According to The Generosity Commission, 67% of survey respondents want to know all the details about how organizations use their donations. They’re already motivated to give; they just want to ensure that their hard-earned funds drive real change.
Now more than ever, nonprofits must differentiate themselves by being transparent with donors and giving them a glimpse at what donations allow them to achieve. For the first time in four years, trust in nonprofits has actually increased to 57% in 2024. Communicating impact is vital to retaining this trust and keeping donors around.
In this guide, we will discuss the ability to measure, understand, and prove impact to donors, and we’ll explore unique ways you can demonstrate measurable donor impact and prove that your organization uses its funds responsibly.
Donor Transformation
In the past, donors primarily focused on the number of individuals served and the total funds spent. Today, however, the funding landscape has changed significantly. Modern donors are not just interested in how many people were reached; they also want to understand how their investment has impacted and transformed those people’s lives. Donors are placing greater emphasis on outcomes, expecting nonprofits to show the concrete impact they are achieving.
For instance, in the past, a nonprofit addressing homelessness might have reported the number of individuals they sheltered. Today, however, donors expect more detailed insights. They want to know how many of those individuals transitioned to stable housing and sustained it over time. The emphasis is now on long-term outcomes rather than just short-term results.
The Role of Technology in Measuring Impact
Modern software solutions, like SureImpact, equip nonprofits with the tools they need to effectively measure, track, and report outcomes. SureImpact offers person-centered case management, impact management, real-time dashboards, and data analytics to help nonprofits measure their effectiveness and demonstrate their social impact to donors and funders.
Outcomes and impact data allow nonprofits to move beyond the traditional measures of success and demonstrate the deeper, long-term impact they have on the communities they serve. The next step is finding creative ways to share the data with donors.
1. Develop a Website Impact Dashboard
After measuring your impact, you may be unsure how to summarize this information effectively. How exactly can you translate these metrics into something straightforward and enjoyable for donors to interpret?
If you don’t have impact management software, start by cleaning your impact data. Standardize how you enter this information into your database and organize it so team members can easily access the data points they’re looking for. If you do have impact management software, data cleaning, aggregating, and reporting are automatically done for you.
Then, make your impact data more digestible by creating an impact dashboard. This interactive tool can live on your website and engage donors through:
Outcomes for individual programs
Outcomes across the organization
Cost to get one individual to a successful outcome
Graphs and charts
Feedback from beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, sponsors, and staff
Resource allocation information
In addition to showing donors how their funds change people’s lives, an impact dashboard enables you to acknowledge those who go above and beyond for your organization. Consider adding a section highlighting major donors and how their specific gifts have empowered you to enact real, large-scale change.
2. Create an Impact Video
Videos are an engaging way to bring your mission to life and demonstrate donors’ impact on your cause. By combining impact data with visual and audio elements, videos provide an immersive, memorable experience and offer a perfect opportunity to tell more in-depth stories about your beneficiaries.
To develop cohesive impact videos about how your work and donors’ contributions affect beneficiaries, follow these steps:
Reach out to beneficiaries who may be interested. Email beneficiaries your organization has a strong relationship with to explain this project and how they can get involved. Provide a form for interested beneficiaries to complete so you can communicate further details.
Gather content. Prepare for your video by interviewing beneficiaries, compiling new and existing footage, and isolating impact metrics you’d like to include.
Film and edit. Combine these elements into a single video and edit it to ensure it flows smoothly. Consider reaching out to a supporter with videography experience for assistance.
Incorporate a call to action. What do you want people to do after viewing your video? You may ask them to make a donation, sign up to volunteer, visit your website, or spread the word about your organization’s mission.
The video you create may be specific to a certain campaign or area of your organization to tie those initiatives to real impact. Alternatively, you may develop a more general impact video that summarizes your work so you can use it for various purposes, such as during events, fundraising campaigns, or donor acquisition activities. If you go the latter route, remember to update your video every so often so it stays fresh and features your most recent outcomes and impact data.
