nonprofit Archives - Transcend Ideas

Creating a Fundraising Game Plan For Your Non-Profit

Posted on April 19, 2024 - 11:26 am by Heather DeVine

Fundraising for nonprofits is exciting when the money is rolling in, but more often than not, it can feel like a tireless and thankless job. To aid the campaign process, we appreciate the content that Donorbox, a fundraising platform, presented in a recent webinar, helping to simplify the steps for nonprofit employees to regain joy in community work.

Send Tax Donation Receipts

The end of the year often ends in a blur of business tasking to wrap up the quarter’s work. One crucial addition to that list is remembering to send tax donation receipts. Remember a short thank you note, as well, to every donor who supported your organization via mail or email goes a very long way.

Goal Setting for Your Non-Profit

Non-profit work can feel like it pulls your attention and time in a hundred different places. Goal-setting can help determine the direction and impact you hope to make. Does your organization tune everything back to the mission statement?

Here are some goal related questions you should be asking:

What kind of impact does your organization hope to make?
Are you working on a small scale or large scale?
Do you hope to increase donor retention or start generating donations this year?

After determining the organization’s goals, the types of fundraising needed and the tactics to be used will become apparent. This can help save time in the long-run as you can make decisions clearly and efficiently regarding budgets and tasking. Outline a budget and financial items that need to be accomplished within a given timeframe and follow through with delegating tasks to volunteers or board members of your non-profit to find the success you are looking for.

Organizational Goal Planning For Non-Profit

Fundraising

There are a variety of ways that a non-profit can receive funding. Fundraising tactics include peer-to-peer, crowdfunding, events, corporate donations, and more. Always keep track of all the moving parts when running non-profit operations and managing donation money. Start with what are the steps when dealing with fundraising for a non-profit.

Donorbox has 5 key steps they call the 5 A’s of Ask:
attract, ask, acknowledge, account, again.

It’s important to put effort into attracting donors, but equally crucial to continually seek donations, publicly acknowledge donors, account for funds in financial records, and consistently maintain these practices to nurture meaningful donor relationships.

In your fundraising efforts, creating fundraising goals that are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) helps to focus on real ways planning can make a difference with your organization. These smart goals can also be called KPIs or key performance indicators. KPI’s are quantitative measurements of donor retention, average money raised from a donor, monthly donors, new donors, etc.

Volunteer getting fundraising signatures

Communication Touch Points With Donors

Fundraising Trends:

Maintaining a positive relationship with donors is crucial for maximizing your non-profit’s impact. Achieve this by consistently demonstrating the value your organization offers in stewardship and the lives it impacts. This will attract more individuals whose personal values align with your mission.

Some of the trends that are emerging in the non-profit fundraising world include a focus on donor trust and experience. CharityWater had a brilliant idea to use VR headsets to allow donors to be immersed in a virtual reality showing African women walking buckets of water to the river and back, showcasing what the value a monetary donation would hold.

As we delve into a new generation of digital technology, using AI for fundraising will prove to be a smart pivot in your organization strategy. Other smart trends include cashless giving, alternative currencies, and experience-based fundraising.

Community Fundraisers in Jackson Hole

Locally in the Jackson Hole region, there are two events that bring non-profit fundraising to the next level with community engagement and involvement that makes for memorable experiences.

Transcend Ideas is a proud challenger of The Tin Cup Challenge, a local philanthropic fundraising event in Teton Valley, Idaho. Join us on July 20, 2024 to participate in the local fun run and donate to a favorite community non-profit!

The Community Foundation of Teton Valley works to elevate lives through the power of generosity by championing the nonprofit sector, empowering donors, promoting a culture of giving, and serving as a catalyst in addressing critical community needs. The Tin Cup Challenge is a proud sponsor of community programming by sponsoring matching donations from local businesses, giving grant awards, leadership training, and more.

We also proudly support Old Bill’s Fun Run, another community and philanthropic race event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Old Bill’s is one of the most successful fundraisers in the nation. The race brings the community of Jackson together over a shared goal of altruism. Kindness for others and community and a singular drive to make a difference. Since Old Bill’s has started, it has brought more than $256 million dollars to Jackson.

We hope you’ll join us on September 7, 2024 as we’ll be out supporting this event that celebrates the local nonprofits that support our community!

Thank you for reading our summary of the great content put out by Donorbox! Can Transcend Ideas support your work to increase your non-profit fundraising and strategy? We’d love to support your work and enhance your digital marketing strategy.

