We have all wished for more hours in a day, whether it be to complete a task, achieve a goal, or meet a tough deadline – but nonprofits have a unique responsibility to be productive. Why? Because supporters, donors and volunteers entrust us with time and money to make a difference with minimal overhead.
Waste in a nonprofit is not just time and money forgone; it can also lead to a lack of trust and impact your ability to achieve your social mission.
Luckily, there are tools to help. We’ve compiled a list of 13 productivity tools for collaboration, day-to-day operations, social media and content creation – including helpful features, pricing (nonprofit discounts), and apps.
Everything from event planning and important documents to team photos and announcements: they all live tidily together in Slack.
With features such as group channels, private messaging, polls, to-do reminders, and mobile conferencing all in one searchable interface, Slack can be a one-stop-shop for team collaboration.
Pricing: Slack For Teams is available for free, paid plans from $6.67/month per user (billed annually), 85% discounts for NGOs available
Trello is a free tool for visual task management with a focus on flexibility. It can work just as well for your own personal to-do list as it does for managing large projects.
One of the most popular ways to use Trello is with the Kanban method. This involves visually moving a task through different stages until it’s complete. By seeing what tasks you have To-Do, In Progress and Done, the visual board can give you a real-time view of your progress so you can easily see how you’re tracking.
Pricing: Free, forever, additional overviews, integration and security from $9.99 per user/month (when paid annually), discounts for registered non-profits and educational institutions available upon request
Mindmeister takes your organization’s mind-mapping to the next level. This tool allows you to collaborate with unlimited team members and see changes in real-time. Nonprofits can use Mindmeister to facilitate virtual brainstorms and share ideas visually.
Pricing: Free for up to 3 mind maps, Business packages from $7.49/month per user, special NGO and academic plans available upon request
Pricing & Nonprofit Discounts:
Slack
Trello
Mindmeister
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
TASK MANAGEMENT
BRAINSTORMING
Slack For Teams is available for free
Paid plans from $6.67/month per active user (billed annually)
Free, forever
Additional overviews, integration and security from $9.99 per user/month (when paid annually)
Working for a social cause can often mean travelling and not always with secure networks. NordVPN can help provide a safe way to stay online and available while on the move. This tool protects your IP address so you can feel at ease accessing personal and work accounts on the road, using public Wi-Fi, keeping your browser history private and blocking unwanted ads.
Pricing: Paid plans from $2.99 per month (when purchasing a 3 year plan), 30-day money-back guarantee
WeTransfer is an online file-transferring platform which allows you to share files up to 2GB with your colleagues anywhere in the world. The free version is easy to use and ads are non-intrusive. Integrations are also available with other productivity tools such as Slack.
Pricing: Free, forever. WeTransfer Plus subscription from USD$120 per annum
Pricing & Nonprofit Discounts:
NordVPN
WeTransfer
CYBER SECURITY
FILE SHARING
Paid plans from $2.99 per month (when purchasing a 3 year plan)
30-day money-back guarantee
Free, forever
WeTransfer Plus subscription from USD$120 per annum
Managing social media can become chaotic when posting regularly and planning ahead across multiple channels. Hootsuite can help you manage your social media activity by facilitating content curation, automating workflows, scheduling posts and helping you track their success with real-time data.
Pricing: Free 30 day trial, paid plans from $39/month
To paraphrase an old adage – a well crafted graphic speaks a thousand words. Canva is a drag-and-drop tool designed to simplify the process of creating graphics for social media, even for the least creatively-inclined.
Social media image sizing can be a laborious process. Landscape makes it easy and can give you time that can be better spent.
Simply upload the JPG/JPEG, PNG, or GIF file to Landscape, select which networks it’ll appear on, and the tool will resize it for you. This tool is free of charge and available here.
Pricing: Free, forever
Pricing & Nonprofit Discounts:
Hootsuite
Canva
Landscape
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT
SOCIAL MEDIA DESIGN
SOCIAL MEDIA RESIZING
Free 30 day trial
Paid plans from $39/month
Free, forever
Additional features and graphics in paid plans starting from $9.95 per user/month (when paid annually)
Pexels offers a vast selection of free and high quality stock images captured by passionate photographers, which allow you to complement and convey your message.
57% of people who watch nonprofit videos go on to make a donation^. Magisto can help you create customizable videos for your nonprofit, adding a human dimension to your cause that resonates with your audience, without having to be an expert in video editing.
Pricing: Premium plan = $4.99/month (paid annually), professional plan = $9.99/month (paid annually), business plan = $34.99/month (paid annually)
This tool helps you build interactive maps with ease – no coding skills needed. Mapme allows you to add locations, photos, videos and 360 tours with custom categories and filters. By creating your own maps, you can help your supporters visualize the scale and geography of your nonprofit’s impact.
