A story about in-kind donations

The best part of my job is when I get to talk directly with nonprofit leaders, especially folks like Kyla Schmidt, MCLC of MOM STARTS HERE .

Kyla founded a nonprofit that has its offices in a second-floor office building in downtown Troy, New York. With a small team of staff and volunteers, she has built infrastructure to give critical support and resources to parents trying to navigate both personal and societal barriers and be the best possible caretakers for their children as possible.

Nonprofits like Kyla's are everywhere and represent the vast majority of the work being done in the nonprofit sector. For every story about financial mismanagement, donor-advised fund abuse, or racist leadership you're in turn going to find dozens of inspiring stories that showcase the true face of leadership in the nonprofit sector.

Rest assured, there are huge problems that we need to overcome as a sector. I also know that the path forward will be much brighter for us all if we collectively begin to focus our efforts on organizations like Mom Starts Here.

In this week's newsletter, I wanted to focus in specifically on my experience donating some in-kind donations to the organization and then share insight into donor motivation by drawing in some insights from a conversation I had with my wife last night about making these donations.

Where The Journey Begins

I was introduced to Kyla through Ben Williams , another leader who exemplifies the future of our sector. After an initial Zoom call to get to know each other more, Kyla and I discussed a more extended discussion that might be beneficial to have at their office.

These aren't sales calls, mind you. My job is understanding what nonprofits like Mom Starts Here are going through. Most people I talked to during my brand research didn't use Neon One technology and, in some cases, had nothing other than a website and a PayPal button. But that's the lived experience for 97% of the sector that makes under $5 million.

So when we set the meeting, I wanted to come in and be helpful. One organic thing that came out of the discussion was the highly detailed list of in-kind donation needs on their website.

For this newsletter, I want to focus on the in-kind donations themselves. Kyla and I have much more to chat about regarding individual fundraising, but there was something really exciting about making a useful and needed in-kind donation.

In-Kind Donations and Donor Motivation

Whenever I think about in-kind donations, there are a few things that I tend to zero in on personally:

• Has the nonprofit I want to donate this to articulated a need for it?
• Am I treating this like a donation or a way to get rid of junk in my house?
• Will this be turned into a transaction or be put to use?

Let's break these down a bit more.

Mom Starts Here has an excellent page on its website that outlines the types of donations they will accept and how to donate them.

This is a good beginning to any in-kind donation relationship, and I also made sure to talk with Kyla about what we were thinking about donating.

My wife Jocelyn and I spent some time over the weekend cleaning everything and she also flagged to ensure no board books with inscriptions were donated. This helped to shift the mindset of the donation from "cleaning out the basement of baby stuff our kids don't need" toward "we are providing some really useful items that parents may benefit from."

I don't think we set donor mindsets enough around expectations of donations. When outlining a case of support, it is important to be intentional and mission-minded when establishing a page about in-kind donations.

Moving Beyond Motivation

Kyla and I had a great discussion, and then she helped me with the donations my wife and I had put together. Yet, it was what happened later that night where things got interesting.

I was telling Jocelyn about the visit and she started to get excited about other potential donations that could be made. She also explicitly said that she'd prefer to give to a nonprofit like Mom Starts Here than just give it to a Salvation Army and have them resell the items to someone.

These are where subtle nuances of identity and mission alignment start to click in. Motivation by donors can be layered, but it was interesting to watch someone who does not live and breathe the nonprofit sector's nuances understand very clearly that:

• A clear mission and well-defined request for support help make the donor's decisions easier
• The speed at which the possibility of impact was also important, meaning that the quicker items got into the hands of parents, the better
• Interest in ensuring donations were put toward the right needs without asking unrelated questions about staff overhead or expenditures

Overall, it was cool to see the passion of a leader like Kyla also then matched equally with the passion of a new donor like Jocelyn. Yet, the key to the success of this isn't in one-off situations like this but in creating infrastructure that is replicable and not relying on staff time.

Generosity Experience Design and In-Kind

When thinking about the practical ways to scale in-kind donation programs, some steps can take into account the ideal of the donor's motivation being matched with their identity as a person as opposed to their relationship with people connected to the nonprofit.

1. Have a clearly defined gift acceptance policy specific to in-kind donations
2. Understand that donors will not understand what "good condition" is and that you'll need to have a firm stance on not providing program participants items that are low quality just because someone donated it
3. Outline an action plan on both acceptance and rejection of an in-kind donation. Map out the steps before the gift may happen to the follow-up. A rejection doesn't mean a lost donor automatically if focusing on the INTENT of the donation
4. Create stories around in-kind donations, especially ones that exemplify the ideal donations you need for your programming. Taking photos of great in-kind donations and doing inventory videos will be ways to "involve" donors without worrying about having them physically there for a testimonial
5. Move the relationship beyond in-kind donations in a way that doesn't lessen the importance of that type of gift. Yes, we all want cold hard cash but there are many ways where the generosity experience a donor has with the organization can start

Ultimately, the approach that Generosity Experience Design takes is that being thoughtful in how touchpoints are organized can lead to a stronger affinity between the donor and the nonprofit and have a positive downstream impact on overall brand reputation and donor retention rates.

Connecting marketing, revenue, and impact is critical for establishing organizational maturity, and focusing some effort on an in-kind program as a tangible way to tackle a much larger examination of your donor's journey is a great start.

New Podcast Alert!

Wanted to thank Pooya Pourak and the MatchNice team for having me on their podcast to talk about stuff like this. Take a listen!