Did you know over 16% of emails from nonprofits either go to spam or don’t get delivered at all? Meaning many of you still aren’t maintaining healthy email lists even though we’ve been talking about this for several years now. Your email list needs to be ready for year-end fundraising which, believe it or not, is right around the corner!

A clean email list is essential for making it through the more rigorous filters inbox providers put up to handle the influx of holiday messaging.

Here are 6 things you should do NOW to have your email list ready for a successful year-end email campaign:

1. Try to re-engage lapsed subscribers.

• 6 Messaging Options for Email Re-Engagement Campaigns
• We Are Running an Email Re-Engagement Campaign and People Have Feelings
• We Want You Back! How to Re-Engage Inactive Email Supporters

2. Delete or suppress those who haven’t engaged in AT LEAST 90 days.

• Is a Bigger Email List Always Better? Nope.
• Why Deleting People from Your Email List is a Good Thing
• When to Stop Snail Mailing and Emailing People, Part I
• Should You Contact People Who Unsubscribed from Your Email List?

3. Run some list building campaigns to get new subscribers.

• Nonprofits Should Try Some New Email List Building Techniques
• 3 Email List Building Pop-Ups for Your Website

4. Think of different ways to segment your list.

• Powerful Segmentation Ideas for Year-End Online Fundraising Campaigns
• You Need to Fix Your All or Nothing Email List

5. Create (or freshen up) your welcome series.

• Email Welcome Series Best Practices
• Do You Have an Email Welcome Series for New Subscribers? Probably Not

6. Test your automation processes

Create test email accounts from various inbox providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Apple, etc) to check the subscription/unsubscribe process works like it’s supposed to and to make sure your emails are getting through and look right.

I know it’s September, but taking the time to get your email list ready now will make life so much easier in a few months!

Need more help? We have resources and discussions happening in our private community right now! Not a member of our community? Join now! It’s free.

Ever thought about how we, as communicators, can build deeper, long-lasting relationships with our stakeholders, especially our donors? It’s crucial because donors are emotionally connected to our mission. Plus, it’s more cost-efficient to retain a donor than to find a new one. We should honor their commitment by viewing them as long-term relationships rather than transactional interactions. Good donor communications is a part of that!

Having a good grasp on the wants and needs of your donors, can really make a difference in your donor communications. The concept of love languages, popularized by Gary Chapman in his book “The Five Love Languages,” is all about understanding how people prefer to give and receive appreciation. By applying this idea, we can enhance our donor communication and thank you strategies in a truly fresh way.

Here are some ways to apply the love languages to your donor cultivation and outreach strategies.

Words of Affirmation

Let’s start with telling your donors how awesome they are! This language is pretty familiar to most of us, but using positive, uplifting language helps to affirm their impact and make them feel like the hero. Personal notes that mention specific contributions, public shoutouts on social media, and personalized stories of how their donations make a difference also show them that they’re truly valued. This type of donor communication builds a strong emotional connection.

Acts of Service

Or you can show your appreciation with actions. Acts of service can demonstrate that you’re willing to go the extra mile for your donors, enhancing donor cultivation. Some ideas that would align with this love language are:

• Offering to customize their donor engagement journey by asking for their preferences on communication and interests.
• Providing a dedicated contact person for inquiries, and invite them to special events that make them feel valued.
• Meeting them where they are when asking for a meeting or other engagement.
• Providing easy access to updates or materials for them to share with others in their network.

Quality Time

You can take it a step further and spend some meaningful time with your donors. One idea is to host one-on-one meetings, either over coffee or virtually, and invite them to exclusive behind-the-scenes tours. Personalized updates and regular communication also shoes your commitment to keeping them in the loop fand feeling like part of the team. Quality time strengthens the relationship and shows that you value their time and investment in your mission.

Gifts

Some people much prefer the warmth of a thoughtful gift. Send small, meaningful tokens like custom bookmarks, artwork from program participants, or branded items to connect with donors on this level. You can also celebrate significant milestones with relevant special gifts or share customized and personalized updates to show donors their own specific long-term impact. Thoughtful gifts serve as tangible reminders of their contributions and strengthen donor loyalty.

