I need to have a conversation with my friends in the nonprofit world. It may not be pleasant to hear but someone has to speak truth to your power. I promise, though, at the end, I will give you the answer to the challenges I am I see in front of you.

And before I share your truth, I want to prove to you that I know what I am talking about. My wife and partner in everything, Sharyn, has a master’s degree in non-profit management and, between the two of us, we have sat on over a dozen boards of directors of non-profits. We speak your language, we intimately know your revenue challenges and we are in your corner.

Ready? OK.

This conversation really began many years ago when I began attending chamber of commerce breakfasts and mixers to promote my marketing business. At an event like that, you are supposed to create and develop relationships. The way you can build those relationships is to not only be on the lookout for customers, but, and here is an important thing, to be on the lookout for vendors that you can buy from and connections that you can make between you and the other attendees.
The most successful of us at that game were the ones who were able to master that second part of the networking game.  The companies who were the worst at this game, invariably, were the non-profits.

HERE! Let us explain the program!

And with that last sentence, I just lost a bunch of the most important readers of this website, the nonprofits. Want to know why? Because they are answering me with the sentence, “But we are a nonprofit; we don’t have the budget to buy things from you for-profit businesses.”

WE ARE LITERALLY going to get on our soapboxes here for a moment when I say:

“Are you freakin’ kidding me? WAKE THE HECK UP!”

Here are our 4 POINTS to back up this diatribe to try and wake up nonprofits. AND THEN, I PROMISE YOU, I AM GOING TO SOLVE YOUR CHALLENGE OF NEEDING MORE REVENUE.
1. Non-profits have to operate their business, which means they need products. These products include everything from office supplies to furniture to alarm systems, and more.
2. Non-profits also need services. These services include everything from buying insurance, to accounting and graphic arts, and more.
3. Non-profits can get involved in events other than their own.
4. Non-profits tax status is just that, a tax status. It does not mean they cannot make money or have a teeny tiny budget. The organization may make money so they spend that money to improve their constituents. The only thing you may NOT do is have those profits benefit any one person (like the founder).

Part of the challenge is that non-profits send people out into the community who, as the Eagles sing in Hotel California, are programed to receive. This means that they do not have any authority to put money into the community, just to take money OUT of it.

Yes, Miss Non-profit executive who is pretty pissed at me right now. You are different. But… if you are willing to listen to these 3 questions and my answers, I may be able to assist you to reach higher levels than you have previously:

1. Do you want to be more successful?
2. Do you want to raise more money?
3. Do you want to do more good for your community?

The good news: Here’s the answer for you to make this happen for your non-profit.

Easy and with very little of your staff’s time!

Most non-profit organizations send your people into the world to walk about with their hand out like that scene from Oliver where Mark Lester holds out his hand and says:

“May I have some more, sir?”

Non-profits are begging for table scraps.
So, you say, what SHOULD we be doing? We are just a non-profit.

2 words: Be Militant in consistently telling your story.

You have to go into those meetings with your hand UP not out. You have to hold your hand up and have that sheet of paper (real or figurative; your choice) with all the things you do in the community and say “HEY! Without US… all these things are not getting done in your community.”
Make people feel it.
Make people relate to it.
Make people know that when they get on your band wagon, they are doing great things within their community.

Here is the other side of it. It is my opinion that each business owner must, MUST, find at least one non-profit and get involved. We have to find a cause and support it. What nonprofits need to do it share that feeling. Get business owners in your area to buy into it. They may not buy into YOUR nonprofit, but when you are militantly sharing what YOU do for the community, you will get more than when you beg.

OK. I am stepping down from my ‘Support Nonprofits’ soapbox.

Here’s how the Non Profit Partner Program system helps you AND your business supporters.

We are small business coaches and have had a lot of nonprofits as clients. They all want to generate more revenue so they can do a better job at what they do and serve more people. To help them do this, we looked at dozens of sites that gave nonprofits the idea of how to make revenue. Over 90% of them were selling you a software that they said would, in effect, ‘suck more money out of your donors’ wallets.’

NONE of them, ZERO, talked about giving the donating party something that would really help them build their business, giving them more cash to then give to you. Few of them said to publicly thank their donators. Most focus on different ways to ask for more money.

Most non-profits forget that your 501c3 status is just that, a tax status. You are ALLOWED to make a profit, EXPECTED to make one, but most do not treat their sales like for-profit companies do. In other words, most do not think they have to give something of value to their donors beyond that a warm fuzzy feeling of doing good.

For profit companies are giving their service in exchange for dollars. Non profit companies take money and give their services to someone else. The Profit companies continue to want to improve their product so they can sell more to the people who give them money. The nonprofits want to improve the services they give to the people they serve not the people who give them money. This is how those two situations look, graphically.

As we looked to help our nonprofit clients, we realized that with what we do as small business coaches, it appeared to us that we have something that nonprofits like you could use as your give-back. The chart would graphically begin to look like this!

What I am describing to you is what we have begun to call The Non-Profit Partner Program and it combines these two situations for the benefit of all three parties. What makes this different and what’s in it for you is that you can now offer small business owners tools and services that will allow them to generate more revenue for less than the normal cost investment.

For $28 a month, they can subscribe to The Non-Profit Partner Program. Your nonprofit gets 85%+* of that revenue. Every month. Small business owners can have more possible revenue to give to non-profits. We have taught hundreds of them to give back – and they want to support their community. There is also an option where you get 95% of the revenue.

Your revenue generation program is simple.

You sign up and we give you an affiliate link.

Then, we send you a series of prewritten emails including your link to send to your business owning donors, with instructions on how to do it.

We never see your list and your staff time is limited to sending out the emails we have written for you. Those emails invite them to be part of the marketing program. When they sign up, you get paid; Every month, for as long as they continue to subscribe.

We even have a web page set up to describe the program.  That’s where your affiliate link points!

That’s it. We do the following up and the inviting and most important: We handle the deliverables of the marketing information plus answering questions.

Here’s what else is in the program for you as a non-profit that is part of the program:

1. Participate in a monthly marketing mastermind just for nonprofits and focused on how you market yourselves.

One of the important things we will cover on this call is working with you to tell your story better because nonprofit donors want to know their money changed a life and hear specific stories in order to continue to give.

2. You get a private Get Focused success call for your organization’s marketing.

3. Free tickets to our Small Business Breakthrough Bootcamps for you and your board members (to help THEIR businesses).

4. Access to our Private Marketing Vault of sales, marketing, and human resources information.

5. Regular revenue generated with minimum of staff time.

6. You become part of our database of recommended nonprofits for businesses looking to participate.

The number one question we’ve gotten so far is: Are any of these small business owners going to sign up for your private coaching? YES. And what that means for you is that you earn even more affiliate revenue without having any of the deliverables.

If you have other questions, sign up for a free 30-minute Get Focused Success Call for your nonprofit. We can talk about the Non-Profit Partner Program plus how you are marketing your nonprofit. Go to How To Get There Faster.com and sign up for your call.

*85% is the number at which we are beginning the project. We will top out what our company will make from this project. That means that as more small business owners use this program to give to you as their nonprofit, the higher that percentage will rise. We will have a board of advisors from the nonprofits that participate in this program who will have access to the books – so they can tell when it is time for us to raise the number. Gee – and you thought that this asterisk was bad news.