Do YOU Have a Nonprofit Culture of Philanthropy?
A nonprofit culture of philanthropy is your organization's collective perception and participation in advancing the fundraising efforts of the entire charity. It's less about your actual designated fundraising team/department and more about total knowledge and buy-in from everyone in the organization family. This includes your leadership, your board (or boards), your volunteers, your non-philanthropy staff, and anyone else who works for/with the mission on your behalf.
As professional fundraisers within a nonprofit, our favorite quote on this concept is that "fundraising is our job, but philanthropy is everyone's job." That sounds great as an empowering statement to hang up as a poster, but are we just asking the rest of the team to do our jobs for us? Not exactly.
The asking for money part of fundraising, arguably the most important part, is our job, but cultivating a culture of understanding the mission does fall to everyone involved. Our leadership should support us in our efforts, but also, they should speak early and often about how the organization needs the support and generosity of the community to thrive. The board doesn't all have to make asks (though that would certainly help!), but they do all at least need to open doors for potential donors, and of course, support the organization financially and lead by example in that way. A strong culture of philanthropy means that everyone in the organization serves as an ambassador to the community to help remind everyone that growth comes with generosity. Everyone in the organization family should know next steps if they ever hear that someone may want to serve or give! It may be as simple as referring the prospect to you in the philanthropy department, but having some process in place is key.
A strong culture of philanthropy means more donations and a more cohesive team effort to grow the mission. Here are 10 easy questions to self-assess your charity on your overall culture of philanthropy:
Does your leadership support your fundraising operations financially?
Is your leadership willing to go on fundraising calls and make asks when the amount is appropriate?
Is your board engaged in the fundraising process?
Do you have 100% participation in annual giving from your staff leadership and entire board?
Do your expectations for your job come with proper support to actually achieve your annual goals?
Is your fundraising goal based on data (or is arbitrary)?
Do all the organizational staff know how to respond when someone asks about a donation?
Do you have a volunteer fundraising program or philanthropy council?
You you have an established employee giving/payroll deduct program?
Do you have an established grateful family program?
You can score yourself on a scale from 1 to 10 based on your yes/no answers to these questions to give your organization a score for its culture of philanthropy. If you scored lower than you would like, don't fret! Most nonprofits are not strong in this area without consistent effort over several months to build the culture.
If you want to know a little more about building a culture of philanthropy in your nonprofit, you can join us for one of our free virtual forums every other Friday! We cover different topics each week and discuss the latest industry trends live with our network!