Physical Touch (Adapted)

This final love language can certainly be tricky in our professional connections, but there are ways to tap into the concept.

• Create a warm and welcoming environment during events or tours with friendly handshakes and personal greetings.
• Offer VIP treatment with special seating and exclusive access.
• Even virtual high-fives through enthusiastic messages can convey appreciation and connection.

These adapted forms of physical touch helps make donors feel physically connected and appreciated.

The Great Donor Communications Formula?

Engaged Donors are Long-term Donors.

Having a good grasp on the wants and needs of your donors, whether that is looking at their love language or otherwise, can make the difference between an engaged donor and a passive one. By incorporating words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, thoughtful gifts, and adapting the idea of physical touch into your donor thank you messages, you create deeper, more personal connections with your supporters.

If you are looking to go deeper on this topic, join us as we host a webinar at the end of this month on crafting messages that build stronger donor communications and connections. We will be talking about about how to keep your donors appreciated and engaged all year long!

Back off, Old Man. It ain’t your time yet.

This year we didn’t even make it through Halloween before you could see decorations for sale, toys being stocked, and Christmas music playing…poor Thanksgiving doesn’t stand a chance.

I get it. After all, Christmas time is make-or-break for retailers and, boy, are they ready to get your money.

But does your nonprofit have the same mentality?

I get it. End-of-year fundraising time is make-or-break for nonprofits and, boy, are they ready to get those donations.

Unfortunately, while Target can get away with Christmas displays and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in October, your nonprofit cannot afford to skip the act of Thanksgiving.

Whether you get a gift in November or March, it always needs to be Thanksgiving at your organization.

Here are a few tips about thanking your donors:

Understand that Thank Yous Are an Important Communications Strategy

While your grandmother may have taught you that sending a thank you letter after receiving a gift is just the polite thing to do, that’s not the only reason nonprofits need to send them. Donor retention rates are horrible, and most donors are not giving as much as they could the first time. Prompt meaningful thank yous can help better ensure a second gift more so than other types of communications.

Send a Thank You to All of Your Donors

A lot of nonprofits only send thank you letters to donors who have given above a certain amount. This is the wrong approach as most donors (numbers show as high as 75%) are not giving you as much as they could the first time around. They want to see how you treat them and what you do with their money before committing to a bigger number. A first-time gift of any amount is the beginning of a relationship. Acknowledge that relationship and nurture it.

Send Thank Yous in a Timely Manner

Now that you know thank yous are an important communications tactic, start blocking out specific times to create and manage them. Ideally you want to send them within 48-72 hours after you receive the gift. Within a week is acceptable, but anything longer than that and you risk losing the momentum you had when they gave.

Personalize Your Thank Yous

A thank you letter is not a tax receipt. In fact, unless local law requires the tax language be in the actual body of the letter, put it in the footer. You don’t want stuffy legalese in the middle of your heart-felt thanks. Your thank you should look like a personal letter from one friend to another. Use their name and yours and sign it in ink. You can use form letters, but write it in a way that welcome them and praises their generosity. Handwrite a note on the letter if you can.

Use a More Creative Opening

Ditch the predictable openings like “Thank you for your gift of…” or “On behalf of our organization…” Draw in the donor immediately by placing them front and center. Something as simple as “You made my day…” is much better. You want to draw your donor in so they read the entire letter, so use an opening that allows you to launch into a story about what their donation will accomplish.

Explain How the Gift Will Be Used

Donors need to see that their gift will make an impact. Lots of thank you letters never mention what the gift will be used for. Or they list every single program the organization has. You can give the donors a sense of what is happening at your organization without having to list everything. You don’t want donors to get the sense that their gift is lost.

For more tips on thank yous and other donor communications, become a member of our community. It’s free!

