It’s no secret. Nonprofit organizations need to adapt and innovate in order to stay relevant, just like any other company.
In the last 20 years, the nonprofit sector has changed drastically. There are many new models that have disrupted the general way of doing things. Although old models may be able to maintain an organization's existing supporters if they have built strong relationships, many new donors have started to explore ways that they can make a larger impact with the limited funds they have to give.
Kiva, for example, has opened the doors to direct beneficiary loans that circumvent nonprofit organization involvement and have done an incredible job at making an impact. Donors can donate to an entrepreneur or student across the world, and if they do, they can receive updates directly from that project or person as it progresses over time. Other technology companies have also started innovating in this space, to open corporations up to employee giving platforms, which allow a business' employees to support the causes they desire with funds provided (or matched) by the company. With so much change happening in the donor space, it is important that grassroot organizations innovate and evolve to be able to attract and retain quality donors, and ultimately reduce donor churn.
This is one of the reasons why Clarity was formed.
Technology has opened the doors to infinite digital possibilities. Essentially anything you could imagine as possible on a computer, is probably possible in some capacity. Clarity was designed to bring direct donor/beneficiary models to organizations and provide an elegant and efficient way to manage the operations associated with them. With Clarity, organizations can build internal social networks as part of their nonprofit’s digital strategy. These private social networks are accessible only by the community chosen by the organization through an “invite-only” approach to internal community development. This means, organizations can open up to direct beneficiary models, and provide a donor experience that can directly fund and support initiatives, individuals, projects, entrepreneurs, or any other charitable activity. All of this can be done from a centralized community management platform, and updates can appear specifically for the audiences that your organization would like to share them with. No longer do organizations need to resort to public broadcasting of sensitive beneficiary information to share updates, which can be detrimental to real sustainable development and is a questionable part of many charity marketing strategies. This allows organizations to manage “Kiva-like” initiatives at scale, and bring a similar level of donation transparency and donor tracking to the people who are supporting their nonprofit’s initiatives.

So what does this all mean for a small nonprofit that are thinking about new donor engagement strategies?

Well, it means that Clarity wants to help 😁
Clarity is building a community management platform to help organizations of all shapes and sizes implement direct beneficiary models as part of their donor relationship management systems. A true community management platform, like Clarity, does exactly what it’s spelled out to do. It manages ALL aspects of your nonprofit’s community. This means organizations can now leverage:

The ability to build web pages that can be hosted on sub domains of your own branded site to allow for an interactive donor capture experience and modern ways to join the community.

The ability to create profiles for both donors and beneficiaries. This allows for organic and direct donor updates from the people or projects being supported, and beneficiaries can also benefit as they can receive direct correspondence and support from their funders (with organizational moderation of the content shared).

The ability to build internal message boards and share information related to upcoming donation campaigns. This provides strategic marketing opportunities for nonprofit organizations targeting their internal supporter community.

The ability to provide direct “Kiva-like” experiences to both donors and beneficiaries.

The ability for donors and beneficiaries to build real relationships, which can help ensure the donor is engaged with your nonprofit, being that your organization’s technology acts as the conduit for these relationships.

The ability for all updates to make it to the right audiences, so that the sensitive information being shared is captured by specific eyes, and no longer broadcasted to the world.

Together, we can level the playing field for grassroot and resource-limited nonprofits across the globe.
The tools we are building are being designed to work at scale - meaning that we are constantly considering the time required to make functions happen for organizational administrators. Many nonprofits have the desire to move towards a more engaging donor/beneficiary relationship strategy, but the resource limitations have made it difficult for them to come to fruition and be maintained. This problem shouldn’t exist in 2021, and we are working hard to ensure that any and all organizations can offer innovative models to their community of supporters.
By implementing Clarity, organizations can start to open up to new models that exist and work. This includes, but is not limited to, direct funding to projects, entrepreneurs, students, or families. With Clarity, organizations start to offer some of the innovative ideas that are also competing for the same donations. It’s as simple as that.
To find out how you could use Clarity, and offer new and innovative donor engagement strategies to your nonprofit’s community, feel free to drop us a line at [email protected].