How one nonprofit is fighting hunger, food waste, and poverty with kitchen apprenticeships

Nonprofit Management

Article | July 20, 2022

The relationship costs too much money, so I will save money and not pursue it. And the result of that decision is disastrous. Relationships take time. You know that. Your boss knows it. But we ignore time because that is how we have set up things. There is a budget to manage. A forecast to make. So, we go for the fake relationship. One where we pretend to care, but only if we get the money. We do that — not because we believe it’s the right thing to do but — because we can’t see any other way to deliver on expectations. And that is the dilemma in major gifts. The push is for instant gratification. We are dealing with a situation right now where the authority figure does not value relationships. She says she does. She even claims to have a value set that cherishes relationships. But the money is the real value. And the need to grab it is the central drive. So, she is pushing on her major gift officers (MGOs) to get the money and is even threatening to do away with the major gifts program because it is not delivering. But when we uncover what “not delivering” means in her view, it is not that each MGO is not producing revenue from the same donors over and above last year. Nope. It is that each isn’t producing enough revenue quickly enough. The real story in this organization is that some of the other fundraising programs are not performing, and major gifts needs to be the scapegoat. It’s all about the money. This is so sad because these are good people — all of them, including the authority figure. It is sad because the plan to move major gifts into real relationships is facing failure. And that bothers Jeff and me — not because it’s our plan for the organization. No, it bothers us because there are good MGOs and good donors who must revert back to a fake relationship. And that is not good. One of our major objectives is to influence fundraisers and nonprofit leaders to highly value and respect donors. When we succeed at that, and we do, more often than not, it brings donors, MGOs and leaders a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction. And, it brings the money. You should see the celebration! But when money is valued over relationship, it is a dark and depressing time for us. That is why the situation I described earlier is so disturbing. It’s not that we are going to lose something. No, that is not it. It’s that some very good MGOs and some very good donors will be forced to live in superficiality and shallowness. And that is not good for anyone. And it certainly is not good for the economic well-being of the nonprofit. Make a commitment today to real relationships with your donors. And if your organization does not support that, try to influence it to change. If the organization will not change, move on. You have a choice.

Nonprofit Management

Article | July 11, 2022

As the country adapts to the unique circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic, nonprofits are being faced with new challenges as they continue their important work. Fortunately, there are hundreds of emergency relief funds at the global, national, and local levels, offering individual and organizational funding for basic needs, direct services, and other immediate concerns. Since Voqal cannot offer emergency funds for direct services like other funders and partners, we thought we would share a compilation of resources where organizations can find these dollars. A special thank you goes out to Voqal’s grants and fellowships program manager, Mary Coleman, for putting this list together.

Nonprofit Management

Article | July 12, 2022

Though conversational marketing is relatively new, it speaks to the growing expectation of a personalized experience and the opportunity to connect and start a one-to-one conversation. Coined by our partners at Drift, conversational marketing aims to guide users through an engagement funnel more quickly by using real-time conversations. As chatbots are increasingly seen as a natural way to get information, they can help to build relationships and create authentic experiences between an organization and its target audiences.

Article | April 20, 2020

Increasing the number of followers your nonprofit has on social media can bring awareness to your cause, result in more donations to your organization, increase event attendance, and much more. The larger your following, the more people see your content and calls to action. So, what’s the best way to gain followers? In short, it’s all about engaging content. What you post matters.