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought plenty of obstacles to the nonprofit sector. In some ways, however, we did see growth. Charitable giving increased from a record high of $471.44 billion in donations made in the United States by individuals, bequests, foundations, and corporations (Giving USA 2021: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2020) to the formal and informal mutual aid groups that formed. 

However, all funding is not equal. I’m a fundraising coach and consultant, and I’ve seen many organizations receive grant funding in the past two years specifically for Covid-19 relief. These were funds restricted for staying afloat during a global pandemic.The grantee may have been able to use the funds for payroll, to cover programmatic losses, and other overhead costs, but once the pandemic was considered “over,” the funder did not renew the grant. Restricted giving has soared in the past decade. We live in a current age of information, and a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Donors expect choices and something that aligns with their individual niches. This leads to designated (restricted) funds that are set up to appeal to a donor’s personal interests more than what the organization truly needs. 

This intense personalization of giving has been detrimental to philanthropy. As fundraisers, we should still build relationships with donors. However, the practice of giving and receiving restricted funding neglects the critical need for trust between funders and donors. It’s become a demonstration of power; the person with the money gets to make all the decisions. The organization receiving the donation performs any tricks needed to receive the funds. When this happens, organizations quickly lose sight of their mission, vision, and values in their chase for funding. 

The solution is unrestricted funding: funds that may be used for any legal purpose appropriate to the organization. 

Giving unrestricted, multi-year funding allows nonprofits to establish stability and practice resiliency.

Giving unrestricted, multiyear funding improves long-term outcomes for the community by creating stability. Through this type of support, donors can help their cause flourish by providing much-needed resources that allow nonprofit organizations to plan with confidence, invest in programs that improve lives, grow their staffs, and pay them competitively (a study found that organizations receiving unrestricted funds have higher retention rates), take risks on innovative ideas and projects without having to worry about funding falling through or being cut off unexpectedly; build stronger relationships with donors who feel heard; engage more people in the process of giving, and achieve higher levels of impact over time.

Unrestricted funding allows you to plan for the long term.

A gift that must be used for a specific project or program means your nonprofit can only use the money in that way. With unrestricted funding, you have more flexibility when deciding how to spend your budget. You can apply it where it’s most needed and help ensure that programs are sustainable over time by investing in other areas besides just one project or initiative, like training staff members or creating systems so they don’t have to come back to donors again and again for the support.

Making a real impact takes time, and giving unrestricted, multi-year funding supports longevity.

When you give unrestricted, multiyear funding to your favorite nonprofit, you help it build a stable funding base and create longevity.

Unrestricted, multi-year funding allows nonprofits to take risks and try new things. The best way to measure the impact of a donor-supported program is by its effectiveness over time. Longer-term strategies are also more sustainable and impactful. Your nonprofit may have ambitious plans for its future but needs the financial support to make them happen—and that’s where you come in! Unrestricted giving gives nonprofits the flexibility they need (and deserve) to invest in their future success and create lasting change.

Giving unrestricted, multi-year funding supports innovation.

Unrestricted funding is a multiyear, flexible source of support that allows nonprofits to take risks, experiment, and learn from mistakes. It allows you to focus on long-term impact rather than short-term performance. Giving unrestricted, multi-year funding supports innovation.

Unrestricted funding is an essential part of any organization’s fundraising toolkit. It’s often confused with “discretionary giving” or “designated giving.” Still, those terms describe two very different things: Discretionary Giving: Donors give money directly to a specific project or program they want their gift used for (and they can ask how their donation was spent). Designated Giving: Donors give money directly toward a specific cause or issue (and they can tell you where the funds should be allocated).

Giving unrestricted, multi-year funding helps build relationships rooted in trust.

You can’t build trust in a one-year relationship; it takes time and experience. Trust is built over time through shared experiences that help donors see your organization’s mission and values firsthand.

Unrestricted, multi-year funding allows your donors to have more confidence in the organization they are supporting because it allows them to see where their funds are being used and how their support impacts the community long-term.

