GivingTuesday is seven weeks out. Here’s what still matters.

GivingTuesday falls on December 1 this year. That leaves about seven weeks.

If your team started planning in June, you’re now in the activation stretch: scripts going to the board, copy getting proofed, emails loading into the platform. If you haven’t started, you can still run a good campaign. You just have to be picky about where the hours go, because there aren’t enough of them to do everything on the checklist.

Here’s how I’d spend them.

Lock in the match this week

The best window for securing a matching gift is six to eight weeks before GivingTuesday. In mid-October you’re standing at the back edge of it.

Pick two to four donors who could plausibly fund a match and call them. Don’t email a group of them at once. Frame the request as a leadership gift that multiplies what the rest of your community gives.

Choose one story and stop looking

Your theme should fit in one sentence and answer the question a donor is silently asking: what will my gift make possible?

Then find one person whose experience proves it. A single family, a single student, a single afternoon when something changed. “We served 400 families” is a statistic. Six months in one family’s life is a story, and people remember it.

Seven weeks is enough time to interview someone and write it up. It probably isn’t enough to produce a polished video from scratch. A written testimonial, a few good photos and two paragraphs from the staff member who was there will carry the campaign fine.

have to write anything themselves:

• three to five talking points
• a 30-second phone script
• a short text message and a personal email they can adapt
• a thank-you message for anyone who gives

One more thing to check now. Board members who have already given make better advocates. If your board isn’t at 100% giving, a quiet push before Thanksgiving helps the revenue and the mood in the room.

Write every email before Halloween

Plan on five to seven email touches, starting four to six weeks before the day. For a December 1 campaign, the first one goes out between October 20 and November 3. That’s soon.

GivingTuesday itself needs at least three sends. A morning appeal between 7 and 9 AM. A midday update with real progress toward the goal. An evening message built around the match deadline. Then a thank-you to every donor before midnight. Each one gets its own subject line.

Draft all of them in the next two weeks, proof them once with fresh eyes, and schedule them in your email platform. While you’re at it, open your donation page on your phone and give a test gift. A page that’s annoying on mobile will quietly cost you more than any subject line.

Keep the match, the one story, the board calls and the email sequence. And set up campaign codes on every link and channel before anything goes out, so you can tell later who saw the campaign and didn’t give. Those people are your best year-end prospects.

Walk through the day before Thanksgiving

Sometime in the week of November 16, get the team together for 30 minutes and walk through December 1 hour by hour. Who sends each email. Who posts the progress updates. Who watches the donation page for problems. Who sends the board their Monday reminder on November 30.

Thanksgiving week is short and everyone comes back tired. Anything that isn’t decided by then tends not to happen.

Seven weeks is enough. Five will feel tight. If you do one thing tomorrow morning, make it the call to your best match prospect.

Don’t send your best donors the GivingTuesday email

On GivingTuesday your donors’ inboxes fill up with appeals from every organization they’ve ever supported. Open rates are high that day. Response rates get diluted, because your email is one of thirty saying roughly the same thing.

The organizations that do best year after year add something the inbox can’t compete with: a person they know, calling or texting to ask. A personal message converts at a far higher rate than a broadcast email. And the donors who matter most to your budget are exactly the ones who should never get the broadcast at all.

This year GivingTuesday is December 1, so that outreach belongs in the window from about November 16 to November 24. Try to finish before people leave for Thanksgiving. A conversation in that week has room to be a real conversation. On campaign day it would be one more interruption.

Use the campaign as a reason to be in touch. You’re telling them what’s coming, sharing the story at the center of it, and asking what they think. Whether that turns into a gift, and how big, follows from the relationship. A handwritten note works for donors you can’t reach by phone.

The best version of this conversation happens even earlier. Your strongest major donor relationship is also your best candidate to fund the match. Asking someone to provide the gift that doubles everyone else’s is a very different ask from “please give on Tuesday,” and many major donors like being the reason a campaign works.

Don’t forget lapsed donors

People who last gave two or three years ago are some of your best GivingTuesday prospects. They already believed in the mission enough to give once. Often nobody followed up.

A short personal note from someone who remembers them (“we haven’t talked since the spring event in 2024, and I wanted you to hear about this before Tuesday”) will usually outperform any general appeal sent to the same group. You won’t be able to do this for every lapsed donor. Pick the ones with the strongest past connection and divide them up.

