Run your nonprofit like a business

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In order to achieve their goals, nonprofit organizations today more than ever must operate with a for profit outlook. Without bottom-line driven business strategies in place, organizations run the risk of failing to meet their stated objectives and helping those that need their assistance. 

Through our work on nonprofit boards and as independent 3rd party partners, Big Buck Research & Analytics has identified a clear path to success for nonprofits: it’s achieved through sound market research, analysis of data, and most importantly a leveraging of the insights gained. We view nonprofit groups in many of the same ways we view for profit organizations. Donors aren’t all that different than customers and whether you’re for-profit or nonprofit, time and money must be spent wisely.

Succeeding in business

Businesses know that success is dependent on their ability to gain and keep customers. Operating under this premise, these enterprises get to know their customer base inside and out. Companies use survey tools and customer data to identify characteristics of customers based on needs, sensitivities, preferences, habits, and demographics. This allows them to intelligently target efforts to retain existing customers, as well as make efficient prospecting efforts in attaining more consumers.

Knowing their customers isn’t enough for the top companies in the world, they also ensure customers are more than just satisfied. Successful businesses aim to meet the needs of their consumers, and stay abreast of customers’ changing attitudes and behaviors so that they are able to consistently rise to meet them.

Succeeding with a nonprofit

Nonprofit organizations start and end with donors. In order for a nonprofit group to succeed over the long-term, they must keep existing donors, ensure goals are being met, and ensure a steady flow of incoming contributions. We have a simple list of questions that must be answered in order for a nonprofit group to have sustained growth and sustained success. The list is broken down in to 2 groups, one that focuses on your “customers” or donors, and the second focuses on your nonprofit organization as a whole.

Donors:

  • How many do we have and who are they?
  • Who are our most valuable contributors? Do they have similar traits?
  • What’s going on with our lapsed donors?
  • What did our donors think of the last fundraising event?
  • Do our benefactors understand where their money goes?
  • What issues do they care about?

By understanding donor information your group is able to efficiently target new people that are most likely to contribute, re-engage lapsed donors, develop donors into long-time contributors, increase donor satisfaction, and meet benefactors’ concerns.

The Nonprofit Organization:

  • Is our group making the impact we want to?
  • Are their others in need of aid?
  • How aware is the general public of our group?
  • What is the perception of our group by both donors and non-donors?

The information gleaned from these questions allows your organization to focus on key strategies to develop awareness, increase positive opinions, ensure that those in need are being helped by the groups efforts, and target new areas of aid that are needed.

The purpose

Big Buck Research & Analytics is not out to change nonprofit groups in to greed driven monsters void of all goodwill, instead we want to ensure that they’re run in the most efficient way possible. By doing this, money and time are saved and organizations impact the causes they support in the most significant way possible.

Give us a call today, our first hand experience gives us insight in to the concerns that nonprofits have both financial and otherwise. We’d love to help you better serve the ones you help.

 

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