Watch the Donorbox webinar in full here:

JH Nordic Annual Event 2024 Case Study

Posted on February 12, 2024 - 6:00 am by Heather DeVine

Transcend Ideas is proud to continue our partnership with JH Nordic. We are proud to support their mission to improve winter trails access, education, and stewardship in the Teton. The Jackson Hole Nordic Alliance Annual Free Ski, Snowshoe, and Fat Bike Day event has become a favorite tradition for families and the community to come together to celebrate winter recreation in the Tetons. We are proud to have provided the illustration and marketing for the 2024 event this year.

JH Nordic Annual Free Ski, Snowshoe, Fatbike Day at Turpin Meadow Ranch

Transcend Ideas was proud to support the goal to provide education and increase awareness and community around winter trails use in the Tetons for visitors and locals alike.

Our team generated an illustrated vintage-style poster reminiscent of skiing and days spent on winter trails from the past. This appeals emotionally to viewers of both the physical and digital marketing campaigns.
Digital graphics were created for social media as a 10 day countdown to increase excitement and engagement online. A consistent digital presence promoting attendance at the 6th Annual Free Ski, Snowshoe, and Fatbike Day supported the success of the event.

Visit the JH Nordic website to learn more about all things winter trails and grooming in the Tetons.

Learn more about how Transcend Ideas can help with strategy and marketing behind your non-profits next big community event!

Non-Profit Storytelling as a Catalyst For Change

Posted on December 12, 2023 - 5:46 pm by Heather DeVine

Non-profits ignite transformation in our communities. From championing and overcoming food insecurity and poverty to resolving inequality, protecting women’s and minority rights, to creating endless innovative solutions to help curtail these and other social problems that isolate our communities and us from each other. How does storytelling play a pivotal piece in the puzzle of social issues?

Complex problems require a lot of resources and a lot of brainpower to overcome. How is it possible to create enough of a wave of excitement to generate action from viewers or your community? How do you pierce someone emotionally to the point where they feel they have to support your brand by volunteering or donating to your cause?

Storytelling. The power of the underdog and the tale-as-old-as-time triumph of the Cinderella story is what motivates viewers to send money your way. If they connect with your brand emotionally – you could have a recurring donor long-term. If you can replicate this type of reaction on a large scale, you could have the funding to make a difference with your organization.

Here are a Few Tips for Effective Storytelling with your Non-profit

Build a community

Building a community that everyone relates to requires empathy, curiosity, research, and patience. Take the time to lean into what the true goals of your nonprofit are and find a consistent way to share this message in a way that will rally others to join your cause.

Start a Conversation

Why should people be passionate about your organization? What is the problem? Can you back up your position with statistics and numbers? These are all questions you have to approach as you look at your non-profit marketing plan. Take to social media and introduce people to the social problem your non-profit is approaching and ask them their thoughts. Conversations get people curious. Starting a conversation in an interesting and creative way is a great way to get peak engagement.

Transcend Ideas - nonprofit image of food and medicine labelled boxes

Stay Curious and Strengthen Your Non-profit Messaging

Gather the Stories and Impact of Your Organization on a Blog

Gathering resources, funding, and volunteers is no small task. A great way to maintain a consistent stream of content that reaches the public and aligns with your brand values is to create blog content. Your blog can empower viewers to stand up and take action with you. How do you write in a way that moves people? Blogging is a powerful way to bring new eyes to your website and introduce your mission consistently. Google website crawlers are constantly looking over your site for new content that can be indexed. Do you have the chops to cut through with a message that resonates?

Hit their Pain Points

Make me feel something. That’s what every internet and social media user is looking for in less than 10 seconds. How do you relate to and make someone feel involved with your mission so quickly?

Polish your Writing Tone

Find ways to use messaging in a succinct way that hits on the base instincts of self-preservation and security, creating connections, generating social change, and harnessing creativity. Utilizing these types of call-to-action messages will be most effective in getting the engagement and attention you need.

Tell the Truth

Nothing makes an impact quite like a true story. Whether it be a testimonial from someone who benefitted from your organization or a harrowing story that encourages viewers to stand up and take action. Always protect the privacy of those you receive stories from and be mindful of how to use their stories to enlist help and create an impact with your non-profits.

According to Non-profit Source, non-profits that effectively use storytelling in their fundraising efforts have a donor retention rate of 45% compared to 27% for organizations that do not focus on storytelling. Storytelling fosters a stronger emotional connection with donors and encourages them to stay committed to the cause.

