Organization

Founded in 1975, the National Wildlife Refuge Association (NWRA) provides essential habitats for endangered species, supports biodiversity, and offers communities natural flood and storm protection, as well as clean water.

Challenge

Changes in current political power are having an immediate impact on the NWRA and its 570 refuges across America.

“The refuge system has already been subject to budget cuts for the last 15 years, and now these mass firings,” says Eden Taylor, director of communications and marketing at NWRA. “We're going to be seeing things like no access for hunting and fishing, no endangered species monitoring, no one to manage volunteers.”

In response to federal funding uncertainty and turbulence, NWRA is doubling down on diversification efforts, using smart tools to build a base of individual private funders and grassroots supporters.

“Our main goal right now is to build up that grassroots network of supporters that care about the national wildlife refuges,” says Eden. “We used to have some federal funding, but over time, we’ve wanted to wean ourselves off that. We've been trying to build out our foundation arm and rely more heavily on sustaining donors, as well as individual donors.”

Solution

To build their diverse base of supporters, NWRA has stepped up its digital infrastructure. Individual donors require ease and intuitive interfaces to more easily commit to long-term support. The system it used previously only offered basic email and clunky forms that didn’t offer a positive user experience.

The NWRA team embraced a new fundraising dashboard — Bonterra EveryAction — that makes it simpler for team members to manage their workload and engage the next generation of lifelong supporters.

Most importantly, the user experience makes it easy and fun for supporters to get involved. “One of our main goals is to build the next generation of conservationists — reaching out to kids and getting them involved with nature," says Eden. The platform helps engage friends of the program at every age, letting them know about opportunities that range from storytelling to beach cleanup.

Call to action

Leveraging tools and social media, NWRA is building a movement across local networks, educating the public on what’s at stake and harnessing the power of community voices to make change. “We're seeing a lot of the advocacy that we used to do as nonprofits isn't quite working anymore; we need to get more savvy with social media and with media in general, because congressional members just aren't paying attention unless it’s an uprising that shows their voters care about these things,” says Eden.

Organization

The Michigan Health Endowment Fund (the Health Fund) works to improve Michigan residents’ health and wellness, with a special focus on children and seniors, while reducing the cost of healthcare.

Challenge

The Health Fund was created to expand access to quality healthcare in communities across Michigan, with a particular focus on children and seniors. While the organizations it serves vary, they all face a shared challenge: a lack of capacity.

“We know that all of our organizations — rural, urban — are all very different, but all often constrained by the same thing, which is tighter budgets, restricted funding,” says Veronica Marchese, program officer, community health and capacity building at the Health Fund. “So we thought about how else we can equip them outside of grantmaking.”

In 2020, when COVID-19 was spreading globally, the Health Fund needed to offer its grantees active support to make sure they were able to keep operating as needs and technology solutions evolved rapidly. Now that need for support is growing, as federal funding is more uncertain and nonprofits are scrambling to diversify their funding streams and find new funders.

“We saw a lot of requests for fundraising, fund development, adding development staff, and they weren’t requests we could keep up with,” says Veronica. “I think every organization that we serve and those that we don't serve could benefit from some fundraising support and a fundraising strategy. It's such a large need for our partners, so we were looking at other opportunities on how we could support fundraising outside of our grantmaking dollars.”

Solution

The Health Fund invested in Bonterra Jumpstart, which offers their grantees a combination of coaching and technology, empowering them with the skills and tools they need for long-term viability and success. Offering expert thought partnership has been especially transformational for the smaller nonprofits that the Health Fund supports, where leaders are required to turn their hand to a lot of different tasks.

Veronica recalls one particular beneficiary: Alpena Cedar Senior Citizen Center. “They started with just a few thousand dollars for their year-end campaign, and after going through Jumpstart, they ended up with $30,000 — and they had only amazing things to say about how exciting it was to see that huge growth.”

