I’ve been a volunteer Board Member of the Halton Learning Disabilities Association for many years. It’s an organization filled with good people and good work, but is always struggling financially to survive. Its mandate is to provide help and guidance to kids and families dealing with learning disabilities, and over many years, the organization has been a source of hope and information to countless families in the Halton region.
So, with a long and successful track record and many happy “customers” why does the organization still have financial survival concerns? It certainly isn’t alone in its fiscal uncertainty, hundreds of similar smaller organizations are always on the brink, so what can be done to keep these worthwhile community service organizations alive?
Our Executive Director initiated a Twitter and Facebook site for our organization this past summer, hoping to bring some awareness to a fund-raising ”read-a-thon” that the organization sponsored in October. While both sites seemed to be working pretty well, gaining followers and providing lots of good information, the level of participation in the actual event was much lower than hoped. We are aware that these are not good economic times for most people, so participation in our fundraising efforts may be lower than ever before, but, still some organizations thrive while others struggle or disappear.
So what to do? I think we really need to focus and adapt – relying on some old- style fund-raising events, dinners, draws, road races and walkathons – backed up and supported by an active social media/website platform – kind of something for everybody approach. I also think we should probably partner more with similar organizations for our mutual benefit – a hard sell to individual organizations that want to focus on their specific interest areas and target audiences. So what would you do? If you were a small non-profit, how would you survive? Vote in the Survival of the most adaptable poll and/or comment with your thoughts!!
There goes my daughter floating over the skies of New Zealand, fortunately, tethered to an experienced sky diving partner. She laughs when I express misgivings about the merits of jumping out of a plane; ” it was great ” she said.