While the insights you’ll learn from below are based on organizations who saw success in their first few months using the Classy platform, here’s a snapshot of what success has also translated to for a couple other nonprofits that maximize Classy’s capabilities to engage their communities.

Finance can reconcile donations and surface insights on incoming revenue

Jeremy Lin

Applying for grants

The pandemic has quite rightly highlighted the great work undertaken by the sector but we know that at the higher governmental The first indicator of a successful nonprofit organization is the amount of time they spend on the details that bring their fundraising campaigns to life right from the start. 

• Be on guard for a surge of solicitations related to any highly publicized crisis.
• Do not respond to, or click on any attachments, links or pictures.
• Beware of individuals or others claiming to be third-party intermediaries for charities or those in need.
• Avoid name confusion by independently verifying that the charity is legitimate before you donate. 

Finding grant funding

The other important factor to note is that the virtual component of these campaign types is allowing nonprofits to reach wider audiences across the world. Virtual success is here to stay and offers you more opportunities to build campaigns you may not have had the resources for previously.

For many charities, having enough funds to meet the increased demand for their services has been a real obstacle to address. Grants in particular remain and will always be an important source of funding.

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More time means more focus on impactful campaigns. It also creates room for the small details to shine through your fundraising efforts. Overall, refocusing your time makes a world of difference to supporters and beneficiaries. 

We’re here with time-saving hacks that any fundraising professional can appreciate to help you reach your full strategic and creative potential. 

It is important for the good governance of your charity that you record your decision and the reasons for it.

Jony Doe

If your governing document does not allow you to postpone or cancel meetings you should use any power in your governing document to communicating about new fundraising opportunities, campaign launches, or appreciation for your donors doesn’t have to consume your entire day to be effective. Lean into email templates that make meaningful outreach possible, even when you’re short on time.

Automate Email Templates to Reach More Donors

Another way to avoid starting from scratch when writing an email is to gain inspiration from your favorite consumer brands. With some language tweaking, you can create unique templates for your organization based on just about any email you’ve received and replicate what you loved about it.

If you do consider such a decision is necessary, you should follow any rules in your charity’s governing document that allow for postponement or cancellation.

Create Year-Round Fundraising Campaigns

Campaign start and end dates create limitations. Sometimes they’re necessary, but there’s a lot of benefit to releasing time constraints. Continue to generate income, diversify your fundraising portfolio, and keep supporters engaged with your mission.

• A main donation website gives any visitor the option to take action, wherever and whenever they’d like, with compelling content and a simple payment process
• Peer-to-peer fundraising helps provide loyal supporters with everything they need to fundraise on your behalf and attract new donors all year long

The post Hacks to Improve Your Fundraising Efficiency 2021 appeared first on createfuturegood.

Those are just a few of the words we could use to describe the incredible women we’ve met over the years. These are women who raise families, start businesses, and perfect their crafts.

Women who are capable of so much—especially when they’re relieved of their 40-pound (about 20 kilos) Jerry Cans and their long, dangerous walks for water.

But the reality is, women and girls are disproportionately responsible for collecting water in nearly every developing region. As we spend this month celebrating and observing International Women’s Day and World Water Day, we want to share that reality with you.

For women, collecting water steals time

We’ve met young girls who walk in the 115ºF (46ºC) heat of the Sahel Desert to collect water from 1,000-year-old holes. We’ve met women in Ethiopia who walk to the river before sunrise and don’t get back until after lunch.

We’ve even met mothers in Mali who sometimes sleep next to an open water source so they can be first in line when the water refills the next morning.

For women, collecting water limits opportunities

When we met 8-year-old Rita in Nepal, she was crouched down at the front of a long line, scooping water from a rocky basin into her metal water container. It was just after 6 a.m., and Rita and her mother had been waiting in line to collect water for their family of nine since 3 a.m.

This isn’t an uncommon experience for young girls living in rural, mountainous parts of Nepal. Every day, they can spend hours waiting in line for the nearby source to refill or trek miles down the mountain to another dirty water source far below.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions to daily life and children are feeling these changes deeply. While a return to school will be welcomed by many students, others will be feeling anxious or frightened. Here are tips to help your children navigate some of the complicated emotions they may be facing with going back to school.

How parents can help their children navigate their feelings during school reopenings.

