40-51: You have a solid understanding of how nonprofits obtain money. Your strategy and actions probably provide you solid income, but not enough to guarantee your future. Pick either donated or earned income to grow. For donated income develop a “moves management plan” to engage your board, staff, and volunteers—in that order. For earned revenue, develop several pilots to test market within 90 days. For help, study the chapters on the corresponding income sources in 7 Nonprofit Income Streams. Also check out Karen’s library of articles: click here.
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 percent 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 you 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 member.
- 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 includes 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.