Pricing: Free evaluation account, paid plans from $29/month (paid annually)
Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant helps you compose more concise, mistake-free content. The free version detects critical spelling and grammar errors to ensure that every message your nonprofit delivers is high quality and professional.
Pricing: Free, forever. Paid subscriptions from USD$11.66/month (when paid annually)
Evernote is an all-in-one note-taking tool that can help you declutter your thoughts and organise your ideas wherever you are. This tool makes your note-taking paperless, which not only has a positive environmental impact, but also makes writing, accessing and storing important information easier.
Pricing: Free, forever. Paid subscriptions from $9.99/month
Pricing & Nonprofit Discounts:
Grammarly
Evernote
SPELL-CHECKING CONTENT
NOTE-TAKING
Free, forever
Paid subscriptions from USD$11.66/month (when paid annually)
Free, forever
Paid subscriptions from $9.99/month
Nonprofit discount may be negotiable
Nonprofit discount available upon request
Each of these 13 productivity tools are designed to make your life easier, but too many can hurt more than help. It’s important that you evaluate and decide which tools best support the way your team works, so you can enable productivity based on your specific needs. By strategically implementing these tools, you can help your nonprofit work smarter, not harder towards your social goals.
Johanna Weiermann supports 180 Degrees Consulting in her role as a Global Marketing Director. She draws from a specialized background in environmental responsibility through her MSc programme of International Fashion Management. Johanna began her career in marketing, product management and procurement to learn the rules of the game, before switching to organizations with a social and/or environmental impact, such as Dariadaria/Dariadeh, Magdas/Caritas and, most recently, as a lecturer (GCU London, BU London) for Responsible Marketing and Business Ethics.
^According to Nonprofit Source, 2018 *All prices are in AUD if not specified otherwise
We often hear that a consumer must be exposed to a brand 7-8 times before they recognize it. Similarly, an individual needs to hear about a nonprofit approximately 20 times before they actively notice the organization’s name.
As audiences become increasingly bombarded with information, nonprofits must effectively promote their vision on relevant channels to be noticed. Nurturing a prospect from awareness to loyalty, and ultimately, advocacy, requires multiple points of contact across channels. Social media is one of these channels which cannot be ignored in any digital marketing strategy.
Below, we’ll take a closer look at five research-based approaches through real business cases, and learnings that you can leverage to succeed in social media.
1. Run effective campaigns using the CURVE Model
Litteratiuses Instagram to create a digital map of litter in the world. Using the hashtag #Litterati, people can geotag waste with associated keywords and timestamps to indicate what, where and when litter is found.
This kind of social media engagement enables nonprofits to track the “problem”. Hashtags allow audiences to see their contribution to the larger footprint and increase their likelihood of further action. This is a popular method to involve communities in social goals.
To build this type of campaign, the CURVE model – Curiosity, Uniformity, Relevance, Value and Emotion – offers a guide to creating relevant content for social media audiences.
Let’s deep dive into how Litterati used the CURVE framework:
– Litterati arouse Curiosity by having a live dashboard that showcases the impact they create with every piece of litter tagged.
– Uniformity and Relevance are maintained through posts on Litterati’s social media pages (Instagram and Facebook) which are related to litter, ocean cleanups and the importance of taking action to remove litter from the planet.
– Values and Emotions are evoked by Litterati when they question their audience about the impact of their behavior on the planet. This arouses a sense of global citizenship and affiliation with Litterati’s cause.
2. Enhance visibility by encouraging user-generated content
There are four types of content:
Paid – paying for publicity e.g. newspapers or radio
Earned – content earned through word of mouth e.g. testimonials, reviews
Shared – user generated content and social media engagement
Owned – content you’ve created and have control over
Shared and earned content are the outcome of a passionate community of advocates for your cause, but owned content can motivate this engagement. Social media communities also give nonprofits valuable insights into the impact of their activity on their audience in real-time.
Letters of Love send colorful, vibrant postcards to refugees in Syria, written by volunteers in live sessions or online. Everything from the composition to the delivery of the letters is shared on social media. This way, Letters of Love not only showcase their impact internationally, but also inspire volunteers to remain involved.
3. Use social media influencers and brand ambassadors to increase credibility
A brand ambassador is an expert or representative of a market who, through their association with your brand, raises your organization’s credibility.