Jeremy Lin

My child is scared to go back to school. How can I help him feel at ease? 

Starting school or starting a new school year can be stressful at the best of times, let alone during a global pandemic. You can make him feel at ease by having an open conversation about what it is that’s worrying him and letting him know that it’s natural to feel anxious.

• Be on guard for a surge of solicitations related to any highly publicized crisis.
• Do not respond to, or click on any attachments, links or pictures.
• Beware of individuals or others claiming to be third-party intermediaries for charities or those in need.
• Avoid name confusion by independently verifying that the charity is legitimate before you donate. 

How can I encourage my child to follow precautions (such as frequent handwashing,  etc.) at school without alarming her?

Children may feel nervous or reluctant to return to school, especially if they have been learning at home for months. Be honest – for example, you could go through some of the changes they may expect at school, such as needing to wear forms of protective clothing like masks.

Children may also find it difficult being physically distanced from friends and teachers while at school – you could encourage them to think about other ways to bond and stay connected.

The post Supporting your child’s mental health during COVID-19 appeared first on createfuturegood.

Increased conflict and insecurity in Afghanistan have left children paying a heavy price. Afghanistan was already one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child. Now, with a security crisis, skyrocketing food prices, a severe drought, the spread of COVID-19, and another harsh winter just around the corner, children are at greater risk than ever.

Children should not pay for conflict with their childhoods. Afghanistan’s children need peace.

Jony Doe

UNICEF has been on the ground in Afghanistan for 65 years with offices nationwide and a range of partners that support us in delivering life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable, especially children.

What’s happening in Afghanistan? 

• Think about data in everything you do
• Network with other data “non-geeks”
• Get comfortable with a new way of working

UNICEF is supporting mobile health and nutrition teams in camps for internally displaced persons, setting up nutrition hubs and vaccination sites, pre-positioning additional life-saving supplies, and supporting students in community-based education classes.

Against a backdrop of conflict and insecurity, children are living in communities that are running out of water because of drought. They’re missing out on life-saving vaccines. Many are so malnourished they lie in hospital beds, too weak to grasp an outstretched finger.

How is UNICEF responding?

UNICEF is continuing to work with partners to support children and their families across the country.

UNICEF

UNICEF is committed to continuing its work for children and families across Afghanistan. To reach the hardest-to-reach children, UNICEF is advocating with all parties to ensure safe and unhindered humanitarian access, in line with the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action.

UNICEF is supporting emergency water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) services, including the provision of safe water through water trucking, construction and repair of handpumps, along with the provision of supplies and hygiene promotion.

The post Delivering for Afghanistan’s children appeared first on createfuturegood.

Running a program designed to increase the resilience of small charities is a fantastic job, but one of the biggest challenges is measuring resilience. In reality, whether a charity is resilient can only be known when they face difficult events or changing times. 

When funding is such a challenge and public bodies are using charities to deliver their mission, it can be easy to fall into the trap of following the funding, by allowing external entities to dictate your organization’s direction.

It is important for the good governance of your charity that you record your decision and the reasons for it.

Jony Doe

PCharity governance

• Charity Governance Code
• Kent Good Governance Charity Forum, Brachers
• Governing your organisation, NCVO

This was our experience with one charity in particular. As part of our initial meeting, we asked why they existed because their work felt very disjointed. The charity could tell us all about what they did in terms of activities and projects – but struggled to articulate what they were trying to achieve. 

Effective leadership

In the time we’ve been working with them they have agreed to their purpose and reviewed how their activities fit with this. Their theory of change document has also allowed them to regularly ensure the organisation stays focused, makes informed decisions about strategy and measures itself against its intended impact.

If you do consider such a decision is necessary, you should follow any rules in your charity’s governing document that allow for postponement or cancellation.

Awareness

In many parts of the UK, the local voluntary sector landscape has changed significantly in the last decade, let alone since Covid-19. As a board and senior management team, it’s important to spend time researching who else is out there because your information can quickly go out of date and this may have an impact on your delivery. 

The post Six characteristics of a resilient charity appeared first on createfuturegood.

When we’re putting together webinars or virtual events on Fundraising Everywhere we see small charities as an excellent source of insight for the wider sector. Sure, they might not have the big teams or big budgets to do all of the flashy digital things but there are plenty of ways they’re amazing at the fundraising fundamentals.

