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by Rhea Wong
This is Nonprofit Lowdown where I review and recommend the best ideas, resources, tools, tricks and tips to run your nonprofit like a pro!
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- 6 days ago44 min
#412 - The Year-End Question Nobody’s Asking Donors
You know the fantasy. You get one meeting with a philanthropic advisor, she sees how good your work is, she walks you into her top five clients, and your year is made. Dr. Vandana Arcot is that advisor. Nonprofits ask her for exactly this all the time. Her answer is “absolutely not.”Dr. Vandana Arcot is a physician who trained in India and then spent two decades with international global health agencies, mostly in reproductive health. She also holds a public health degree and an MBA, and she calls herself a translator between field work and the boards writing the checks. Today she advises high-net-worth donors and family foundations through KOMSELJ, with programs running in 17 countries.We start with her five donor types: the reactive giver, the giver tied to the place that helped them, the “reseeder” who spreads small gifts and comes back to whoever performed, the high-net-worth donor branching into philanthropy full time, and the legacy donor. Each one needs a different approach. Her story about the auditorium shows why. A donor wanted to sponsor one at her mother’s old school. On the field visit, Vandana’s team found the school needed toilets so girls could attend during their periods, plus streetlights so kids could get home safely. Attendance went up 25 to 30%. The donor still got her auditorium.Then we get into what her clients check before they give. Her answer: they give where they trust, and that trust comes from social proof now, not from your email list. The organizations getting surprise checks are “building a room, not a list.” That means small working sessions all year, where existing donors talk about the work and bring their friends along. Her verification process goes past audited financials to field visits, where past donors came from, and the failures you’re willing to name. One finding stung: founder-led nonprofits doing great work in the field rarely come up as the most fundable, because nobody has time to build the proof.On year-end, she says Giving Tuesday is an anchor, not a deadline. Your gala should end with a public impact report, not a gift basket. That means your legal name, your EIN, and what $10,000 and $100,000 actually buy. Link your audited financials in every email you send. And her top tip: stop asking donors how much. Ask when they plan to give, show them what the program costs, and let them decide the amount.My favorite moment is when we both admit the hard part. Doing good work doesn’t mean anyone finds you. I call it shining a diamond in a cave. Nobody’s out there looking for you, so you have to be findable, and for Gen Z donors that means Instagram and TikTok.If your year-end plan is a gala and a prayer, this conversation is for you.Important Links:KOMSELJ : https://www.komselj.com/Substack : https://substack.com/@drvandanaarcotMy Big Ask Gifts Program : https://go.rheawong.com/big-ask-gifts-programMy Book, Get That Money Honey : https://go.rheawong.com/get-that-money-honeyMy Newsletter : https://www.rheawong.com/
- 1 weeks ago26 min
#411- Plugging Donor Leaks Before Year-End
We’re in what I like to call the Super Bowl of fundraising, that mad sprint to December 31st. Before you pour all your time and energy into your year-end campaign, I want to make sure you’re not losing money through hidden leaks in your donor funnel. In this episode, I break down the four biggest leaks that cost nonprofits thousands every year, and how to fix them before the giving rush begins:1️⃣ Acquisition : why prospects might not even be paying attention to you.2️⃣ Conversion : how a confusing donation page can kill your momentum.3️⃣ Upgrade : the missed opportunities right under your nose.4️⃣ Retention : the biggest leak of them all.Plus, I’m sharing a free Holiday Giving Readiness Checklist to help you plug those leaks and set yourself up for a strong finish to the year.Important Links:Holiday Giving Readiness Checklist: https://go.rheawong.com/holidaygivingreadinesschecklist My Big Ask Gifts Program: https://go.rheawong.com/big-ask-gifts-program My Book, Get That Money Honey: https://go.rheawong.com/get-that-money-honey My Newsletter: https://www.rheawong.com/
- 2 weeks ago20 min
#410 - Why Your Board goes Quiet after Yes
A board member once read me the riot act because I never told her that a friend of hers had given to our year-end campaign. She was right. I hadn’t closed the loop, and her friend ended up asking her why nobody had thanked them. I still think about that call.I’ve now worked with dozens of boards across the country, and I haven’t met one that didn’t care about the work. What I’ve met are boards that were never told what fundraising is, what happens to the names they hand over, or what they’re supposed to do next. This episode walks through the six reasons I see most often, split into two groups. Three are why board members hesitate: the money feels loaded, they don’t know what to say, and they’re afraid of looking foolish in front of their friends. Three are why they stall: nobody gave them a specific role, nobody explained what happens after an introduction, and nobody closed the loop when a friend gave.The emotional reasons take longer to solve. The structural ones you can fix this month. Here’s where to start. Replace the vague request to “help” with a menu of specific commitments and let each board member choose. Walk them through the process before they’re asked to trust it, so they know their friends can opt out at any point. And when someone gives, tell the board member the same day, then tell the donor what their gift does. Then look at your three most engaged board members and build from them. You don’t have to win over the three who are sitting back.If your board nods along in meetings and then goes quiet, this conversation is for you.Important Links:The BAG Program Get That Money, Honey My Newsletter Join Our Live WorkshopRegister for the 2026 Nonprofit Bootcamp (Free Conference) Join Rhea as a keynote speaker!
