How 4 Nonprofits That Aren’t on the Front Lines Are Raising Money During the Crisis

As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads, nonprofits are navigating uncharted territory. Fundraisers at organizations that aren’t responding to the pandemic directly are scrambling to communicate with supporters and raise money during the economic tsunami touched off by the health crisis.

Honest communication with supporters is central to their efforts as they seek to keep their organizations viable. Some are even taking on new roles as they seek to deepen ties with supporters.

We spoke with fundraising leaders at four nonprofits around the country about what they’re doing to stay connected with supporters during the pandemic — and how donors are responding.

Knoxville Habitat for Humanity

A development director delivers groceries to supporters.

Knoxville Habitat for Humanity is not on the front lines of dealing with the coronavirus, but its revenue streams went dry as the virus spread. By mid-March, the affordable-housing charity had halted home construction, closed its used home-goods store, and asked main office employees to work from home.

“On March 18 everything stopped, and we didn’t get any donations for a week,” said Angie Sledge, the Knoxville affiliate’s chief development officer.

What’s more, the nonprofit had to postpone its spring fundraising events, and corporate sponsors quickly started calling to withdraw their support for upcoming builds. The group lost $225,000 in sponsorships in one week. “We’re a small organization,” said Sledge. “That’s huge.”

With help from employees from the charity’s shuttered stores, Sledge and her six-person team responded to the deficit by calling past volunteers and donors, including those who had given as little as $5. Board members and the chief executive pitched in to make video calls to major donors.

Callers didn’t request a donation, rather they asked supporters how they were holding up and offered to deliver groceries or medicine to those whose health was compromised. To date, they have called more than 2,000 donors and volunteers.

“People were saying, ‘You’re the first person to check on me,’ " Sledge recalled. If a donor or volunteer mentioned an upcoming doctor’s appointment, the caller made a note of it in the nonprofit’s content management system and followed up with the supporter after that date. Sledge said she has delivered groceries to three supporters and dropped off medicine for another.

Knoxville Habitat also altered its planned April direct-mail campaign. Fundraisers revised the letter to highlight the new challenges its clients face because of the public-health crisis. In a change from its typical strategy, the group teased the letter with social-media posts and an email and sent text messages to volunteers asking for a donation.

“Pre-empting our direct-mail drop certainly caused a boost” in giving, Sledge said. Despite the high volume of calls her staff is making, most donations are coming in online or via direct mail.

As the letters went out, Knoxville Habitat staff continued calling supporters. More of them began to ask how the nonprofit was weathering the storm. “That led to larger conversations,” which included how supporters could donate, Sledge said.

Callers explained how the pandemic was affecting the group’s work and jeopardizing families who expected to move into new homes in the coming months.

Supporters responded: Individuals gave 24 percent more gifts in March than they did during that same month last year. Nineteen of those donations were explicitly made to address Covid-related needs. Despite the halt in giving at the start of March, Knoxville Habitat raised 9 percent more that month than it did in March of last year.

One in five gifts over the last month was a first-time donation from a former volunteer — including a $1,000-gift from a first-time donor who had only volunteered with the charity once.

“The value of those conversations has been priceless,” Sledge said. “When else can you say that in four weeks you’ve reached 1,800 people?”

Shakespeare Theatre Company

Shakespeare Theatre Company

The group works hard to keep donors informed, especially those who care most about its work.

Regular and honest communications with donors and creative new online offerings have been key to the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s fundraising success during the crisis. The Washington performing-arts group has also reassigned some staff members to focus on tasks that will strengthen its fundraising efforts far into the future.

Since the organization launched the Phoenix Fund, an emergency drive to raise $1 million, it has collected more than $735,000. About 15 percent of that came from people who donated what they had paid for tickets to now canceled performances or tuition for shuttered classes, and the rest came from outright cash gifts. The nonprofit raised more than $500,000 in the first two weeks of the fundraising effort, and a board member is matching gifts from others up to $1 million.

The group’s artistic director Simon Godwin named the fund after the mythical bird that is a symbol of renewal in Greek mythology as “a testament to the reality of how serious this is but also to be aspirational and hopeful.” that the nonprofit will eventually revive live performances and other programs, said Laura Willumsen, the theater’s senior director of development.

