Some argue that they couldn’t prepare for the pandemic, because it was a black swan event—defined as unforeseeable. While that may be true, it’s imperative to develop and implement better defenses against future incidents—regardless of forewarning. Whether the next calamity is a virus, an extreme weather event, or something else, the effects to your nonprofit can be mitigated. Take strategic steps now to protect your clients, workers, continuity of services, and overall sustainability from whatever the future may bring.

Three Major Threats

Start by understanding and correcting three common vulnerabilities. First, study your supply chain and its logistics risks. Those with global supply chains may be at higher levels of vulnerability to any kind of worldwide incident. Next, make sure to complete your survival plan to manage your continuity in the event of any kind of shutdown or crisis. And third, understand that communication helps to reduce uncertainty, so develop a clear communication plan with your team and partners. Once you’ve taken these initial steps, you’re ready to deep-dive into real preparedness.

Three Keys to Recovery

Nonprofits strengthen their resilience through robust, faster, and more inclusive post-disaster rebuilding. When the process is robust, organizations become less vulnerable to future disruptions; when it’s fast, people can get back to their normal life earlier; and when it’s inclusive, nobody is left behind in the recovery process. Now, imagine that public and private stakeholders across the land are performing the same process. This can include small and large governmental agencies, for-profit companies, private citizen groups, and nonprofit organizations. Encourage your nonprofit to join the conversation, as everyone pulls together to build back better, with faster communication, inclusive thinking, and robust planning.

The Unfolding Future and Disaster Risk Reduction

The effects of climate change are already increasing destruction and the risk of life globally. Many are already seeking ways to mitigate and prepare for upcoming disasters. Flood, fire, and disease are on the rise, as we continue to survive through natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. The United Nation’s 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) predicted that “the risk of economic losses is rising as a result of the rapidly increasing value of assets that are exposed to major hazards.” In addition, a large proportion of losses continue to be associated with small and recurring disaster events that severely damage critical public infrastructure, human lives, animal and wildlife, agriculture, housing, and production.”

It is no longer practical to put off disaster preparedness in the hope that it won’t happen. True, nonprofits must work within limited budgets, often relying on the ingenuity of their leaders. Because of this, the best plan for long-term resiliency is to integrate sustainability into everything your nonprofit does. Resilience means that your nonprofit will be able to adapt and recover rapidly from disruptions due to emergencies.

No matter how devastating an emergency might be, recovery can take place. It might require months or even years, but when communities work together, balancing short-term objectives and long-term goals, involving all stakeholders, and following a common vision for the future – they can pull together funding from more sources, additional technical support, and information gleaned from other nonprofits to build back better, stronger, more adaptable, and more resilient.

The good news is various programs are now available to reduce the impact of natural, technological, and human-made events on your nonprofit’s community. The National Hazard Management Association (NHMA) has developed the Disaster Risk Reduction Ambassador Curriculum (DRR) in cooperation with FEMA. The DRR Ambassador Curriculum helps community stakeholders find ways to understand and prepare to implement programs and measures handling the entire disaster cycle – pre, during and post disaster. This supports nonprofit and other community leaders as they engage in community-level discussions with multidisciplinary educational resources, self-study materials, and training workshops. You will find three stand-alone modules, each taking about 1 to 2 hours to complete. Whether or not you can complete this training, your nonprofit could benefit from the aid of a DRR Ambassador. They come from various backgrounds and groups with the goal of helping their communities take strong proactive steps to mitigate risks from natural hazards. Bold decision-making comes from a process of education and discussion, but the rewards will take your organization beyond the minimal protection provided by existing federal standards.

DRR Ambassadors use a reference guide titled Building Your Roadmap to a Disaster Resilient Future. The Roadmap provides ideas for community disaster risk reduction along with explanations and hyperlinks to a wide array of technical and other resources needed at various junctures. Communities that avail themselves to NHMA’s program are clearly better prepared to face natural disasters in the future.

