Small Nonprofit: Fundraising Tips, Leadership Strategies, and Community-Centric Solutions
Welcome to Small Nonprofit, the podcast designed for leaders, fundraisers, and advocates in the nonprofit sector who want to create real change. We provide small nonprofit organizations with strategies to enhance their fundraising campaigns, improve nonprofit governance, and implement ethical fundraising practices that resonate with today’s values-driven donors.
Hosted by an experienced nonprofit consultant, Maria Rio, this show delves into the unique challenges of nonprofit fundraising and community-centric fundraising, providing tools for donor engagement and major gifts fundraising.
👤 Who Should Listen?
This podcast is perfect for anyone involved in a small nonprofit seeking practical advice on fundraising strategy, nonprofit leadership, and board accountability. Whether you're looking for innovative fundraising ideas for nonprofit organizations or trying to create an impact measurement framework that demonstrates your organization’s value, Small Nonprofit is here to guide you.
🎤 Core Topics We Cover
Community-Centric Fundraising: Learn how ethical fundraising practices can strengthen donor relationships, enhance donor engagement, and align your organization with values-based major giving principles. We’ll help you shift from a donor-centric model to one that prioritizes the community.
Systemic Change and Governance: From participatory budgeting to nonprofit board of directors best practices, we explore how to navigate the nonprofit industrial complex and embrace structures that foster diversity in nonprofit leadership and board accountability.
Preventing Nonprofit Burnout: Tackle topics such as nonprofit burnout prevention and learn how to cultivate a healthy, anti-oppressive work culture that supports your team’s well-being.
Nonprofit Storytelling: Understand how to measure your nonprofit’s effectiveness through nonprofit impact measurement strategies and leverage nonprofit storytelling to create compelling narratives that attract donors.
📣 Engaging Conversations and Real-World Advice
In each episode, we bring you insights from experts in fundraising consulting, nonprofit grant writing, and capital campaign strategies. From interviews with fractional fundraisers and major gift officers to deep dives on fundraising tips and innovative fundraising ideas, we offer actionable advice that you can implement immediately to strengthen your organization’s impact.
💰 Learn How to Build a Sustainable Nonprofit
Every nonprofit leader faces the challenge of achieving financial sustainability. Our episodes address critical fundraising strategies for nonprofit organizations, providing insights on volunteer management, capacity building, and nonprofit marketing strategy. Gain access to tools that help you execute successful fundraising campaigns and build a foundation for long-term growth.
🤝 Join the Movement for Systemic Change
At The Small Nonprofit, we’re committed to transforming the nonprofit sector from the ground up. Our focus on systemic change and community-centric fundraising aligns with our mission to support nonprofits in creating equitable, sustainable communities. By addressing topics like values-based decision making and nonprofit transparency, we’re working to build a more ethical, inclusive sector.
❤️ Stay Connected
Subscribe to Small Nonprofit on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your preferred podcast platform. Don’t miss an episode as we explore everything from fundraising tips to nonprofit social media strategy, and learn how you can become a stronger advocate for your organization’s mission.
Small Nonprofit: Fundraising Tips, Leadership Strategies, and Community-Centric Solutions
five fallacies of fundraising with Nicole McVan and Tanya Rumble
We love busting myths in this podcast and in this episode, we are diving into more fundraising fallacies and why most of them are actually harmful for our beneficiaries, donors and relationships in our sector.
Here to share their Five Fallacies of Fundraising are Tanya Rumble and Nicole McVan. These two have been showing up on virtual stages for a while now and I’m so excited to have them on the podcast to share their framework and how it can help organizations and fundraisers.
Tanya and Nicole's Five Fallacies of Fundraising:
- Wealth is built by the smartest and most capable people. In fundraising, we often think of white donors pictured with a racialized person or community member who's benefited from the funds that they donated. As fundraisers, we need to acknowledge the structural advantages that allowed donors to build their wealth and debunk the myth that they gained it only based on merit because this narrative creates more harm and deepens inequity in philanthropy.
- The donor is always right. The donor-first-at-all-cost mentality essentially gives away all of the power and creates zero or very limited boundaries for the individual fundraiser and for the organization. If we continue to please and follow our donors it will be difficult to feel a sense of control and can have a negative impact on the direction of our program and mission.
- Donor centricity should trump everything else. Fundraisers should not subjugate ourselves, keep donors away from work and give away our power. Donors, by and large, don't want to be on this pedestal. Oftentimes it's the charity themselves that creates these recognition grids for donors. This fills the sector with unrealistic expectations from donors and later on drains the resources of the organization for stewardship and donor recognition.
- Beneficiaries are deficient and need a donor to save them. Saviorism is when we center ourselves in the story instead of our beneficiaries. As fundraisers, we need to take an asset-based lens when we talk about our communities and beneficiaries that have identities that have been structurally disadvantaged from time immemorial, and we need to be thoughtful about how we position those.
- Resources are scarce, and we must fight each other for funding. Charities and fundraisers are worried about losing donors because our sector is built on a scarcity mindset of there's never enough, and we're constantly having to go out there to earn the money to be able to survive. But the reality is there are tons of folks out there who think about your charity in a different way.
Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode
Post your favourite quote on social media to share with us!
“We're not fundraising for fundraising's sake. We're fundraising to make a difference. And if we miss an opportunity to connect with the hearts and minds of our donors, to help them understand how they could change the behavior, not just give money, we're missing a massive opportunity to move our missions forward.” - Nicole M.
Resources from this Episode
philanthropyandequitycop@gmail.com
Tanya Hannah Rumble, CFRE, MFA-P™ | LinkedIn