One way the nonprofit has been communicating with donors is Godwin’s weekly home videos. The director updates supporters on how much the group has raised and talks about the organization’s new online programming. “Shakespeare Everywhere,” for example, offers streaming performances and classes as well as a weekly live discussion where Godwin and other Shakespeare experts examine the Bard’s works.

“We hear a lot from people about how it’s very uplifting to hear from Simon,” said Willumsen. “He’s funny, he’s down to earth, he’s real, and he’s catching you up on this thing that you care about, and therefore you kind of care about it more.”

While Godwin’s weekly videos reach donors and the broader public, Willumsen’s development team and Godwin’s artistic staff are staying in close touch with major donors through one-on-one phone calls and written communications to provide updates, thank them for past support, and simply check in.

“We have people on our staff from the artistic department calling donors and board members or writing to them just to say, ‘How are you doing?’ " said Willumsen. “That’s been such a wonderful enhancement of our relationship with people that we’ve never had time — or taken time — to do before.”

Willumsen’s and Godwin’s teams also provide straightforward updates describing exactly where the theater’s finances and fundraising stand. The calls have reaped benefits. One major donor who in August pledged $1 million over five years, decided to give the gift all at once when the theater had to cancel performances in March. And after hearing what it was doing to keep things going, the donor — who wants to remain anonymous — decided to give an extra $100,000.

“The last thing we felt comfortable doing was asking for another [gift], so the communication we had with them was, here’s where we are, here’s what’s happening, here’s what we’re doing,” said Willumsen. “We didn’t ask for it at all. We simply caught them up as a close invested friend.”

The group views the involuntary downtime as a chance to build deeper personalized relationships with donors, which can be hard to develop when leaders have to focus their time on event and performance logistics.

Willumsen said nonprofits should view donors in concentric circles and first approach board members and major donors, then annual-fund donors and subscribers, and then single-ticket buyers, foundations, and corporate donors.

“The pitch is we want to be there when this passes, and if people care about you, they want that, too, so it’s very much about the people who already care,” Willumsen said. “We’re not asking everyone out there who’s never come to a play or who happen to live in D.C.”

If there is an operational silver lining in the shutdown, it’s that the organization has redirected some staff to other projects. For example, the theater’s events manager has been temporarily reassigned to lead an online project-management system, a digital nerve center to organize new projects and teams and keep them working and communicating with each other.

One project has reassigned staff to comb through the organization’s database to correct old or inaccurate donor information; another new project is managing emergency funding grants.

“In my development department, we’ve really become like a military unit. It is highly organized, and we’re looking under every rock and making sure that our systems are really at top form,” said Willumsen. “We’re going to invest as much as we can in doing the things that will make us better when we come out of this.”

Grand Rapids Art Museum

Grand Rapids Art Museum

Being thoughtful about an institution’s needs in relation to the needs of other community nonprofits.

The museum in western Michigan was on strong financial footing before closing its doors to the public on March 13. Fundraisers have not rushed to make any broad appeals for support, but donors have stepped up nonetheless.

The first thing director of advancement Elly Barnette-Dawson did when she got home that evening was contact sponsors for the museum’s gala, which was scheduled for May 2.

“To a person so far, all of our gala supporters have elected to redirect their funds to general operating support,” she said. One of the museum’s largest donors contacted the museum director the day it closed to offer her support. Since then, other donors have offered to pay pledges early to help with cash flow. Several local foundations to which the museum had submitted proposals said they would fast-track everything.

Making sure that key supporters know what the museum is doing has been critical. A virtual board meeting the Tuesday after the museum closed let fundraising leaders inform generous museum supporters of what was going on. The board continues to have informal Zoom gatherings to get updates. At the same time, the fundraising team has been calling and emailing other donors to check in. “So far, the response has been incredibly supportive,” Barnette-Dawson says. “People are thanking us a lot.”

But the museum did not rush to make outright requests for support or send a broad appeal to its donors. Instead, fundraisers sent an email that included an impact report. “We wanted our donors to really see the impact their support has on the museum,” she says. “We want to take the opportunity to thank them and show them how vital their support is.”

