Consistently giving to non-profits can be intimidating. In community forums, you’re typically with others who have high amounts of wealth. You may also interact with those who are donating massive amounts of time to certain causes.

Like getting into any new venture, there is likely someone better, more experienced, and offering more value than you.

As mentioned, this can be very intimidating. It can cause those onboarding into consistent giving to feel as if they’re not being impactful enough. This intimidation can lower enthusiasm and chances of long-term engagement.

While you can always be more impactful in anything you do, it isn’t always healthy to push boundaries. Neglecting important parts of your life, like the professional or social, can cause you to stress over newly introduced passions, including giving.

In this case, it is not a zero-sum game. It is not a measure of your giving vs someone else’s. Are those who donate massive amounts of capital going to receive more media coverage? Of course.

Organizations working on impactful causes are in constant need of more resources. These marketing materials intrigue other high net worth individuals to participate. It is the case that higher capital allocations are immediately more impactful than smaller donations.

But, over the course of a person’s career, it is not unreasonable to earn $3,200,000. If they consistently give 10%, they’ve given $320,000. This is absolutely tremendous and its value should not be diminished. Especially if the giving is impactful and well directed.

In casual conversations I have, some feel that giving is a one way street. You donate, receive your “thank you” receipt, and that’s about it. The occasional newsletter comes in, but at times, donors feel underappreciated. The argument is worth presenting.

This form of engagement isn’t much different than marketing strategies deployed in other industries. And, this isn’t a shot at non-profits. They’re incredibly busy with hundreds of pressing tasks at hand.

However, without a community-driven marketing strategy, lower net worth donors feel left out. This means there’s a tremendous opportunity for non-profits to have active community engagement for its regular participants. This can set them apart.

An example. If people regularly gives a certain amount in a given time period, they earn a certain level of community access. This could mean open discussion forums, regular short-form project updates, and exclusive town halls where a non-profit’s leadership provide direct updates to membership.

Not everything has to be an email. While substance and depth is important in understanding giving’s effectiveness, more frequent short-form messages can provide positive reinforcement for membership.

Immediate access to information is more valuable than ever. People rarely check inboxes and when they do, skimming is preferred to deep reading.

If people go through the effort of downloading a social messaging application and sign up for a non-profit’s discussion forum, they’re making an effort to receive shorter form content. This leads to an easier way to engage.

This higher level of engagement can produce more conversation, immediate feedback and create a sense of ownership. People feel a stronger sense of belonging and connection to the non-profit.

They’re already donating funds regularly, so the financial incentive is there. Why not reward them with more immediate feedback? Why not give them a platform for conversation? Why not give them more of a reason to be involved?

It could truly create a more meaningful relationship between non-profits and its donors.

Taking ownership a step further, many people have been discussing NFTs as a form of governance tokens in the Web3 space. In the non-profit space, governance isn’t as straight forward. It is likely that a non-profit knows what its beneficiaries need more than its donors.

This isn’t to say that non-profit organizations can’t follow Web3’s famous decentralized organizational structures. It just might take time, trial and error for non-profits to adopt these models.

In the interim, there will likely be DAO protocols raising funds and partnering with effective non-profit to solve problems that are a mutual interest.

In present time, it might be better to provide regular community members digitized rewards in the form of NFTs.

This digital reward can be more beneficial than its physical counterparts. It is easier to ship to community members directly. It can be a more custom and memorable reward for participation. It stays with members digitally, and forever. As opposed to physical rewards that suffer from wear and tear or misplacement.

In my experience, I have never seen non-profits implement these strategies at scale, or at all. This opportunity might not be helpful for high worth donors, as their incentive model could be different.

However, for the average consumer, this could create a real sense of appreciation which drives long-term participation.

Notice, the amount given is never mentioned above, and could be irrelevant to this strategy all together. Sure, minimum amounts could be established for reward access, but is there a need?

This strategy could be instrumental in driving adoption for, well, everyday people. Why restrict people from different socio-economic backgrounds from actively participating? Valuing active participation over dollar amounts could prove to be financially beneficial.

Effective non-profits solving pressing problems that leverage effective marketing strategies… means more people giving towards said non-profits.

This mainstream giving results in more money for non-profits. Just as there’s an opportunity consumers should consider related to giving, there’s an equal opportunity non-profits should consider related to keeping its community engaged.

Digital rewards and community might be a catalyst for mainstream adoption.