You asked. We’re Answering.
Thank you for submitting such thoughtful questions during the webinar—we truly appreciate your engagement and your patience as we compiled our responses. We hope this conversation inspires new ideas for how your organization can engage donors, strengthen partnerships, and grow local impact. The webinar recording and One-Pager for Community-Focused Funders resources are linked below.
What resources can you recommend sharing w/ smaller, local community foundations who don’t yet see themselves as catalysts / advocates / etc. and still function like banks for local wealthy donors?
There are a number of great resources and reports referenced in The Generosity Commission’s September 2024 report. For starters, take a look at this report from the Do Good Institute that looks at what influences giving and volunteering. Community foundation networks are highly localized and decentralized so we encourage leaders of smaller organizations to find peers in their regions and states to access for learning and support. The Council on Foundations also has curated content and resources for all manner of community foundations.
What have you found to be effective practices that demonstrably result in more people giving and volunteering?
Time-limited matching fund campaigns that are shared across peer networks and focused on a very specific “ask” or project can be helpful in attracting first-time donors to an organization. Then the challenge becomes retaining those new donors, which happens most effectively through personalized/tailored engagement and communications. On the volunteering front, social connection is a major motivator so “friends asking friends” to join in a volunteering activity can help to bring new people on board. More and more, people are looking for a la carte volunteer options rather than signing on to a recurring schedule or program.
Do community foundations also engage in capacity building efforts to support nonprofits beyond just $? How?
Yes! Many community foundations have programs designed to offer training and technical assistance on topics such as financial management, mergers, and board development. Some also offer equipment such as tables and chairs for events that a nonprofit would otherwise have to rent. Some also help to convene and host peer groups so that executive directors can gather and share information back and forth.
How can nonprofits get information to community foundations so that the foundation can help direct funds?
The answer to this question really depends on how a community foundation engages with and grants funding to nonprofits. Some are mostly issuing grants from donor-advised funds, while others have some discretionary grantmaking ability. Others are raising and granting money for specific purposes and types of organizations. We recommend that nonprofits start by building a relationship with their local community foundation, which can lead to all sorts of collaborations – from funding to partnerships to volunteers to visibility and more. Get to know the people who are doing the work – the mutual benefits of such relationships are infinite.
I applaud the interest in offering multi-year grants to non-profits, but the majority of the funders I apply for my organization continue to fund grants annually. What are some of the concerns about funders offering multi-year grants? How can funders transition to multi-year funds?
A funder’s grantmaking process is typically driven by a number of factors including the state of the economy, endowment performance, risk tolerance, and concern about nonprofits growing dependent on them. Some funders also value having the flexibility that annual grantmaking affords. This January 2025 article on Candid.org offers more helpful perspective on this question.
One-Pager for Community-Focused Funders
If you’d like to dig deeper into any of these topics, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Carrie Dahlquist directly for a one-on-one conversation.
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