- 3 weeks ago37 min
#409 - The 5 Financial Red Flags Fundraisers Miss
I came into this conversation thinking I knew how to raise money. Turns out, I've been fundraising with a broken financial house and didn't notice until Susan DeMarco walked me through it.Susan DeMarco is the CEO of Brand K Partners, an accounting firm that works exclusively with small to mid-size nonprofits. She provides everything from basic bookkeeping to fractional CFO services. She's spent years watching nonprofits celebrate a major gift, then panic when they can't manage the financial complexity that comes with it.In this episode, Susan names the five financial red flags that tank nonprofits, and it's not what you think. Growth without financial infrastructure is the first. Then revenue recognition confusion, fundraisers celebrate the commitment, finance knows it's not recognizable yet. Cash flow is the killer nobody talks about: you can have a $500,000 grant and still run out of money in month three if only 20% arrives upfront. Weak financial controls mean one person is handling deposits and reconciliation, which is a risk nightmare. And the biggest one: finance and development working completely independently, speaking different languages about the same money.Susan's advice cuts straight through. If you're hiring a CFO or finance director, nonprofit experience matters. For-profit accountants don't understand restricted funding the way a nonprofit accountant does. Every grant letter is different, and if your finance person doesn't know that, you're in trouble. Before you celebrate a major gift, ask your finance team: Can we actually manage this? Do we have the infrastructure? If not, the money arrives and your books break.The real kicker is this: fundraising success doesn't automatically equal financial health. It can feel like a win and a crisis at the same time. Susan walks you through what to watch for and the exact moment it's time to bring in outside help instead of hoping your one overworked bookkeeper figures it out.If your ED and your finance person don't talk, or if you're not sure what "revenue recognition" means, this conversation is for you.Important Links: Brand K Partners Susan DeMarcoThe BAG Program Get That Money, Honey My Newsletter Join Our Live Workshop
- Oct 5, 202644 min
#408 - Email's Hidden Value: Why Donors Wait
I came into this thinking email was dead. Ben Smithee and Brad Duff-Hudkins from NextAfter walked me back from the ledge with 17 million email subscribers worth of actual data. Spoiler: email is fine. You're just bad at it.Ben Smithee is Chief Growth Officer at NextAfter. Brad Duff-Hudkins is VP of Data & Analytics. Together, they've run 8,000+ experiments on nonprofit email and published research that blows up everything we think we know about donor acquisition and retention.Downstream donors, the ones who take almost 900 days to give their first gift, return $10.29 for every dollar you spend. Instant donors return $2.38. On a list of 1,000 new subscribers, 800 never give. But 100+ become donors over time, many jumping straight to major gift levels. The real move: donors who make a second gift within six months of their first are 40% more likely to give again in year two.Most nonprofits don't have an email strategy. They have a blast. One email a month, then ramped-up asks at year-end. Ben and Brad tested adding a single cultivation email (no ask) on a Saturday to an organization sending one appeal a week. Result: 41% revenue lift, 13% conversion bump, 52% engagement increase.The hard truth: 80% of new donors don't come back. But if you get them to a second gift in the first six months, you've locked in behavior change. You've moved them from transaction to relationship.If you're managing email like a campaign instead of a relationship engine, this conversation is for you.Important Links:NextAfter Research Database : 8,000+ free experiments searchable by nonprofit challengeEmail Lifetime Value Study : Full report with all the benchmarksMy Big Ask Gifts ProgramMy Book, Get That Money HoneyMy NewsletterJoin the Free Webinar
- Sep 28, 202646 min
#407 - The Gen Z Donor Strategy Nobody's Building
I'll admit it. I came into this conversation ready to talk about "those damn kids." They give me the blank stare. They call me bro. My friend in staffing says they show up for one day of work and never come back. Phil Putnam walked me back from the ledge. (Mostly. The bro thing still bugs me.)Phil Putnam is a workforce behavior strategist and keynote speaker who spent 20+ years as a team member and executive at Apple and Adobe. Now he helps associations and companies like PCMA, Bloomberg, Slack, and Salesforce understand how different generations work and give. He's a Gen Xer with two Gen Z mentors, ages 26 and 22, and he is unapologetically pro-Gen Z.In this episode, we get into why safety is the North Star for this generation. They've never known life without school shootings, and many of them believe the planet won't outlast them. Phil maps what each generation wants from work: loyalty for boomers, excellence for Gen X, value exchange for millennials, safety for Gen Z. Most fundraising strategies are written by boomers and Xers, through a boomer and Xer lens.For EDs managing Gen Z staff, Phil explains why "bring me a first draft" can feel terrifying to someone raised on teaching to the test. His advice: never lower the job requirements when a Gen Z fundraiser says they hate the phone. Pair