Embedding unrestricted, multi-year funding as a standard practice across all philanthropy can transform the nonprofit sector and create enduring positive change. MacKenzie Scott recognizes this and has been giving this way for a few years, she says, “Because we believe that teams with experience on the front line of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose.”

Giving unrestricted, multi-year funding helps make transformational change.

If you’re trying to secure unrestricted funding from your donors, it’s important to understand why this approach is so transformative. Unrestricted funds allow nonprofits to take risks and innovate, which is necessary for long-term growth and success. A donor who makes an unrestricted gift trusts that their gift will be spent responsibly and applied with the most intention by the organization and/or community experts. This breeds trust and stronger relationships over time.

Unrestricted funding can also help you plan for the future by enabling you to think big while being realistic about what your organization needs now (and how much of an impact it can have). Finally, donors who give unrestricted gifts are more likely than those who don’t support such giving models because they feel like they are making a bigger difference in the world through their philanthropic efforts. They tackle big issues and root causes rather than throwing money at one-off problems.

By focusing on the benefits of unrestricted funding, communicating with donors should be relatively easy. There will be objectors. Many may think their money will be wasted, used inefficiently, or afraid of losing control. The solution is simple: they are not your donor. If they feel you are not effective enough to use their donation well, they do not need to give their funding to you. There is no shortage of donors; YOU do not have to mold yourself to fit their desires. Your role is to stay true to your mission, vision, and values. Stepping away from the power struggle game may be hard at first, but eventually, you find relationships that are mutually beneficial and rooted in trust. As Scott put it, “I needn’t ask those I care about what to say to them, or what to do for them. I can share what I have with them to stand behind them as they speak and act for themselves.”

Setting unrestricted, multi-year funding as the standard practice across philanthropy is the way forward. I have seen it work in the organizations with whom I interact. It’s time to change how we think about giving and create an enduring impact on communities that lasts for generations.

Amie Bossi  has worked in the nonprofit sector for over a decade and a half, working with numerous local,regional, and national organizations. She spent most of her time working in small to mid-sized development departments, even building from scratch an entire development program for an organization that although over 140 years old, was brand new to the fundraising world.

November has arrived, and with it, an increasing flurry of communications ranging from political ads to door-busting holiday sales to year-end giving requests. If you are anything like me, if opening social media apps or checking my inbox didn’t already feel daunting, this avalanche of communication makes me want to leave my devices with my seven-year old (who learns through destruction). 

Even if our message is meaningful and brilliant, how can we ensure that we will connect with our key audiences, especially during peak fundraising season? Our friends at NeonOne report that a third of nonprofit organizations raise between 28-50 percent of their revenue in the last months of the calendar year. And one third of annual gifts are made in December. If these data points weren’t clear enough, NeonOne also tells us that two-thirds of these donors do not conduct their own research before making a gift; rather, they rely on word-of-mouth recommendations. So, how can we get through all the noise and distraction, especially when our year-end strategies are already in mid-execution?

Last month, I authored this piece for the Community-Centric Fundraising Hub to continue the conversation on how we invite and include our donors and funders into a movement oriented around social justice and racial equity. Being a part of a movement means that we cast a wide net and that everyone – EVERYONE – both stands to benefit and has a role in advancing change. Here are some questions and suggestions you can ask yourself as you implement and augment your year-end marketing and communications strategy:

Is your subject line worth forwarding?

If our potential and returning donors rely on recommendations from trusted family and friends, our messages must be worth sharing. A notable subject line won’t just improve open rates, but your readers may be amused or inspired enough to share with prospective supporters in their network. 

What is your donor learning?

Community-Centric Fundraising isn’t a transaction or practice; it is a movement that seeks to shift systems… This means, we can’t be status quo in our year-end appeals. Are you offering your donors content beyond asks, inspiring stories, or more asks? What do they need to know about the bigger picture of your cause? Where could they get involved through volunteer, organization, or advocacy, that will have a longer term impact on your organization’s mission and vision? 