Make it easy for the board to say “yes”

Most board members are willing to help, embrace those that are willing. What stops them is a vague ask and a blank page.

Give each board member a specific list of five to ten people and a date to reach them by. Not a request to “share the campaign on social media.” Names. Track it on a simple sheet with columns for the prospect, who owns the relationship, likely gift range, planned action and status, and check in on it at each meeting between now and December.

Then do the writing for them. A 30-second call script might be as simple as:

Alongside the script, give them a text template, a personal email they can adapt, a few talking points and a thank-you message for anyone who gives. Set the board’s goal as the share of members who make at least one personal contact, and report progress toward it.

If some board members haven’t given yet themselves, ask them first, privately, before Thanksgiving. People who’ve already given make the call with more conviction, and “I just gave, would you join me?” is a hard line to beat.

Track the number of personal contacts made, the board participation rate and the gift rate among people who were called versus people who were only emailed. That comparison usually settles the argument about where to put staff time next year.

Email still has a job on GivingTuesday. It’s how you reach most of your list. But your best donors and your best advocates deserve more than a place in the queue. Start making the call list this week.

The Gift of Time

I missed my grandmother. She lived in Chile, a world away, and I was too young to do much of anything about it, let alone give money. But I realized I had something to offer: my time. So I started volunteering at Baycrest, a home for older adults in Toronto, sitting with residents who were lonely, isolated and feeling helpless. I couldn’t be with my grandmother, but I could be with them. I stayed part of the Baycrest community, sharing my time and whatever expertise I had, until I moved to the United States.

It’s why I give. At its core, I want to lift people up and ease their isolation. I feel a responsibility that comes with being human. I’m always balancing time, trust and treasure. Sometimes a gift is a simple transaction, but usually it’s a relationship.

More of us are giving time

In 2023, more than 75.7 million Americans volunteered through an organization, giving nearly 5 billion hours. That’s 28.3% of Americans age 16 and older, up from 23.2% in 2021. Even more of us help without signing up for anything: driving a friend to chemo, bringing dinner after surgery, checking on the neighbor who lives alone. We don’t always call it philanthropy, but it is.

As the chart shows, informal help is nearly twice as common as formal volunteering, according to AmeriCorps and the U.S. Census Bureau. At the 2025 estimate of $36.14 an hour, all that time is worth a great deal. But volunteer time isn’t free help. It goes further when organizations invest in training, coordination and support, and that investment often depends on donors.

Volunteers also need the right qualifications, supervision and permission for their role. Researchers have documented cases of volunteers abroad doing clinical work they weren’t qualified to do. A good rule: a volunteer shouldn’t do work abroad that she wouldn’t be allowed to do at home.

And especially abroad, the local organization should identify the need and shape the assignment. Useful skills alone don’t make a useful placement.

Finding them

Volunteers rarely find you by accident. The organizations that recruit well market a volunteer role the way they would any other opportunity:

Keeping them

Keeping volunteers can be harder than finding them. In a 2024 survey of almost 800 volunteer managers, 43% said attracting or keeping volunteers was a major challenge. They described no-shows, people who sign up and drift away, and volunteers who finish training but never start.

As donors, we were passionate advocates of volunteering. We looked for ways our colleagues and friends could get to know our grantees. After a while, we began training our grantees to launch volunteer programs of their own. We encouraged each grantee to measure the impact of its volunteers and to ask for their feedback. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful recruiting tools, so we created an anonymous, Glassdoor-style review where volunteers could rate their experience honestly.

At the Dhammajarinee Witthaya School, a school and home for orphaned girls in Thailand, we recruited three kinds of volunteers, and each needed a different setup. Seniors ran the back office, marketing and the school’s global giving platform, often two hours a day, three days a week; some lived nearby and others worked from abroad. Recent college graduates came for a gap year to teach English. Experts came for defined assignments. The gap-year volunteers and experts had their own recruitment campaign, and donors covered their flights and a monthly stipend. Everyone had a weekly check-in, which included planning travel during their time off. Because the school teaches the girls Transcendental Meditation, experts were also expected to keep up their own practice, with regular check-ins from local volunteer teachers.

