needs to attract new volunteers. Volunteers often become donors.
  10. Have a page that describes the history of your organization, who founded it, where it is located, why it was founded, etc. This establishes credibility for your organization.
  11. List the board of directors. This further establishes credibility for your organization – it shows the people willing to be fiscally-responsible for this organization.
  12. Get a group of family members or friends of staff to bring their laptops or smart phones to your organization. Ask them to find your web site online, without using the URL – using only the name of the organization, or something about your mission and your location, like “Help animals in Henderson, Kentucky.” See how long it takes them to find your organization’s web site using various methods and find out how they search for it. Note any problems they have in finding the site and address this accordingly.
  13. With this same focus group, ask what the site says that would make them want to donate. Listen to what they say and make improvements based on that.
  14. Offer a way to donate online. Even if just 10% of all of your donors choose to donate online, that’s money you would not have gotten otherwise, and the number of people that switch from donations by postal mail to online donations rises every year. There should be a way for people to donate using a credit card and Paypal.

And here is a non-web site specific way to increase donations to your organization: Put a notice on every fundraising event or fundraising activity that says that a person doesn’t have to participate in the event or fundraising activity in order to donate to the organization. “You don’t have to attend our black and white ball to donate to our organization! You can make a donation anytime via our website…”

By the way: much of this is the criteria I use when reviewing a site for an organization I think I might donate to – and many times, I have NOT given to an organization because it lacked the aforementioned info.

Also see:

Mission-Based Groups Need Use the Web to Show Accountability

Crowdfunding for Nonprofits, NGOs, Schools, Etc.: How To Do It Successfully

Web Site Construction & Content Suggestions for Nonprofits, NGOs and small government offices

Design Standards and Tips for Nonprofits, NGOs and small government offices

Required Volunteer Information on Your Web Site

Marketing Your Nonprofit, NGO or small government office Web Site

Don’t Just Ask for Money!

Nonprofits & NGOs: you MUST give people a way to donate online

Basic Fund-Raising for Small NGOs in the Developing World

17 year old successfully fundraises, learns lifetime lesson

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A colleague’s question reminded me of when I got my first grant. It was a government grant. I was 17 years old and in high school – it was the late 1980s. My best friend and I formed a theater group with friends to produce a children’s play for the community. We bought the rights to the play, cast the show, rehearsed and looked into booking the high school auditorium for an evening. Then we presented a scene one night to the arts council in my hometown in Kentucky – the council acted on behalf of the city to make grants – so we could rent costumes and pay other fees.

We got the money! I was stunned! We were “just kids”! Was this government agency REALLY going to give us money, even just a few hundred dollars? Later, I learned that the council had been blown away by how organized our group of teens were – not only asking for money, but knowing exactly how much was needed and proving we were capable of pulling of the production. They were particularly impressed because, before we went into the meeting room, another arts nonprofit, one run by adults, had walked in and said, “We need money.” No documentation, no formal proposal, no budget, no list of how the money would be used – just a demand for support.

I have never forgotten that early lesson in making a proposal for support. We had no experience doing anything like this, but my co-founder – who went on to make The Blair Witch Project – thought carefully about how to sell our idea, to make it look worth funding. I thought it was audacious and doomed to failure – and I was wrong. In fact, our production was so successful that, the next summer, my co-founder and I produced another play for community children, one we co-wrote, this time in the central park.

Since then, I have never had any hesitation in writing a funding proposal or talking to any foundation, corporation or government agency about why a nonprofit I’m working with deserves support.

The name of our company, by the way, was the Henderson Audubon Repertory Company – HARC. Our first production was The Prince Who Wouldn’t Talk. There were three wizard characters in the show – I played all of them.