Another Health Fund grantee, MiGen, focuses on supporting the elder LGBTQ+ community in Michigan. Right now, MiGen is feeling the instability of the current political turbulence and is grateful to be better equipped to respond to the moment through support from the Jumpstart program.

“Participating in Jumpstart meant we had the space to take a risk and see if the technology worked out for us without the outlay of additional cash resources,” says Executive Director Angel Gabridge, who started with the organization three and a half years ago, from the grassroots up. “It also meant being able to access discounted pricing moving forward and access to a coach who was instrumental in helping us unlock the full potential of the platform. The rich engagement data we are able to pull from the platform is outstanding, and reporting is so nimble and does not require a middleman. Our engagement metrics, event ticket sales, sponsorships, and individual donations have all more than doubled as a direct result of participating in Jumpstart.”

Call to action

Veronica is happy to see this support in action. She is also clear-eyed about the need for more — more tools and more coaching support to keep progress moving in pace with her community’s needs and the changes across the country.

“It's critical that we're committed to working with the nonprofit sector that we have in our state, and that we're investing in its strength and its resources to keep doing the work that they're doing,” says Veronica. “If we don't have well-equipped, well-resourced nonprofits around the state, we don’t have partners to create impact with.”

Organization

Founded in 2013, Texas Diaper Bank is a nonprofit dedicated to providing diapers, incontinence supplies, and essential resources to families, seniors, and individuals in crisis across Texas.

Challenge

Jorge Medina, CEO and founder of Texas Diaper Bank, recalls the day when his organization entered rapid expansion mode. It was August 25, 2017, the day Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, setting off catastrophic flooding throughout Texas. Within days, Jorge's small nonprofit operation providing diapers and personal care supplies became the center of national attention.

“When a disaster happens and people are being evacuated, the last thing that they're going to pack are these types of essentials,” says Jorge. “They arrive at a shelter and they are welcomed with a warm bed and some food, but none of these essentials are being provided.”

This was the first time the organization had addressed a disaster as large and widespread as Harvey. The team quickly sent out a press release outlining the imminent needs of their community. NPR picked up the story that night, and by the next morning, everything changed.

“We started getting phone calls from different places — foundations, celebrities — wanting to donate,” says Jorge. “It was almost like a hurricane in itself, a good hurricane, where we were inundated with people wanting to help with either money, product donations, or their time.”

Solution

Thankfully, Jorge had recently decided to integrate Bonterra Network for Good, in part to be able to accept online donations and manage donors.

“Bonterra Network for Good software was so important for us because it allowed us to have a way of managing this multitude of donors,” he says. It also made it possible to process monetary donations fast, which was integral to hiring staff and procuring warehouse space to address the influx of product donations. “We couldn’t have done that if we couldn’t tap into the actual dollars being donated.”

Texas Diaper Bank, which had previously worked from a 6,500-square-foot facility, now occupies 30,000 square feet, offering diapers plus incontinence and menstrual products. And, it has recently teamed up with DoorDash to offer delivery services. With its increased capacity, the team is better able to respond to other pressing events, like social crises and demographic shifts, in addition to natural disasters. For example, it serves the growing “silver tsunami” of senior Texans needing care and the influx of refugees into American cities as conflicts and climate impacts ramp up worldwide.

Call to action

When asked to sum up the value of using digital fundraising software, Jorge comes back to the moment when Hurricane Harvey hit.

"Having this type of software is imperative. This is something that you need to have, because when something like this does happen, you need to have the right software in place to be able to handle this flood of donations that's going to come."

Organization

Founded in 2019, Wilmington Alliance partners with community, civic, and business leaders to drive economic opportunity and social vitality, as well as launch initiatives for equitable wealth creation in underserved populations.

Challenge

Renata Kowalczyk, CEO of Wilmington Alliance, is a champion of data integration. Leading a busy, locally focused organization in constant fundraising mode, she prioritizes real-time data-sharing with stakeholders — from funders to community members. The organization’s impact dashboard gives her team instant access to what they need, and it frees the team to focus on their program.