How are we sharing stories of our community?

Remember: the stories of those we serve are sacred and deserve to be shared in a way that honors their experience. Earlier this year, Nonprofit Marketing Guide shared our blog Does Your Organization’s Storytelling Perpetuate Harm?. Check it out for some timely reminders and boundaries. 

What partners or complimentary causes are we amplifying?

Community-Centric Fundraising encourages us to see the bigger picture, which means our organization’s success is intertwined with the success of other organizations and causes. Are you releasing your scarcity mindset and encouraging your supporters to engage with parallel causes? Lead by example and show your donors what an abundance mindset could look like; everyone benefits when we encourage generosity. 

How does gratitude show up?

We do a lot of asking in a lot of different ways throughout the year-end push. How are we expressing our gratitude for the ways in which our donors, funders, volunteers, and other stakeholders organize their resources in service of our organization? A single email, tweet, or viral Tik Tok dance is not going to cut it. Think of the most meaningful “thank you” you’ve received. What made it so?

Let these considerations give your organization’s voice a tone and message that separates its mission and message from all the year-end noise. And, make sure to take what worked (and learn from what didn’t work) into a year of messaging and marketing impact. 

Wishing you well in this season of gratitude. 

Rachel 

 Rachel D’Souza-Siebert is the Founder + Chief Purpose Officer of Gladiator Consulting and a Founding Member of the CCF Global Council. In 2015, Rachel founded Gladiator Consulting, a boutique consultancy with a holistic approach to nonprofit organizational development. Through Gladiator, Rachel has combined her knowledge of Organizational Culture & Fund Development with her deep personal commitment to centering community, seeking justice and creating belonging for those who have been disenfranchised or targeted by institutions, systems and policy. 

When it comes to fundraising, we often strive to use storytelling and tugging of heartstrings to appeal to potential donors. But there is a science behind doing this well. Research conducted on effective marketing tactics and donor psychology are extremely beneficial to crafting communications that engage donors. When data drives our decisions we get better results – and our causes benefit.

Many consultants share what works for them, and often have helpful data they’ve been able to collect based on their experience. Think tanks, such as Rogare, the Fundraising Think Tank, also produce research and thorough leadership that can impact our work. These are helpful, but only part of what is available. Academia also has researchers with an interest in the nonprofit sector. Some, like me, pursued higher education and research careers because they wanted to understand and impact nonprofits’ ability to raise more money. But our research is often difficult for practitioners to access. 

Here are some tips on how to find and access these studies for yourself:

Where to look:

First, you’ll need to find a study. I love Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) to look for research. You can search broadly for something like “fundraising,” “nonprofit marketing,” or, “nonprofit donor motivation” and see what comes up. Or you could get specific and search, for example, “nonprofit direct mail strategy” or “nonprofit animal shelter fundraising” and find something more targeted. 

Maybe you are just curious about what’s out there and want to browse. You can visit a journal’s website directly to see lists of the articles in each of their journal’s issues. Some excellent journals that publish work related to the nonprofit sector regularly include Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, the Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, and the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing. 

There are also conferences where scholars present their research. You will come across the paper and poster versions of these by searching Google Scholar, but one conference in particular is worth your attention. The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) hosts an annual conference where researchers present their recent work, and come to meet with scholars, practitioners, and those in-betweeners who proudly call ourselves “pracademics” to talk about new ideas for research.

How to get around the paywall*:

Most academic journals cost money to read. If you are a student or staff at a university, you may have access to a number of journals at no additional cost to you through your library. If you’re fortunate enough to have that resource, definitely learn how to do that through your institution! 

For the many nonprofit staff who do not, that doesn’t mean you can’t get your hands on quality research; you’ll just need to ask the author for it directly. Trust me, they have spent a lot of time and energy on getting it published, and they will want people to read it. My favorite way to do this is through ResearchGate – it’s kind of like LinkedIn for academics, but you can use it to contact us! Look up the study you want to read on ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/) and there might be a full-text version you can download for free immediately. If not, you can contact the author to request it with a simple click on the blue box that says “request full-text.” You don’t have to create a profile to do so. You will most likely get a PDF within a day of asking for it. It’s that easy!