Also see:

Nonprofits & NGOs: you MUST give people a way to donate online

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fundhuntingThe following quote is from a blog in 2013 by Sue Gardner (hi, Sue!!) of the Wikimedia Foundation, which administers Wikipedia. The quote is about how the many-small-donors-instead-of-a-few-big-ones works so well for Wikimedia, a nonprofit:

We don’t give board seats in exchange for cash… people who donated lots of money have no more influence than people who donate small amounts — and, importantly, no more influence than Wikipedia editors… We at the WMF get to focus on our core work of supporting and developing Wikipedia, and when donors talk with us we want to hear what they say, because they are Wikipedia readers. (That matters. I remember in the early days spending time with major donor prospects who didn’t actually use Wikipedia, and their opinions were, unsurprisingly, not very helpful.)

It’s not only that they have many, many donors of small amounts, rather than a few donors that give huge amounts of money, it’s also that their donors are users of their initiatives, primarily Wikipedia – in fact, many are volunteers for these initiatives.

This isn’t a new model. I worked in professional, nonprofit theater for many years, and this was their model as well; each theater had hundreds, even thousands, of donors that gave, for the most part, small amounts, and the vast majority of those donors were also performance ticket buyers. I learned that a healthy nonprofit theater has at least half of its expenses covered by such individual donors.

Of course, the many-small-donors models wouldn’t work for every nonprofit. But if your nonprofit had at least 100 clients, volunteers and/or event attendees in a year, you MUST have a way for those people to donate via your web site. There is absolutely no excuse for NOT having this way of giving, and no excuse for NOT encouraging such donations.

How about this: at least once a year, I have been ready to donate to a particular nonprofit, I’ve gone to the web site to do so, and, ta da: no way to donate online; the only way to donate is by sending a check or money order. And so, I end up not donating at all.

This happened to me last month regarding a nonprofit right here in Forest Grove, Oregon, where I live. I was going to say something to the nonprofit, but instead, decided to turn my thoughts into a blog for small nonprofits in particular. I hope they notice. I don’t have lots of money: when I donate, I’m giving up the price of a movie ticket and popcorn. Most nonprofits would claim that they would not say no to any amount of cash someone wanted to donate, including that small amount. Yet, that’s just what they do when they don’t have a way for people to donate online.

According to Blackbaud’s 2015 Charitable Giving Report, 93% of funds given to nonprofit organizations came from traditional means in 2015 – major gifts, annual funds, fundraising events, checks, snail mail and by phone. Only 7.1% of donations to nonprofits came in online. HOWEVER, online giving has been steadily growing over the last few years, up 9.2% from 2014 to 2015, and 14% of online giving in 2015 originated on a mobile device. I’ve no doubt the numbers are just going to keep going up. A good summary of the Blackbaud report is here. In addition, a study of younger supporters (age 20-35) found that 56% preferred donating online via an organization’s website.

The excuse I hear by most nonprofits for not having a way for someone to donate online?

We don’t want to have to lose some of the donation to processing fees. 

Let me be clear: you are losing ALL of the online donation by not having a way for people to donate this way to your organization. Those people that go to your web site and can’t find a way to donate online don’t say, “Oh, I’ll write a check then.” Nope – they just don’t give at all.

As of the time of this blog’s writing, Paypal charges 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction on any donation ($0 to $100,000) to a registered nonprofit with 501(c)(3) status. Wouldn’t you rather get most of a donation than none of it?

There’s no service that doesn’t have some kind of processing fee for donations to nonprofits, at least not in the USA. Some services, like Paypal or Google Wallet, just charge a transaction on every donation, but don’t provide any features, like a customized web page. Services like First Giving charge more, but also provide more services, like tracking and managing donor information and easily integrating into whatever donor database you are already using. Which should you use? That depends on the size of your nonprofit’s budget, how many donors you are expecting to donate online and how much information you need from those donors. Have a look at what other nonprofits in your community are doing in terms of allowing for online donations, and don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and give them a call and ask for advice (we need nonprofits collaborating together MORE!). Also, talk to your financial institution, the bank or credit union where you deposit your organization’s funds – they may have options as well.

