5 Ideas Nonprofits Can Use to Revive the Economy After COVID
The Coin Has Flipped – Now Businesses Need Nonprofits to Help Them!
Businesses are hurting, and ProActive Content is feeling their pain. While a good portion of our copywriting and strategic consulting work is devoted to nonprofits, we also work with a fair number of business clients.
And the news is not good.
This is an unusual moment when, at least in our experience, most nonprofits are still able to raise funds and sustain their missions, even though how that work gets done has had to change significantly. But businesses – particularly ones that rely on in-person attendance – are nearing catastrophic make-or-break moments en masse, if nothing changes soon.
The Inescapable Business & Nonprofit Symbiosis
We could devote many words to the inseparable relationship between nonprofits and businesses. Here are just a few expressions of this relationship:
- Businesses sponsor your events
- They employ people who in turn donate to your missions
- They match grants and match employee donations
- They provide the services and produce the goods that enable nonprofit work to happen
- They make direct donations
- They partner with you on ad and promotional campaigns
Given time, we could come up with many more ways that nonprofits benefit from a healthy business sector.
When businesses do well, nonprofits do well.
Right now, many businesses are not doing well. And while fundraising continues to come in at a healthy clip for most nonprofits, because the 80% of people still employed recognize this as a ‘disaster fundraising’ sort of scenario, at some point the closures and shutdowns will overwhelm the system.
But before that happens, signs are showing that the lockdowns are nearing an end, hopefully within the next month or two.
Whenever that happens, businesses that were forced to close will be in need of a profit surge. And that’s where nonprofits can actually come to the aid of businesses, while also advancing their own missions.
Yes! You read that right. You can help businesses revive faster once they open up again, while also achieving your organization’s goals.
How Nonprofits Can Help Businesses After COVID
First, Consider the Businesses that Have Suffered Most
Keep this list on hand (and feel free to send in any businesses categories we missed):
- Movie theaters
- Restaurants
- Hair and nail salons, barbers
- Community health clinics and primary care doctors
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
- Chiropractors, massage clinics, physiotherapists, dentists, etc
- Sports arenas
- Event planners and venues
- Casinos
- Newspapers and other media dependent on advertising
- Transportation companies
- Resorts and hotels
- Travel industry
- Gyms and health clubs
- Malls
Second, Use these 5 Super-Practical Ideas to Partner with Businesses
If you start planning now, you can be ready to go with the following ideas when the lockdowns lift. So start working on your ideas now.
Idea 1: Hold more fundraising events at businesses
Not all fundraising events have to be large. In fact, they don’t even have to be called “fundraising events.” You can do smaller scale events for just about any reason.
For instance, you can do meet and greets for donors and supporters. Presentations in the community. Thank you dinners, lunches, and parties for certain donors like recurring donors, new donors, major donors.
You can just have a party at a restaurant and invite people to come join the fun, and take donations at the door. You might not make a ton of money at these sorts of things. But you will be getting out in the community and helping a few businesses get going faster than they otherwise would.
You can hold these events at restaurants. They can be at someone’s home for a more intimate gathering. They can be at a venue, and you could work with a restaurant to do the catering.
Idea 2: Give prizes and rewards that benefit businesses
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
There is no limit here. You can give away gift cards, memberships, and one-time prizes at your live events, to your email list, to your direct mail lists, and even through advertising.
For example – send out an email campaign where everyone who donates over a certain amount gets entered into a drawing for a free prize. Or, have several prizes. The Special Olympics has been doing this for years through the mail, giving away dozens of prizes to everyone who gives $250 or more. Their prizes include trips, cars, and even a free house (and not a small one)!
Even the smallest nonprofit can do this.
But here’s the key: This time, instead of asking the business to donate the item like you usually do, buy it from them. Pay for the gift card. Purchase the prize item. Buy the vacation resort package. Consider it a fundraising expense.
If just 100 people donate a minimum of $50 or more to a campaign, that’s at least $5000. Spending a few hundred of that on some prizes is a small price to pay, but it makes a big difference to the business, which also gets much-needed free publicity from your campaign.
Idea 3: Get a portion of business proceeds for your nonprofit
This idea isn’t new, but it works, and it will be needed now more than ever. Typically, for all purchases made on a certain day, or over a longer period of time, a portion goes to the nonprofit.
This time, the proceeds will be benefitting the business as much as they will the nonprofit. These kinds of partnerships tend to increase average transaction size for the business, because people like that their money is going to a good cause.
But here’s what to do differently this time: If you have done this in the past, you might consider lowering the percentage the business gives to your nonprofit, especially if it’s a restaurant. The restaurant will take you up on this offer because it will bring in a lot of customers, and that’s what they need, badly.
So if you usually ask for 10%, lower it to 5% this time. If in the past you have taken 5%, lower it to 3% this time. The point is – whatever type of business you partner with for a share of proceeds – you want to help the business bring in customers and revive the community, while also bringing in some donations.
Idea 4: Ask a restaurant to cater something at your organization
Aside from fundraising and donor events, your nonprofit could cater just about anything for your staff. Have a special welcome-back lunch at the office. Do a volunteer dinner. Have a celebration of some milestone. Or just throw a party because the lockdowns are over and your nonprofit survived it.
But by having this party catered, you will be helping a local restaurant bring in much needed revenue. Most office staffs for nonprofits are relatively small, so this is not a huge expense for you. But at least one business in your community will greatly appreciate the boost it will give them.
Idea 5: Pamper your staff
Give free gift cards to your staff for nail salons, movie theaters, massage clinics, health clubs, and department stores in the mall. Free gifts like these will be a huge morale-booster, and again it will make a big difference for the businesses you choose to patronize.
Why Should Nonprofits Help Local Businesses?
When businesses do well, nonprofits do well. The flip side is true as well.
If too many businesses go under, nonprofits will suffer down the road. There will be fewer available donors and supporters, and far greater need. It is in everyone’s interests that businesses stay afloat and survive the COVID lockdowns.
Please consider the five ideas given, and send us more if you have any.
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