*Author’s Note: While many authors are indirectly paid for their labor if they are working as a university professor and researcher and thus their publishing record impacts their promotion opportunities, not all published studies are the work of professors and not all professors receive adequate compensation for their significant work. While it’s unlikely that an author will ask for it, and possible that they will not be able to accept it, consider offering to send the author a Venmo or Paypal for providing their literature to you. People of color have historically done and currently do a lot of unpaid labor; this is a way to help ensure that authors – especially Black and Brown authors – are paid for their wisdom, time, and contribution to driving your mission forward.

How to read the article:

Once you have an article in hand, you might feel intimidated to read it. They aren’t generally written in an easy-to-read style. (I suspect a number of them are written to sound purposely confusing.) Depending on the study, there might be multiple pages of detail on statistical analysis that you may not even want to try to understand. It’s ok, even those of us who publish these things feel that way sometimes!

Each paper will have an abstract. This often gives away the punchline, and will often be enough for you to know if the paper will have anything in it that is relevant to your work. Most papers will then have an introduction, a review of other papers written on the topics they are studying, a description of the methods they are using for their experiment, then a section giving the results, a section discussing those results, and a short conclusion. 

Here’s what I recommend you do: First, read the abstract. If that makes you think the paper might be relevant to you and whatever you are working on, flip to the end and read the conclusion. (This may be hard for you – some of us are really strict about reading from the start to the end, but trust me, it’s worth letting go of that habit for this kind of content!). After that, look at the results and discussion, which should expand on what you read in the conclusion. The discussion will often contain advice on what this research might mean for the “real world” and how it can be used. As far as the rest of the sections, read them if they interest you, but you may not need them to implement the learnings of the paper. It depends on how much you want to understand them and how enjoyable you find the rest of it!

So, next time you’re trying to determine the best strategies to use in your nonprofit’s communication, consider seeing what the latest research has uncovered and applying it to your work! I hope this helps make this resource more accessible and allows you to raise more money and reach more people.

Sarah Willey is a consultant at Gladiator Consulting. She holds a master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from Washington University and has years of experience in nonprofit fundraising and management. She loves capturing the story of how a nonprofit organization makes a difference in the world and putting it on paper in a way that makes people feel connected and inspired to help. She is a consultant with Gladiator Consulting in St. Louis where she assists a variety of nonprofits with fundraising strategy, individual giving, and grant writing. To read more about Sarah Willey, click here. 

Thinking about your nonprofit’s next annual report? Annual reports were the first topic we developed training on here at Nonprofit Marketing Guide way back in 2008. So we have lots of great best practices, examples, and templates to share with you as your plan, write, design, and publish yours. We even have an online course on short annual reports.

Let’s get into it!

Planning Your Nonprofit Annual Report

First of all, if creating your nonprofit’s annual report is a dreaded chore, take heart and read this case study: How I Came to Love My Nonprofit’s Annual Report — and How You Can Love Yours Too!   We know from our research that you either love it or hate it!

Before you get too far, you need to answer these three questions before getting started:

• What are your accomplishments for the year?
• What do you want supporters to remember about this year?
• What format will the report take?

We recommend these seven planning steps for a short annual report.

You’ll also want to think about how you’ll measure the success of your report.

As a grant writing coach, sometimes I think that I have heard it all between my own personal experiences and the stories that my students relay to me. “Sheleia, I need a grant writer; how can I guarantee they will win an award before I hire them?” Or, “I’ve paid this grant writer thousands of dollars, It’s been almost a year, and they never sent me a submission receipt or let me know if I won anything. What should I do?

In starting my own company, I’ve had to learn my boundaries and identify not only what I do but what I don’t do as well. I, a young, Black, woman, have had to ensure that my time and talent are reciprocated through my company’s cost structure. I’ve had to answer, time and again, every grant writer’s most dreaded question: will you consider being paid according to the amount of funding awarded? 