And if you are looking for a magical third party crowdfunding site that will bring in lots of donations for your organization merely by your inputting all of your information and asking for money, forget it – that’s not how successful online fundraising works for 99% of nonprofits. Rare is the donor who goes to a third party web site with no idea of who he or she is going to give money to.  Most nonprofits that raise money through online means are raising that money through their own web sites, and raise that money from people in their communities that are familiar with their work and want to support them, from people that have attended the organization’s events, or from people that have seen an ad on TV or radio.

More: 

Excellent advice from someone else on how to encourage donations online to your organization

More advice for what should be on your organization’s web site

Also see Survival Strategies for Nonprofits

Measuring the Impact of Volunteers: book announcement

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Want to make me cranky? Suggest that the best way to measure volunteer engagement is to count how many volunteers have been involved in a set period, how many hours they’ve given, and a monetary value for those hours. Such thinking manifests itself in statements like this, taken from a nonprofit in Oregon:

Volunteers play a huge role in everything we do. In 2010, 870 volunteers contributed 10,824 hours of service, the equivalent of 5.5 additional full-time employees!

Yes, that’s right: this nonprofit is proud to say that volunteer engagement allowed this organization to keep 5.5 people from being employed!

Another cringe-worthy statement about the value of volunteers – yes, someone really said this, although I’ve edited a few words to hide their identity:

[[Organization-name-redacted]] volunteers in [[name-of-city redacted]] put in $700,000 worth of free man hours last year… It means each of its 7,000 volunteers here contributed about $100 – the amount their time would have been worth had they been paid.

I have a web page talking about the dire consequences of this kind of thinking, as well as a range of blogs, listed at the end of this one. That same web page talks about much better ways to talk about the value of volunteers – but it really takes more than a web page to explain how an organization can measure the true value of volunteers.

9780940576728_FRONTcover copyThat’s why I was very happy to get an alert from Energize, Inc. about a new book, Measuring the Impact of Volunteers: A Balanced and Strategic Approach, by ChristineBurych, Alison Caird, Joanne Fine Schwebel, Michael Fliess and Heather Hardie. This book is an in-depth planning tool, evaluation tool and reporting tool. How refreshing to see volunteer value talked about in-depth – not just as an add-on to yet another book on volunteer management. But the book’s importance goes even further: the book will not only be helpful to the person responsible for volunteer engagement at an organization; the book will also push senior management to look at volunteer engagement as much, much more than “free labor” (which it isn’t, of course). Marketing managers need to read this book. The Executive Director needs to read this book. Program managers need to read this book. The book is yet another justification for thinking of the person responsible for the volunteer engagement program at any agency as a volunteerism specialist – a person that needs ongoing training and support (including MONEY) to do her (or his) job. This book shows why the position – whether it’s called volunteer manager, community engagement director, coordinator of volunteers, whatever – is essential, not just nice, and why that person needs to be at the senior management table.

I really hope this book will also push the Independent Sector, the United Nations, other organizations and other consultants to, at last, abandon their push of a dollar value as the best measurement of volunteer engagement.

For more on the subject of the value of volunteer or community engagement, here are my blogs on the subject (yeah, it’s a big deal with me):

tips for fund-raising for NGOs serving the developing world

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fundhuntingSome of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) to online forums for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries, no matter what the subject of the forum is supposed to be (urban disasters, HIV/AIDS, maternal health, water and sanitation) , are regarding funding.

In 2004, frustrated at seeing fundraising questions from NGOs over and over and over again, and no INGOs nor UN agencies trying to answer them, I drafted a short list of basic tips for fund-raising for NGOs serving the developing world. I was an online volunteer with the Aid Workers Network then (the organization is long gone, unfortunately). Several other AWN volunteers revised the draft, and we finalized and published a version online for the AWN community. But I kept updating the document, and it grew from 15 pages to 30.

I have no idea how many people accessed the document. I tried to track it through various means, but was never successful.

I have updated the document for the first time since 2011, and instead of asking people to write me for it, so I could get an idea of how many people accessed it, I now have it ready for download from my web site. It’s now 29 pages.