“In the past, when we needed to provide updates to the board or founders [all of whom like information in specific formats], we would have to do it manually from spreadsheets,” says Renata. The organization’s dashboard, powered by Bonterra Apricot, changed that. “We have a very easy way to communicate, not only to our founders but, frankly, to anyone who asks us a question.”

Solution

Being able to track outcomes and speak to the organization’s progress against goals is essential for reporting, and it also builds trust. With decades of experience working in the corporate world, Renata understands what founders and potential investors need to see and know in order to offer their support, as well as the biases people bring when they work with the social sector for the first time. Having data at Renata’s fingertips has been transformative in building confidence with new funders — it opens doors that previously would have been closed.

"Business leaders in the community have told me, 'I’m hearing that you run this shop with an incredible level of data and acumen and transparency. I can’t wait to sit down with you and explore what more we can be doing together,'" says Renata.

“It empowers me as the CEO to be much more effective in my role as a champion and advocate and chief salesperson,” she adds.

Call to action

Some might think that data integration is not necessary for every nonprofit. Renata disagrees. Having experienced the transformation that the data dashboard has made for her and her team, she underscores the importance of this type of digital empowerment for the survival of the sector at large.

“We collectively need to get much better, quickly, at sharing and amplifying the work,” says Renata, “because we are only going to be asked to do more.”

Organization

Ally Financial is a 100-plus-year-old financial institution and is home to America’s largest all-digital bank.

Challenge

Ally, a financial services company founded over 100 years ago, has a “Do It Right” spirit that runs through the entire business. As an exclusively online operation, the team at Ally is technology forward, and Ally Charitable Foundation was an early adopter of Bonterra CyberGrants.

As part of Ally’s broader Corporate Citizenship team, Lynne leads a team of five that provides operational excellence, data analytics and governance, and brings volunteer and giving programs to life. One of the group’s key roles is to bridge the gap between business and impact, and leverage technology to scale its efforts. Bonterra CyberGrants allows the team to make a compelling case to key decision-makers internally. “If I can’t demonstrate the ROI, executives at the top have a difficult time understanding the nuance of why giving back is important,” says Lynne. “This tool — particularly the implementation of Insights — has been a game-changer.”

Solution

Having insights on hand enables Ally team to show how it outperforms competitors, which creates ongoing momentum for impact work and shines a light on Ally’s secret sauce: company culture. Starting from the top with its CEO, Ally demonstrated a unique level of commitment to the communities it serves. And now it has the data to prove it.

“Our employee giving last year showed 73% of our employees engaged in some way in the community. Looking at comparative organizations in the financial industries, the benchmark is 32% — so we are a clear head-and-shoulders above,” says Lynne. “The power of Insights is a slam-dunk tool. Being able to demonstrate a positive community presence and outcomes for nonprofits — that’s what people want to see.”

Ally is on an upward trajectory when it comes to making a bigger impact, and Lynne is grateful for the efficiency and creativity that tools like CyberGrants has brought to her team. “The tool allows us to meet employees where they are, no matter where they are,” she says. Employees at Ally love the easy interface of CyberGrants, which makes it able to “fish” for causes to support; and Lynne and her team save time by using automated communication templates to keep staff up to date on opportunities for impact. This gives them more space to innovate and deepen engagement.

Call to action

Ally has 128 team members across the business who lead the charge on impact projects locally. Lynne’s team can’t be everywhere at once, so Bonterra’s tools are crucial to empower other driven team members across the country, helping them to organize events, track outcomes, and see who signed up. “It’s a one-stop shop,” says Lynne.

Using smart technology and tools to drive impact has been a win-win for Ally. “Corporations get better at making funding decisions and telling stories,” says Lynne, “and nonprofits have more access to funds that are available. Rather than two ships passing in the night, we are meeting them right where they are.”