In the nonprofit world, many NFPs have taken a more donor-centric approach to fundraising in an attempt to increase the amount of money that they raise for their cause. This method has been highly successful in helping nonprofit’s meet their fundraising goals.

Have We Lost Sight of the Mission and Our Reason for Being?

Unfortunately, the importance of the work that is actually accomplished by volunteers, staff and boards, is often overlooked in the quest to increase donations. The need for greater advocacy to raise awareness about the mission, and effect actual structural change, also often takes a back seat in donor-centric fundraising models.

For these reasons, organisations that place too much emphasis on their contributions run the risk of hurting their nonprofit’s mission in the long term. In order to achieve actual, real change, nonprofits need to evolve past donor-centric fundraising models and move towards a more socially just, community-centric model that focuses on the actual service community.

Placing the Focus on the Mission and the Community

The following is a brief overview of some of the strategies that can help your nonprofit continue to acknowledge the importance of the donor, while moving the spotlight to the actual mission. This will also help honour the contributions made by all stakeholders, including volunteers, boards, staff, service recipients and the community at large.

Value and Acknowledge All Contributions Equally

Currently, great emphasis is placed on acknowledging the impact made by donors and their monetary contribution. But the truth is that donations need to work hand in hand with other types of contributions to move the mission forward. Each contribution, from the work that volunteers and staff members do, to the contributions made by other elements in the community, should be valued and acknowledged equally, whether those contributions are money, time, or other resources.

Authentic Partnerships

Rather than viewing other NFPs as competitors, nonprofits should value the work accomplished by other organisations. They should seek to work together through the use of authentic partnerships and to cooperate and collaborate with one another.

Donors should also be treated as partners and encouraged to become more engaged with achieving the mission in other ways, as advocates and volunteers, in addition to their monetary contributions. Nonprofits should never place the needs of donors above that of the mission. In doing so they risk neglecting the welfare and needs of volunteers, service recipients and others in the service community.

Rather than focusing solely on the benefit of donations, reporting should be holistic in nature, to emphasise the importance of all forms of assistance accomplished by the NFP.

The Mission and the Work that Supports It Should be Fair, Equal, and Socially Just

When nonprofits focus solely on their mission, they run the risk of making it impossible to effect change in the long term. For example, the problems and issues that are causative factors and lie at the heart of many missions are social in nature. Racism, privilege, inequality, open and covert discrimination, stereotypes, marginalisation affect everyone and lead to many of the structural problems that NFPs seek to readdress. To achieve their mission, NFPs must work together towards greater social justice for all.

To this end, nonprofits must take steps to ensure that everyone is aware of the role that they have to play towards increasing fairness, access and equality for everyone. Fundraisers, staff and volunteer members should be trained in anti-racism, wealth inequality, and other significant social justice issues.

NFPs should work to avoid stereotypes and creating roles of saviour and victim between supporters of the NFP, as everyone in the community from donor to recipient benefits from the nonprofit’s work. NFPs should be respectful in the stories that they tell, and that they ask supporters to share.