Diversifying your funding sources

You already know the old standbys of funding for community driven organizations: contributions, membership dues, and grants are probably your bread and butter.

But there are other possibilities.

Today I spoke with a fellow board member at the local non-profit where I serve, and she mentioned an exciting idea we’re considering.

As an organization, our primary work is in offering free or low-fee mental health services for families in crisis.

We'd like to implement some additional treatment methods, some of which are relatively expensive and thus hard for us to justify financially.

But what if we could offer some of those treatments as a paid service to clients outside of our current demographic — people who can afford the service and want help before they're in crisis?

Could we offer that paid service with the understanding that it would help to fund an equivalent service for our free or low-fee clientele?

It's quite possible that we could.

Several smart minds are working on this as I write.

Here's the thing:

Just because we've always gotten our funding in one way, doesn't mean we'll always have to do it that way.

Creative solutions can help us further our mission, diversify our funding sources, and help more people in new ways.

It's not guaranteed to be easy, but with careful planning it can certainly be worth the effort.

All the best,
A.