​Use a Donation Page to Easily Get Donations

​The first thing you need to do is set up a donation page for your nonprofit’s website. This makes it easy for people who find your website to donate while they’re already there learning about your organization. It also gives you a page to link to when you’re asking for donations on social media or via email. If you can provide a link to your donation page where they can fill out their information to make a donation, they’ll be much more likely to do so.

Get Donations Automatically by Asking for Recurring Donations

Every time someone gives you a donation, you should always ask if they want to make it a recurring donation. You can make it another checkbox on your donation page, but you also want to make sure it’s part of the script your staff and volunteers use when they get donations in person or over the phone. A recurring donation allows you to charge the same amount on their credit card or take it directly from their bank account every month. Recurring donations are a great way to get consistent income for your nonprofit while automating those donations so you don’t have to go out and ask for them every month.

​Send Thank-You Cards Every Time You Get Donations

You’d be surprised how far a traditional thank-you card can get you. If you want to save money on paper and postage, there are websites that let you send and create personalized thank-you cards to the recipient’s email address, but snail mail works, too, especially since it gives them a chance to put it on their desk or their fridge where they’ll be able to see it regularly. That helps keep you top of mind so that, if you did not manage to get a recurring donation from them, the thank-you card will prompt them to donate again. Everyone likes to feel appreciated, and the thank-you card helps continue the warm, fuzzy feeling they naturally get by donating to a good cause.

​Partner with Local Businesses to Get Donations

You can also add a prompt on your donation page to ask donors if their employer offers matching contributions. If they’re not sure, you can ask them to check with their employer, or you can ask who their employer is. If you’ve partnered with local businesses, you might know which ones offer matching contributions, in which case you can check to see if they offer matching contributions. It’s a simple question that has the potential to double the amount of your donation.

Talk About What You Can Do with the Money

​It can also help to lay out a vision for what you want your nonprofit organization to do going forward, especially if you’re having a big fundraising campaign. For example, if you want to expand your operations, which includes buying more office space, then in addition to having your monetary goal, you’ll need to explain to people what you’ll be able to achieve once you’ve reached that financial goal.

​Productive procrastination is a very sneaky way for our brains to trick us into avoiding things we need to be doing for our business because it doesn’t feel like procrastination. It feels like work. It feels like we’re doing something that needs to get done. And while it might have been a while since you last cleaned your office, that doesn’t mean doing so is more important than tackling the needle-moving activities in your business.

Avoid Productive Procrastination by Prioritizing Your To-Do List

You might already know how important it is to write out your to-do list every morning (or the night before), but if you have not considered prioritizing your to-do list, you could be setting yourself up for failure without even realizing it. ​One way to prioritize your to-do list is to write them in order of when each task needs to get done. While that can help you avoid blowing past deadlines, it can still leave your schedule open for that sneaky productive procrastination.

​Reward Yourself for Avoiding Productive Procrastination

​Most of the time we procrastinate performing a certain task because we don’t want to do it. Just like you can arrange your to-do list to put the most important tasks at the top, you can also arrange it so that you do your favorite task right after performing your least favorite task. If you really don’t want to make those sales calls, but you know they always help you get more business, then put those sales calls at the beginning of the day and follow them up with an easier task you’re looking forward to performing, or even a break. Maybe after you finish your sales calls, you get to eat a snack or watch an episode of your favorite TV show. Whatever reward will encourage you to do the thing you don’t want to do, use that to motivate yourself to complete the needle-moving activities for your business.

Stop Being “Busy”

​Take another look at your to-do list. Is it full of busywork, or are they all needle-moving activities that will help you grow your business? Get Help from a Professional Business Coach

The good news is that summer is a great opportunity for hosting outdoor nonprofit events. People tend to look for things to do outside, especially if you’re in a part of the country with harsh winters where people are more likely to look for ways to soak up as much sun as possible while they can. By hosting an outdoor nonprofit event, you can provide that opportunity for them to spend some time in the great outdoors, while also capturing people during the event who might not have heard of it ahead of time, but happen to come across it while they’re out and about. If you’re looking for some fundraising ideas for summer, we have a few tips that will help you get the most out of your outdoor nonprofit events.

​Make Your Nonprofit Events Kid-Friendly

​You can have kid-friendly games and competitions. Provide kid-friendly foods that will have kids dragging their parents to your nonprofit event. ​If you do decide to make kids the focus of your event, don’t forget to include pictures of kids in your marketing campaign so parents know it’s a family-friendly nonprofit event. And advertise your event in places where kids and parents are likely to see it, whether that’s the local playground or daycare.

​Host a “Pub Crawl”

​As nice as it is to take advantage of the great outdoors while we can, the downside to hosting an outdoor nonprofit event is that you run the risk of getting wet, so have a back-up plan. Whether that means having plenty of large tents to provide shelter, or an indoor location you can have on standby, it’s always wise to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Have a Back-Up Plan for Your Outdoor Nonprofit Events

​Sometimes it’s just the desire to make our own hours so we can work when we know we’re most focused and productive, which isn’t always from 9 am to 5 pm on certain days of the week. In other cases, the corporate job is not fulfilling and we leave to do something we love – something we know will make a difference in the world. More often than not, there’s more than one reason entrepreneurs choose to go out on their own, but regardless of the reason, something many entrepreneurs struggle with is how to reach their full potential. When you’re working for yourself, making more money requires you to operate at a

​Focus on Your Why

​Delegate to Reach Your Full Potential

​A lot of entrepreneurs are afraid to offload tasks onto other people, but doing so is necessary for anyone to reach their full potential. You can’t reach your full potential if you’re spending hours every day cleaning out your email, doing your own bookkeeping, or running errands someone else could be running for you. To reach your full potential, you need to conserve your time and energy as much as possible so you can spend it on the things only you can do.

​Automate to Reach Your Full Potential

​Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable to Reach Your Full Potential

​Get Help to Reach Your Full Potential

​While you can go a long way towards achieving your full potential on your own, a coach can help you go further faster by pointing out old habits and systems that might be holding you back, while directing you to paths around the roadblocks that are currently standing in your way. If you’re tired of being stuck and ready to learn how to reach your full potential, you can start by scheduling your FREE clarity call now so we can talk about the ways in which I can help you achieve more in less time.