Influencers can be broadly categorized into micro-influencers (local bloggers), celebrities or renown experts. Selecting the influencer that best fits your audience will depend on your desired outcome. For example, local ambassadors at schools or universities could be used to create network effects from the grassroots for an education-based nonprofit.
Niine, is a menstrual hygiene nonprofit that aims to bridge the gap between the 18% of Indian women using sanitary pads and the remaining 82%. Niine is affiliated with celebrity influencer, Akshay Kumar, who extended his support to their social media movement, #18to82 (or ‘The Niine Movement’). With a social media following of over 20 million per channel, Akshay Kumar’s promotion of the campaign attracted awareness on a national scale. This collaboration between influencers, nonprofits and audiences not only attracts visibility to the campaign, but also adds credibility to the brand and cause as a whole.
4. Use cross-promotions to expand your audience
Co-marketing with other organizations builds credibility and creates new brand evangelists (people who go the extra mile to connect with your brand).
Toybank, who promote the ‘Right to Play’ for all children, host a monthly cross-promotional gaming event with a popular café (Qtube) in Mumbai. This event is advertised on the social media channels of both organizations and aims to attract Toybank volunteers by demonstrating the benefits and importance of play in a child’s life. Toybank also collaborates with large organizations to cross-promote play sessions, toy collection drives and fundraising.
5. Build a community
The first rule of social media is that everything changes all the time. What won’t change is the community’s desire to network
This quote highlights the importance of communities for nonprofit organizations. Organizations can begin to do this through storytelling strategies to spark interest about their cause with their target audience.
Niine promotes ‘The Niine Movement’ at schools and colleges to educate their audience about menstrual hygiene.They expel stigma by facilitating regular conversations, and engaging their community through talks, radio shows, guest lectures and competitions among business school students. These community building activities give a multichannel dimension to the usual social media strategy, giving the nonprofit more points of contact.
Regardless of which strategy you implement, there are fundamental principles of engagement that should span across any social media content. The iPACE model – Information, Product/Service, Awareness, Convenience and Engagement – acts as a checklist to ensure your content evokes the most interest from your audience.
To illustrate how the iPACE model works, let’s take a look at Beyond the Classroom (BTC) Education, an organization who has leveraged social media to promote tolerance through leadership programs for children in their formative years.
– Information – with uncluttered messaging, users can quickly navigate through BTC’s social media channels and website to get the information they need. – Product/Service – BTC’s social media channels and website clearly highlight the leadership programs and workshops on offer. – Awareness – through regular cross-channel updates, BTC’s target audience (children and adolescents) are able to keep informed on available programs.
– Convenience – BTC makes it convenient for users to register for programs online with appropriate call to actions and unobtrusive reminders to register. – Engagement – BTC constantly engages with their community to build an ongoing connection and reinforce their vision of tolerance.
Social media can be more than just a channel. These 5 strategies help nonprofit organizations manage their social media content effectively to voice and enhance their impact. With effective keyword strategy, user-generated content, cross-promotions and influencer advocacy, you can unlock the potential of social media to maximize your organization’s impact.
* All nonprofits mentioned in this article are past 180 Degrees Consulting clients.
Shruthi Sharma is a Global Business Development Director at 180 Degrees Consulting. She is currently a post graduate student, specializing in marketing at SDA Bocconi Asia Center. She founded the 180DC SDA Bocconi Asia branch, while also serving as Marketing Director. She works in the healthcare sector and has been involved with multiple nonprofits including Make a Difference, Toybank, and Toastmasters International.
Social media is one of the most powerful and rewarding tools for non-profit organizations of any size. When used well, social media is a great way to empathize with your audience and generate brand awareness. With an overload of social media posts from large organizations with generous social media budgets, it can be difficult to make your message stand out.
Communicating your message visually through infographics, videos, and quotes will make all the difference in capturing your audience’s attention as they skim through their newsfeeds. Creating visual content that is relevant, succinct and aesthetically appealing is the key to engaging with your audience online and increasing your organization’s social media footprint.
When creating material for your social media channels, it is important to remember that the aesthetics come second to the content. Visual content needs to have a clear purpose and a message that is coherent in graphic form so your audience can digest the information and know what to do next.
Typography, color and visual hierarchy are a few basic design principles that can transform your social media posts from forgettable text into captivating material.
1. Typography
An effective use of typography is one of the most important design principles to consider when creating graphics.
Use simple fonts
It is easy to get carried away with fonts that you may like, but ultimately can be difficult to read.
Use good contrast
When playing around with your type, be conscious of the font color and how it contrasts against your background so you ensure anyone can easily read your message. This can become especially difficult when working with a background image. In that case, a call-out box often works to make text stand out regardless of the background.
