Your current income strategies and thinking probably reflect hearsay mixed with solid knowledge. Eliminate rumors with facts. Plan to retake this assessment in six months and receive a flood gate opening grade—you can improve that quickly. Begin with a solid strategy that you know will work, the last two chapters of 7 Nonprofit Income Streams teach you how to build a viable custom strategy.
The Assessment’s Best Answers
Part 1: About Your Organization
- We have a strategy to obtain sustainable income and a logical plan. Over time we expect it will provide us income to thrive. Strongly agree.
- Our income stems from less than 25 percent from one donor or income stream.
- Our donor database contains around over 1,500 active names.
- We believe most donors give to us to give back, help those with less, to bring about desired change, and because they were asked.
- The percentage of our board of directors that made cash contributions last year is 90-100 percent.
- Three months after people attend our special events (i.e., golf tournament) they are asking how else they can be involved in your nonprofit.
- At our nonprofit, requests for bequests (i.e., “please remember us in your will”) appear in 90 percent of our publications and are modeled by one or more board and staff members.
- We have a gift acceptance policy that the board adopted and reviewed or refined within the last three years.
- We have an inventory of ideas for potential earned income opportunities that include ten or more ideas and we can easily generate more.
- The last time we tried a new earned income opportunity was less than three years ago.
- We have a growing community of supporters including customers, donors, and volunteers: strongly agree.
Part 2: Your Understanding About The Nonprofit Sector
- Sector-wide, the largest source of nonprofit income for the sector is:
mission earned revenue or money earned selling a product or service related to your mission. - Sector-wide, what percent of all nonprofits revenue is earned (versus donated)? More than 50 percent
- The average tenure of a development director, a management position whose responsibility is to recruit and manage staff to raise donated income, is less than three years.
- To begin an earned revenue (or social enterprise) opportunity, nonprofits need $5,000 or less.