The Seven Basics

Here are seven important steps to a stronger, more resilient future:

Conduct annual risk assessments. Begin by seeing the potential scale of a hazard. Three areas deserve special consideration in gauging risks:

• Finances. How manageable is your cash flow, debts, and expenses? Can you predict your nonprofit’s financial health up to a year? Address those red flags of worsening scenarios.
• Technology and equipment. Cybersecurity threats can damage your bottom line and reputation. Its critical to audit your security often, as technology is constantly evolving.
• Workspace Safety. How safe is your building and its location? Work with government agencies to weigh your risk for weather-related disasters, including floods, as well as natural disasters like earthquakes. Follow health safety updates for your building.

Cross-train employees with a clear training plan. Do your best to triage topics so they learn CPR and first aid first. Teach an escape plan, disaster preparedness, and preparation for other risks to life. Additionally, help employees train to work in additional roles and under different working conditions, such as a temporary worksite.

Stock up on supplies. Your team might be required to shelter in place at the office. Are you prepared with three days of shelf-stable food and water—enough for everyone? Remember to keep fresh hand sanitizer, anti-bacterial wipes, gloves, masks, flashlights, batteries, blankets, and phone chargers well-stocked for emergencies. Note expiration dates.

Save for a rainy day. Try to build up a cash reserve equal to three to six months of your nonprofit’s expenses. A 3-month fund should be considered bare minimum. If you have a 6-month fund, you will be prepared for unexpected opportunities.

Put your people first. Enact policies to address your staff’s needs during an emergency. Help them handle their primary concern, their families, so they can then focus on your nonprofit. Plan for work-from-home options and possibly providing childcare. Also, take some time each year to review your paid leave, health insurance, and sick leave policies. How might you build in more flexibility? Set guidelines for hazard pay to help those working in essential roles under tough conditions. Show them they are valued to motivate your team during challenging events.

Re-examine and diversify your fundraising efforts. If you’ve always relied on an annual gala event, it’s time to consider additional funding options. Build your adaptability in the event of closures. If you already have a variety of sources, conduct an audit to see which are the most successful and find ways to grow those.

Apply what you’ve learned. The pandemic provided vast learning opportunities. Explore all your strategies—from policies that protected your employees’ health to ways you handled financial losses. What worked? What didn’t? Consult your organization’s stakeholders including experts, like accountants and lawyers. Be proactive in fixing what didn’t work and promoting what did.

Agility and the Post-COVID Landscape

Are you exhausted from deploying stop-gap measures? Have you been slashing budgets, shifting services online, and doing whatever else you can to help your community and protect your nonprofit? The truth has become obvious. Each challenge is only one in a series of ongoing crises that will continue to threaten your organization. You must develop a frame of mind that continuously generates fresh, new solutions – with creativity and resourcefulness. Integrating sustainability is key to adapting more rapidly to crises. Those organizations that were committed to this before the pandemic struck were better able to navigate the challenges it brought.

Many nonprofits discovered to their dismay that the tools and policies they had in place as pre-planning prior to COVID failed to manage the speed, scale, breadth, and duration of all the pandemic’s impacts. Advance investments in your human and social capital that will help. Your team’s awareness of several potential pressures that could combine toward disaster will help you move toward best-practice management of your potential risks.

While you deploy stress tests and other exercises to prepare for the future, think about how your team has communicated during the pandemic. Everyone was forced to reconsider presuppositions and communicate clearly, no matter how fluid the situation. So now, you must encourage innovative thinking, rehearse dynamic situations and seek to empower your workers to own and manage risk within their scope of influence. This is one way of weaving resilience into the fabric of your organization’s culture. Investing in your staff first, helping them to communicate effectively with stakeholders, and building their leadership skills will position your nonprofit to better navigate future crises.

You’ve seen how everything is connected. Natural events, social order, and economic systems all flow together to impact your nonprofit. More than ever, events strike with ferocious speed and impact requiring sudden changes in strategy. We will continue to feel the increasing effects of climate change, deepening inequality, biodiversity loss, political upheaval, and more. Work with your nonprofit’s leadership to be clear, decisive, and authentic in all communication with the team so that everyone places their priorities in alignment, and your organization will be better prepared to pivot.

