The Playbook on Tech Nonprofit Fundraising

Fundraising can feel like a black box. Yet, even with all of its unknowns, awkwardness, and challenges, nonprofit fundraising matters. A lot. Especially in the beginning. Tech nonprofit revenue is often structured like a media company. The customer using your product is typically not the customer paying for your product. In addition to finding product-market fit with your customers, you also need to find product-market fit with donors. Welcome to the world of tech nonprofit fundraising! Let us be your guide.

The Nonprofit Fundraising Spaghetti Method

When you’re getting started, the truth is that you won’t know who is going to fund your product. Therefore, you have to ask every type of donor, also known as the spaghetti method (you know – throw it against the wall and see if it sticks). In the words of master fundraiser Evan Marwell, Founder and CEO of EducationSuperHighway: “Fundraising is a numbers game. You gotta knock on enough doors, because you don’t know which door is going to open.” It takes work and a lot of tries to find the funding relationships that are successful.

A good place to start is with a donor or funder who has a problem themselves that your organization is uniquely positioned to solve. For example, let’s say your organization has thousands of global digital volunteer opportunities. That’s an opportunity you can “sell.” In this case, it would be wise to focus your fundraising efforts on corporations with a global workforce eager for employee engagement opportunities. Or say your tech nonprofit works in a public system like juvenile court, focusing your fundraising efforts on foundations that have a track record of funding technology in justice court systems is a smart path to pursue.

Before you find perfect product-market fit with funders, you need money to get started. Open calls like accelerators, prizes, fellowships, contests, and RFPs (requests for proposals) are great opportunities to get resources in the door while you’re building out a donor strategy.

Opportunities to Explore Before You’ve Raised a Lot of Capital

• Accelerators: Discovery platforms like AngelList, F6S, and Crunchbase feature mostly for-profit but some nonprofit accelerators like ours – the Fast Forward Accelerator!

• Incubators: Many tech companies have innovation programs that accept nonprofits. A shortlist includes Microsoft, AWS, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Twilio, Toyota, and more.

• Fellowships: There are fellowships of every shape and size at Universities, NGOs, foundations, and governments.

• Prizes: Philanthropic prizes like the X-Prize are a great way to bring in early funding and media exposure.

Fast Forward runs an accelerator. We think it’s pretty special. It’s worth noting that all of our alumni have been part of multiple accelerators, fellowships, contests, and more. Unlike for-profits, there’s limited downside to participating in multiple programs for startups. It can behoove nonprofits to generate as much early, unrestricted support as possible in the form of nonprofit grants. The downside is the time commitment and mentor whiplash, which is the experience of getting so much advice that you end up exhausted and more confused than where you started.

Do Your Research

Now it’s time to put on your research goggles. There’s a whole world of possible funders out there who may be interested in your model – and it’s your job to find them.

• Subscribe to Fast Forward's Funding Forward for the latest grant opportunities.

• Donor discovery platforms like The Foundation Center, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, InsidePhilanthropy, and yes, Google search, will help surface potential donors.

• Check out the Partners/Funders section of the websites of organizations that are similar to yours to see who supports them.

• Many charitable individuals serve on the boards of other nonprofits. Find out what boards they are on and how those organizations relate to your mission. You can sleuth out individual donors this way.

• Read the agendas and sponsorship pages of industry conferences.

• Ask for referrals from existing donors and your board.

• Set Google alerts on keywords related to your space or prospective donors.

• Use LinkedIn, as it suggests people similar to your connections, or view connections of existing funders.

Once you’ve found some great funders to target, find contact information for the following individuals, based on the type of funder. Note that the appropriate contact will be different for each organization, so you’ll have to suss it out:

• Private/Public Foundation: Program Officer, Director of Strategic Projects, Partner, Executive Director, Program Associate, Associate Philanthropic Advisor

• Corporate Funding: The titles are often different depending on the company. Here are the keywords to look out for: Social Impact, CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, Community Relations, Community Engagement, Community Outreach, Public Policy, Philanthropy, Public Sector, Nonprofit Success, Brand Purpose, Program, Foundation, [Insert company name] for Good, [Insert company name].org

• Individual: The individual, Executive Assistant, or Chief of Staff

Get a Meeting

They say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. We say the same goes for how to get a meeting with a possible donor. When it comes to getting a meeting, warm intros trump cold outreaches. Do some LinkedIn sleuthing and see if you know someone who knows someone who might be able to introduce you to the person you want to meet with.