Be concise
According to Facebook, audiences spend an average of 1.7 seconds digesting each post in their newsfeed via mobile devices. So, to have the greatest impact ensure your text is clear and concise.
Pro-tip: You should not be using more than 2 fonts per graphic!
2. Color
Color is an underestimated design element that can actually alter the way your graphic and overall brand is perceived. A standard color palette not only creates consistency across your organization’s marketing but can also help your audience identify your brand at a glance –just think about Coca Cola’s famous red and white brand association.
Color can also be strategically used to generate an emotional response from your audience. Humans have emotional associations with certain colors which can be used to evoke compassion and support for your message.
Common color associations:
Red = Passion, excitement, bold, power
Green = Growth, health
Blue = Calmness, trustworthiness, strength
Yellow = Happiness, optimism, warmth
Pro-tip: More than 5 colors on a graphic is too much! Limit your color palette and choose one or two accent colors to really get your message across.
3. Visual Hierarchy
Ordering the information within your graphic based on the importance will help your audience digest the content quickly and easily. Using visual hierarchy, you can instantly get your key messages out to your audience by drawing their attention to the most important part of the graphic.
Manipulate font, color and alignment to direct the attention of your audience to the most important elements of the graphic. Generally, the bigger the element, the more importance you are placing on that element.
Pro-tip: Use an accent color that stands out in tandem with a larger/bolder font to make the key part of your message stand out.
By implementing these straightforward design principles, you can create simple yet powerful social media posts that will intrigue and engage your audience. Better yet, you don’t need to spend hundreds on professional graphic design software. There are many affordable tools available online that provide access to great design resources including free customizable fit-for-purpose templates so anyone can produce professional quality social media graphics.
As Design Director for 180 Degrees Consulting, Maysa Wozeer leads the organization’s global design and digital brand strategy. With a degree in Design Computing from the University of Sydney, Australia, Maysa is passionate about transforming ideas into digital, visual assets through graphic and user experience design, using her expertise to innovatively foster social impact in the not-for-profit sector.
As much as we hope that success naturally follows a great cause or idea, this is too often not the reality. This is a common circumstance we see with organisations in the nonprofit sector. Although nonprofits exist for worthwhile causes and are more than capable of creating impact, they can also be held back by a lack of strategy to grow and develop their organisation to its full potential.
In order to grow an organisation in any sector, it is fundamental to have a growth strategy that is suited to your organisation, your resources and desired outcome.
1. Your Organization
In developing your growth strategy, it is essential to take into consideration the culture and nature of your organisation. If the mechanics of your growth strategy are not aligned with the needs, strengths and working methods of your people, you will inevitably reduce the results you are able to achieve.
2. Your Resource
An effective growth strategy should be based on the concept of leverage, using the resources you already have to achieve or create something that you wish to have. This requires you to evaluate what assets you have access to; this can include your workforce, networks, finances, time and market positioning. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it provides a starting point for evaluating the areas of strength and weakness in your resources and by doing so, enables you to tailor a growth strategy that makes the most of what you have.
3. Your Outcome
In order to achieve your desired outcome, you need to have a clear idea of what it is and how you intend to get there. For that reason, it is important to not simply partake in numerous and varied strategies for ‘increasing general market awareness’, but rather, focus your efforts on the specific type of attention and support you are seeking to achieve. By aligning your efforts with your outcome, you are not only more likely to achieve it, but you are also ensuring that your efforts do not go to waste or fall by the wayside.
These considerations can act as highly effective building blocks for the development of your growth strategy. Once you have taken the time to understand these variables, you can then start to establish a nuanced approach that is suited to your specific organisation and circumstances that deliver far greater returns than a generalist approach.
As a Director of Business Development for 180 Degrees Consulting, Taylor Hawkins works to support the financial sustainability of the organisation through both outbound lead generation and revenue driven project development. With a background in Law and Communications, as well running several of her own businesses, Taylor is highly engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and how bringing creative insights into the not-for-profit sector can accelerate social impact.
180 Degrees Consulting, the world’s largest university-based consultancy for non-profit organisations, has reached 100 consulting branches in universities across 32 countries worldwide. This represents a major milestone in the 10-year history of the organisation.
180 Degrees Consulting provides socially conscious organisations with very high quality, extremely affordable consulting services. It was founded in September 2007 on the premise that there are non-profits in need of thoughtful advice, and talented students who want to make a meaningful difference. Currently all 100 branches consist of 1,400+ active consultants who have helped over 2,500 charities worldwide through over 2.8 million hours of consulting services.
