Webinar Recap: Fuel Your Fundraising With Pro Bono

There’s a massive resource gap present in the social sector. Organizations who have solutions for society’s most pressing challenges simply don’t have the financial means or staff capacity to carry out those missions to their fullest extent. It’s why Taproot was founded: to bridge that gap by activating business professionals in support of these vital causes.

The pandemic has exacerbated nonprofit capacity constraints in many ways—one of the major challenge areas being fundraising. Business pro bono can be a solution for this pain-point.

Taproot recently hosted a webinar focused on how volunteers skilled in marketing, IT, design, strategy, and more can help nonprofits fundraise. We’ve recorded that webinar here.

Stay tuned over the coming weeks as we release bite-sized pro bono ideas and tips related to fundraising support, pulled straight from the webinar! This is part one of that series.

Changes in Giving

For the past two years, nonprofits have had to operate more leanly than ever—meeting rising community needs while dealing with decreased access to hands-on volunteer support, cancelled fundraising events, and shifts in traditional fundraising.

In Taproot’s 2020 Nonprofit Resiliency Survey, we found that 63% of respondents reported a decrease in funding due to COVID-19, meaning that the organizations who are rebuilding our communities are doing so with shrinking budgets.

Pre-pandemic data also paints a picture of the need for fundraising resources across the nonprofit space. Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy conducts a survey every other year that tracks the giving patterns of more than 9,000 households. They just released findings from 2018. Their study confirms a worrying trend for nonprofits: donations to charitable causes are reaching record highs, but the giving is done by a smaller and smaller slice of the population with only 42% of US households giving to secular charitable causes. To combat this shift, in addition to navigating pandemic-related fundraising challenges, social change organizations also need fresh, creative ways to get in front of more potential donors.

Volunteer support from experienced business professionals can build nonprofits’ capacity to fundraise successfully.

Over the coming weeks, Taproot will highlight ways that nonprofits can lean on skilled volunteers for fundraising support. Using excerpts from the Fuel Your Fundraising With Pro Bono webinar, we’ll share project examples in messaging, research, videography, and more. We’ll publish those links below as they’re available.

For immediate fundraising resources or support, check out:

• The full Fuel Your Fundraising With Pro Bono webinar recording
• Taproot’s downloadable Common Projects Catalog: Fundraising Edition resource
• Taproot Plus, our free online platform where your nonprofit can get connected with passionate volunteers for marketing, IT, HR, or business strategy support

Fundraising pro bono highlights:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Stakeholder Research
• Photography and Videography