Great! You’ve scheduled a meeting! Now, make sure to abide by these rules of etiquette.

Before

• If you are asking for help, the other person should get to choose the time. Never, (we repeat) never send a donor a link to a virtual appointment calendar without checking with the donor first.

• Once the individual has chosen the time, send over a calendar invite. Make it easy for the donor to meet with you.

• Before the meeting, research the landscape and latest news on the person and/or institution with which you’re meeting. You should know things like: what are their current initiatives? Have they had any issues in the news they’re trying to recover from? Have they recently announced a new grantee or grant round?

During

• Always be early. At least 10 minutes.

• Dress a little bit nicer than expected. Business casual is always a good route.

• Show that you’ve done your homework. An easy way to do this is by referencing any shared connections.

• If they offer you food or drinks, follow their lead. You definitely don’t want to be pitching (or even chatting) with your mouth full. Remember that this is not a typical coffee meeting or lunch date – you need to be putting your best foot forward.

• Don’t forget to bring a photo ID if you’re meeting in a large office building (this is often required by security) and printed materials you can leave behind. Consider materials like a business card, your impact report from the previous year, a flyer or brochure from a recent event, etc.

• Respectfully make the ask. More in the Make the Ask section below.

After

• Send a thank you note within 24 hours of the meeting. Personalize it. Highlight something you learned in the meeting and, if appropriate, outline what was discussed and any follow up items.

In terms of getting the other person to engage, it’s key to remember that humans become interested when we’re the ones talking. Not the other way around. Make your goal to get the other person talking and you will shift the engagement level in the room. Along those same lines, position the thing you’re trying to “sell” in terms of what the other person wants to fund. How do you do this? By listening. People will tell you what they’re looking for – it’s up to you to hear them. Then, position what you’re selling using the words they used to describe what they want to support.

Pitches, Decks, and Everything in Between

As you’ve gathered by now, if you’re a founder, you’re a fundraiser. What do all fundraisers need in their toolbelt? A few pitches and an arsenal of assets to complement the pitch. Note: you will need different pitches for different types of donors.

• The One Liner: This should convey your startup’s mission and value add in one line. Here are a few examples:

  • Karya is an employment platform for low-income Indians to improve AI and ML models through bite-sized tasks
  • Ersilia creates open-source AI models that empower scientists in low-income countries to cure neglected diseases.

• The Written Brief: And we mean brief. This paragraph description should explain your value-add to the world in a handful of sentences. An example:

  • Think of Us is reshaping the U.S. foster care system through kinship care, an approach that places more children with near-or-distant family members. In CEO Sixto Cancel’s TED Talk (viewed 1.2M+ times), he laid out their vision for transforming U.S child welfare. Then, Think of Us was selected as an Audacious Project recipient, which unlocked $47M+ in funding for their mission. That’s not all —–Think of Us assembled a coalition to champion new federal standards in U.S. child welfare, potentially securing $3B for caregivers. All in all, Think of Us now impacts 80% of U.S. foster youth, cementing the organization as a key leader in child welfare reform.

• The Elevator Pitch: This 30-second verbal pitch should share the problem and solution and be short enough so anyone gets the idea of the thing you’re doing before the elevator doors open.

• The One-Pager: This asset should be visually appealing and list the problem, TAM (total addressable market), solution/product, impact to date, and funders and supporter.

• The Pitch Deck: We’ve got a whole section on this below.

The In-Person Pitch

In-person pitches usually happen in spaces like Demo Days or when you’re formally seeking to persuade a funder to jump aboard. The pitch should be sharp and not exceed three minutes – you want to spend the rest of the time in conversation (remember, people get engaged when they are talking).