A message from our Founder, Nat Ware
“For the past decade, 180 Degrees has led the way in enabling talented individuals to donate with their minds not just their money. We have grown from an untested concept into a proven social franchise model, from a crazy idea into a global movement, from transforming a single organization to transforming thousands of worthwhile organizations, from an unknown entity to a globally recognised brand synonymous with social impact, and from a solitary branch to 100 branches worldwide.
100 branches is an exciting and significant milestone. It’s a time to pause, to be thankful of the past, and to dream for the future.
I’m especially grateful for the hard and selfless work of our incredible volunteer consultants and branch executives. As a result of their work, millions have greater dignity, have more opportunities, breathe easier, are less stressed, have food on the table, have greater equality, face less discrimination, are in better health, and are more empowered. Everyone who has contributed to 180 Degrees should be incredibly proud of the social impact that we have created together.
However, 100 branches is just the beginning. We will continue to rapidly grow our university-based branch network so as to help even more people in need. We’re also going to be expanding over the next few years beyond universities and launching new initiatives so that talented individuals can donate with their minds in other ways. We’re in the business of doing good in smarter and better ways.
If you’ve been a part of this journey so far, thank you. If you haven’t yet, please join us. There are problems to be solved, organizations to improve, and lives to be transformed for the better.”
About 180 Degrees Consulting:
180 Degrees Consulting is a university – based consulting organisation that helps non-profit organisations run effective, measurable social impact programs, improve their financial sustainability, operate efficiently, be more data-driven in their decision-making, expand to new geographical areas, develop a workable business plan etc. To learn more, visit180DC website, or follow onTwitter orFacebook.
Working tirelessly to change the world is the lifeblood for non-profit organisations. This mission-driven way of life often attracts the most socially conscious individuals, and it is only the most motivated and headstrong of these people that can start and lead world changing organisations.
While dreaming of a better world is not an uncommon trait, the combination of desire and drive for positive social impact is scarce to say the least – as not all ‘Dreamers’ are ‘Doers’.
So when hiring volunteers, the uncomfortable question we must ask is – are dreamers really the best people for the job?
The answer, unfortunately, is no.
Everytime a growing organisation brings on a new volunteer, you invest precious time to induct and train them to join your team, which is why volunteer attrition can be a huge cost.
So, when bringing on extra hands to lighten the load, organisations must be careful to not mistake enthusiasm and empathy for someone genuinely suited to the role and its demands.
Whichever phase of the scaling process you are in, here are some pointers to ensure that your volunteers have both the attitude and the ability to add value to your organisation…
1. Resilience
If changing the world was easy, we would already be living in Utopia. With this reality in mind, if your intention is to push for social change, you need to be resilient and borderline relentless. You can’t shy away from difficult situations and you must be willing to work tirelessly for your cause. So, be sure to bring on people who want to fight for your cause, not just celebrate it.
2. Execution
Dreaming of ideas and ways to change the world is a wildly creative and exhilarating way to spend your brain power. The process becomes significantly less glamorous when it comes to working out how to execute on these ideas. Particularly in the not-for-profit sector, these processes can be arduous and thankless for lengthy stretches of time. Be sure that the people you are bringing onboard are not just in love with the ideas, but also the execution of them.
3. Realism
When bringing someone into your team, you invest in them and, of course, intend for them to develop an ongoing relationship with your cause and organisation. Because of this, finding volunteers who are realistic in their objectives and how much they can commit, ensures that you recruit individuals who are invested in your organisation as more than just a passing interest.
Without these established and realistic expectations, you risk having to put important work aside once again in order to replace them.
Finding and keeping your ideal team can be a constant battle as you grow, but by making sure that you pick the right people to invest in from the beginning you can reduce the cost on both your time and wallet.
As a Director of Business Development for 180 Degrees Consulting, Taylor Hawkins works to support the financial sustainability of the organisation through both outbound lead generation and revenue driven project development. With a background in Law and Communications, as well running several of her own businesses, Taylor is highly engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and how bringing creative insights into the not-for-profit sector can accelerate social impact.
There is no shortage of world problems to solve – and no shortage of nonprofits, big and small, trying to solve them.
For every powerhouse global nonprofit, there are thousands of grassroots organizations trying to expand. But not all nonprofits need to have mass scale to make a lasting impact, and for those that do, there is no one golden path to becoming a large-scale organization.
Despite good intentions, promising non-profits and social enterprises can chase growth too fast and too early. So how do you know when your organization is ready? And once you’re ready, how do you scale your impact sustainably?