The following guiding principles have helped other nonprofits maintain their equilibrium as they’ve worked with donors, boards and government agencies to spark endless innovation:

• Keep going. Your ability to pivot might not always look perfect, but it will fail completely if you allow yourself to be stopped by disruptions. Many nonprofits were deeply challenged by the shift to virtual services, but those with an unrelenting attitude were eventually able to adapt. You must keep moving, trying, pushing, and innovating.

• Question fundamental assumptions, so you can imagine being part of a changed future. Take time to evaluate the changing political, physical, social, economic, and health needs of your community and targeted population. How should your mission and vision change? Be sure to test the appropriateness of multiple approach options, then explore how you might scale your chosen best result, and finally how you might escape the drag of longstanding processes that restrict fresh approaches. These three steps will empower you to solve complicated challenges.

• Focus on the most vulnerable. While it’s important to work toward larger dreams for the future, try to avoid leaving behind marginalized community members. Solutions that you devise for the most marginalized populations will find their way to help the larger society, too.

• Small steps add up to big changes. Start with small, rigorously tested ideas. Your methodology will mean everything as you design a process for continuous, everyday innovation. Start with one small problem. Generate promising ideas. Then, come up with early prototypes so that you can test, gauge, and improve whichever one has the best potential to make the most impact. Rapid prototyping is a more flexible and cost-effective approach than major initiative launches.

With each bit of urgency in a crisis, there is also opportunity. Innovate by surveying community members, brainstorming ideas, and rapidly developing simple prototypes of the most promising solutions. Start with the most severely impacted in a crisis and scale it up later. Seizing the moment could help you lead your nonprofit past whatever has blocked change in the past. You might feel like you’re building the jet plane during take-off, but when you factor in creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and constant learning … your odds of staying aloft are good.

Aim Toward Social Purpose

While many nonprofit leaders feel pressured into focusing on financial health, a broader view will help in providing more sustainability. Social purpose, with a clear understanding of your desired impact, will guide your decisions as you seek to balance your budget against your capacity to deliver impact. COVID-19 will eventually retreat into the past, but it has left in its wake a lasting effect on how we determine our effectiveness. Keeping social purpose in mind, follow these priority takeaways:

• Social Impact. No matter how society shifts, a sharp focus on your intended impact and theory of change will help you stay relevant. If you’re forced to forge new partnerships, alter your services or advocate in new ways, reexamining your social impact is critical to informing all decisions. As community need rises, develop new ways to deliver services while maintaining public support.

• Economic Viability. If you’re struggling to handle increased demand with disruptions in funding, you’re not alone. These destabilizing conditions could threaten your long-term financial wellness, and some threats will no doubt continue in the future. Sustainable nonprofits must have reliable funding and predictable expenses as well as cash on hand for routine and emergency expenses. Develop processes for managing your financial viability. First, take a clear and detailed assessment of your financial situation. Second, plan for various financial scenarios and emergencies. Finally, be honest with all your stakeholders including donors. Ask the tough questions, such as who plans to donate again. For better planning, you need to know.

• Capacity to Deliver. Four core ideals will help you maintain services. First, you must set up a strong and distributed leadership that can pivot in response to dynamic challenges. Second, your team must be flexible, recognizing potential changes in member needs, client behaviors, and the general community landscape. Third, look for more ways to collaborate with other nonprofits and agencies. Consider public-private partnerships. Make sure your cultural values are clear, give your team cooperative skillsets, and build incentives from the top-down, so your leaders model collaboration. Fourth, build your capacity for technological improvements. Work out the training your staff will need and establish whether technology can help you scale up services while lowering your long-term costs.

Under the Radar

Most companies have a new take on teleworking, which will change where people live. Depending on the nature and location of your mission, you might notice a subtle shift in populations. COVID-19 and other recent events have sparked this interest in landscapes amenable to social distancing, home-centered work, and a small-town quality of life. In ways similar to those wrought by the last century’s industrial revolution, macro-socioeconomic shifts caused by the pandemic could mean big changes are coming. Eventually, large cities could see decreased demand for services while small-town nonprofits experience growth in supportive community members.