3. Incorporate Impact Data on Your Donation Page
Showing donors their potential return on investment in your cause can persuade them to contribute and give in larger amounts. For example, if they know that it takes $789 to help one individual secure employment during a workforce program for at least 90 consecutive
days, they may be more likely to donate than without those explicit details.
That said, adding impact data directly to your donation page can remind donors that your organization is a responsible steward of their funds right before they contribute. Showcase donor impact on your donation page by:
Adding testimonials. Leverage any beneficiary, volunteer, staff, or donor testimonials directly on your donation page to show the impact your organization and donors have had on real people. For instance, an animal shelter volunteer may attest to the fact that she’s seen firsthand how donors’ contributions transform pets’ lives and ensure they go to loving homes.
Using visuals. A heartwarming image of your beneficiaries or a photo of your volunteers in action can enrich your donation page and showcase donor impact in an engaging way. Ask for permission before featuring images that show people’s faces.
Connecting donation amounts to impact. Show donors the exact effect each donation amount will have on your beneficiaries. As mentioned earlier, you can show your organization’s cost for getting one individual to a successful outcome (cost per success). You can also show examples of how you use a donor’s money to support your organization. Bloomerang’s donation page guide highlights an example from the Nashville Food Project’s donation form that pulls data from their impact report to demonstrate the results of different donation amounts.
As you can see, the Nashville Food Project explains that $25 allows them to buy food and supplies for 25 meals, $50 enables them to purchase seeds and compost for a full season of growing for one community gardener, $300 fuels meal delivery vehicles for one month, and $2,000 allows them to provide interpretation, tools, seeds, and supplies for a complete season of growing for one Growing Together farmer.
Seeing the exact impact donors can have may inspire them to contribute more than they initially anticipated. For example, if a donor plans to give $250 but sees that $300 can have a specific tangible impact, they may upgrade their giving amount.
4. Have Beneficiaries Send Donor Thank-You Notes
You should always show appreciation for your donors, but it can be even more meaningful when it comes from your beneficiaries. Invite those your nonprofit’s work directly affects to demonstrate their gratitude for donors’ contributions.
Streamline this process by:
Providing a template. To help beneficiaries determine what to include in their thank-you notes, create a template for them to fill in with their own thoughts, feelings, and stories.
Giving examples of how they can express impact. If your beneficiaries get stuck, list examples of how they may express the impact your organization and donors’ gifts have had on them. For instance, you may prompt beneficiaries with questions like “How did the healthy meals you received impact your life?”
Letting them use their preferred format. Give beneficiaries creative freedom to make these notes even more personal. For example, children may prefer to draw a picture that shows donors’ impact rather than writing a note.
Throughout this process, respect beneficiaries’ wishes and privacy as some may not be as comfortable divulging explicit details of their personal lives. Use your nonprofit’s CRM to track which beneficiaries were open to this opportunity so you can reach out to them again in the future.
5. Give a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Your Nonprofit on Social Media
Have volunteers, staff, or beneficiaries take over your social media accounts to show a day in their lives. As they demonstrate donor impact by highlighting elements of your organization that donors make possible, they can also intersperse their content with impact data and industry-specific statistics.
For example, a soup kitchen volunteer may give your organization’s followers a virtual kitchen tour, showing all the food and supplies donors have funded. Then, they might note how many families they feed each year or how many pounds of food they’ve supplied to reinforce that impact.
This strategy engages current donors by showing them exactly what their funds go toward and may even inspire potential donors to lend their support. Use features like Q&A to directly interact with your followers and personalize the experience.
The work nonprofits do is incredibly important, and proving their impact has become essential to sustaining that work. Demonstrating measurable donor impact is about more than showing you’re a responsible steward of their funds. It’s a surefire way to keep donors immersed in your nonprofit’s work and create a base of loyal supporters who are eager to continue giving back to your organization for the long term. Experiment with different ways to prove donors’ impact to find which strategies resonate most with your audience.
SureImpact supports nonprofits in adapting to this shift. By using impact measurement technology and experimenting with different ways to prove donors’ impact, nonprofit organizations can showcase their unique impact and succeed in a competitive funding landscape.
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