Analysis

Our client asked us to find resources on how other backbone organizations like the CHIP around the United States gain efficient funding. The team used research methods such as studying the staff of other nonprofits and seeking grant writing tips for the client to find helpful results. We also researched how similar non-profit organizations used events for benefactors as a way to access increased funding, along with the audience they target.

The issues nonprofits face when seeking funding

Chelsea Harring-Cozzi, our client with CHIP, had a concern that their funding methods were seen as greedy because they are viewed as taking away funding from organizations that work directly with the communities. They can also be seen as not appreciative if they continued to ask for donations after receiving them. We decided it was important to:

Research this issue with other nonprofit organizations
Note how many staff members these organizations have
See how they might receive their funding

Linda Plitt Donaldson has her Ph.D. and is an assistant professor at the Catholic University of America; she wrote an article in the journal Administration in Social Work that was published in 2008. Her section was titled Developing a Progressive Advocacy Program Within a Human Services Agency. In it, she wrote, “even though the agency had highly diverse funding sources, it still felt hesitant about ‘biting the hand that fed it,’ even if the portions were quite small” (Donaldson, 2008, 19). This was a very significant find for our research because it meant that CHIP was not the only organization facing this issue.

Why do people choose to donate to nonprofits?

When someone chooses to donate to a nonprofit, they have some reason behind it. The Charities Aid Foundation conducted a survey for 700 donors on why people donate to charities/nonprofit organizations. In their study they found that “96% of people gave to charity as they felt a sense of duty to give back to society and tackle inequality, using their own good fortune to help others” (Charities Aid Foundation [CAF], 2022). Donors may have multiple reasons behind their donations, they just need the drive to donate.

Sometimes, people don’t realize how far a small donation can go for a nonprofit, especially a backbone agency like CHIP. From 2005 to 2007, Shawn Moulton studied the impact that government funding had on the chronically homeless. In his article, Does Increased Funding for Homeless Programs Reduce Chronic Homelessness?, Moulton shares his use of the formula he used to calculate how increased funding methods decreased chronic homeless rates.

Moulton uses this method and says, “suppose a community of 500,000 people receives a $1 per capita, or $500,000, increase in federal [Continuum of Care] CoC funding. They can expect to have a 9.0-person reduction in chronic homelessness” (Moulton, 2013, paragraph 41).

What CHIP can do to gain more donors: a slow, but beneficial process

The information we found suggests that you should make it common knowledge to people that know of CHIP how much their donations impact the organization. Your own website shares this. The first two sentences on the donation tab of your website says, “Your support matters! every dollar invested in CHIP’s work has an $8 net effect on the community” (CHIP, 2022, Donate). Using this method will increase the number of donors and, with time, will decrease the number of people that experience homelessness. CHIP should be promoting this as much as possible, and it will make it possible for more people to donate.

Graph Results: Seeing donations through the donor’s perspective (Brooklyn)

This graph represents the results from the question “how would you like to be recognized for your donation?” that is included in our local study survey. It shows that 32% of the participants for the survey would like to be put on a donor wall for their donation. This is relevant to the study because it shows that people like to see that they are appreciated and making a difference for the nonprofit, but not showing off that they are a donor. While 73% of the participants would like to be recognized in some way, 27% wished to not be recognized at all.

Chip

Our client asked the team to look into similar organizations and how they find sufficient funding. Our team gathered much information on funding, personal experiences, and marketing.

Chip employees

Our client with CHIP, is one of the employees on the leadership team. She had shed some light onto many of the target areas of concert that they would like for our team to research for them. Our contact and many other employees at CHIP are juggling not only one job title but several titles that lead to many tasks. She is juggling jobs like “Vision of change” to “[Continuum of Care] CoC and CHIP progress and performance.” With 8 additional job titles for CHIP.

The importance of finding funding through a single person

The idea behind the importance of finding funding through a single person is that with all these people juggling multiple held positions, comes more work and less priority on one single job. The importance of finding and hiring one single person to be in charge of finding grants, and also hiring one person who can write grants can be an absolute game changer for CHIP and how they are able to find funding to create this backbone that they need to keep growing as a company. If they keep having one person juggling managing grants then it can never truly be a big money maker for the improvement of the non-profit as a whole.

Many benefits would come out of hiring employees for one job position; grant writing and finding grants for CHIP.