Your new battleground might be at the digital divide, fighting to provide reliable high-speed internet access to all, especially in rural areas. Nonprofits and NGOs should recognize the opportunities for local communities collaborating to put the COVID crisis behind, overcome the challenges of social unrest, and work together toward solutions. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that real estate agents in small towns across America have become partners toward social change, as the National Association of Realtors published information on equity, stabilization, and developing community engagement for their members.

Rural and suburban communities are remaining online. In fact, growing their online presence, like online crowdfunding, becomes a viable financial resource for nonprofits. Most of all, keep your eyes open for further societal evolution—perhaps, the next macro-adjustments will alter the very core of your nonprofit.

This is an excerpt from UST’s eBook, “3 Key Strategies for Nonprofit Resiliency: Preparing for Future Crises” in collaboration with Beth Black, Writer and Editor.

In the latest rendition of UST Live, we were joined by thought leaders from across the U.S. with expertise in succession planning. Guest moderator, Jennifer Hutchins from the Maine Association of Nonprofits, lead the conversation as the group discussed how organizations nationwide are experiencing a shift in the workforce as employees seek out other opportunities. Whether a transition occurs due to an unexpected vacancy or the anticipated departure of a long-tenured leader, it’s vital that nonprofits have a succession plan in place to ensure organizational sustainability.

The group also discussed why proactively addressing how your leadership needs will evolve in the future and identifying activities to strengthen leadership capacity can help create the resiliency and agility an organization needs to thrive.

Watch now to discover:

• Succession planning as a risk management strategy
• Common mistakes to avoid when preparing for succession planning
• How to encourage development and training that cultivates leaders from within

Upcoming UST Live Webinars: This webinar series was designed to equip nonprofits with the strategies and resources they need to survive (and thrive) in a constantly evolving environment. Be on the lookout for future UST Live sessions—scheduled for November.

Working on a team requires more than just hard work, morale amongst co-workers, and willingness to work with others. The most important yet often ignored that attributes to a team’s success is effective communication. Communication is a vital part of any business environment—especially a nonprofit organization since many employees wear multiple hats—as it facilitates a consistent flow of information. When it comes to team communication, the purpose of interacting among co-workers is to share information that is essential to achieving organization goals. In addition, good communication makes it easy for team members to coordinate with one another effectively.

An organization’s communication strategy usually consists of techniques that encourage open communication and effective teamwork in a workplace environment. Having an action plan in place for your organization can help to improve your communication skills, work on team building, and executive tasks efficiently. This kind of proactive leadership is even more important today, given the rise of remote teams and virtual collaboration.

Here’s just a few of the many benefits that result from an effective communication strategy:

1) Supports Employee Engagement: Effective communication in the workplace increases employee morale and engagement by helping team members feel connected to the work they’re doing and the organization their working for. Thoughtful team-building activities can also help nurture communication skills, which improves camaraderie and employee engagement. Increasing employee engagement can lead to reduced turnover, a better customer experience, and even increased profitability

2) Helps with Productivity: Inefficient work habits or missed project deadlines are almost always the result of poor workplace communication skills. By using effective communication strategies, you can be clearer about expectations and ultimately get the results you need to deliver projects in a timely manner.

3) Opens Up Doors for Innovation Opportunities: An environment of open communication in the workplace fosters creative problem solving, more adventurous ideas, and out-of-the-box thinking. It helps you create space for innovation by fostering a “no bad ideas” attitude and encouraging your team to try new things—even if those projects don’t work out as anticipated. Making space to learn from different collaboration styles can really expand the possibilities for your organization.

Effective communication in the workplace might sound straightforward but it’s about so much more than having a simple conversation—especially when not everyone communicates the same way. You need to be intentional and use the right strategies that provide diverse opportunities for both formal and informal communications across the organization. By employing communications strategies that foster open communication and collaboration, you can build an organization full of employees who are engaged, efficient, and innovative. And that’s the kind of team that makes an organization successful and most importantly, support the communities you serve.