Effective and powerful storytelling, additionally, brings increased donor retention, higher fundraising success, greater engagement on social media, enhanced volunteer participation, improved email response rates, building trust and transparency, humanizing the organization, and more.

Non-Profit Tech for Good Resources

Non-Profit Tech for Good is one of our favorite resources for learning about the best tools for non-profits. These help make a big difference with their webinar series. These tools and organization tips allow your non-profit message to penetrate through the distracting messages of other organizations. These same organizations are vying for the time, attention, and money of other potential donors.

Non-profit messaging appeals to the compassionate nature of our communities. Taking the time to dig deep and harness the message you want to send out to the community will come back to your nonprofit in leaps and bounds. We hope we’ve shared some ideas on how you can make some small adjustments to your nonprofit to make a big impact in attracting others to your cause.

Transcend Ideas is passionate about supporting our local non-profits. Let’s get coffee and discuss how we can promote your mission in an effective and engaging way!

Dear Canva, I LOVE you!

Posted on July 6, 2023 - 11:07 am by Heather DeVine

A quick geek out over Canva!

This is a geek out blog post about Canva. If you haven’t guessed, I love the platform and what they provide businesses. Their platform continues to amaze me and what you can do with it. How may I count the ways.. I love you, Canva!

SVG Magic in Branding Your Business

DeLacy Tea Company – SVG rosehips

Let’s begin with SVGs, which stands for: Scalable Vector Graphics.
This handy-dandy format allows for your vector files to be colorized before your eyes. That’s right. Exactly how you can pull an element from Canva and change out a color to your liking? I recently designed something for Mariel’s DeLacy Tea Company. Delacy Tea Company wanted to utilize the rosehips element on different tea labels. Each label needing to be a different color, so making a couple of elements she can then colorize in Canva was huge! An important tip for Illustrator/vector designers: make sure the vector is completely closed so the element can be colorized effectively in Canva. For this sample of their rosehips (right), I had the lines in the leaves transparent and not white so that the rosy color or any color of their choosing can stand out on a contrasting background.

There are some smaller businesses that need to be able to “play” with their logo and with this versatility it allows for a business owner to take it upon themselves to make necessary changes on their own.

From now on, when I package my client’s graphics and hand them over, SVGs will be on that checklist of elements that are an absolute must. Exporting elements for your clients that can be the most useful allows them to move freely in their brand without constraints. All too often clients have shared stories where they are left hopeless with ownership over their own logo files, domain names, hosting for their website, access to their social media platforms, etc. All forthcoming topics I will happily share in our blog.

Some Canva templates provided for marketing campaigns:

Bravo goes back to Canva, an Australia-women owned business. Canva has revolutionized graphic design for so many ambitious dreamers. Now design is accessible to anyone that wants to build a business with the help of their design platform. I couldn’t be more excited to recommend them to anyone who works in design or wants to dabble in it.

Canva Custom Template Offerings

Original price was: $837.00.Current price is: $669.60.

Non-Profit – Custom Canva Templates to Match Your Brand
Original price was: $930.00.Current price is: $837.00.

Custom Canva Templates to Match Your Brand

Traditional Marketing Ideas (Clubhouse/Spaces)

Posted on October 3, 2022 - 9:45 am by Heather DeVine

I was in a Clubhouse room called: “Old School Marketing” and it blew me away how important going back to basics in your marketing truly is. Check out the next set of audio rooms I will be hosting on this very topic in the coming weeks. In the meantime here are some ideas to stew on..

Traditional Marketing Ideas:

In no particular order of course, but consider these ideas to implement:

Word-of-mouth
Schedule a cup of coffee or lunch with a work colleague, even your competition to discuss business
Mailers
Handouts (flyers, rack cards, business cards)
- Pin up in bulletin boards! – Make a list of these locales that accept those physical marketing tools
Stickers (clever approach – catchphrase, coolness)
Showing support for a charity/nonprofit organization
- A certain % of sales goes to charity in a certain time frame
- Sponsor an event or a sport in your town/city
Join the Chamber of Commerce – make connections, take advantage of ALL they offer you!
Contests for all ages (art, name mascot, etc.)
Handwritten thank you notes
Thank you gifts for your bigger clients
Exclusive sales to your most loyal customers
Holiday cards
Networking
In-person events – Hold in-person workshops (educate, inform, engage – build trust)
Community calendars for events you are hosting
Print ads in local newspapers
In-store signs (sandwich boards)
Takeaways: Bumper stickers, stickers, branded water bottles
Name tags – custom name tags, wear your logo and name (perhaps pronouns too) to remind people what you are about!
Movie theatre ads – Slides or videos of local businesses
Post-it notes – custom couple with your business card (good leave behinds)