*Size of nonprofits refers to expenses (not revenue) Source: GuideStar, Overall Sector Composition of US Nonprofit Organizations (2017) n= 208,064
Build your foundation
To lay your foundation for growth, begin by defining a strong mission with your destination in mind. Your mission must be a clear and powerful call to action – especially to those carrying it out. But that doesn’t mean having a meticulously written mission statement. Instead, it is about knowing what you want to achieve, setting milestones, testing the waters, and mobilizing your resources to make it happen.
Consider whether your expansion will take a “go upstream” or “expand the picture” approach – that is, whether your growth with pursue the root causes of the social problem you want to solve, or address all aspects of the problem.
Following the model set by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, growth often requires “disciplined design” informed by practice, research and iteration.
“Disciplined design requires research and evidence, but it also welcomes new ideas and unintended consequences. It allows for messiness, iteration, and deep inquiry into what exactly works and why.”
While the strength of your mission is important, expanding your impact also depends on your human resources, experience, cost model, financial stability and appetite for the risk involved. The best way to assess your readiness is by piloting to scale. Use a test case to gain insight into your strengths, weaknesses and the overall feasibility of your organisation at scale – and leverage your findings to develop an expansion plan iteratively.
Know your growth strategy
There are three general trends by which a non-profit can grow:
Source: Is Your Nonprofit Ready to Grow? Bruce Holley and Wendy Woods, Boston Consulting Group. July 2016
1) Steady-state growth – following a constant rate of growth each year
Steady-state expansion is the typical experience for small to medium-size nonprofits. With a slower but predictable growth rate, you’re able to set realistic targets, budget effectively, and accommodate for operational challenges as and when they arise. The benefit of this is safety and time to adjust. The drawback is – it may take longer to achieve the impact that you want and, following a bad year, it can be difficult to recover.
2) Ramping-up growth – slow growth at the outset of the expansion plan, with significant increase over time
Ramping-up growth allows for flexibility. As your organization grows, so do your costs and strains on resources. But there are also unknowns – gaps in capabilities and processes that only come to light in your pilot. The ramping-up strategy gives you time to consider your options and build capacity with a long term view in mind, before the force of rapid growth kicks in.
3) Accelerating-growth – strong growth in the short term, increasing thereafter
Accelerating-growth is about taking advantage of a window of opportunity, but this can be tough to execute if your organization is not prepared for a pivot or acceleration in strategy (for example, seeking a partnership that can help your organization without first considering what value you offer them). These windows of opportunity don’t last forever, so when they do arise, it’s essential to have done the legwork and placed your organization in a strong position to act quickly.
Leverage strategic partnerships
Working with like-minded or complementary organizations can increase your nonprofit’s scale of impact exponentially – provided you have aligned goals and expectations.
Similar nonprofits are the most logical alliance that support growth through an exchange of knowledge, skills, capital and even fundraising sources. By leveraging partnerships, your organization can seek out broader geographic impact and tap into resources to help you carry out your mission more effectively.
Nonprofits can also partner with for-profit corporations or social enterprises that see the wellbeing of the community and environment as fundamental to their long-term profitability. This collaboration can lead to funding opportunities or access to strategic support such as brand awareness or consulting services.
For example, 180 Degrees partners with market-leading consulting firms to provide training programs for our Consultants. This enables our branches to offer a professional quality of service to nonprofits and social enterprises without the price tag of a corporate management consulting firm. In exchange, these consulting firms gain brand and reputational benefits, as well as access to our network of high-achieving, socially minded graduates.
Regardless of planning or partnerships, managing a nonprofit effectively is not an easy task. Growing it sustainably is even harder. Not only do nonprofits need people with incredible ambition and patience, but you also need a dose of good luck and good timing. What you can control is the readiness of your organization to seize opportunities and achieve a lasting impact at scale.
Contact us to learn more about how 180 Degrees Consulting can help your organisation grow sustainably.
Sources:
From Small to Scale: Three Trade-offs for Smaller Nonprofits Trying to Get Big. Peter Kim, Suzanne Tollerud and Gail Perreault, Nonprofit Quarterly (May, 2018).
Can Nonprofits Scale to Solve Community Problems?. Charley Ansbach, Comstock’s (April, 2018).
5 Ways Nonprofits Struggle (and how to overcome them). Fast Company (March, 2018).
Strategies to Scale Up Social Programs: Pathways, Partnerships and Fidelity. Sam Larson, James W. Dearing & Thomas E. Backer (September, 2017)
What Does the Nonprofit Sector Really Look Like?. Kerstin Frailey,Guidestar (June, 2017).
Is Your Nonprofit Ready to Grow?. Bruce Holley and Wendy Woods, Boston Consulting Group (July, 2016).