Nonprofit workers strive to make the world a better place. However, these passionate professionals often face long working hours, limited resources, funding deficiencies and an unrelenting stream of other on-the-job challenges. All this and more can lead to employee burnout, as well as nonprofit compassion fatigue.

How can nonprofit employees of all levels better address such difficulties and avoid becoming overly strained? Below are some actionable ideas to help prevent employee burnout and work toward a healthier work-life balance.

First, what is nonprofit compassion fatigue and what does it look like? Referred to at times as secondary trauma or vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue is a way to describe the excessive stress affecting those exposed to the traumatic suffering of others leading to desensitization, indifference or apathy. When untreated, it could lead to exhaustion, irritability, reduced productivity and absenteeism, along with physical and mental health problems.

Essentially, compassion fatigue means that a person working continuously under strenuous conditions no longer feels able to care about the people they serve. Often, these individuals get to this point by minimizing their own suffering. In fact, industry reports have found that 62% of people who engage in emotional work tend to hide their personal feelings. Combine this with being buried in work and these people can easily develop feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

Over time, this not only affects an employee’s health and relationships, but it can significantly impact employee retention. A 2021 study found that 69% of participants believe their organizations are understaffed. Chronic staffing issues ultimately whittle away at a nonprofit’s ability to achieve objectives.

What can leaders and HR professionals do to address compassion fatigue and burnout? It starts by implementing a strategy designed to promote a healthy work culture. Everyone should be encouraged to capitalize on vacation time, lunch breaks and time off-the-clock to de-stress from the important work they are striving to accomplish. Leaders should also establish and enforce reasonable work hours.

Another way to help address arduous workloads is to create a prioritization system for projects and tasks. While the job market is understandably in flux, efforts should be made to hire more staff or recruit additional volunteer support.

Lastly, open the door to enhanced communication strategies. Extend genuine thanks to the staff and encourage honest feedback, anonymous or otherwise. Not only are these methods more sustainable, but, in the end, they can generate greater employee engagement, retention and job satisfaction.

For employees, to avoid becoming burnt out and feeling powerless, it’s advised to utilize vacation time and take regular breaks. By “unplugging” during the day — even if it’s only a short break — it’s possible to reduce stress, gain perspective and feel more in control. Also, learn to say “no” without feeling guilty. Setting clear boundaries on messaging after hours, task delegation and more could do wonders for future productivity.

To learn more about combating nonprofit employee burnout, please see the accompanying resource.

Resources:

https://www.qgiv.com/blog/how-to-overcome-nonprofit-burnout-and-compassion-fatigue/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2020/01/24/how-to-avoid-compassion-fatigue-care-for-your-staff-so-they-can-care-for-the-world/?sh=ffa58b276f88

https://hashtagnonprofit.org/index.php/resources/mentalhealth/355-recognising-compassion-fatigue-in-the-npo-workplace

https://www.missionbox.com/article/98/combating-compassion-fatigue-finding-balance-in-the-nonprofit-workplace

https://www.keela.co/blog/nonprofit-resources/3-leading-causes-of-nonprofit-burnout

https://www.idealist.org/en/careers/recognizing-compassion-fatigue-helping-professions

Here at UST, we aim to create content designed to educate 501(c)(3) nonprofit leaders and strengthen the nonprofit sector. As part of our on-going commitment to serve nonprofit organizations, UST has published two on-demand webinars on relevant topics important to the sector. For just $29, you can register to watch one of our on-demand webinars to discover nonprofit strategies and best practice tips. PLUS, with your registration, you’ll also receive essential handouts for nonprofit leaders.

Human Resource Strategies: Employee Engagement and Nonprofit Brand

Today’s increasingly virtual landscape—along with the workforce’s evolving strategic priorities—has not only changed how we work, but it’s also impacted the way we interact with one another. To maintain positive morale and strengthen company culture, nonprofit leaders must prioritize employee engagement and brand reputation strategies. During this on-demand webinar, discover helpful tactics for building a string nonprofit brand while fostering on engaged workforce. Register here.