Much of the communication initially focused on informing the public about how they could continue to engage with the museum. Before the building closed, staff recorded a few virtual tours with the museum’s curator and a video message with the executive director, which was sent out with the member newsletter. The tour is featured on the institution’s “museum from home page,” which also includes interviews with artists, lesson plans for parents, and even yoga classes.

The museum hosted a virtual conversation with the chief curator this week. “We want to give an opportunity for conversation and for them to learn something about a piece of art or an exhibition,” Barnette-Dawson said. The virtual event was also an opportunity to support local small businesses. Staff worked with one of the museum’s corporate partners to offer a selection of wines attendees could purchase and pick up curbside to enjoy during the event.

The pandemic is forcing Barnette-Dawson and the fundraising team to re-evaluate how they raise money and consider how they might adapt in the future. One of the biggest challenges is the inability to plan ahead. That’s what fundraisers do, Barnette-Dawson said. “We project numbers, and we can’t do that right now. We’re recalibrating to think about it a week at a time versus six months at a time.”

At the same time, she says, the museum is trying to be thoughtful about both its needs and the many other community needs created by the public-health crisis.

“We recognize that there are limited resources,” she says. “We want to be really careful about what we need, when we need it, and how we communicate that and not just rush out there into the marketplace.”

The next step will be an annual-fund mailing sent to all donors and members. In addition to the appeal for general support, it will include a card printed with a blank gallery wall and a sheet of stickers with small reproductions of works from the museum. The goal was to do something special to both set the institution apart and give people a little of break with something fun to do at home.

The museum has extended current memberships by two months at this point, and Barnette-Dawson is not concerned that donors will hold back when the time comes. “We believe our donors are going to be there for us.”

The museum is in the quiet phase of a $20 million campaign. It has already raised nearly half of its goal, and the planning work continues, she said. “The needs of the institution haven’t changed dramatically from what they were on March 12.”

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum

Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute

The group’s top fundraiser stresses the importance of employee well-being.

The Simi Valley, Calif., organization was direct when it announced to donors it was closing to the public because of Covid-19. The message reminded donors that the organization does not receive government funding and explained that the museum and library would lose about $150,000 a week. The organization asked donors to give if they could — and included a link to its emergency fund — but ended the communication by urging supporters to follow public-health experts’ guidelines and said the institution would reopen when the crisis has passed.

The gentle but straightforward approach was meant to update donors and remind them of the nonprofit’s financial needs without a lot of histrionics or desperate-sounding appeals for donations, said Michelle Powers Keegan, the group’s chief development officer.

The organization also called major and midlevel donors in what Keegan described as a “massive thankathon” to update donors on the closure, thank them for past support, and make sure they and their families were well. Keegan said staff made a point not to ask for money on the calls.

With about 30,000 donors in total, the calls have required a lot of employee help. Since the museum and library was closed Keegan was able to corral employees in other areas of the nonprofit to help make the calls.

“We needed to repurpose about 15 or 20 full-time staff from different departments,” Keegan said.

She and her team have also made soft appeals for gifts and for membership renewals through direct-mail, and those efforts have been going well, she said.

“We have seen an uptick in total donations in comparison to this time last year,” she said. “We haven’t been asking for a lot of major gifts, but we are in the process of teeing up some major-donor Zoom calls where we may be asking them to help support us.”

Since the shutdown, Keegan’s team has raised roughly $1.3 million, with about $300,000 coming from direct mail, online giving, and membership renewals. The rest came primarily from corporate and major donors, many of whom had been in discussions about gifts well before the shutdown.

The organization has started to hold online events for donors. The first was a video call where more than 30 of the group’s major donors listened to former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent speak about the pandemic and had a chance to ask him questions. The organization also moved its Great Communicator debate series — an annual competition for high -school students — online; it’s inviting donors to view the final debates next month.

Keegan stressed that while fundraising during the crisis is a must, chief development officers also need to keep their staff members’ health and well-being top of mind.

She encourages her team to take time off to deal with family issues or to take care of themselves if they need to and to take some time for webinars or other online professional development courses to take their mind off of day-to-day stressors. She is also staying in touch with them.

“I hold the Zoom calls with my team every other day just to see their faces and check in with them and talk to them about what they’re doing,” Keegan said. “It’s important that you’ve got that human touch in some way, even if you can’t give people a hug or shake hands.”