Arts and cultural nonprofits often operate in multiple markets for earned and contributed revenue. With increasing attention on data-driven decision making, effective market orientation often depends on effective data use. This fundamental collection, transmission, use, and interpretation of data within an organization collectively contributes to what can be considered an organization’s data culture.
DAF Punks Part Two: Beyond Simple Giving, A New Model for DAFs
With little success in larger-scale government oversight so far, it begs the question: how is the marketplace for DAFs changing and innovating in the response to these singularizing criticisms? Is the market listening and self-correcting as a way to preempt such legislation? Given the broad variety of DAF sponsor organizations, it is evident that the field, while large, is not a monolith and deserves to be measured at its innovative margins. Newer sponsors have revealed themselves to be particularly aware of the controversies yet remain focused on the opportunities these accounts provide and are demonstrating new approaches to DAF sponsorship aimed at greater payout rates and democratization of their platforms.
DAF Punks Part One: How Tech-Fueled Disruptors are Reshaping the Role of Donor Advised Funds
While institutional philanthropy is in a boom-time, foundations have not monopolized such growth. The renewed interest in donor advised funds (DAF) since the pandemic has triggered meteoric growth in the amount of assets stored in DAFs, with recent figures showing over $229 billion stored across 2 million DAF accounts, receiving roughly $86 billion in annual contributions, and granting nearly $52 billion in 2022.
Using Venmo for Non-Profit Fundraising
Fundraising is the lifeblood of any non-profit organization. Not only is it the primary way to raise money for your organization’s cause, but it also keeps your organization running day-to-day to work on sustaining its mission. Your nonprofit should always be looking for new donation tools as part of your digital strategy. Non-profit fundraising has been made easier than ever before with the creation of technology and apps, such as Venmo.
2023 Digital Fundraising Trends in the Performing Arts
Organizations’ marketing strategies and missions themselves may need to be reexamined to determine whether or not they align with the next generation of donors. There are a number of practices that organizations can start to embrace in order to expand their mission to a more diverse population while not running the risk of alienating their current support base.
POAPs: Audience Engagement and Memorabilia in the Web3 Era
The average theater-goer walks into a performance with their ticket stub freshly procured from the box office. An usher hands them a playbill as they find their seat. Both items are unique to the time and place of the event, and available only to those physically in attendance at the performance. These forms of memorabilia offer audiences collectible, tangible tokens to commemorate an arts experience. However, today it is common practice to take a picture of the stage from one’s seat with playbill in hand to post on social media and store in the cloud, transforming a physical token of memorabilia into a digital one.
Crypto Philanthropy: Opportunities and Considerations
Cryptocurrency has the potential to and is already beginning to disrupt philanthropy and the ways that nonprofit organizations collect donations. In previous eras, philanthropic innovation was spurred by “new sources of wealth,” as with John D. Rockefeller creating America’s first foundation or Bill and Melinda Gates translating his immense success in the tech revolution into global philanthropic influence in areas of “poverty, disease, and equity.” Similarly the emergence of a new class of “crypto-elite[s]” has the potential to disrupt traditional methods of philanthropy. Now, as blockchain technology and its myriad applications become more mainstream and our society becomes more crypto-curious, nonprofit organizations have an opportunity to adapt by incorporating cryptocurrency and its various tokens into their fundraising strategies.
The Final Frontier: Fundraising in a Virtual Space
Fundraising is a vital part of a nonprofit’s ability to achieve its mission. Cultivating relationships with individuals and institutions in this way can help an organization gain economic support, as well as important relationships and visibility. In order to create and maintain these relationships in development departments, organizations need to meet potential partners where they are and inspire them through their mission and projects. Today, and in the near future, these potential donors may likely be in a virtual space, specifically augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
Navigating the Ethics of Using AI for Donor Solicitation
AI has been slowing encroaching on every facet of modern life. It runs our phones, it navigates our vehicles, and has even began finishing our sentences. As of now, its integration into our everyday life has been mundane. Since AI operates most effectively behind the scenes and is difficult to explain to the average consumer, most products that utilize it do not necessarily draw much attention to it. Negative connotations among the public may prevent business from directly or overtly acknowledging the use of AI in their products or administration, but it certainly does not stop them from utilizing it. AI is bolstering many forms of business management technology, and the nonprofit sector is starting to reap its benefits. With so much of nonprofits reputations relying on trust and good faith connections between stakeholders, donors, and staff, what happens when AI is introduced into the dynamic?
Digital Providers for Matching Gifts and Volunteer Matching
Fundraisers take note: it is estimated that four to seven billion dollars a year goes unmatched by nonprofit organizations. Eighteen million people around the globe have access to a matching gift program, and it’s been surveyed that one in every three people who donate would actually be willing to donate more if they knew their donation could be matched in the first place. Matching gift programs and volunteer grant programs are more inclusive of corporate employees because the causes that they feel personally motivated to donate to or volunteer with are recognized and rewarded by their employers. The digital marketplace for these opportunities is growing making it easier for nonprofits to find their match.