The Workplace of Today and Tomorrow Managing Risk and Reward

During the last few years, nonprofits around the globe have been forced to develop contingency plans and re-examine the nature of ‘essential’ services. Learn how to identify (and mitigate) nonprofit risk while fostering an engaged workforce. During this on-demand webinar, you’ll learn how to identify (and mitigate) nonprofit risk while fostering an engaged workforce. You’ll also be able to download several handouts essential for managing risk at your nonprofit. Register here.

In the latest rendition of UST Live, we were joined by thought leaders from across the U.S. with expertise in nonprofit advocacy. Guest moderator, Chai Jindasurat of Nonprofit New York, lead the conversation as the group discussed how advocacy efforts have changed and shared what their nonprofit organizations are doing to ensure they’re being heard at the local, state, and federal levels.

You’ll also hear where they see cross-sector advocacy aligning in the next 12-18 months and what you can do to capture the attention of legislators to effect change—plus much more.

Watch now to discover:

• Top “hot” button issues for 2022
• What legislative changes nonprofits should prepare for and how it will impact their organizations
• How advocacy looks at the local, state, and federal levels, and what strategies work best at each level

Upcoming UST Live Webinars: This webinar series was designed to equip nonprofits with the strategies and resources they need to survive (and thrive) in a constantly evolving environment. Be on the lookout for future UST Live sessions—scheduled for May, August, and November.

The grantmaking process is often exclusive and expensive, making it accessible to those select nonprofits with the right expertise and networks, which can be costly for organizations and funders to seek and distribute funding. Applying for grants is a tedious and expensive process, with a good percentage of applications taking upwards to a week or more just to write. To help those communities who’ve been commonly excluded to thrive, organizations with access to capital need to start adopting more equitable grantmaking practices—making funding more accessible to everyone. Grantmakers have a responsibility to create equitable processes, making sure that communities of color and other marginalized populations are not adversely impacted by giving practices.

When looking at grantmaking, diversity includes casting a wide net to attract diverse applicants. Inclusion might mean your reviewers are diverse, mirroring the community the organization serves. Equity might include revamping the application process making it more accessible.

In following these four tips, nonprofit organizations will be more equipped to have the right processes in place to evaluate equitable grantmaking:

1) Create a More Diverse Pool of Applicants: The first step toward equitable grantmaking is to encourage a diverse applicant pool. If nonprofits serving marginalized communities don’t know about your funding, they won’t be able to apply. Examine your pipeline to determine if you’re casting a wide net outside of your familiar go-to organizations. Look into expanding your networks—we all have a tendency to build relationships with those like ourselves. Attend diverse community meetings, events, or town halls to promote your fund.

2) Keep the Entire Application Process Simple: Grant applications can feel complicated to newer applicants. Use clear, simple language when creating instructions and applications. The general rule is to write at an eighth-grade reading level. (Word offers this functionality–you can use google to find out how to use it).  When it comes to equitable grantmaking, ADA-friendly applications are a must. For example, screen reader capability and keyboard accessibility create an equitable website experience. Without these, applicants with disabilities may have difficulty applying.  

3) Lower Chances of Bias in Review Process: Implicit bias is an unconscious association made about social groups. For example, many automatically assume business executives are male and secretaries are female. While it is ingrained in us from a young age, implicit bias can hinder best intentions for equitable grantmaking. By creating an unbiased review process, you’ll strengthen the entirety of the grant review process. Some examples include, offer implicit bias training to your reviewers and examine reasons why applicants were rejected.   

4) Review Reporting Metrics: Metrics are vital to any funder’s success—including equitable giving outcomes. Be sure to create equity metrics early in the process. You’ll want to track data points such as the number of diverse applicants and awardees. 

To reduce funding barriers, make sure to take a closer look at your processes from beginning to end. Take a look at each step and try to pin-point when diverse populations are no longer in the forefront. Be open to outside perspectives who could provide unique solutions—grantees and reviewers could offer ideas around inclusivity and/or equity. 