The girls gained practical, up-to-date skills and heard English every day. Their volunteer meditation teachers reviewed their practice and often added lessons drawn from faith. Each group of volunteers needed a different structure, but all of them needed one.

Good onboarding doesn’t have to be elaborate, and the basics are the same across town or in Thailand:

• Welcome them. Explain the mission, the rules and the people they’ll be working with, especially around children and vulnerable adults.
• Give them a real job. A clear role that draws on their experience. A short skills questionnaire helps find the fit.
• Give them a person. One staff member or experienced volunteer they can call with questions.
• Keep teaching. Training that grows with them gives people a reason to stay.
• Give them time off. Volunteers working abroad need real breaks to avoid burnout.
• Close the loop. Thank them, and show them what their time made possible.

All of this costs money. If you’re a donor, one of the most useful gifts you can make is the unglamorous one: funding a volunteer coordinator, training, screening, transport and the equipment volunteers need.

What volunteers take home

What I learned at Baycrest wasn’t complicated. Companionship matters. Being expected matters, on both sides. And showing up, week after week and year after year, is what turns a visit into a relationship. The organizations that train and support their volunteers make that kind of showing up possible.

Sources

• AmeriCorps 2023 volunteering data.
• Volunteering and Civic Life in America 2023: Headline report, AmeriCorps and U.S. Census Bureau (source for the chart).
• Value of volunteer time jumps to $36.14 per hour, Independent Sector and Do Good Institute, University of Maryland, April 2026.
• Volunteerism statistics for 2024, VolunteerPro, from its 2024 Volunteer Management Progress Report.
• What does the future of volunteering look like?, Johnson Center for Philanthropy, January 2025.
• Employee giving, LinkedIn Social Impact.
• Experience Corps research studies, AARP Foundation.
• Alumni share how Princeton’s Bridge Year program changed them, Princeton University, May 2026.
• The rise of the gap year and ethical international engagement, Stanford Social Innovation Review, May 2016.
• Volunteer FAQ, Health Volunteers Overseas.

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Am I a Humanitarian?

I recently met with a client who told me she didn’t think of herself as a humanitarian. She sponsors scholarships for promising students from poor families, year after year. But she doesn’t give in response to disasters in the news. In fact, she’d rather avoid the news altogether. To her, “humanitarian” meant rushing to the latest crisis, and that wasn’t her.

I understood. For years I never thought of myself as one either. That word was for people in field hospitals and refugee camps. Maybe you feel the same way. You give to your church, you drop groceries at the food bank, you check on the neighbor who lives alone. Is that humanitarian?

I think it is, and so do the world’s great faith traditions. Christianity calls believers to serve “the least of these.” Catholic teaching speaks of a preferential option for the poor. Islam makes zakat a pillar of faith. Judaism calls giving tzedakah, from the word for justice. Buddhist traditions emphasize dana, the practice of generosity. None of them asks whether the need came from a war or a hard winter.

Here’s something most people don’t realize: far fewer of us give overseas than at home. In a March 2025 AP-NORC poll, only 15% of Americans said their household had given to an international aid organization in the past year, compared with 40% who gave to groups helping people in the U.S. with food, shelter or other basic needs. In dollars, about 5% of the $617.2 billion that individuals, foundations, bequests and companies gave to charity in 2025 went to international causes. The large majority went to other causes, from congregations to schools to human services.

Crises happen close to home, too. When Hurricane Helene tore through the Southeast in 2024, the American Red Cross opened shelters for more than 9,000 people. When floods hit Texas Hill Country in July 2025, Team Rubicon volunteers, many of them veterans, showed up to clear out flooded homes. Some crises never look like disasters at all: an older woman choosing between her prescriptions and her groceries, or a young woman trapped by an abusive partner.

Some suffering draws immediate attention: a hurricane, a war, a flood. Other suffering persists largely unseen: the student who can’t afford school, the older woman living alone, the family that runs short of food every month. The hardest part of humanitarian giving is staying with people after the headlines fade, and seeing the needs that never made them.

When the cameras leave

One request that reached our foundation came from a remote health center in Uganda. It was delivering babies at night by kerosene lamp because it had no reliable power. It was an urgent need without a headline. A solar system there can protect mothers and newborns for years.