Fosters better work life balance.
Allows for increased work progress.
Mental blocks could be eliminated because employees have a shorter list of tasks to complete.
More availability to collaborate.

Connecting the pieces between funding, personal experiences, and marketing to a specific crowd.

There are a lot of ways to connect all of these important strategic ways for CHIP to gather information on themselves and their clients and how to expand the money they can receive. Through concerns with CHIP, about feeling guilty or greedy for taking money away from other non-profits, we have come up with many ways to receive funding through grants and how you have to write to receive the grant. Money is always going to be a fight, and if you have a better, more well trained writer than you should receive money over another.

Many people want or do donate to nonprofits according to our survey. There are many reasons for why people donate time and money, but it is important to connect why people do and how to market CHIP to those people. Further into the analysis provides more detailed information on who is a good target audience and why. Personal experiences are a major thing in people's lives and CHIP can really use these to their advantage. Giving the target audience opportunities to share their story can be a great way for you to make decisions to better serve them. People will see how one small gesture can go a long way.

Finding grants

One of the many things that nonprofits do to fund themselves is find grants that they can receive. Grants are a common way that nonprofits get more funding rather than just receiving donations. There are nationwide grants and local grants that nonprofits apply to receive. Many places such as grants.gov post grants that are available from federal funding. Other sources including grantwatch.com also help make the search for grants much easier, by being able to specify the state and local area in which the nonprofit is located.

How CHIP Can Appeal To Their Target Audiences

We sought to find better engaging strategies for CHIP to see the most beneficial results. We found that 36 individuals in our survey give time and money towards a non-profit organization of their choice. Our participants give time and money because these citizens are involved in philanthropy. Out of our 57 participants 100% of them value non-profit organizations. This data helped us conclude that people are willing to give time and money, CHIP needs to advertise what they stand for and get benefactors attention. The team of IUPUI students researched ways to grab the attention of different audiences:

The overall benefactor crowd
Marketing towards parents
Marketing towards teens and young adults
Marketing towards adults

Marketing Towards the General Benefactor Crowd

In the desk phase of research we discovered the use of an engagement ladder or pyramid. Many nonprofit organizations utilize this framework of engagement to help them envision how to get their supporters to that next tier of participation. We found out that 29 (49.1%) participants donated money annually out of our 56 participants in total. This leads us to believe CHIP can implement a couple things; invite donors to connect and follow the Social Media channels related to the campaign, organization, or cause. Encouraging donors to participate in volunteer opportunities. Host networking events. What we enacted as a team consisted of surveying donors to learn more about the intent of commitment.

Marketing Towards Parents for Children

We found out that more than 44.4% of participants would be more inclined to donate if a fundraiser or banquet was involved. Also noted was 77.8% of parents chose a family zoo day as a type of charity event that would be appealing to benefactors. This led us into looking at ways we can market towards parents for kids. This starts off with getting the child’s attention, if a zoo day was involved or a popular child character showed up to an event that would grab children's attention. Targeting a child would be an easy way for CHIP to grab the attention of parents who are ready to donate on behalf of their child's happiness. Providing these types of charity events would be a great way to start an increase in donations.

Marketing Towards Teenagers and Young Adults

Marketing towards older children and teenagers is vital. Creating a sense of identity and purpose is crucial in marketing towards this demographic, this group wants to feel a sense of purpose and belonging. This can be accomplished through Instagram tags, Facebook shares, or tweets. CHIP could also visit nearby college campuses and tables. You would be able to spread word of what CHIP does and what they stand for. Maybe organizations host events on college campuses, this would be another option to get students involved. If they buy into the vision it sells itself, take advantage of contagious generosity.

Marketing Towards Adults

The more mature crowd needs a far different approach that understands that not all generations are created equal. Growing up during different times of communication and technological advancements, each generation of benefactors has cultivated distinct ways to connect with causes they are passionate about. Millennials make up 11 % of total giving while baby boomers make up 43% of total giving (Elizabeth Pun, 2018). Making use of peer to peer marketing will be the best way to reach the millennial generation. While engaging donors in the workplace works the best to grab the attention of generation X. Baby boomers reported that they prefer encouragement of monthly giving and the empowerment of fundraisers through tools and resources (Elizabeth Pun, 2018). Marketing strategies such as these will help to fill the gap between age groups and be the most effective.