Three Things Every Growing Nonprofit Needs to Scale. Kathleen Kelly Janus & Valerie Threlfall, Stanford Innovation Review (November, 2016).
Four Approaches to Nonprofit Sustainability. Rachel Light & Ariel Zwang, Stanford Innovation Review (September, 2016).
Scale and Sustainability – What’s a Funder to Do? Carina Wong, Nonprofit Quarterly (December, 2015).
Challenges and Considerations in Scaling Nonprofit Organizations. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, Education Grantee Convening (2009).
You never get a second chance at a first impression. Think back to the last presentation you heard – do you tend to remember your first and final impression more than the rest? Most people do.
That is why it is important to deliver a powerful opening and conclusion with confidence. To grab your audience’s attention, start with a hook.
2. The 10-20-30 Rule
Keep in mind Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule. The guide is to avoid more than 10 slides, present for less than 20 minutes, and use a minimum of 30-point font in your deck.
These aren’t hard-and-fast rules, but with these principles, you can get all your important points across using your slides as a visual aid – not an abridged report.
3. Tell a story
Become a good “raconteur” by ensuring your script follows good storytelling conventions: give it a beginning, middle and end; have a clear arc that builds towards a climactic point.
To keep your audience engaged, make sure they appreciate each slide, whilst also being curious about what they will learn next. If the size of your audience is relatively small, allow dialogue while you are presenting. Ask your listeners to pose questions and enable them to become active participants in your ideas.
4. One thought at a time
Think about planning your presentation so that just one new point is displayed at any given moment. Bullet points or icons can be revealed one at a time as you reach them.
Deliver one concise thought to one engaged person by speaking to a different member of the audience every 5-7 seconds. That way you’re not spreading eye contact aimlessly; you’re make connections, talking “to” your audience rather than “at” them.
5. Make sure your slides pass the glance test
Lengthy paragraphs in your report or presentation will kill engagement. Your audience should be able to glance through your content and quickly understand what you want to say.
One way to achieve this is by choosing your words carefully. A few well-chosen words can have a much stronger impact than a long, wordy paragraph. So make sure you keep sentences short and remove unnecessary words to ensure that you convey your message as clearly as possible.
6. The Goldilocks Theory
Keep the presentation simple – avoid the temptation to fill your pages with cheesy effects and focus instead on simple design basics.
Three important ones to remember are: do not use more than 3 fonts, put dark text on a light background, and avoid clutter.
Like the ‘Goldilocks theory’, try to give your audience “just the right” amount of detail. Be careful as too much information might bore them, and not enough of it would discourage action.
7. Using images and icons
Use visuals and images when they add important information or make an abstract point more concrete.
There are two schools of thought about images in presentations: some say they add visual interest and keep audiences engaged; others say images are an unnecessary distraction. The best option is somewhere in the middle – using visuals that add value or understanding to your message.
8. Lead the next steps
Consider your objective. For a pitch, the objective is to sell your idea. For consulting presentation, the objective is to persuade the audience to implement your recommendations.
To prepare, get to know who you are speaking to and what they care about. Are you presenting to a board that will approve your recommendations based on cost vs. benefit? Or a marketing manager who wants to meet their targets with the help of your social media strategy?
Think about what motivates your audience, what your recommendations will achieve, and use your presentation to mobilise your audience towards action.
The 180 Degrees Consulting Global Consulting Awards recognise and reward the highest performing consultants around the world. By celebrating and acknowledging the incredible work that our consultants do, we hope to further encourage the 180 Degrees Consulting community to perform at its best, simultaneously maximizing personal development and client social impact.
We would like to congratulate the following Teams and Consultants who have been selected by their branches for the 2018 Bronze Global Consulting Awards. Stay tuned as additional Branch Winners will be announced from the remaining branches around the world!
If you’re a branch executive, you can nominate your branch winners via Compass by July 31, 2018 to be in the running for the Silver and Gold Awards.
