6 Steps to Making a Bigger Splash
You, yeah you!
Everyone is involved in non profit work, however, some are more focused on changing the world with their involvement than others. Read on and figure out how you can make a lasting impact in that which you focus your charitable giving and involvement.
We all give money to charities and we all volunteer doing charity work, some just have more to show for their giving and time than most. You may not have even realized you had even been involved charitably. Let’s face it, whether the most you’ve done is give someone holding a sign a dollar, let all your friends know about a benefit walk-a-thon or volunteered some time to help a friend, we have all been involved in charity work. The fact is, unless you live under a rock you are going to be involved in charity work again one day. Wouldn’t it be great if you focused your involvement in a way that had a measurable impact?
Many people get to the end of a year and receive a few statements from charitable organizations that show a few dollars here or there that they contributed charitably and can count on their taxes. However, to most it seemed like we gave money and time in more ways to make a difference in the charitable arena, didn’t it? There are a couple easy ways to start focusing your efforts this year on making a bigger and more meaningful impact on the charitable things you do, while knowing exactly what you did and the significance of that impact. I will show you 6 simple steps you can take to make the most of your charitable efforts.
Stop Shrugging Your Shoulders and Make a Difference
1. Focus Your Non Profit Activity
While being involved in random charitable activities is good, focusing your nonprofit activities and giving to one or two causes helps you make a larger and more memorable impact. Being focused on a few charities can help you keep focused and plan out your year and involvement. Likewise, the charities that you focus on can better count on you for your involvement making it easier for them to plan budgets and events knowing they can count on you for your contribution and volunteerism. Focused involvement can also help you get excited about the significant difference you are making in the world by your charitable activity. There are some easy steps to help you discover what you might like to be involved in and then how to focus your efforts on those charitable causes.
Steps to Better Focus Your Non Profit Involvement
- Take a week and decide what you are passionate about being involved in.
- Narrow your passions down to a couple that you would be excited about pursuing this year.
- Do a google search, ask friends or contact us to find charities that you could make an impact in around your passions.
- Look at your budget and decide what you would like to designate financially to making an impact this year.
- Look at your schedule and figure out how many weekends or evenings you could devote to helping those charities.
- Contact the charities and let them know of your desires and availability to help.
- Stay focused and make your giving and volunteering a priority by putting it on your calendar and following through.
2. Streamline your Giving
Many times, people fail in their commitments to give to charities because they simply forget to write the check. Likewise, many non profits fail to make it easy for donors to make financial gifts by not setting up online giving. Make your giving automatic by setting up reoccurring gifts online either through your bank or the charities online giving. By setting up automatic payments you will be assured that your financial gift is not forgotten and always delivered right on time.
Another way to make your charitable giving more significant is to save up your weekly or monthly contributions and purchase or give toward more tangible needs that the charity has. You could even save up your charitable contributions for several months or the year and give toward something with which you can feel like you made a memorable impact. For example, saving up several months and paying for the entire roof for an orphanage may be a better way for you to see your financial gift at work than giving a few dollars here or there. Plus it is more fun to give to items or projects in which you can look back and see you had more tangible impact. Ask the nonprofit what significant items or goals you can give toward in larger chunks to develop more excitement in your giving.
3. Volunteer Intentionally
Volunteering spontaneously when a charity needs help is great. However, you will be able to account for your impact and make your efforts count more if you intentionally volunteer for specific events during the year or consistent weekends. It will be easier to volunteer and be involved if you can look back at the year and know for example that you volunteered one weekend a month or for two significant events during the year. You will be able to look back at the year and know you had a consistent impact by the events or weekends for which you volunteered.
4. Multiply your giving by getting others involved
Your personal involvement in a charity is a great starting point, however if you had friends, family or even neighbors involved in the work with you, you can have a larger and more fulfilling impact in your efforts. Organizing a simple fund raising dinner at your home, or even a larger event and inviting friends, family and neighbors to attend can be a great way to make a huge impact You will develop stronger relationships and be able to use your influence to impact your charitable projects by simply getting others involved with you. It can be a lot of fun when you have many you know involved in changing the world as a group rather than attempting to stay involved with the efforts by yourself.
Matching gifts are also a way to multiply your contribution’s impact. Let the nonprofit know that you will match other’s gifts up to the amount you can afford, and you will give the nonprofit the motivation to find others that will give, which will double your giving efforts.
Some Ideas that can get others involved:
- A fund raising dinner at your home
- Matching gifts of either equal or double amounts
- Benefit Concert
- Organize a Car Wash
- Walk-a-thons, bike-a-thons, running and swimming events
- Craft Festivals
- Rummage Sales
- Golf Tournaments
- Tennis Events
- Bingo and Casino Nights
- Wine Tasting Parties
- Auctions
Any non profit should jump on the opportunity to let you organize and hold any of the events above.
5. Start Your Own Nonprofit Focus
While it can be very satisfying to give your time and finances to any number of great non profits, nothing is as exciting as custom tailoring your charitable activity directly toward one of your own passions. Many spend time raising funds, giving financially and volunteering their time to a nonprofit that has a great cause. However, they wish they could spend those resources and time on a non profit that matches exactly their passions. Creating and running your own non profit cause and organization is not as hard as it may sound. Imagine making an impact in the charitable arena custom tailored to fit your lifestyle and passions exactly. I know from experience that it is highly satisfying and not at all hard. Everyday at Ocean Grand, we enable and empower individuals to create their own non profit focused on the charitable activities that they are willing to invest their time and resources in and many even employ themselves it its full time work. For more information see http://oceangrand.org/6-steps-to-non-profit-freedom/ for how easy it could be for you to create your own highly focused non profit.
6. Social Networking
Facebook and other social networking sites provide you an easy way to let others know what you are focused on, recruit friends to help, and let them know how they can get involved. By setting up a “cause” or page associated with your social media account, you have an easy way to get those you know involved and contributing to the charitable organizations and activities you are passionate about. If you have a facebook account you can see http://apps.facebook.com/causes/201049 for an example.
Conclusion
Most everyone can make a bigger splash with their charity involvement and charitable giving. Whether you simply focus your giving better or start a non profit to benefit the causes you’re passionate about, we can all do a better job of supporting charitable activities. A non profit could be the beginning of a world wide revolution, a great alternative to a 401K, the answer to a person’s medical bills, or an honorable memorial to a love one that has passed away. There are non profits focused on just about every type of challenge you can think of. The question that remains to be answered is what are you going to do to change the world to be a better place?
Regardless of whether you believe you are involved with charity and nonprofit work, you are in some form or fashion, it may be hard to pinpoint your impact. Why not take a couple minutes, implement a couple of the ideas above and make your impact measurable this year? Believe me that it is a highly satisfying activity to get to the end of a year and be able to quantitate your impact in changing the world to be a better place.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Love the articles. Awesome content! Thanks for the diligent work.