That’s the kind of help the people left behind need most: the clinic that has to reopen, the water system that has to be rebuilt, the nurse who needs a paycheck so she can afford to stay.

If you want your humanitarian giving to last beyond the crisis, here are a few ways to stretch it:

Back to my client

So, is my client a humanitarian? Yes. Year after year, she makes sure talented students from poor families can stay in school, whether or not their needs ever draw attention. That steady commitment is the kind of planned, lasting help people need most.

I believe that kind of faithfulness is what humanitarian work looks like most of the time: showing up, again and again, for people who are counting on you.

Sources

• Most Americans have donated to those in need within the past year, AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, poll conducted March 20-24, 2025 (topline).
• The Home Depot Foundation commits up to $2 million for Hurricane Helene relief, The Home Depot, 2024.
• Team Rubicon mobilizes volunteers in Hill Country flood response, Texas Standard, July 2025.
• The State of the Humanitarian System 2026: In brief, ALNAP.
• Every $1 invested in disaster mitigation saves $6, Pew.
• Household Food Security in the United States in 2024, USDA Economic Research Service.
• Poverty in the United States: 2024, U.S. Census Bureau.
• To increase charitable donations, appeal to the heart, not the head, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2007.
• Giving USA: Charitable giving rose to $617.20 billion in 2025, Giving USA, June 2026.

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• Embedded: the business is the program.
• Integrated: the business and the program share people, space or expertise.
• External: the business is separate, and its profits support the mission.

Integrated models depend on two habits. The first is honest cost allocation: when staff, utilities and maintenance are shared, a clear method shows what the business actually contributes. The second is a written access rule that keeps room for the community the asset was built for. Paying customers are welcome, and the rule helps the calendar reflect both purposes.

When the business supports the mission from outside

An external business earns money that the mission then spends: a shop selling general merchandise, a café serving the public or a nonprofit-owned company that sends dividends home. An external business needs to make a reliable profit after covering its costs, without placing the nonprofit’s programs or finances under strain. Purpose, not product, decides the model: a café run to raise funds is external, while a café that trains or employs program participants could be embedded.

In Uganda, directly and through the East Africa Fund, we supported a grain mill at EDAPO, a school serving children orphaned by AIDS. It became the school’s first income-generating activity, and its earnings help cover school operations such as teachers’ salaries.

External models benefit from a leader with business experience, separate books and a clear agreement about how profits reach the program. Structure matters here. In the United States, a regularly conducted business that is not substantially related to an organization’s exempt purpose may generate taxable income, subject to exceptions. A business that grows large may eventually belong in a separate for-profit subsidiary, so involve counsel early.

Measures that hold both results together. In our grantmaking, we asked leaders to choose the qualitative and quantitative measures they found most meaningful, then reviewed them together and adjusted. For earned revenue, that meant looking at financial and mission results side by side: enrollment alongside graduation, bookings alongside who was reached.

A deliberate choice

The relationship between business and mission isn’t fixed. An organization might charge for a course, rent its hall on weekends and someday spin off a company. Each choice will still call for judgment and adjustment along the way. Choose the relationship deliberately, then plan the money, staffing and access to match. Know what the business contributes to the mission, and what the mission requires from the business.

Disclosure: Through the Rona and Jeffrey Abramson Foundation and the Eric Schwartz Family Foundation, which I led, we supported the organizations described here, including EDAPO partly through the East Africa Fund.

Sources

• Kim Alter, Social Enterprise Typology, Virtue Ventures, revised 2007.
• IRS, Unrelated business income tax.
• Foundation Source, “Multiply the Impact of Year-End Giving by Leveraging Recoverable Grants”.
• Building Bridges Across the River, THEARC venues.
• Building Bridges Across the River, 2025 Annual Report.
• Inside Philanthropy, “What’s Next for the David Lynch Foundation? A Q&A with CEO Bob Roth”.

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Have you ever wanted to join a group but wondered whether you would fit in? You might be excited about meeting people who share your interests, yet unsure how to enter the conversation. Perhaps you want advice you cannot comfortably ask for at work, or somewhere to go where people understand what matters to you.

Those hopes sit behind many decisions to join. If you lead a nonprofit or serve on its board, they are worth understanding before you design a membership offer.