If you want to improve your connection to your local community, join local Facebook, networking and corporate groups to hear firsthand about what matters most to the people who live where you work.

They move and pivot fast

Economies of scale occur when the size of an organization’s operations allows it to operate more efficiently. As an organization grows it costs it less (per unit) to produce its goods or services due to its overhead and other fixed costs being spread over a larger volume of output.

Charity rating methods suitable for larger organizations often cannot be fairly applied to much smaller charities given that the latter lack the economies of scale necessary to operate at the same level of efficiency.

Small charities that assist underserved populations, that are fulfilling an unmet need, or that are new or in the process of scaling up to a larger size may still be worthy of donors’ support despite CharityWatch’s inability to rate them due to this comparability issue.

They are connected to the community around them

If you want to connect more with donors, implement small and interactive ways to stay connected that go beyond digital comms. Pick up the phone, write a postcard, or make the most of our increasingly virtual world and arrange a video call with key supporters you’ve not checked in with for a while.

The lack of an audit, however, means that a qualified outside party has not subjected the charity’s financial reporting to auditing standards that would test the effectiveness of its internal controls and assess whether or not the charity’s financial information is fairly presented and free of material misstatements.

The post 4 Things We Can Learn From Small Charity Fundraisers appeared first on createfuturegood.

It’s time to rethink our approach to data in fundraising so everyone feels like a pro, even if Excel makes you break out in a worried sweat. When we use data we’re more equipped to make better decisions for our strategy, supporters and team; important in a year of more uncertainty!

Children have experienced trying to stay safe from the virus for 18 months now.

Jony Doe

Use Zoom, Facetime, or Skype to keep in touch with family and friends, both local and overseas to stay social, and maintain friendships and relationships when you can’t be together.

Invest in a good CRM – and use it!

• Think about data in everything you do
• Network with other data “non-geeks”
• Get comfortable with a new way of working

If you’re a fundraiser that’s daunted by data you may be surprised how much you’re already using it. Every time you segment your database, draft your budget forecast or analyze a campaign to see if it can be saved with a tweak (or it’s time to let go), you’re using data. Data in fundraising is using the statistics and insights available to you, not intuition or feeling, to make decisions.

Find time for children to get fresh air and sunlight. This may be as simple as spending some time in the backyard or on the balcony. If you live in a place where you can’t get outside, open your curtains and windows if you can, and let the natural light in.

Be aware of data pitfalls

It’s time to rethink our approach to data in fundraising so everyone feels like a pro.

Nikki Bell

If we have a good idea that we’re passionate about, it’s very easy to analyse data in a way that will prove that we’re right. This is called ‘confirmation bias’ and is something you need to be mindful of from day one to keep yourself and your team in check. Without this awareness, we lack the opportunity for innovation and growth – a key focus for charities in 2021!

In this time ask them if they just want to share, or if they want you to help them to find a solution. Children don’t always want advice, sometimes being heard is enough. If you or your children need further support, please reach out to a trained professional such as a psychologist, social worker or GP. 

The post How to get started with data in fundraising appeared first on createfuturegood.

For some charities trustees may consider that holding a virtual or hybrid AGM or other required meeting is not a viable solution. It may also not be possible for them to move immediately back to face-to-face meetings.

Wherever possible, we would ask you to file your annual return, report and accounts on time. However, where the pandemic has impacted your ability to do this, we have given a filing extension to any otherwise compliant charity that applied to us for one.

It is important for the good governance of your charity that you record your decision and the reasons for it.

Jony Doe

If your governing document does not allow you to postpone or cancel meetings you should use any power in your governing document to amend the rules to ensure you can hold meetings in a valid format. You should update the governing document and approve any previous decisions as soon as possible.

Postponing or cancelling AGMs or other meetings

For some charities trustees may consider that holding a virtual or hybrid AGM or other required meeting is not a viable solution. It may also not be possible for them to move immediately back to face-to-face meetings. In these circumstances trustees may consider they have no choice but to cancel or postpone.

If you do consider such a decision is necessary, you should follow any rules in your charity’s governing document that allow for postponement or cancellation.

Annual return and accounts

Since the start of the pandemic, we have generally been understanding and taken a proportionate approach if trustees have decided to hold meetings on a remote or hybrid basis or postpone or cancel a required meeting where:

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