the requirement with safety instead. Try it, and I won't punish you for the draft. And if they still won't do the job, find them another role or let them go. Replacing an employee costs roughly 150% of their salary.Then we tackle loyalty. Phil's take: Gen Z is loyal, just not to employment as we know it. The oldest Gen Zer has been working for six years. Layoffs, COVID, AI, more layoffs. Top performers get an average raise of 3.7%. The math doesn't math.On the donor side, Gen Z is 27% of the workforce today and will be 31% by 2035. Forbes 30 Under 30 is almost entirely Gen Z. Phil's approach starts with values alignment: ask what they care about and what they're afraid of, then take their answers at face value. For retention, keep the first gift easy, put your Gen Z donors in the room with your boomers, and connect them to each other.My favorite moment is Phil's welcome email test. You pay an association hundreds of dollars, and the first email asks you to join a committee. It's like ordering dinner and getting handed an apron. His point lands hard for fundraisers: your donors are your customer, not your resource.If your donor strategy only speaks boomer, this conversation is for you.Important Links:Phil Putnam SpeaksEmail Phil: booking@philputnam.comMy Big Ask Gifts ProgramMy Book, Get That Money HoneyMy NewsletterJoin the Free Webinar
- Sep 21, 202620 min
#406 - Who Told You It Was Supposed To Be Easy?
Most nonprofit leaders think the problem is the workload. I had a week that told me otherwise, and it took a coaching call to see it.I was venting about year eight feeling harder than year three when my coach said, "You're upset because life does not fit your model of reality." Somewhere around year two I quietly built a model where by now I'd be sipping mai tais while the business ran itself. Nobody promised me that. I wrote it myself, filed it where I couldn't see it, and have been paying rent on it ever since. The work was a Tuesday. The belief that I shouldn't have to do it was the surcharge, and the surcharge cost more than the work.So this episode is about the models running in the background of your job. The work is good, so the money should follow. I've been here six years, the board should get it by now. I shouldn't have to sell. If I explain the need clearly enough, people will give. We did everything right, so the numbers should be up. Not one of those was ever agreed to by a donor, a board, or the universe. You wrote them, usually at a moment when you needed something to hold onto.I also name the part nobody says out loud, which is that burnout is usually loneliness, not workload. You're the only one who sees the funders, the board, the staff, and the program at the same time, and that's a lonely seat.Then I get concrete, because I don't want you closing this feeling philosophical with nothing changed. Once you stop arguing with the obstacle about whether it should be there, you can read it. The donor who gave big and drifted is a missing stewardship stage. The board that won't fundraise was never given a menu. The ask that came back at half is a ballpark question you skipped nine months upstream. The revenue you can't predict is a pipeline you never built. Every wall is a syllabus item, and that's the difference between eight years of experience and one year repeated eight times.Plus the one practice I want you to run this week. The next time you catch yourself thinking this shouldn't be this hard, finish the sentence out loud: Compared to what? Name the version you're measuring against. It usually sounds ridiculous once it's out of your mouth, and that's the whole trick.Important Links:My Big Ask Gifts ProgramMy Book, Get That Money Honey My Newsletter
- Sep 14, 202633 min
#405 - Yes! Your Nonprofit Is Allowed To Do This
Most nonprofit leaders think their biggest problem is raising money. Ny Whitaker says the real problem is influence, and money follows influence.Ny is the founder and chief strategist of Project NYNE, a former White House senior advisor and NYU professor of leadership who has spent 30 years building relationships with elected officials and teaching nonprofits to do the same.We cover why you build the relationship before the budget cut, not after. Ny walks through what a productive meeting with an elected actually looks like: lead with a problem in the district, name the three things your organization does that nobody else does, attach a dollar figure, and ask for the legislative director or budget director instead of the constituent services person who can't move money.She also clears up the thing that keeps a lot of organizations frozen. Your 501(c)(3) can do advocacy. What it cannot do is partisan political activity. That confusion is costing the sector power it already has.I pushed her on ROI too, because I was an ED with city council discretionary funding and the paperwork-to-dollars ratio felt brutal. Her answer is about what that money unlocks: matching funds, other agencies, introductions your elected can make, and being first in the queue the next time a pot of money opens.Plus the version of all this that fits a one-person shop. One thing a week. And the story of the organization that lost $100,000 in a city budget cut on a Thursday and had it restored by Monday.Important Links:Connect with NyProject NYNEMy Big Ask Gifts ProgramMy Book, Get That Money Honey My Newsletter Join the Free Webinar
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