How do you drive somewhere you’ve never been?

You enter the address into your GPS, turn up the sound, and start driving. Right? What you’re doing at this moment is making decisions based on what you already know. 

You don’t know which turns to take, but you do know that your GPS has helped you take the right turns to new places before.

This principle of navigating the unknown with what you do know applies to many situations in life including how to lead your nonprofit through a recession. 

Whether or not you have weathered a recession as a development professional there are skills you already know and more experienced fundraisers you can learn from to help your organization not just make it through a recession, but thrive!

This article is a collection of nine resources to help you leverage the skills you already have to recession-proof your organization. Hopefully, you’ll also find a few new tools to increase your value and effectiveness. 

Make Decisions Based on Facts

As fundraising professionals we would do well to know what’s true about the economic time we live in and the giving potential of donors. 

Here we provide data-backed answers to three critical questions when it comes to fundraising during a recession.

How Do Recessions Impact Nonprofit’s Income?

Over the past few months, every one of the clients we’re currently serving have asked us, “What should we expect will happen to our charitable gift income if we’re going into another recession?” 

At Brenda Moore and Associates we rely on data, but we’re also optimists, so we answer “Prepare for it to go down...maybe.”

In other words, be ready for anything! Charitable giving has been known to decrease during recessions. However, charitable giving does NOT ALWAYS decrease, especially for faith-based organizations.

If history repeats itself, which it usually does, the data should bring some solace to faith-based nonprofits facing crises in the global economy. Historically, there are four trends we see in giving during economic crises:

1. Charitable giving for churches and other ministries stays relatively flat during recession, and may even increase because giving is a weekly or monthly habit for many people of faith (Giving USA).
2. Even if the economy is hit hard, many people will not change their giving behaviors dramatically (Lilly Family School of Philanthropy).  
3. People who are more religious not only give more to religious causes, but they also give to secular causes at higher rates, though their faith community and other religious causes are likely to be among their highest philanthropic priorities (Pew Research). 
4. Faith-based organizations and other nonprofits that address the increased needs brought about by economic distress may actually see increases in charitable support (Stanford University).

That being said, losses in the stock market and other investments may impact your ability to raise large gifts in the near term. Charitable giving trends and stock market trends have always been closely correlated. Many individuals, corporations and foundations will suffer losses that will impact their charitable activity.

The good news is, history tells us this will be only a temporary setback. 

More about what is true about faith-based nonprofits income during economic crises HERE. 

What Is The Current Financial Position of Donors?

Over the next 20-25 years 45 million households will cumulatively pass on $73 trillion from one generation to the next! Cerulli Associates estimates that $10-$12 trillion of that will go to charity. 

Just to help you get your head around this mammoth number, these estate gifts alone will provide an average of $476 million to nonprofits each year — a number equivalent to the total of all charitable giving in 2021. Total giving from bequests alone will be comparable to total giving from all other sources of donations combined — individuals, corporations, foundations, etc.

Where that wealth will go is being decided right now!

Learn about how The Great Wealth Transfer will impact nonprofits HERE. 

What Gifts Are Possible During a Recession?

Did you know that some of the biggest and best gifts made to nonprofits are not from a donor’s income?

This is important because while recessions often affect what donors can give from their income; what donors can give from their assets is usually unaffected by recessions and can be significantly more. 

Being aware of and educating your supporters about different ways to give through assets can often help donors leave a transformative financial gift even if they could not give much from their income.  

Learn about the four gifts you and your donors can make without giving from your income HERE. 

Actionable Steps to Recession-Proof Your Nonprofit

Four years ago who would have guessed that we would weather a global pandemic and just as we were recovering get jolted with a recession? 

But here we are! 

One thing's for sure right now, your people need you walking alongside them now more than ever. In other words, the world needs your organization's important work to make it to this economic downturn and continue.

Organizations that make it through difficult times do three things:

1. Ask the right questions so that they can choose strategically.
2. Make giving easy for their donors.
3. Implement systems so they don’t lose track of what’s most important. 

Ask The Right Questions

Ever wondered how a fundraiser who has successfully weathered three recessions makes decisions in an economic downturn?

Instead of depending on a strategic plan, which previously guided decision-making, they opt for strategic choices. 

The process of strategic choices integrates: 1) continuous scanning, 2) adaptive planning, and 3) testing and learning.

Asking good questions, reevaluating, and adjusting accordingly need to be woven into the fabric of everyday logistics. Not only that, strategic choices need to be executed by the whole of your organization  — board, executive leaders, staff, and volunteers.

Take a deep dive into Brenda’s three step strategic choice process HERE.  

Make Giving Easy

Do you know why most people don’t go to the gym or eat healthy even if they said that’s their goal?