But the big news is that I’ve updated it for the last time. I’m not updating it anymore.

Most of the information is timeless; the web sites in the document will change over time, the organizations cited will come and go, but the basic advice will always be valid, I hope. Also, there are so many more resources now to help NGOs with fundraising than there were 10 years ago, as any search on Google will show – this document isn’t filling an information gap like it was when it was first drafted and published.

Some things that have been surprising in the decade I’ve maintained this document, some of which are also reasons I will no longer be updating this document:

  • I have regularly gotten funding solicitations via email from NGOs in the developing world because they’ve done exactly what this document says NOT to do: they’ve found my name in association with fundraising and sent me a grant proposal, unsolicited, despite the obvious fact that I am NOT a foundation. The emails aren’t even addressed to me by name; they are often addressed to “sir”, or they have 10 other emails listed in the “to” bar.
  • I make it clear that this document is for NGOs serving the developing world, yet I frequently get requests for it from nonprofits in the USA. Sure, some of the advice is universal for mission-based organizations, but the document talks about funding sources that are available only to organizations working in, say, Africa or the poorest parts of Asia and South America, sources that are NOT available to organizations in North America.
  • Several people and organizations have posted the document to their web sites without my permission, despite me asking on my web site and in the document for this not to be done. When I’ve written to ask them to remove it – they often are posting an old version, not the latest – they say they had no idea I wouldn’t allow the document to be posted. Which means they didn’t bother to read even the first two pages, or, they just don’t care.
  • Several people and organizations have passed this document off as their own. That hurts most of all. All I’ve asked in return for this document is credit for it – I have never asked for payment. For someone to go through it and take my name off of it and then publish it as their own, including people from at least two NGOs – it’s shameful. It’s disheartening. It contributes to a negative image of NGOs working in and for the developing world.
  • I’ve never received follow up from anyone saying how they have used the document. Has it been helpful? Did it result in funding? I’ll never know.

I sound bitter. Sorry. I’m frustrated that a decade-long effort didn’t seem to do any good. If this document does make a difference for your NGO, I hope you will tell me.

Also see:

Survival Strategies for Nonprofits , a guide for nonprofits facing critical budget shortfalls.

Volunteer groups leading to financial donation/sponsorships?

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I’ve had an incredibly busy three weeks, preparing for, and then delivering, four trainings – two in Kentucky and two in Portland. Topics ranged from communications for small nonprofits (More Donors, More Volunteers and More Awareness: Doing It All With Better Outreach) in my home town of Henderson, Kentucky (more than 70 people attending – INCLUDING MY MOTHER) to a panel discussion regarding building relationships with current and potential even partners, part of the Arts Festival Conference 2013 in Louisville – which I was invited to partly because of this article I wrote in 2003 regarding finding sponsors (scroll down on the page to find it) and two all-day, intensive workshops on volunteer engagement essentials for AmeriCorps members serving in Oregon, hosted by Oregon Volunteers.

But I’m blogging today in particular about the presentation in Louisville, which was organized by ZAPP® / Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF).

There was an audible gasp from the audience when I suggested that a great way to build a relationship with potential sponsors  is to create volunteering opportunities for the employees of the company that festival organizers are targeting as a potential sponsor. People came up afterwards to ask, “Really?!”

Really.

There are many companies that are hungry to do something for communities and nonprofits beyond just buying a table at an event or having their name above the title of the event (“Acme Anvils Presents…”). Tell a company that 10, or 50 or even 100 employees could be involved in a one-day, just-show-up volunteering event and that company may very well ask you where to send the sponsorship check! And it seems to me that arts festivals present a terrific opportunity for this: event set up volunteers, tear-down volunteers, runners during the event, weather monitors, amateur photographers, tweeters and more.

True, Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities is not easy. But it’s an idea worth exploring if your event or program is in need of donors / sponsors.

