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

  1. 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.
  2. Our income stems from less than 25 percent from one donor or income stream.
  3. Our donor database contains around over 1,500 active names.
  4. We believe most donors give to us to give back, help those with less, to bring about desired change, and because they were asked.
  5. The percentage of our board of directors that made cash contributions last year is 90-100 percent.
  6. Three months after people attend our special events (i.e., golf tournament) they are asking how else they can be involved in your nonprofit.
  7. 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.
  8. We have a gift acceptance policy that the board adopted and reviewed or refined within the last three years.
  9. We have an inventory of ideas for potential earned income opportunities that include ten or more ideas and we can easily generate more.
  10. The last time we tried a new earned income opportunity was less than three years ago.
  11. We have a growing community of supporters including customers, donors, and volunteers: strongly agree.

 Part 2: Your Understanding About The Nonprofit Sector

  1. 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.
  2. Sector-wide, what percent of all nonprofits revenue is earned (versus donated)? More than 50 percent
  3. 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.
  4. To begin an earned revenue (or social enterprise) opportunity, nonprofits need $5,000 or less.