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10 LinkedIn Best Practices for Nonprofits

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From: Nonprofit Tech for Good

Here’s the list. Read More online for details on each
1) Set up and prioritize LinkedIn Pages in your social media strategy.
2) Post 2-3 times weekly to your LinkedIn Page and react to your followers.
3) Monitor your LinkedIn Analytics.
4) Experiment with LinkedIn Ads.
5) Engage as your nonprofit page to elevate your brand on LinkedIn.
6) Encourage current staff, board members, and volunteers to complete their LinkedIn Profiles.
7) Empower your current staff, board members, and volunteers to advocate for your nonprofit on LinkedIn.
8) Encourage executive staff to be regularly active on LinkedIn.
9) Use LinkedIn to connect with major donors, corporate sponsors, and foundations.
10) Join and participate in LinkedIn Groups.

Candid advice to fundraisers from foundation leaders

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Ever wonder what really happens to your LOI once a foundation receives it?

The Center for Civil Society recently hosted Catherine Koenen, executive director of the Gianforte Family Foundation, and Marshall J. Sana, senior program officer of the Apex Foundation, for a conversation about foundations fundraising.

Read the entire article online Link to Philanthropy Daily

Here are a few key takeaways to make sure that your foundations outreach is the best it can be.

  • GET THE PROCESS DOWN: First and foremost, do your research!
  • NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOOD PROPOSAL: The details are important.
  • COMMUNICATION IS KEY: Don’t underestimate the value of your relationship with your foundation contact—they are the ones who go to bat for you with the board, after all.

 

 

From Inside Philanthropy: What Books Are Philanthropic Leaders Reading?

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Here Are 21 Great Picks From IP Interviews

Here are a few:

  • Amy Freitag, New York Community Trust President recommends “The Culture Code,” by Daniel Coyle
  • Jamie Bennett, Former Head of ArtPlace America and United States Artists recommends “Red at the Bone,” by Jacqueline Woodson
  • Alesha Washington, Seattle Foundation President and CEO recommends “What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky,” by Lesley Nneka
  • Amoretta Morris, Borealis Philanthropy President recommends “All About Love,” by bell hooks

Read the rest:
Have a subscription? Link to the article

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Download a pdf of the article

7 Mistakes New Philanthropic Foundations Make

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Kris Putnam-Walkerly writes in her “Confident Giving” Newsletter: “Drawing from my conversations with thousands of foundation leaders, spanning 23 years, here are seven prevalent missteps. By paying attention to these mistakes, you can avoid them and ensure your foundation’s success.”
  • Being stuck in overwhelm
  • Restricting your potential through a mindset of scarcity
  • Letting it go to your head
  • Assuming you have all the answers
  • Operating without a strategy
  • Failing to hold yourself accountable
  • Not seeking help.

The Latest on Mackenzie Scott: A Web Database with Mixed Applications

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Mackenzie Scott’s new website Yield Giving is now accessible to the public. A cumulative gift database, it gives us a great deal of information the $14,000,000,000 she has given to 1,600+ non-profit teams… though 28% of the grants are missing key data points.

But let’s take a look:

In November 2022, after facing criticism about the secrecy of her gift giving, Scott promised a searchable gift database that would allow for more transparency in her philanthropy. Other third party websites like The Chronicle of Philanthropy had previously created databases, painstakingly constructing them from Scott’s blog posts (now also hosted on her website rather than Medium) however such databases were flawed from the start.

The information given in those blog posts was minimal and the effort required to make data points like geographic region and focus area took large swaths of time. By contrast, Yield Giving’s database simplifies the process while also providing some additional insights.

As promised, the site hosts details of each gift given by Mackenzie Scott, with filters and sorting by focus area, geography, and keyword. The database also details the gift amount and year. One of the best features is the ability to download the entire database as a CSV, allowing for much more granular analysis than what is offered on the more user-friendly web version.

Focus areas are divided into ten, color-coded subsections Geographic data can filter as specifically or generally as you like: identifying all 233 gifts to the Midwest or the 1 gift to a nonprofit in Hennepin County, Minnesota.

Using the sort feature provided some insights. For example, 53% of all gifts went to education (844), with the majority heading to the South at 36% (305);  just less than half of the environmental gifts went to nonprofits located in the United States.

Everything is self-identified by the nonprofits themselves, keeping with Scott’s assertion that the control should always remain in the hands of the nonprofit.

Disclosure Delays

There is at least one large limitations to this database, however.  Many of the gifts from 2020 to present feature the note “disclosure delayed for the benefit of recipient” in the grant amount field, which accounts for more than one-quarter of all the Foundation’ gifts.

Four articles on DEI

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  1. In an open letter published on Black Feminist Fund, some of philanthropy’s most influential organizations say that “It’s time to fund Black feminist movements like we want them to win”. Among the 11 prominent grantmakers who signed the letter are Pivotal Ventures (Melinda Gates), Clara Lionel Foundation (Rihanna), and the Ford and MacArthur foundations.
  2. The B Corp Arabella Advisors is talking about the Future of Black Wealth in a new series of articles and events. It is part of Arabella’s Racial Wealth Gap practice that aims to connect changemakers to philanthropy and impact investors. The series starts by pointing at the racial wealth gap in generational wealth – which is what buys and keeps power. That gap is six to eight times larger than the income gap between Black and White Americans. The follow-up article outlines “three levers changemakers must pull to eliminate” this gap: philanthropy, impact investing, and advocacy.
  3. Philanthropy Always Sounds Like Someone Else: A Portrait of High-Net-Worth Donors of Color, compiled by Donors of Color Network, presents a qualitative analysis of interviews with 113 high net worth BIPOC donors, conducted over three years in ten cities across the U.S
  4. The Northwest Area Foundation’s second blog entry in their series on racial capitalism: How Philanthropy Plays a Role in Economic Systems that Harm People of Color, and What It Can Do to Help Heal and Repair.

What motivates donors to give? …Matching Gifts

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An estimated $4-$7 billion in matching gift funds goes unclaimed per year.

This, according to American Charities, a 501(c)(3) membership-based nonprofit that promotes workplace giving.  In their Facts & Statistics on Workplace Giving, Matching Gifts, and Volunteer Programs, here is what they gathered on Matching Gifts:

  • 65% of Fortune 500 companies and 28% of small to mid-size companies offer matching gifts – the total represents a 58% increase since 2006.
  • Average employee participation in employer matching gift programs is 10%, demonstrating a marked opportunity for growth.
  • Corporate matches rate near the very top of incentives for employees to donate to charities through workplace initiatives.  84% say they’re more likely to give if a match is offered, and one in three say they would give a larger gift if it was matched.
  • More than half of employee matching gift programs are ‘open’ , where employees can choose the nonprofit to benefit.

Link to article 

 

Fundraising Event Experience survey

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Classy, a leading online fundraising platform and thought leader, highlighted donors’ 2022 Fundraising Event Experience in a survey of 1,000 event attendees:

— 26% attended live events, while 36% went virtual because there was no live event or because they preferred a virtual experience
— In-person and virtual attendees gave roughly the same dollar amounts (beyond ticket sales). 20% of virtual attendees gave $500+ and 22% of live attendees gave over $500.
— 96% of virtual attendees rated the event excellent or good, while only 87% of live attendees thought the event was excellent or good.

Top Five Favorite Virtual and Live Events:

VIRTUAL ATTENDEES– Endurance Events (32%)
— Performance (31%)
— Auction (31%)
— Galas (26%)
— Competitions (24%)

LIVE ATTENDEES

— Endurance Events (43%)
— Performance (38%)
— Auction (36%)
— Galas (36%)
— Competitions (29%)