How do I know? Because I’ve worked at a Fortune 500 company, directing its philanthropic activities, and I talk regularly with people who work at companies in the marketing or HR departments and do similar work. They love it when nonprofits don’t just come to them and say, “We need money – please give us some.” They like to hear about why the event or organization is important to the entire community, the real difference it makes, and how they can have a deeper connection than just a sponsorship check. They are being asked by employees for group volunteering events, and many companies see such events as ways:

  • to build employee cohesion
  • to allow people from different departments to work together in ways they never could in the work place
  • to allow employees to show talents and leadership abilities that haven’t been noticed in the work place
  • to give employees something fun to do

I also advised attendees to build a relationship with potential sponsors before ever asking for money: the first time they hear from you should NOT be when you ask for a sponsorship. Let them know about your events, let them know about your volunteering activities and invite them to participate, invite them to an open house – just meet to say “Hi, here’s what we do and wanted you to know. Tell us about YOU!”

I also talked at length about how arts festivals add incredible value to a community. Think about what people are looking for in a place to live: good schools, safe places, and LOTS TO DO, like farmer’s markets and festivals of any kind. Arts festivals – and arts activities of any kind (dance companies, live theatre productions, museums) add tremendous value to a community. Employers want to attract fantastic employees, and they OFTEN talk about community characteristics, including arts-related events and programs, to entice candidates to move or stay. So in making a pitch to a sponsor, talk about your organization’s value to the community – are you bringing a benefit to that company’s employees? THEN SAY SO.

Also see:

Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities
Details on not just what groups of volunteers can do in a two-hour, half-day or all-day event, but also just how much an organization or program will need to do to prepare a site for group volunteering. It’s an expensive, time-consuming endeavor – are you ready? Is it worth it?

Short-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers
There are a variety of ways for mission-based organizations to involve volunteers to help with short-term projects relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments are what are sought after most by potential “tech” volunteers. But there is a disconnect: most organizations have trouble identifying such short-term projects. This is a list of short-term projects for “tech” volunteers — assignments that might takes days, weeks or just a couple of months to complete.

One(-ish) Day “Tech” Activities for Volunteers
Volunteers are getting together for intense, one-day events, or events of just a few days, to build web pages, to write code, to edit Wikipedia pages, and more. These are gatherings of onsite volunteers, where everyone is in one location, together, to do an online-related project in one day, or a few days. It’s a form of episodic volunteering, because volunteers don’t have to make an ongoing commitment – they can come to the event, contribute their services, and then leave and never volunteer again. Because computers are involved, these events are sometimes called hackathons, even if coding isn’t involved. This page provides advice on how to put together a one-day event, or just-a-few-days-of activity, for a group of tech volunteers onsite, working together, for a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), community-focused government program, school or other mission-based organization – or association of such.

Article by me from 2003 re: Finding Sponsors (scroll down on the page to find it)

Don’t Just Ask for Money!
Something much more should happen if someone clicks on your web site’s “Help Us” link than a message that asks only for money.

Volunteer Management: Once More with Meaning

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I’m not the only one constantly harping that we need to stop talking about volunteers in terms of money saved or in terms of “Hey, we’ve got all this work to do, let’s get some volunteers to do it” – and, instead, start talking about the true value of Volunteers.

Here’s a fantastic article from 2008 by Jennifer Woodill for the Nonprofit Quarterly that echoes what a small but growing number of managers, researchers and volunteerism advocates have been saying – there are much better reasons to involve volunteers than we don’t have to pay them!

And I don’t think it’s volunteer managers that are the biggest obstacle in changing this mentality – it’s donors, particularly from the corporate sector, as well as big organizations like the United Nations Volunteers program and John Hopkins University, which just cannot let go of the idea of volunteers being great primarily becaues they mean not having to pay employees or consultants to do work.

Way to go, Jennifer!

Also see:

Do NOT say “Need to Cut Costs? Involve Volunteers!”

The Value of Volunteers (and how to talk about such)