Membership can start from either direction. Sometimes belonging comes first. You volunteer or attend an open gathering, get to know people, and later sign up for a paid workshop or membership. Other times, the transaction comes first. You pay for access to something useful, and the relationships you develop give you reasons to stay.

In my professional memberships, I’m drawn to people with similar interests and ideas that open possibilities I haven’t considered. The connections and useful feedback keep me coming back. Your members will have their own reasons. Understanding what draws them in is the beginning; understanding what makes them stay helps you build a community that can grow.

Give people a reason to return

People want to feel that someone notices them and welcomes their contribution. For some, your mission provides that first connection. They care about the issue and want to know that their opinions matter.

Others come for a particular benefit. An expert might help them understand a problem. A confidential peer group might give them somewhere to discuss a difficult decision. You need to provide what attracted them, then give them opportunities to become part of the conversation.

A community discussion gives people room to share what they know and hear another perspective. Time to talk after a workshop lets them connect the learning to their own lives. A comfortable place to sit encourages them to stay.

When people can help shape what happens next, they have another reason to return. Someone who contributes to a project wants to see how it develops. Someone who meets a person with relevant experience may discover they have someone to call between gatherings. The value begins to extend beyond what is on the calendar.

A membership fee can purchase access. Belonging develops through experience.

Let members extend the invitation

Eventually, membership can become something people would miss. They have friends to see, conversations to continue, and a contribution they want to make. That deeper connection is what I mean by a sticky membership.

It can also change how new people find you. A current member invites a colleague or brings a friend, giving that person someone to arrive with and a reason to feel comfortable. Word of mouth carries a personal recommendation: someone they trust believes this is worth their time.

Those relationships have financial implications. Renewals can provide more predictable income. Returning participants may buy additional workshops or event tickets. Member invitations may reduce recruitment costs.

These are possibilities to test, rather than income to assume. An invitation brings a new person in; you still need to give them their own reason to return.

Make membership help keep the lights on

When people keep coming back, you want to give that community a future. For a CEO or board member, that means understanding how it will serve the mission and pay the bills.

It helps to separate why someone joins from why someone pays. A member may want friendship or advice. An employer may pay because the learning helps its staff. A sponsor may value reaching a relevant audience and supporting work that matters locally. A donor may fund access for someone who cannot afford it.

Each needs a clear offer. Sponsors should understand the recognition and opportunities to connect they receive. Members need confidence that sponsorship adds to their community. Confidential discussions must remain confidential.

You might combine free membership with paid workshops and sponsorship, or offer flexible fees supported by donations. Whatever the mix, you need to understand the cost of supporting each member, including a share of overhead, and what income remains afterward. More members can mean more work before they mean more income.

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, help you judge whether growth is strengthening the organization. Compare first-year renewal rates with those of established members. Track how many newcomers arrive through member invitations and whether they stay. In a free model, repeat attendance and paid workshop participation may tell you more than enrollment alone.

The financial review needs to sit alongside those measures. Are renewals and repeat purchases covering the cost of the benefits? Is sponsorship dependable enough to support the commitments you are making? Your plan needs to account for funding or participation falling short.

Then talk to members and staff. Their answers help explain whether the relationships are deepening and whether your team can sustain the work. Together with the financial results, that gives you a basis for deciding what to grow and what needs to change.

An invitation brings someone through the door…. Belonging gives them a reason to stay.

Further reading

• Ray Oldenburg. The Great Good Place. Paragon House, 1989.
• Natalye B. Tate. “Museums as Third Places or What? Accessing the Social Without Reservations.” Museums & Social Issues, 7(2), 2012, pp. 269–283.
• “Dr. Maya Angelou’s 90th Birthday.” Caged Bird Legacy, April 4, 2018. The quotation appears there under Angelou’s name; its attribution is disputed.

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I spent a lot of time watching nonprofits chase grants. Sooner or later, the same question comes up: could earned revenue make us steadier?

It can. But only when you know the promise people will choose you for. What do they get by choosing you? That question gives a revenue idea a purpose beyond bringing in money.

A well-run class, membership, or rental program can broaden your funding and help sustain services people value. If you lead a nonprofit or serve on its board, that is an opportunity worth exploring. You need to understand what people value and what it costs to provide it well.

