Recapping & reflecting: Learn from your nonprofit’s mistakes

Imagine your nonprofit just held a large gala event. You surpassed your fundraising goal and want to thank everyone who attended and the staff who made it possible. You send them all an email showing appreciation and acknowledging how much you value their support.

However, your team soon realizes that you accidentally sent the email to your entire email list, including people who didn’t attend the event. How can you rectify that you sent the email to the wrong recipients, which may confuse them?

In this scenario, your organization has two options: pretend it never happened or take it as an opportunity to learn and grow. This guide will help you implement the second approach, making your nonprofit a better workplace and strengthening relationships with your community.

1. Conduct debriefing meetings for campaigns and events.

Gathering your team and analyzing the results from large initiatives will help you determine what went well and what could have been better so you can improve your future approach. Schedule a meeting within one to two weeks of your campaign, event, or project ending so it’s fresh in everyone’s minds. During this meeting, your team should:

• Set clear objectives. Steer the conversation in the right direction with a goal-setting exercise. Have your team agree on your objectives so the discussion can stay focused and productive. For instance, you may aim to reflect on your campaign goals, pinpoint successes and challenges, and generate actionable insights.
• Celebrate the wins. Review the goals you initially developed and the process of executing the project. Highlight what went well so you can continue to apply those insights next time.
• Identify and analyze specific mistakes. Don’t just state what didn’t go well during your campaign. Get to the root of the problem to determine how each issue occurred and how you can prevent it in the future. Continuing with the example in the introduction, ask your team if the error occurred due to a software issue, improper segmentation, or lack of internal communication.
• Explore new opportunities. Is there anything you’d like to try next time that could improve results, address mistakes, or provide new insights? Consider tools, tactics, communications channels, and other ideas you might want to experiment with.
• Document your findings. Record the discussion so you can reflect on the lessons learned in the future. Then, comb through the notes to highlight key points and create a shared document that everyone on your team can reference.
• Brainstorm the next steps. Wrap up your meeting by discussing how you will move forward. Are there any changes you need to make to specific processes? Who will be responsible for these changes? How soon should the team implement them? Recap the answers to these questions in a follow-up email.

Use this meeting to focus on learning from your mistakes and celebrating your successes. For example, you may acknowledge that your recent peer-to-peer fundraising campaign united supporters and helped build community. Acknowledging wins brings levity to the conversation and gives your team credit for their accomplishments.

2. Solicit donor feedback.

Donors, like your team, board, participants, and volunteers, should feel like partners in your success. Collecting donor feedback can help you identify problem areas you wouldn’t otherwise know about and show donors you value their opinions. Solicit their input by:

• Sending surveys. Survey donors directly after campaigns and events and at regular intervals to hear about their general experience with your nonprofit. Ask them what they enjoy about supporting your organization and what you could improve upon. Store the results in your constituent relationship management platform (CRM) for future reference.
• Conducting A/B testing. A/B testing is an efficient way to gather donor feedback on specific elements of your communications or website. For instance, Bloomerang explains that you may test different images, suggested donation amounts, and page formats on your donation page, and includes the following example:

• Hosting donor focus groups. Focus groups allow you to collect more in-depth feedback. They’re best suited for major campaigns that lend themselves well to an open forum discussion. For example, you may invite donors who contributed to the first phase of your capital campaign to share their perspectives on the campaign identity and collateral as you enter the public phase.

Once you’ve implemented donors’ feedback, let them know. For instance, donors may have suggested that sending an extra reminder email a few days before your events. In this case, you may notify donors that you’ve updated your event email cadence to provide additional pre-event reminders.

3. Leverage data to identify trends.

Although analyzing data about each specific initiative is helpful, aggregating data allows you to identify trends in your nonprofit’s performance and develop strategies to resolve recurring issues.

Centralizing your data is key to pinpointing trends. Use donor management software or your CRM to analyze campaign metrics and discover problem areas.

Let’s say you host an annual 5K fundraiser. Upon gathering data from your past five 5Ks, you find that most sign-ups come from social media, with barely any coming from your email newsletter. This finding may prompt you to rework how you present events in your newsletters by incorporating more engaging visuals and clear calls to action.

Alternatively, compare different types of campaigns to see which are most successful and which need improvement. For instance, you may find that your gala events have the highest average donation amount and your walkathons have the lowest. As a result, you may look for new ways to engage major donors for your next walkathon to boost revenue.

4. Foster open communication.

To learn from your mistakes, your team must first feel comfortable bringing these issues to light. Fostering a culture of open communication and dialogue can help you work through problems effectively and collaborate to fix them.

In addition to debriefing major projects, incorporate lessons learned into regular team meetings. For instance, you may have a fundraising team member discuss a recent call with a new donor and walk through what went well and what didn’t. Hearing about other team members’ mistakes and successes can help everyone learn and grow.

Team meetings are also an excellent opportunity to recognize staff members who have grown. When you teach your team to view mistakes as learning opportunities, they’ll be more willing to share their experiences with the group and approach new responsibilities with an open mind.

5. Be transparent.

While being open with staff members is crucial, transparency with donors and other key audiences is equally important. Prioritize sharing when things go right and wrong to build a foundation of trust with your community.

One easy way to maintain transparency is by sharing financial information with donors. They want to know that you’re managing your organization well, and by developing and sending them financial reports and statements, you can demonstrate effective resource allocation. 

Additionally, sharing financial data can also provide an opportunity to educate supporters. For example, they ask about the percentage of expenses you allocate to fundraising and administrative vs. programs. In that case, you can explain how important it is to invest in running a strong organization and how that connects to delivering your mission.

Another place you can communicate openly with supporters is in your impact reports. While these documents typically outline your annual successes, make them more authentic by including problems you faced and how your nonprofit will become stronger because of them.

6. Experiment with new ideas on a smaller scale.

You’ll naturally make more mistakes when trying something new, but that shouldn’t stop your team from innovating. Testing new ideas on a smaller scale first allows you to make mistakes in a less risky environment and learn from your failures.

For instance, let’s say you want to launch an interactive panel for the first time to educate supporters about current issues related to your cause. Before outsourcing panelists and hosting an event in front of your entire base, you may start small by having a few staff members lead the discussion and inviting your team’s family and friends as your test audience.

That way, you can experiment with any new technology, determine which types of questions are most engaging, and identify ways to get the audience actively involved.

Learning from your nonprofit’s mistakes is all about reframing your mindset. When you view mistakes as growth opportunities and actively hone your strategies to reflect what you’ve learned, you’ll constantly improve your organization and your ability to pursue your mission.

About the author: Joshua Meyer is the VP of Market Engagement at Bloomerang, a nonprofit fundraising software company. He has over 24 years of experience in fundraising, volunteer management, software, and marketing. Josh is passionate about helping nonprofits strive to fulfill their mission. He believes nonprofits are essential to our communities and deserve the best tools and resources to succeed. 

At Bloomerang, Josh helps nonprofits acquire and retain donors through innovative marketing and fundraising strategies. He is also a frequent speaker at nonprofit conferences and events and has previously presented at AFP ICON, Nonprofit Marketing Summit, RAISE, Nonprofit Storytelling conference, and numerous other nonprofit gatherings. Josh is committed to helping nonprofits make a difference in the world.