Today’s increasingly virtual landscape—along with the workforce’s evolving strategic priorities—has not only changed how we work, but it’s also impacted the way we interact with one another. Employee engagement practices are an essential part of any organization—they can save the company money, improve productivity, increase morale, and decrease turnover. To maintain positive morale and strengthen company culture, nonprofit leaders must prioritize employee engagement and brand reputation strategies.

For just $29 you can discover helpful tactics for building a strong nonprofit brand while fostering an engaged workforce. During this on-demand webinar, you’ll learn:

• The importance of evaluating your employer brand
• Tips for embracing cultural diversity within your workforce
• Creative employee benefit ideas that support work-life balance
• And, much more

Register today and you’ll also receive essential handouts for nonprofit leaders—including an employee engagement checklist, a comprehensive onboarding plan as well as creative ideas for celebrating your team and more—FREE with your registration.

Members are a vital key to success when sustaining and growing your association and retaining those members ensures a long-term survival of your nonprofit organization. While recruiting and enrolling new members is important for growth, making a conscience effort to retain members is equally as important.  Making your current members feel important and special, reminds them of why they joined your association in the first place. Some tried and true retention methods include creating specialized resources, and educational content—the more you publish industry reports, educational webinars, or offer member discounts, the happier your members will be.

The best course of action to take when retaining members include, focusing on their needs, remind them how much value they bring to your association and engaging them on a regular basis. We’ve put together a list of 5 best practices for improving member retention at your nonprofit organization:

1) Create an Onboarding Plan: First-time members are a specific group within your membership profile that need to be approached with specific strategies. Look for ways to keep new members engaged—monthly check-ins, education materials about new products, keep them informed about upcoming events like webinars or virtual conferences—give them opportunities to learn more about the work your organization is doing in the nonprofit sector.

2) Offering Member Only Benefits: Members are interested and/or passionate about your cause, and they want to feel like they’re making a difference. Communicate with them often with weekly or monthly newsletters as well as through social media. Provide perks such as exclusive, member-only offers from your partners as well as networking opportunities. If possible, provide educational opportunities such as webinars, workshops, and relevant eBooks at member-only prices.

3) Create a Community for Your Members: Encourage a thriving, engaged community of like-minded individuals. Such as, organizing/hosting more networking events, mentorship programs, and creating an online member directory—all methods that can help to increase member retention.

4) Remind Members of the Value You Offer: In your end-of-year communications to members, remind them how their membership with your organization has benefited their association over the past year and how much value their membership brings to your organization.

5) Ask Members to Complete an Exit Survey: While it’s not ideal, it is the reality that there will be members who will choose to cancel their membership. This is a great opportunity to capture unique insight into why a member is leaving by asking them to fill out an exit survey. The data acquired can bring light to pitfalls or areas of your organization to be reviewed and improved upon.

Member retention isn’t just a one-time activity. It is something that’s kept in mind throughout the whole member lifecycle—it’s a strategy that requires just as much attention as recruiting new members. To keep members around long-term, you should be focusing on building better relationships with your members from day one.

Nonprofit managers are relied upon to not only lead productive teams, hold employees accountable, and manage processes but are also expected to engage and motivate employees with limited funding. They must be innovative, resourceful, and strategic. To help nonprofit leaders maintain high-performing teams—while also strengthening their leadership skills—we created the 2021 Nonprofit Leadership Toolkit.

This free toolkit includes a performance appraisal checklist, manager-employee check-in form, tips for leading a hybrid workforce, and more:

1. Performance Appraisal Checklist
2. Manager-Employee Check-In Form
3. Performance Appraisal Form
4. Addressing Employee Discipline
5. Do’s and Don’ts of Difficult Conversations
6. Performance Improvement Plan
7. Employee Training Log
8. Tips for Leading a Hybrid Workforce
9. Employee Contact Information Form
10. [Webinar Recording] 7 Seismic Shifts Necessary to Move from Manager to Leader

Want access to more HR-specific articles, templates and checklists? Sign up for a FREE 60-Day Trial of UST HR Workplace today! You’ll also gain access to live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses and an extensive compliance library.