There. I got that off my chest. 

When SARS-CoV-2 first hit us, and I mean properly, when countries started battening down the hatches a month ago, nonprofit CEOs all over the globe reached out to their donor bases sharing how their organizations would be affected and challenged by this shutdown. 

It was a check in, without obligation, with no donor button. No ask and expectation. We were assured that, if relevant, they still aimed to meet goals and help target demographic, albeit perhaps with different parameters and amid tighter, daily restrictions. 

And then the message shifted. Or it should have. 

Let me start with an example first: what’s that one group of people that helped people wake up to the enormity of it all? Front line staff. Medical staff in particular. We all have friends sending us whatsapps and posting Facebook statuses telling us what they’re going through. None of us want to exacerbate the situation! Their faces are serious, their skin red with the constant changes of PPE and, and their eyes red with fatigue. 

They’re not the politicians telling us something that works in the realm of theory, they are not statisticians, they are not newsreaders who can perhaps be thought of as sensationalist at times, they are showing us the reality. 

As with any good novel, don’t tell the reader, show the reader. With every passing day, what still counts and  will always count is what’s happening in the field: And we stayed home. We worked. We netflixed. We did our paperwork. We called old friends. We shared lots and lots of memes. 

It’s no different for your donor. It’s no different for nonprofits.

It’s now the turn of the people on the front lines to report back to your donor.

Let’s hear it in their voices, what should the donor know about the front line? 

And to be clear, I don’t mean Federation style reporting with statistics and graphs. I mean simple reporting: What is your social worker doing every day to further your mission? What can your social worker say that says to your donor that their investment in your nonprofit is having a positive impact in this world. 

We helped a client, even now, receive a sizable donation from an interested donor. The problem at the time was that although they were a previous recipient (approximately 2 years ago) they had not kept up the relationship. They now had to remind the supporter who they were and what they were doing. And that’s all they did. They reported from the field. They showed their staunch commitment to the people who needed them most and described it. Their benefactor was no longer being made to feel like an ATM exhausted by calls for help from every direction, she was a human being with feelings. She was inspired by the work they were doing and told them so with a multi-thousand dollar check.

I can’t tell you who they were but I can end this post with a wonderful example I saw in the public domain that I really love. This is from Orr Shalom, a nonprofit working with children and youth at-risk. Their website says they care for 1,400 children who have been removed from their homes following severe abuse and neglect. Orr Shalom provides professional help and warm and loving homes, and furthermore, an opportunity for a better future. 

This was their Facebook message on the 5th April 2020. Pay attention to the fact that she’s named, that it’s in regular language and she’s explaining the challenges right now for novice foster families but how she was surprised to find that they were still willing to help. She is inspired, I am inspired, and how could we not be?