Photo by Marissa Grootes on Unsplash

“Create social proof through that localize medium!”
Heather Cox

“Tried and True” Marketing Ideas

Going back to the “tried and true” methods of marketing can be just what you needed to revitalize your connection with your audience. I am all for digital marketing, it’s predominately what I do but there is something to be said for that personal touch to make a connection. When we build relationships we are developing trust and communicating and we can’t always lean into digital technology to do that.

These marketing ideas are meant to be approached “in tandem” with digital marketing! Don’t discount the basics and ask yourself what you can you use in Q4 and what could you utilize in your marketing strategy for 2023.

Join the Traditional Marketing Ideas Conversation

Join Heather for a Clubhouse Room AND Twitter Spaces on “Old School Marketing Ideas.” All conversations will be recorded so you can listen in at a later time to learn a bit here and there. We will not be focusing on digitally marketing.

Clubhouse
“Old Skool Marketing for Biz and Nonprofits”
Wed, Oct 19th at 11:15 am MDT

Listen to the Replay

Twitter Spaces
“Old Skool Marketing”
Wed, Nov 2 at 11:30 am MDT

Join Twitter Spaces

Carving the Future | Case Study

Posted on June 2, 2021 - 4:22 pm by Heather DeVine

Carving the Future is a non-profit that’s mission is to empower youth through snowboarding and skateboarding. They were looking for a brand identity package to convey “cool” and “confident”. The logo variations include designs that can be applied to hoodies, stickers, and banners.

The snowboarder and skateboarder were both previously illustrated by Amy Dowell, a local artist. Amy vectorized the icons to utilize in the logo variations for Carving the Future.

The use of turquoise blue and deep navy blue lend to the identity package goals of a “cool” vibe for youth interested in snowboarding and skateboarding. The cool colors, also, coincide with winter sports and associated apparel/accessories.

Designed with Gliffen Designs

Contact Transcend Ideas today to discuss how we can make your creative vision come to life. Whether it be sports, wilderness protection, or personal passion projects – Transcend Ideas is here to serve you. Tell us a little more about yourself and your business at this link.

Case Study: Wyoming Coalition for Animal Protection

Posted on May 22, 2021 - 10:16 am by Heather DeVine

The Wyoming Coalition for Animal Protection (WYCAP) was looking for a logo design that helped represent their non-profit organization. WYCAP advocates for the species that cannot speak for themselves.

Final Concept Logo Design

Although there was debate on what species to include we did come to a compromise on which animals were represented from domestic, farm and native wildlife. The concept landed on a triangle shape to help represent the trifecta, or the categories of creatures they devote their advocacy to protect.

Color Palette

The logo uses a mid-tone blue and deep navy blue along with a golden yellow for the final concept. That lends the end user to feeling trust toward the organization. Golden yellow elicits feelings of a faithful, stable, and organized non-profit. The colors together bring in a strong combination that remains dedicated to protecting animals. The sense of calm and assurance you get from the use of colors aligns with the organization advocating for animals and others respecting rules and authority to reach their goals of preventing exploitation of all wildlife.

Designed with Gliffen Designs

Contact Transcend Ideas for your logo concept design needs today. Visit this link to set up a time to chat about your business needs. We’d love to work with you.

Case Study: Teton County Weed and Pest

Posted on May 4, 2021 - 9:53 pm by Heather DeVine

Teton County Weed and Pest is a local government agency that’s mission is to protect, manage and restore ecosystem integrity through comprehensive invasive species management for the benefit of ecological and human health. They were looking for a brand identity package to convey their commitment to the community with a bold more modern look than their previous logo variation.

The simple shape of the mountains gives homage to the Tetons and the more geometric and modern fonts allow for a much more approachable design. Teton County Weed and Pest utilizes these new logo variations on all their published products, website, and social media campaigns. This helps TCWP to build brand familiarity and trust with customers.

Designed with Gliffen Designs. Are you interested in collaborating with Transcend Ideas on a new brand and identity package for your business? Contact us today!