That is how people contribute to a stronger model: they help shape an offer that fits a real need. Their feedback can also show you when to change course. Someone saying they love the idea is encouraging. Someone booking, paying, and returning gives you stronger evidence of demand.

You also need to understand the alternatives. An evening arts program competes with dinner out, streaming, and staying home. Professional training competes with online courses or something an employer already provides. Your mission matters, but people still weigh your offer against other uses of their time and money.
Sometimes your advantage is distinctive expertise. Sometimes it is a convenient schedule or a welcome that makes participation easier. A lower price can help, provided you know how you will sustain quality. Easier booking matters too: people cannot experience a wonderful program if registering becomes a struggle.

The person paying may be different from the person participating. An employer buying training wants to understand its value to the workforce. Employees need an experience worth their time. A donor funding access has another set of expectations. Your offer needs to make sense to each.

Before expanding, I would look at whether enough people choose the offer, what it costs to serve them well, and whom the price leaves out. Those answers become the foundation of the business plan. Early results give your team something to learn from, including the ideas that need to be changed or stopped.

The art is recognizing what people value. The science is finding out whether you can provide it sustainably. If arriving alone is what keeps a young adult away, a cheaper ticket leaves the barrier untouched.

Before investing in the solution, know the promise people will choose you for, and whether you can keep it.

Sources

• Urban Institute. How Government Funding Disruptions Affected Nonprofits in Early 2025. October 2025. Report.
• Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School. Strategic Positioning.
• Maharishi Foundation USA. The TM course fee.

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How often have you walked into a full room and thought, “Wow, they must be making money”?

Every seat is taken. Conversations fill the room. From the doorway, the event looks like a success. What you cannot see are the staff hours, the spreadsheet, or the bills still waiting to be paid. Behind the scenes, staff may be wondering how they will make ends meet.

The room is full. So why isn’t the money enough?

A full room can hide a weak business model.

In earlier article I asked why people would choose your organization. Now comes the question your business plan needs to answer: what will it take to keep the promise that brought them in, and how will you pay for it?

The clearest example I know from the inside is the Girl Scout Cookie Program at Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital, where I serve on the board. The customer gets cookies. Volunteers leading the troops teach and encourage girls as they learn to set goals, manage money, and speak with customers. Proceeds support the council and its troops.

If we assessed the program only by the cookies sold and the money raised, we would miss a central part of its purpose. The girls’ learning is part of the promise. That is what makes it a business built around the mission.

Your own program deserves the same clarity. What does the customer receive? What does the organization accomplish? And what will tell you that both promises are being kept?

Consider a couple looking at your venue for their wedding. They are imagining the ceremony, the reception, the flowers on the tables. They are also doing the math. Can their budget cover the celebration they have in mind?

They are buying the space, but they are also buying confidence, connections, and help bringing the day together.

They expect something of a concierge experience. Can the ceremony and reception happen in different rooms? Are tables and cutlery included? Who can recommend a florist within their budget? Someone needs to answer those questions, explain the options, and help them make decisions.

Before you price the rental, you need to know how much of that help you are promising. Which services are included in the fee? Which will the couple arrange and pay for separately? Clear boundaries give the couple confidence and staff a manageable job.

An empty room starts to look less like effortless income once you account for that work. There are inquiries to answer, supplier relationships to maintain, rooms to prepare, and cleaning and maintenance to pay for. A Saturday wedding may also mean moving a mission program elsewhere.

Those demands belong in the business plan before the calendar fills.

Quality must be budgeted.

Ask staff how they experienced the extra work. Did they have the right talent, time, and support? Which adjustments improved the offering? Bring in feedback from other stakeholders and the people analyzing the costs and results. Examine the measures themselves, too. Did you choose the right KPIs, or did something important go unmeasured?

By then, people may already be invested in keeping the project alive. You may have helped launch it. You may have put your credibility behind it. Recommending that it stop takes courage.

The review should help you decide whether changes can make it work. But if it cannot meet its financial objectives, provide a worthwhile participant experience, and give staff work they can sustain, you need to be confident enough to recommend stopping. Another revenue-generating option may deserve those resources. What you learned can make the next decision stronger.