We’ll get more into the visual and text elements that should go into a deck in the section below, but first, let’s dive into some basic guidelines for the in-person pitch:

The deck should not tell the story for you. Nor should what you’re verbally saying be explicitly written out on the slides. Think of the deck as a visual guide to keep people engaged. As we said, people give to people (read: not your deck).

• When designing the in-person pitch deck, lean on photos, illustrations, and bold text.

• You can have more than one slide per element. You control the clicker!

• During the pitch, be authentic. We’ll say it again – people give to people.

• No notes. The audience needs to see your eyes.

• Something will go wrong. Roll with it. Only you know what was meant to be.

• Practice with your deck. You can do it 10 times in 30 minutes.

The Most Important Aspect of Nonprofit Fundraising: Make the Ask

Has this ever happened to you? You’ve done everything right: you made a list of potential donors, you captured their contact info, you’ve emailed with them, you got a “get to know you” meeting, you shared your work, you sent a thank you note, and nada, bupkis, radio silence. What did you forget?

You forgot to make the ask. (It’s ok…everyone has made this mistake.)

Nonprofit fundraising is sales. You’ve got to close. And you can’t close without making the ask. The truth is, you are not really fundraising until you are asking for money. We know – it’s hard. But the only way to do it…is to do it. Practice asking. Lay out what your organization is setting out to accomplish and the funds you’ll need to get there.

Phrase the ask like you’re asking this person or organization to join you in partnership – because you are. You are asking a donor to work towards something alongside you.

A Few Ways You Can Ask For Financial Support

• “We are inviting partners at X funding level. Are you (or the foundation’s name) interested in joining us?”

• “Will you join us in our mission to X by partnering at the $Y level?”

• “Are you interested in partnering at X level to make this vision for Y a reality?”

Types of Funding

As a tech nonprofit, you’ll receive a variety of funding types. Different types of grants afford you different levels of flexibility. It’s crucial to both understand the terms of a grant, and to know when to say no if a grant is asking too much of your time or for you to stray too far from your mission (more on that in the It’s Okay to Say No section below).

The two main types are unrestricted funds and restricted funds. Simply put, one restricts the way you’re allowed to spend the grant, and one does not. Some funders only make restricted donations, while others only make unrestricted donations. Some do both.

Restricted Funds

Restricted funds are tied to a specific budget line item. It could be a program or person. Restricted funding must be spent on those pre-agreed upon line items.

Unrestricted Funds

Unrestricted funds (also known as general support revenue) are gifts that can be applied to your organization’s overall operating expenses without needing to itemize expenditures in your accounting. In general, unrestricted funds are preferable because they give you more flexibility and make your accounting easier. It’s possible to seek unrestricted grants for specific projects or initiatives. In this case, you should write an agreement outlining the work the funds will support and/or utilize an MOU. Even with unrestricted funds, you should be super clear with your funder what the funds will support and what outcomes you will report on at the end of the grant term.

Remember that your budget is an extension of your theory of change. Your budget should clearly demonstrate how each line item contributes to your organization’s mission. Tech nonprofits spend a lot of money on what is sometimes mis-categorized as overhead or administrative expenses, which include things like payroll, contractors, and tech products. Traditionally, funders have a bias towards funding programmatic expenses and initiatives directly impacting your beneficiaries. But for tech nonprofits, where your impact is achieved via the tech you’re scaling, those costs are actually programmatic expenses and should be represented as such.

Gratitude is a Keystone of Nonprofit Fundraising

Fundraising partnerships work best when we operate in service of one another. Expressing gratitude is an important way to embody that attitude. The simplest way to show gratitude is to always send a thank you for the opportunity to meet or connect. In truth, most founders screw this part up. It’s important to send a thank you note within 24 hours of meeting, but ideally the same day.

Helpful tidbits to share in a thank you note are insights gleaned from the meeting. Perhaps it was some idea you walked away thinking about, an extra thought you wanted to share, and the like.

