At the core of a nonprofit’s mission is the desire to, in some way, change the world for good. While there are uphill battles when you have such a lofty goal, it’s increasingly obvious that nonprofits have great support and help from socially conscious corporations.
And giving by corporations is robust. According to Double the Donation, corporations donate, on average, between $20 and $26 billion to nonprofits annually. Every year, corporate giving to nonprofit causes increases.
This begs a question from many nonprofits: How can my organization get in on corporate giving?
And, if you’ve been around this space for a while, you already know the answer: Technology.
Let’s get a little more specific so we get right to the information that can help.
Types of Corporate Giving
A big company writing a big check is most certainly one way you can get corporate gifts, but we’d all be remiss if we didn’t look outside the box at some other ways corporations can support nonprofits.
- Writing a big check: Yup, sometimes you can ask for plain old money, and they’ll just write you a big old check. It works.
- Community Grants: Nonprofits can apply for specific grants, which are often awarded to local nonprofits. If you have a specific project that needs funding, grants are an excellent avenue.
- Corporate Sponsorships: Does your nonprofit run events? Corporations will often donate money to promote their name on signs, merchandise like t-shirts, or even on local advertising.
- In-Kind Gifts: Office equipment, including computers and office space, can be high-value items donated to your nonprofit. Particularly if your mission dictates the need for space, like a food bank or animal shelter, seeking in-kind donations makes a lot of sense. Or what about pro-bono services? Nonprofits might need IT support or accounting or legal services, and those are costs that can add up quickly.
- Volunteer Support: Every now and then, you’ll need helpful bodies. Perhaps it’s running an event, organizing donations, helping with office tasks, or stamping direct mail pieces. Corporations often have internal initiatives (or you can propose one) to send staff on a “social action” task for an afternoon, day, or week.
- Matching Gifts: As we’ve mentioned, corporations have a ton of money to give away. Most often, it’s in their bylaws that a certain percentage of profits must be donated to the community. A common distribution method is matching the gifts their employees make to nonprofits. It keeps their philanthropy diverse, is a perk for employees, and drives significant revenue to nonprofits.
How a Nonprofit CRM Helps
You can tap into corporate giving in myriad ways, and almost all of them can be automated or made a lot easier through technology.
If you’re a smaller nonprofit, setting up technology that grows with you is paramount. If you’re a midsize nonprofit, ensuring your technology offers the tools and automation to stretch your outreach is critical. And if you’re a large nonprofit, having tech that can accomplish amazing things on a national scale – like Direct Response Television – is key.
(CharityEngine’s CRM does all of that.)
How else might a nonprofit CRM help? Let’s look at some of the features we offer that can make focusing on corporate giving a breeze:
- Our comprehensive database will track all interactions with corporations. So you’ll know, at a dashboard’s glance, if a company bought a table at your event or matched gifts in the past year. Any engagement can be scored in the CRM, allowing you to quantify existing engagement and know which organizations might be the friendliest to your ask.
- Marketing automation means that most of your tasks, including automated email sequences to prospective corporate donors, can be handled without you lifting a finger. (Well, you might lift your pinky, but that’s just to set up the sequence. Then let ‘er rip.)
- Nothing cuts through the clutter like hyper-personalization. CharityEngine has integrated ChatGPT into its email editor to make crafting emails a snap, but even that is eclipsed by our ability to layer in AI to ensure your communications are friendly and personal.
- Grant tracking is a key component of CharityEngine’s CRM. It can quickly become overwhelming for nonprofits to identify and apply for grants while keeping track of milestones, due dates, questions requiring responses, and decisions. Email automation comes in handy here, too.
- Volunteer tracking is easy in CharityEngine. When you suddenly face an onslaught of employees eager to help, letting your technology manage them is a lot easier than carrying around a clipboard.
- CharityEngine has partnered with Double the Donation to maximize matching gifts. This simple button on your website prompts donors to see if their gift can be matched. If their company is in the enormous database of firms with matching gift programs, the donor is served the paperwork. Easy for your nonprofit – not even a pinky finger lifted – and matching gifts can bring in big bucks.
- Reporting and analytics mean that the massive amounts of data collected by your CRM can be reported on in any way that will illuminate trends and opportunities. Would it be interesting, for example, to pull existing donors with certain corporate titles, then cross reference that with giving history to see which corporations are already friendly to your cause? Or pull all the donors that work at a certain company and approach the leadership to create a partnership or sponsorship?
- While it might seem obvious, it’s important that corporations can rely on top-notch payment processing. CharityEngine is PCI- and SOC II-certified and offers advanced fraud protection, meaning donor data and money are protected with patent-pending products. We process ACH transactions in-house and are one of the most advanced – if not the most advanced – payment processors for nonprofits.
While you can apply for a grant on your lunch break or check off volunteers at an event or ask for a donation at a cocktail party, those methods to enhance and manage corporate giving can’t really scale up as your nonprofit does. That’s when you must call in technology to take the heavy lifting off your plate.
Technology Bridges the Gap Between Nonprofits and Corporations
While social responsibility sounds like a buzzword, it’s a mission for many corporations. Particularly in recent years, need has outpaced resources for many nonprofits, and charities can leverage both the deep pockets and the commitment to giving many corporations offer.
Your nonprofit’s outreach should include many different targets and channels, and the right nonprofit CRM can save you time, eliminate mundane tasks, and take your fundraising to the next level. Check the features offered by your CRM to make sure they have all the core tools to make your life easier.
If you’re shopping for a nonprofit CRM, check out this article listing ten terrific choices. And if you’re interested in our unique solution, CharityEngine would love to hear from you.
by Dave Martin