The next time you walk into a full room, look beyond the crowd. A sustainable model gives the organization the resources to keep its promise and gives its staff the support to do it well.

Sources

• Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital, “About the Cookie Program.”
• Girl Scouts of the USA, “How to Buy Cookies.”

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How affinity donors move beyond writing checks to become catalytic partners who build lasting organizational capacity

Bottom Line Up Front

We all have a cause that stirs our hearts and compels us to roll up our sleeves. The most transformative philanthropy happens when affinity donors move beyond writing checks to become catalytic partners who build lasting organizational capacity through strategic combinations of funding, talent engagement, and hands-on involvement.

The Personal Nature of Philanthropic Passion

Every person carries within them a cause that resonates deeply—whether it’s educational equity sparked by their own struggles in school, environmental conservation inspired by childhood memories in nature, or economic mobility driven by witnessing family hardship. This personal connection, what we call “affinity investment,” represents the most powerful starting point for transformative philanthropy.

Key Insight: Nearly half of entrepreneurs consider themselves philanthropists, compared with less than a third of non-entrepreneurs. Six in 10 see giving as important relative to other financial priorities, compared with nearly half of non-entrepreneurs. This heightened engagement stems from a fundamental truth: when we give to causes we deeply understand and care about, we bring not just our wallets but our full selves to the work.

From Charity to Catalytic Impact

Traditional philanthropy operates on a transactional model—donor gives money, organization delivers services. But catalytic philanthropy is an approach practiced by innovative funders to create transformative change beyond writing the check, as defined by FSG’s groundbreaking work. Catalytic philanthropy offers an approach in which donors take a structured, active role in addressing some of the world’s biggest challenges. Funders can become the key to establishing impact by shifting the responsibility from nonprofits to themselves.

This evolution reflects a broader shift in the sector. SSIR has encouraged philanthropists to think more like investors, focusing on returns in terms of social impact. This shift requires a more analytical approach, with careful consideration of metrics and outcomes.

The Capacity Building Imperative

Organizations working on the frontlines of social change face a persistent challenge: they excel at delivering programs but often lack the infrastructure to scale their impact. This is where affinity donors can make their greatest contribution—by building the underlying capacity that enables organizations to multiply their effectiveness.

Capacity building encompasses several critical dimensions:

Technology and Digital Capacity
In our increasingly digital world, organizations need technological infrastructure to operate efficiently and reach beneficiaries effectively. Philanthropy can prioritize grants for under-resourced organizations to implement AI solutions that address their specific challenges. This includes not just purchasing tools but also covering costs for training, maintenance, and capacity building.

Network and Partnership Development
Helping organizations build strategic relationships with other nonprofits, government agencies, and private sector partners to amplify their impact.

The Digital Literacy and AI Revolution

The integration of digital literacy and artificial intelligence into philanthropic strategy represents a transformative opportunity for capacity building. AI-powered analytics can help grantmakers make more data-driven, equitable funding decisions. From identifying funding gaps to predicting social impact, AI offers new ways to optimize resource allocation.

For affinity donors, this means several practical opportunities:

1. AI-Enhanced Decision Making
Use technology to better understand community needs, track program effectiveness, and identify the most promising intervention points. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, generative AI can learn from past data to identify patterns, trends, and characteristics that are likely to lead to successful projects.

2. Digital Capacity Building
Fund organizations’ adoption of digital tools while ensuring they have the training and support needed to use them effectively. The framework emphasizes the responsibility of philanthropic organizations to ensure that the usage of AI enables human flourishing, minimizes risk, and maximizes benefit.

3. Bridging the Digital Divide
Address inequality in access to digital tools and literacy, particularly for grassroots organizations serving marginalized communities. Nonprofits led by members of historically marginalized communities often face greater barriers to accessing and implementing AI tools.

Entrepreneurial Approaches to Giving

Entrepreneurial philanthropy brings business principles to social change work, emphasizing innovation, risk-taking, and measurable results. Entrepreneurs’ approach to philanthropy reflects the hands-on approach they have used in building their businesses; they place more emphasis on being personally involved in giving, deciding how funds are used, and the ability to demonstrate leadership through their volunteering.

This approach manifests in several ways:

Grassroots Innovation and Local Solutions

Affinity donors can support grassroots capacity by:

Recognizing Local Expertise

Poor people are not at the bottom of the knowledge, ethical, or innovation pyramids. Unless we build on the resources in which poor people are rich, the development process will not be dignified and a mutually respectful and learning culture will not be reinforced in society.

Investing in Community Leadership

Rather than imposing external solutions, support the development of local leaders who understand their communities’ needs and contexts.

Funding Adaptation and Iteration

Support organizations in adapting proven models to local contexts, recognizing that effective solutions often require local customization.

The Talent Engagement Strategy

Mentorship and Coaching

Providing ongoing guidance to nonprofit leaders, particularly in areas where donors have deep expertise.

Network Facilitation

Being involved in philanthropic causes helps introduce you to other successful entrepreneurs, making your network more powerful.

High-level business owners are often more open to networking with those that share their same passion and involvement when it comes to philanthropy.

Visitation and Relationship Building

Scaling for Exponential Impact

Practical Framework for Affinity Donors

The Ripple Effect of Strategic Giving

Conclusion: The Art of Transformative Giving

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Two Ways to Help Your Grantees Win Corporate Partners

A philanthropist I advise asked me a question I hear often: “My grantees depend on me. How do I help them find other funders, especially companies?”

There are two answers. The first is a matching grant, which is financial and transactional. The second is reinforcing the mission with your own team’s skills and focus, and lending your grantees your network. Neither is hands-off. Both take time and attention, and they work best together.

Both ways, in practice

In 2019, at the Rona & Jeffrey Abramson Foundation, one grantee, a high school for more than 1,000 orphaned girls, needed computers. The Eric Schwartz Family Foundation offered a matching grant, and Microsoft and Dell matched it.

Then we reinforced the mission with our own team’s skills and focus. The school’s staff weren’t fluent in English and were uncomfortable applying for grants, so we trained American volunteers to write and submit applications with them. We built the plan around what the girls truly needed, with the care and discipline of a business plan but the heart of a mission. Computers alone weren’t enough: the girls needed expert teachers and software, and the computers didn’t have to be new. So the cash we raised went to teachers’ salaries and software licenses. A new donor to the school encouraged another philanthropist to bring in computer teachers, and education software providers donated programs. The match paid for the machines; the people and the software made them useful.

We later brought in SC Johnson, Nestlé, the Girls Opportunity Alliance and others the same way.

Then implement with fiscal discipline. Track every dollar and in-kind gift against the plan, spend it as promised, and report on time. Nothing builds a company’s trust faster, or makes a second gift more likely, than seeing its support used exactly as intended.

Size the corporate share realistically. Companies typically give about 1% of pretax profits, so a company earning $50 million might give about $500,000 a year across many causes. Companies in Pledge 1% commit equity, profit, product or employee time, and may find it easier to match with software or skilled volunteers than with cash. And starting in 2026, U.S. companies can deduct gifts only above 1% of taxable income, so some may give larger amounts less often. A flexible deadline lets your match meet them in the year they’re ready.

The second way: reinforce the mission

The second way puts your own team’s time, expertise and relationships behind the grantee. Start by helping them understand that companies give for their employees, customers and neighbors, as well as their purpose. Your grantees are not begging. They are offering a company the chance to make a difference for its own customers by addressing a real need.

Be creative, and start local: the bank, the realtor, the insurance broker, the gym, the vendors a grantee already pays. Often one owner decides, and the grantee’s community is their community. In larger companies, find the budget closest to the need and the person inside who will champion it.

Two cautions

Don’t ask for too much; a modest first request leaves room to grow. And avoid self-dealing. If you or your own company would benefit, check the rules first. Private foundations face strict IRS limits on transactions that benefit insiders.

The match is the beginning

The best matches leave a grantee with a corporate partner who understands the work, a team that knows how to ask, and a funding base that no longer rests on one donor.

Sources

• • Effect of matching ratios on charitable giving in the United States, J-PAL, summarizing Karlan and List, “Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving?”, American Economic Review, 2007.
  • In the season of giving, corporations aren’t particularly charitable, Stacker, December 2024.
  • How it works, Pledge 1%.
  • The tax bill will upend corporate giving. Here’s how to prepare, Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 2025.

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