Looking for funding opportunities? We've identified a few funds that might be useful to you. Visit the links below to learn more about the requirements and deadlines for these opportunities.
Higher education institutions are wrapping up summer commencement amidst the end of FY21. While advancement shops celebrate and count generous contributions from donors, they also bid farewell to recent graduates and begin to build relationships with these new alumni. As we know, relationship-building is the key to success for all fundraising programs. A strong relationship with an institution begins when a student chooses to attend an institution.
An article from Educause, Relationship Building: The Key to Alumni Engagement, notes that institutional leaders should utilize technology before students begin their life on campus, from the recruitment and admissions process, to enhancing student experiences while on campus, and engaging individuals after graduation through alumni relations. Institutions should use a centralized platform to analyze data about prospective students in order to deliver timely personalized messages during the recruitment and admissions process. Technology can also enhance student experiences. King's College Londonused data to understand student success and ultimately deliver better services to improve the student experience. After graduation, smart technologies help nurture new alumni. Existing data on students and graduates can help create custom strategies to engage new alumni. By creating positive, personalized experiences for prospective students, current students, and alumni, institutions will foster meaningful and mutually beneficial lifelong partnerships.
On a different note, the 2021 Giving Report from Fidelity Charitable shares findings from a study on the extraordinary circumstances that inspired generosity in 2020. In 2020, Fidelity Charitable made two million donor-recommended grants, totaling $9.1 billion. The grants supported more than 170,000 unique nonprofits. The report indicates that the number of donors increased from 88,672 in 2011 to 254,655 in 2020. Education is among the top three sectors in percentage of grant volumes, receiving 23 percent of grant dollars in 2020. Despite an unprecedented year, the report proves that donor support has more than doubled in the past ten years. Interestingly, only 4 percent of DAF donors were anonymous, while 83 percent of donors included their names and addresses, meaning advancement offices can identify these donors and steward them by tracking their information in donor databases. Most grants were made to organizations that donors’ have supported in the past, and 27 percent were new grants. Contributions of non-publicly traded assets (such as private stock, limited partnership interest, or cryptocurrency) surpassed $1.6 billion in 2020. Cryptocurrency contributions went from $13 million in 2019 to $28 million in 2020. Accepting cryptocurrencies as donations may need to be considered by nonprofits.
I hope you are able to use these valuable findings to implement new strategies. As always, feel free to reach out us with questions, comments or any assistance with prospect research!
Best Regards,
Sapna and USM Advancement Research Team
Did you know?
The University System of Maryland Foundation has access to a library of recorded webinars from the Annual Giving Network (AGN) that you may watch at any time from your computer. While we cannot currently gather in person for professional development events, this work from home period provides a great opportunity for you to learn on your own time! Please click here to see what webinars are available fromAGN.
If you are interested, please email Linda Bowman (lbowman@usmd.edu) and she will help you access these webinars for free. Please do not try to access these webinars on your own, as you will be charged a fee.
Please also note that the Foundation only has access to free AGN webinars, not workshops. Workshops are available at a marginally discounted rate.
Appreciating alumni for their volunteering and donations ultimately leads to increased engagement and retention. Eleven Fifty Seven suggests appreciating your alumni in the following ways:
Letters, cards, and emails
Gifts
Events
Public recognition
Naming Opportunities
Alumni appreciation week
Click here to read more about Eleven Fifty Seven's ideas for alumni appreciation.
The2021 Bank of America Study of Philanthropy: Charitable Giving by Affluent Households revealed 90 percent of affluent Americans gave to charity in 2020. About half of those Americans gave to organizations that supported matters directly related to the pandemic. The study also showed that wealthy households provided greater support for local community needs and an increase in unrestricted gifts to nonprofits last year. 37 percent gave more than they have in the past to frontline organizations and 16 percent gave more than usual to religious organizations. Read more findings from the survey here.
A year after the start of COVID-19, we can now look critically at how the pandemic forced universities to evolve their approaches in engaging constituents and encouraging financial support. As we know, digital engagement was extremely important for advancement during the pandemic and it's here to stay. Institutions were able to engage alumni from all over the world through virtual events. An increase in online giving during the pandemic forced many institutions to streamline their online giving process and provide flexible donor options. Engagement analytics helped take effective engagement to the next level. Continuing to understand analytics can help advancement teams identify where to invest their time and resources so that they can focus on groups where there is greater opportunity to grow engagement. Click here to read the full article.
In 2020, $2.47 billion were donated to nonprofits on Giving Tuesday. Even though it's only June, it's never too early to start planning for this year's Giving Tuesday, which will take place on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. By starting to plan now, you can create a research-based fundraising strategy that will have a better chance of success. You can start testing outreach plans to create an effective marketing strategy and get a head start on prospect research. Finally, strengthen donor relationships now so that you can spend less time soliciting new donors and more time planning your GivingTuesday event in the future. Click here to read how to implement these strategies.
During a recent speaking tour, Ann Snyder from CASE warned that the coming fiscal year and beyond may be impacted by millennial giving patterns. Two major patterns are that millennials engage with causes and not institutions and that millennials see all assets as equal (time, money, network.) Millennials support five nonprofits a year on average, which means that a millennial contribution to their alma mater will have been split an average of five ways before an advancement office receives a donation. Therefore, it is up to institutions to formulate missions and visions that are emotional and compelling to inspire millennials to donate more. Millennials believe that their time, skills, talent, and money all have equal value. In the past, institutions have recruited prospective donors as volunteers first in the hopes that the engagement would turn into a monetary gift. Institutions will have to reckon with the reality that millennials believe the act of volunteering is the gift. Click here to read more.
Facebook giving has taken off as a peer-to-peer fundraising platform in the past year. How can you take your institution's Facebook fundraising to the next level? NonProfitPRO suggests implementing the following strategies:
Drive engagement in groups, not on pages.
Take advantage of user-generated content.
Make it frictionless.
Challenge your mindset about acquiring new supporters.
Challenge your mindset about giving volunteers the keys to the car.