Edward Chiu, Nupur Sampat, Valerie Gomez, Nicole Mar, Jason Wong, Jason Liu, Dillon Hunter
University of Southern California
With Love Market & Café
Joella Peng, Jonathan Stewart, Abigail Leung, Alex Lee, Arham Suleman, Melissa Bohbot, Neel Ram
University of California, Berkeley
Asante Africa Foundation
Aidan Wang, Abirami Murugappan, Karthik Chandra, Alyssa Hiraoka, Maria Ji, Kian Kiasaleh, Nathan Orwig, Caleb Wright, Emeri Zhang
University of California, Berkeley
1951 Coffee Company
Musa Khanmusak, Mudit Mittalmmittal
New York University
Ride Health
Arkin Khosla, Bill Shen, Adele Sukhovas, Adetoun Adeyemia, Ryan Kolarvk
New York University
Venture for America
Ivy Wang, Thalia Lee, Konstantin Lafchis, Shawn An, Jason Kao
University of California, Irvine
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County
Raj Parekh, Karthik Jagadeesan, Veronica Flores, Tej Patel, Jonathan Pham, Christina Kim
More information about the next stages of the Global Consulting Awards:
Projects to be considered for the Global Consulting Awards must be entered on Compass; the submission may be done by either the Team Leader, Project Manager, or a member of the Branch Leadership Team. At the Bronze Level, submissions are judged at the Branch Level. For Silver & Gold Medals, the judging takes place by experienced consultants (McKinsey, Bridgespan, BCG, and Bain), non-profit experts, and 180 Global Leadership Team Members.The award disbursements are held at three levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
GOLD AWARD FOR BEST CONSULTING WORLDWIDE (1 Gold Award)
The winning consultants will receive:
• Significant prize-money
• A personal reference letter from the CEO of 180 Degrees Consulting
• Invitations to special events with high-level sponsors and partners
• An invitation to join the Global Leadership Team of 180 Degrees Consulting
• An official signed award from 180 Degrees Consulting
• Recognition in perpetuity on the main 180 Degrees website
SILVER AWARD FOR BEST CONSULTING IN REGION (3 Silver Awards In Each Region – EMEA, APAC & Americas)
The winning consultants will receive:
• Significant publicity on the 180 Degrees website and on 180 Degrees social media channels
• Invitations to, and nominations for, various high-level conferences and events
• An invitation to join the Global Leadership Team of 180 Degrees Consulting
• An official signed award from 180 Degrees Consulting
• Recognition in perpetuity on the main 180 Degrees website
BRONZE AWARD FOR BEST CONSULTING AT THE BRANCH (Maximum of 2 Bronze Awards Per Branch)
The winning consultants will receive:
• An official certificate of recognition from 180 Degrees Consulting
• Recognition in perpetuity on the main 180 Degrees website
Working in a global organisation like 180 Degrees Consulting, it’s always a special occasion when we have the chance to bring together our volunteers from around the world to work together. Our Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) conference this October was one of those occasions, and I think everyone in attendance can agree that it was certainly special.
Of course, the impact that 180 Degrees has goes far beyond simply the projects that we complete, and a second major focus of the conference was encouraging attendees to think about how they can apply the skills they’ve gained from 180 Degrees to help create impact as they continue in their careers. On Friday night our Social Impact in Consulting panel had a fantastic turnout, with Simon Lancaster from Nous Group, Stuart Jefford from PwC, Scott Martin from Deloitte, Matt Baungartner from BCG, Jessie Coates from EY, and Kritarth Saurabh from Accenture there to offer fantastic insight on their experiences of their consulting careers to all our attendees.
We followed this up the next day with a brilliant presentation on social impact consulting from Aly-Khan Jamal, a partner at Dalberg Global Advisors, as well as a panel discussion on Social Entrepreneurship, featuring four fantastic panelists who had founded or were working for social enterprises in the UK or overseas. Many thanks to Megan Karlshøj-Pedersen from The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network, Veronique Cowan from Aspyre Africa, Stephanie Hamilton from The Brilliant Club, and Katherine Davies from Iguacu for their participation on the panel, as well as for their lively conversations with attendees over lunch afterwards. Indeed, every single member of both panel discussions has sent me an email to say that the 180 Degrees audience was the best they’ve ever had the chance to speak to!
Of course, no matter how much work was put into preparing all the scheduled sessions, the highlight of the conference was always going to be the chance to have more than fifty of our members from around the region, all in the same room. There’s an amazing energy that seems to surround 180 Degrees people, and in many ways all that needs to be done is put a few of them in the same place and the ideas start to flow. While we’d scheduled presentations from Sara Catani and Fleur de Braaf, the presidents of our award-winning branches at Bocconi University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, we hadn’t scheduled the dozens of impromptu planning sessions and working groups that broke out at lunch, or at the pub at the end of the day, or frankly any time our attendees got a spare minute. It’s this kind of electric atmosphere that makes 180 Degrees such an amazing place to work, and that makes events like these so rewarding.
So once again, an enormous thank you to every one of our presenters, to Ebony Mather for organising the entire event, to OC&C Strategy Consultants for providing the amazing conference venue, and last but not least to every single person who attended and made the conference such a success. I’m looking forward to seeing you all at next year’s conference!
Andrew Kirk
Deputy Chief Operations Officer
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