Ahhh, the age-old dilemma of commission-based compensation: it’s a common pay policy, often seen as an incentive to increase worker productivity and the organization’s bottom line. Simply put, commission- or contingency-based pay is receiving compensation based on a favorable outcome regardless of the work required to achieve it.

While this popular fee structure may be acceptable in the for-profit sector, it raises some ethical issues in the nonprofit industry, specifically for grant professionals. Here are some reasons why it causes more harm than good: 

Grant Writers Deserve Trust

Grant professionals have no DIRECT control over whether you win an award or not. Any good grant writer is going to submit the grant as well as they can, and that will not dictate if the funds are awarded or not. A well-written grant is only one piece of the puzzle, and often the success or declination of a proposal is based on things like available funds, funder interests, lack of organizational readiness, et cetera.

Grant professionals, especially independent consultants, should not work for free. So, winning grants by nature, is a risky business. Because there is no guarantee of funding (regardless of a stellar proposal), nonprofits often think that commission-based pay is the way to go because they will not have a lot of financial liability. While this is half-true, it still poses the risk of leaving the grant writer uncompensated for their time, expertise, and effort due to decisions beyond their control.

On the flip side, winning a grant that you agreed to pay commission on can cost you more than what you bargained for. Let’s say you’re applying for a $500,000 grant and offer to pay the grant writer 5% if awarded. That’s a $25,000 bill! I know this is extreme, but you get my point. This type of large payout can be tempting, and if the grant writer does not uphold ethical grant-seeking practices, they could falsify information (like padding your key performance metrics to make funders think you are reaching more people or making more impact than you actually are) in your proposal for the sake of upping your chances of winning the award. 

Furthermore, it might be months before the funds are distributed. And, they’re likely not covering the grant writer’s fees. 

Unless explicitly stated, most funding opportunities do not cover compensation for grant writers. Funders are against covering fundraising expenses like hiring a grant writer. So, “putting a little money in the project budget to hire a grant writer,” is downright dishonest. Funders can revoke a your grant award for unauthorized spending: as in, using grant funding to underwrite costs that are not identified in the grant agreement. If you spend it on things like this that aren’t approved in your grant agreement without their consent.

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) standards state that fundraising services must be paid for at the time the services are provided. This means that a grant writer’s compensation should not and cannot be contingent on a grant award (or amount of the award).

Contrary to popular belief, contingency/commission compensation practices are frowned upon and strictly prohibited among industry associations like the Association for Fundraising Professionals and Grant Professionals Association.

So by now you’re probably thinking: “Ok, Sheleia, but our nonprofit is a start-up, and we run a small operation; how else can we get grants if we can’t pay commission?” Have no fear! Let’s explore some equitable alternatives:

• Advocate with aligned grant-makers to offer more grant opportunities for general operating or capacity-building support. These types of grants are great for hiring a grant writer because they are specifically for helping your organization become more efficient and sustainable. 
• Rally your board members to secure the financial resources to bring on a consultant to build your grant-seeking capacity and other fundraising needs.
• Seek out grant-makers with special capacity-building programs that will pay for grant writing support at no cost to you. 

Developing competitive grant proposals takes time, and time IS money. An ethical, quality grant writer will deliver a compelling proposal in exchange for a fair fee (project- or hourly-based), and will likely ask for a down payment up front. As practitioners of trust-based philanthropy, we often find ourselves holding funders accountable, but we must also ensure to practice what we preach and ensure equality in our pay practices. 

Sheleia Phillips, MPH, CHES is the Founder and Principal Consultant of SMP Nonprofit Consulting. A servant leader, Sheleia has dedicated herself to the growth and development of nonprofits for the past five years. As a Grant Writer and Fund Development Consultant, Sheleia has secured over $3 million dollars in grant revenue for youth development, education, and health programs.

To learn more about Sheleia’s work and experience, read her full bio.