The Shocking Reason Nobody Donates to Your NGO and How to Fix It
Let’s be honest, begging for support online is very exhausting.
You’ve posted the pictures and even the videos of your work on your social media handles and even on your website and still, nobody is donating.
You go as far as sharing testimonials and even craft long caption to further explain the work you do, but still, no one wants to support financially.
It’s more heartbreaking and discouraging for NGOs whose social media posts generate lots of views and engagements.
No calls, no alerts, not even a simple: how can I support? The truth, it’s not your passion that’s the problem, it’s your presentation.
Yes, your NGO is doing an amazing work. You support the elderly, empower the youth, support the education of children, provide direct support services to people with special needs and so forth but if your message is not connecting, people wouldn’t support.
And here is even the hard part, people do not support you because they don’t care, but because you’ve not given them a reason to care.
Why Nobody Is Donating to Your NGO:
It’s not you, it’s your story:
Here is a mistake most non-profits often make and is killing their chances with donors.
They often talk about the problem, not the people.
They flood social media with their: please support us post but fail to tell us why we should support.
They talk about the needs, not the impact.
And the results: silence, no calls, no alerts, dry pockets and so forth.
Donors are not magicians and can only support a cause, a face, a transformation they understand and feel emotionally connected to. No one funds a problem, a need or a challenge.
It’s becoming clear that the era of pity party when it comes to donation to support NGO projects is behind us.
So, when you focus on the problem instead of your impact, hoping that the nature of the problem could inspire action, I guess you now know that it no longer works anymore.
And if your contents sound like a lecture, a sermon or a never-ending appeal, don’t worry, there is a more productive way to craft your contents to produce results.
What Donors Really Look For:
Everyone wants to see the work you’re doing, the progress you’ve made and the impact of your work on your beneficiaries.
The challenge is no longer whether the problems or the needs you’re talking about are real. This is why relying on videos and photos highlighting the problems no longer works.
What is the impact of your previous work on the lives of the beneficiaries? Yes, your NGO donated school uniforms, books, and school bags to pupils from selected primary schools in your local communities at some point last year.
You posted the pictures, the videos and appreciated the donors, but do you know the impact of that action on the kids?
How did your work improve their academic performance, their social life and overall behavior?
When NGOs go back to evaluate the impact of their work, it’s sad to know that a lot of them often realize that the efforts weren’t worth it in the first place. This is because the impact isn’t measurable by any metric.
You now understand why donors aren’t looking for problems to solve but work to support. Real donors want to support your work. They want to amplify your impact and expand your work to reach more beneficiaries.
If XYZ NGO has a free medical programme that has reduced the rate of blindness by 0.5% in a particular community, it means that with my support, the programme can be expanded to other communities or expanded to accommodate more beneficiaries.
That’s exactly the mindset of real donors and if for any reason, your contents do not contain these elements, you may just get only social media post engagements.
This is the reason why some crowdfunding campaigns may do well while others may not.
How To Fix It:
Tell stories that highlight impact not problem. These stories move hearts and wallets. They combine real figures, real people, case studies, real efforts and real outcomes to produce narratives that keep donors emotionally connected to the work you do.
These stories don’t have to be long; donors are not so patient to read epistles. But they should be powerful enough to tell donors about your work. Show the problem, the people, your efforts, your work, the results, the transformation, the impact and your future or projections.
When donors understand your impact, supporting your plans or projections is never a challenge. This is an easy way of building long-lasting relationship with these donors.
But let’s face it, most NGOs may not be able to craft this type of contents effectively for several reasons. Common among the reasons is busy schedule and the technicalities involved.
It’s not report writing, rather, it’s impact story.
How Nitor Vox Media Can Help:
Nitor Vox Media is a content writing agency that specializes in crafting engaging impact stories and other written contents for non-profits and social enterprises.
But they don’t just jump into crafting impact stories for non-profits, they offer free session with them to understand their goals and their work.
This way, there is a clear metric for measuring performance and everyone is aware of what to expect.
Nitor Vox helps non-profits regardless of their status.
Their content writing styles are flexible enough to enable you easily convert their written contents into a short and long form video content that will generate attention and donor engagement.
It works really well for social brands as well and that’s why Juliet, founder of a skin care startup in Nigeria was able to build loyal audience not just a customer base.
Madam Joy: A fund-raising lead combined these impact stories with her organization’s email newsletters to raise up to $10,000 to support their project.
It’s not always about the donations, it’s often about the feeling of satisfaction that your efforts are truly making impact. It’s about the relationship you can build and nurture through your impact stories.
Nitor Vox Media and its founder are both active on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/nitorvoxmedia
You can also reach out at info@nitorvoxmedia.com or +2347034826955 to talk to them.
Hoping to see your NGO flourish and grow to make more impacts.