It’s not easy. Humans do things that are easy. Put another way, one of the best ways to get someone to do something — including yourself — is to make the action easy!

This principle can be applied to fundraising by making giving easy. When life is challenging for your donors or giving is declining it’s important to make giving as easy as possible. 

Three ways to make giving easy include:

1. Get your digital house in order.
2. Create a “click to give” button. 
3. Use your “click to give” button everywhere. 

Learn the specifics of implementing these strategies HERE. (These strategies were originally shared for churches navigating COVID-19 however, they are relevant and effective for any nonprofit during an economic downturn.)

Implement Systems

Years ago a woman who was diagnosed with terminal cancer asked me to help her make a beautiful plan to bless her children and her church.

Two things fell in place when she called me. The opportunity to walk alongside someone in a very precious stage of life and having established systems that empowered us to methodically and efficiently accomplish her intent and bring her great joy in her final days. 

The impact of her gifts has been profound. But if I had not been ready to accompany her through legacy giving systems her gifts likely would not have happened.

Here are five systems organizations need in order to thrive during a recession:

1. Blocking Time for Donors
2. Donor Education System
3. Promoting Planned Giving
4. Regular Storytelling
5. Measure What Matters

Learn how to implement these systems HERE. 

Simple and Successful Strategies for Inviting Bigger and Better Gifts

Do you know why most people have cases on their phone?

They want to protect their phone and use it to the fullest potential. In other words, they want to steward what is valuable to them.

Inviting bigger and better gifts through legacy giving programs is a way nonprofits can steward their value and empower their donors to do the same. Stewardship through legacy giving unfolds for nonprofits in two ways:

1. Nonprofits need planned giving (aka, legacy giving) programs because they financially provide for the organization’s important work. 
2. Nonprofits need a legacy giving program because they help donors steward the wealth they have been given and ultimately leave a legacy for a cause they believe in. 

Building blocks for launching a legacy giving program include knowing your donors, inviting donors into a story, and extending blended gift invitations. 

Know Your Donors

Do you ever feel surprised by someone else’s choice or response?

Like it would never have occurred to you to do what they just did?!

Surprises like these are why I value learning about different personalities, learning styles, and donor characteristics. Instead of being frustrated with things people do that don’t seem right or reasonable, I am able to honor the different strengths and weaknesses of myself and others so that I can offer encouragement and support.

Understanding different personalities and characteristics can be particularly valuable in donor meetings because you will be able to more quickly identify what motivates the person you’re talking to you.

Get to know your donors better by watching this 12 minute video breaking down the most common characteristics of a planned giving donor.

Learn why the Baby Boomer generation is more likely to leave financial legacies for causes they believe in than other generations HERE.

Invite Donors into a Story

Have you ever considered the power of story?

Jesus taught primarily through stories — more than 30 parables are recorded in the four Gospels. In 2021, people spent $2.53 billion at AMC Theaters alone to watch stories unfold on screen. According to Jennifer Aker, Professor of Marketing at Sanford University, "Stories are remembered up to 22 times more than facts alone."

Stories matter. Jesus favored them. We pay money to read or watch them. And our minds remember them. That’s why story plays a powerful role in acquiring bigger and better gifts.

Are you telling the right stories? Learn about the two kinds of stories you should be telling HERE. (Scroll to the fifth header System #4: Storytelling.)

Get inspired by the way two of our clients leveraged storytelling in their campaign video and on instagram!

Offer Blended Invitations

Have you ever been to a Pampered Chef party?

First, you’re invited to the party. Once you arrive you’re invited to help make yummy food using fancy kitchen products. Then you’re invited to buy some of said products. Next you’re asked to host a party. And finally, you’re invited to become a Pampered Chef Rep.

That’s a lot of asks from one party invitation! In fact, four additional invitations were stacked on the original party invitation. 

In fundraising, we have something similar called “blended gift invitations.” Using a blended gift invitation can be one of the most gracious and effective fundraising strategies to invite bigger and better gifts.

Are you extending blended gift invitations correctly? Learn how to extend blended gift invitations in three different scenarios HERE.  (Scroll to the second header How Nonprofits Should Approach Make-a-Will Month: Blended Gift Invitations.)

Make a Plan to Thrive — Not Just Survive — During a Recession

Navigating a recession as an individual can be scary, not to mention leading an entire nonprofit organization through one. 

The organizations that work with us to implement simple and intentional strategies for inviting bigger and better gifts have a record of surpassing their fundraising goals — even during economic downturn. 

As a result these organizations have started additional programs, hired more staff, built new buildings, and most importantly positively impacted more people.

We would be honored to support you in your important work and chart a course for your nonprofit to thrive. Schedule a call here to get the ball rolling!

Co-authored by Brenda Moore, CFRE and Sisi Roose.