If you owe the person a few follow-ups, don’t let that hold you back from sending a thank you note. Send a prompt thank you along with a recap of what you’ll get to the person and by when. Also, make note of a commitment or follow up that the donor promised. It’s very helpful to have written, time-stamped documentation of what was agreed upon verbally during the meeting. It also confirms that you heard the person correctly and gives the donor a chance to correct any misunderstandings.

Note: Pay attention. If you’re doing it right, you’ll learn a lot about the donor during the meeting. In addition to everything you’ll learn from the conversation, you might also notice the books on the desk, that the shelf is covered with photos of children or basketball memorabilia, that the donor is drinking tea…a million different things. Those who excel at nonprofit fundraising know how to pay attention.

When to Hire a Development Director

Almost all early-stage founders complain about nonprofit fundraising and want to know how soon they can hire someone to take it off their hands. Hard truth: as a founder, you will always have to do some fundraising. Over time, the types of fundraising tasks owned by the founder will shift, but it never goes away entirely.

Here’s why you won’t want it to go away completely: powerhouse nonprofit fundraising requires strategic thinking. Fundraising deals will often shift product roadmaps, hiring strategy, marketing and communications, and ultimately, impact. As the founder, you should want to lead some of those conversations.

When your organization is over $1M in annual revenue, it may be time to bring in professional nonprofit fundraising support to double the impact of the founder’s fundraising efforts. This person can keep the deals in motion and act as a thought partner on funder strategy. Founders shouldn’t outsource all fundraising strategy. The founder will likely need to participate to initiate deals, get them closed, and provide ongoing external communications.

Professional fundraisers bring in money, so they tend to be expensive hires. In the early days, you may want to contract out some of the fundraising tasks, but not take on a full-time employee. We’ve heard from many founders that it is helpful to hire an office administrator or executive assistant before hiring a development director. This enables the founder to spend time on higher-order fundraising tasks.

Here are the elements of nonprofit fundraising that you can eventually hire for:

• General communications: quarterly updates, thank you notes, etc.

• Grant writing

• CRM management

• Research for pipeline prospects

• Donor meeting scheduling

Some Final Words on Funders

When fundraising, always under-promise and over-deliver. Be realistic about what you can accomplish with the funds within the agreed upon time frame. To that end, whenever you write a proposal, think about the grant report you’ll have to write at the end of the grant term (i.e. one year). When you’re reporting back on your progress on each deliverable, you want to report that you accomplished your goals – or even surpassed them!

It’s important to spend your time and energy on potential funders who seem excited by your work. If it’s clear early on that a funder doesn’t understand your issue area or solution – and isn’t willing to be convinced – don’t waste too much time trying. Put your energy into the prospects who respond to your emails, show up to your events, and ask follow up questions. Delight them!

When you do land a grant, keep in mind that a funder’s job is to collate every important context, impact metric, and story about your organization. It enables funders to advocate for your organization with their boards. Make this easy for them. Provide relevant numbers, stories, photos, etc. Help them tell a great story. The better you are at making their job easier, the more likely you are to continue getting funding.

On that note, funders are people too. Treat them as such. Personalize your communication and be friendly. Understand the needs and priorities of funders before you determine if you fit into them. And remember that funders talk to other funders. If you impress a donor, that donor can become your strongest advocate. If you piss off a donor, that donor will tell their friends. This is especially true for institutional funders; they rely on peer funders for reference checks and that can help or hurt depending on your relationship with that donor. Always behave above board even when it’s painful to do so.

A final word – whenever you feel the pitter-pattering fear of asking for money – which we all feel from time to time – take a beat and move through it. Remember, you’re not asking for money for you. You’re asking to help the beneficiaries you’ve committed to who don’t have the opportunity to ask for this support. Get over it and get the grant!

Tech Nonprofit Fundraising Checklist

• Do your research. Which donors do you need to meet?

• Make a plan. Implement a donor tracking system and communications calendar, get clarity on how much you need to raise, and clear answers to why each donor should fund you.

• Craft pitches, including a deck.

• Get a meeting (ideally through warm intros). Once you’ve got the meeting, practice, practice, practice! And don’t forget to make the ask.

• Show gratitude.

• Develop a plan for fundraising sustainability.

• Remember, it’s okay to say no.