Nonprofit Development in the 21st Century

Posted by Katie on March 18 at 5:35 PM

Nonprofit development teams have the challenge of building new relationships and cultivating existing ones in an effort to expand the organization’s donor-base. Obviously organizations would like to target the millionaires who can write big checks, but while digging for the big donation, groups may be overlooking many little ones that have the potential to grow someday.

Who makes up this group? Facebook users, of course! Most Facebook users are young, college students and twenty-somethings that are just getting by. However, just because they don’t have a lot of money doesn’t mean they don’t have passion for charitable causes.

This inspired Project Agape to develop the Causes application for Facebook. The application gives users the opportunity to proudly display the causes they support and even make donations if they wish. All Causes projects support an existing nonprofit organization that has charity status in the U.S. or Canada. Since its inception, more than 45,000 projects have been started and almost one million dollars have been raised – all small donations at a time.

Although it’s great that Causes is bringing in donations for organizations, it’s really not about the money. It’s about building relationships and engaging with groups who have the potential for becoming a million-dollar donor in the future.

Whether it’s through Facebook or other outlets, development departments need to think of creative ways to engage donors of the future. 


Sample Causes Page Topics: grassroots, philanthropy        SHARE: