Nonprofit Leaders: 3 Main Things You Can Do With Your Money
Last week I was featured on Philanthropy.org (and Giving Magazine) talking about the THREE main things you can do with money….
1️⃣ Save it.
2️⃣ Manage it.
3️⃣ Spend it.
As a parent, my husband and I are actively teaching our two emerging-adult children about each of these.
But, as we've studied this topic, read countless books, and reflected on our upbringing about money, we’ve realized we really had only learned about 2 out of 3 of these from our parents.
👍We were taught to SAVE. Saving money is good! I remember sitting at the bank 30 years ago with my Dad as he had us open CDs with our summer earnings. We have our daughters put 20% of every paycheck into their savings accounts.
👍We were taught to MANAGE. Managing money is good! I remember creating a budget with my dad when I graduated college and moved out to get my first apartment. Our daughters manage their checking, savings, and brokerage accounts as 19 and 21 year olds.
👎But, when it comes to SPENDING….That’s another story. If your upbringing was like mine, spending was generally bad! It was cautionary and frowned upon for being too frivolous. It was also understood that all debt is bad!
Personally, I've done a lot of work in this area. Through the process, my eyes were opened to so many other people struggling with this issue.
And at the end of the day, I don’t think we as a society have been taught how to SPEND money.
We feel guilty…it feels risky…we feel like the only option is to stockpile funds for the worst case scenario.
Now, I’m all about having a long-term plan and a deep savings account, but not at the expense of life’s enjoyment on a day to day basis.
I see this in the nonprofit sector too. Leaders trying to SAVE money to build their reserve and the MANAGEMENT of money is a daily discussion - especially now!
But, when it comes to SPENDING? That’s difficult. It’s taboo.
And it’s at the board level too.
Do you know how many nonprofits aren’t growing, diversifying revenue, or achieving their strategic plan initiatives because of their FEAR of spending?
Too many.
👉 Leaders and Board members: Your comfort level with SPENDING (thus, investing in your organization) has a direct bearing on how much money your organization can and is raising every year.
🛑 It’s time for irrational frugality to stop.
Want to scale your organization’s revenue? Diversify dollars?
Create a real needs-based budget that builds the revenue engine you need. And then SPEND to that budget.
If this concept brings complete and utter fear to mind, we should talk about how you’d invest in your team learning how to confidently raise to that number every year.
How about you? How does your upbringing about money influence you today?
READ PHILANTHROPY.ORG ARTICLE HERE
Whenever you’re ready, here are THREE things you can do next:
👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I share insider info daily — the same lessons I teach my clients about attracting larger gen-ops dollars and diversifying revenue.
🍎 Grab FREE Guides + White Papers — download robust resources you can use to push against the sector’s misconceptions, equip your board, and shift your team into High-ROI fundraising.
📈 Work with me to diversify revenue & secure the gen-ops gifts you need to grow. If you’re a business-minded nonprofit CEO with big growth plans but need to make charitable revenue from investment-level donors a bigger part of your budget, you can apply to work with me here.
