NPA 095: How to Track Grants, Donations and Program Expenses
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
Keep track of your nonprofits funds can be tricky. Tracking grants, donations, program expenses and other revenue means organizing your dollars into trackable categories. Have you ever wondered if there was a system that made this all easier? What is the "right" way to track grants? Should I track each fundraiser separately? If so, how?
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NPA 094 - How to Use Video Effectively
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
Are you scared of video? No, really... if I told you to make a video for your Facebook page, would you panic?
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NPA 093: Making Change with Video
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
Everything is "video, video, video". Really - 80% of all internet consumption is video. So, if you are not using video you are behind the game.
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NPA 092: How to really RAISE MONEY with AUCTIONS
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
In this episode I talk with Adam Capes from GetAway2Give about how he helps nonprofit raise $10,000's with auctions. Adam Capes is the Co-Founder and President of Getaway2Give, a company changing the way non-profits raise money and people think about vacations.
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NPA 091: 911 Funding for Nonprofits
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
In this episode, we talk about how to obtain emergency funding for your existing programs. I talk with Caroline Bressan from Open Road Alliance. They are a private philanthropic initiative that serves the social sector by keeping impact on track in an unpredictable world.
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NPA 090: How to be an Innovative Nonprofit
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
My guest on this podcast is Jesse Lane with Pure Charity. Jesse talks with us about nonprofit "innovation" and how it can be used to spark new ideas and build sustainable programs that grow through changing times.
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NPA 089 - Smart Start Your Nonprofit
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
In this episode, I talk with Michael Rivera from Jee Foods. Michael is part of a group of high school students who started a nonprofit to help the hungry in their area. The program is an initiative to discover new models for alleviating hunger throughout the world.
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NPA 088: An Audio Board Training
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
In this episode, I talk with Kate Hayes from Echoing Green. We talk about the importance of creating diversity on your board as well as how to help your board work better as a team.
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NPA 087: The Journey to Sustainability
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
In this episode I speak with Rosenna Bakari from Talking Trees. It is a nonprofit she started back in 2010 and just recently devoted full-time hours to help the organization become sustainable.
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NPA 086 - How to Fundraise without Asking for Money
The Nonprofit Ally Podcast
The reason most people hate fundraising is because they hate asking people for money. But this assumes that "asking" is all we do when we fundraising. And this is where the problem lies. It's not so much that we hate asking for money... it is that we think that asking for money is what funding raising is about. And this is just not true.
info_outlinePodcast show notes written by Alexandra Black-Paulick. Thank you Alex!
Can nonprofits make money?
You'd be surprised at how many people adamantly believe that under no circumstances can nonprofits earn revenue. The reality is that the term "nonprofit" has nothing to do with whether an organization can make a profit and everything to do with what they do with that profit. In the instance of a nonprofit, they cannot distribute profits to shareholders like a for-profit company. Instead, the revenue stays within the organization to be used to achieve the nonprofit’s mission.
In truth, there are a lot of different rules and regulations around income. The most important one is whether the income is “related” or “unrelated” to their mission. NOLO dives deeper into the potential tax implications on that here.
But diving into the tax code isn’t what today’s episode is about.
In today's show, I connect with Alexandra Black-Paulick from Positive Impact Media and co-creator of Nonprofits for the Future on ways that nonprofits are generating revenue. We not only break down some of the ways you can discover opportunities in your organization but we also go through two separate case studies.
Between grants gaining competition and donors starting to disappear after the economic crash of 2008, nonprofits across the nation started funneling their efforts into earned income solutions that aligned with their mission. Below, you’ll find a brief synopsis of the two case studies we talk about in the episode as well as tips to help you discover opportunities in your organization.
Our goal with this episode is to help you come up with ideas that align with your mission and opportunities that are viable to implement in your organization.
Enjoy!
Resources Mentioned in the Show
- FREE DOWNLOAD: Three Case Studies on Increasing Nonprofit Funding
- Nonprofits for the Future: Roadmap to New Funding Sources
- NPA 076: Do You Believe these Nonprofit Myths? Let’s Bust Them!
Method for Discovering Opportunities in Your Organization
On the episode, Alexandra highlights the strategy that she walks organizations through in her upcoming course. It’s really important to use your mission as a metric throughout this process so you develop a related income stream and don’t pull resources away from your main goals.
Start with an organizational asset list to find things of value in your organization. This could include everything from curriculum to technology to communities advocating on your behalf. Then you need to look at different needs in the communities you serve or groups near to your cause.
Case Study One: Denver Food Rescue + Fresh Food Connect
The Denver Food Rescue realized that they had a valuable technology asset with their software running Fresh Food Connect. Additionally, they realized other hubs or organizations running a similar food program would benefit from it.
This led them to license the app. They charge a nominal annual fee, which then covers all the required maintenance costs.
In the episode, we dive in deeper to how you can use a similar thought pattern to make sure the endeavors you're doing add to your mission. Some of the suggestions both Alex and I recommend to expand could fall into mission creep, which we talk about ways to avoid.
Case Study Two: Bikes Together
Bikes Together needed a way to sustain their incredibly generous bike giveaway programs, which has given away over 6,000 bikes to date. They also had a complete bicycle workshop and ample volunteers ready and willing to work on bikes.
This led them to start refurbishing bikes to sell.
Tune in to hear how we talk about another really innovative way they built in value to create memberships, and how members love it!
How to Move Your Mission Forward with Earned Income Solutions
If you want a structured approach and a step by step roadmap to develop earned income solutions for your organization, then check out Alex’s new course: Roadmap to New Funding Sources.
This four-week course walks you through everything from exploring different business models, discovering opportunities within your organization, how to vet ideas, and mission-driven marketing strategies to take it to market. To ensure that every organization going through the class comes away with tangible ideas to implement, she and her co-creator are hosting office hours twice a week.
You can check out all the details here.
Hurry though - this course closes on January 30th.
Enter the Giveaway!
If you listened until the end of the episode, you know that we’re giving away one FREE course for Nonprofits for the Future: Roadmap to New Funding Sources. To enter, you need to comment on the show notes. To really make this powerful, we’d love to hear what you think about earned income for nonprofits, different takeaways you want to apply to your organization, or potential earned income solutions you want to implement.
Comment by January 28th to enter.
After the giveaway, we can move to a different CTA at the bottom.
Download the Slides from Today’s Presentation H-2
Do you want to have the slides from today’s presentation? They succinctly go through the two different case studies from mission to asset breakdown to opportunity to earned income solution.
You can snag that presentation here.