As you flesh out your nonprofit’s strategic plan for the new calendar or fiscal year, you’re likely looking for ways to build on last year’s success without overextending your resources and team’s effort. That’s why implementing efficient processes is a worthy investment, especially during these formative months early in the year.

While making large changes to your daily operations can be daunting, it’s ultimately essential to catalyze your nonprofit’s growth and secure necessary funding for your organization.

Fortunately, this guide breaks down all the details so you can proactively mitigate risks associated with strategy pivots and have a successful rollout. Let’s review five processes that can take your organization to the next level.

1. Detailed Marketing Segmentation

You likely already understand the importance of nonprofit marketing in securing loyal supporters and building your brand identity. However, your marketing outreach must be highly specific, appealing to different audiences’ motivations and interests to grab and retain their attention.

However, delivering marketing specificity and personalization at scale can be challenging. That’s where segmentation, or grouping audiences with shared characteristics and creating targeted content for them, becomes useful. Here are some tips for implementing segmentation:

• Consider multiple types of segmentation criteria. For instance, you might aim to speak to audiences based on engagement level, geographical location, or communication platform of choice.
• Create donor personas. Finetune your messages to each audience segment by fleshing out hypothetical examples of different audience members. Fill in personas with details like demographics, interests, motivations, and history with your nonprofit.
• Use automated tools. Many digital marketing tools have built-in features that simplify the content creation, segmentation, and delivery processes. The most advanced tools use artificial intelligence (AI) to create highly personalized and effective segmentation criteria based on your campaign’s focus.

Your audience will undoubtedly change and grow along with your nonprofit. Consistently revisit and update your segmentation strategy (about once every quarter) to align with your current targets and audience makeup.

2. Staff Recruitment

Securing your nonprofit’s legacy requires a talented, hard-working, and passionate team. However, many nonprofits struggle with hiring, both due to resource constraints and the for-profit sector competing for candidates.

Sourcing, hiring, and cultivating candidates into loyal team members doesn’t have to be time-consuming or challenging, though. You can acquire talent by:

• Refining your job postings and positions to highlight the information candidates most want to see (i.e., daily role responsibilities, upward mobility potential, and perks).
• Fortifying your employer brand by improving your current work environment and underscoring the unique benefits of working for a nonprofit.
• Creating dedicated recruitment marketing materials to spread your employer brand across digital recruitment channels and at job fairs.
• Implementing an employee referral program that rewards employees for introducing successful candidates to your nonprofit.
• Sourcing talent from volunteers who have already shown interest in your organization and developed relevant skills.

To streamline these processes, leverage an affordable, user-friendly recruitment tool. This type of platform can help you organize interviews, centralize hiring data, and communicate with candidates. Plus, you don’t have to break your budget to get started—some recruitment platforms are built to support small businesses and nonprofits with more straightforward hiring needs.

3. Corporate Giving Partnership Development

Recent statistics show that corporations give between $20-26 billion to nonprofits annually through corporate giving offerings like in-kind donations, matching gifts, and volunteer grants. Just think about how such a valuable revenue stream could expand your nonprofit’s operations!

While it’s ultimately on corporations to decide which nonprofits to support, your nonprofit can improve its chances of receiving funds by strategically cultivating business partnerships. Follow these steps to get started:

1. Seek out businesses in a similar industry or with similar values. For instance, an environmental nonprofit might partner with a corporation aiming to become carbon neutral.
2. Build rapport through informal meetings.
3. Create a custom ask. The ask should be mutually beneficial and ambitious (while still pragmatic). Don’t expect to reach an agreement immediately—leave room for negotiation and compromise.

While corporate giving is incredibly worthwhile for both nonprofits and businesses, it’s underutilized. Every year, $4-7 billion in eligible matching gift revenue alone go unclaimed. To help your partners get the largest return on their investment and continue receiving support, educate them on how to market corporate gifting opportunities. Internal marketing ensures employees know how to get involved, whereas external marketing improves the corporation’s brand reputation.

4. Volunteer Engagement

Volunteers make up a whopping one-third of the nonprofit labor force, meaning you need to invest in volunteer engagement just as you would employee engagement. Here are some simple ways to keep volunteers enthusiastic about helping your nonprofit:

• Provide monthly volunteer impact reports that highlight what your nonprofit achieved with their help.
• Conduct thorough training sessions so volunteers feel empowered to make as large of an impact as possible.
• Let them get to know each other via social events outside of shifts, like a luncheon or volunteer mixer.
• Assign new volunteers an experienced mentor who can help them adjust to volunteer life and meet new people.
• Thank them for their hard work by shouting them out at meetings, highlighting them in marketing materials, and sending them thank-you notes.
• Cement loyal volunteers’ legacy with permanent gestures of recognition, such as a Volunteer Hall of Fame induction.

For volunteers to feel truly engaged, they must feel welcome, appreciated, and empowered. Collect feedback from them regularly to ensure you’re meeting these benchmarks and gain insights to improve your program.

5. Data Forecasting

Your success in every facet of nonprofit management depends on your ability to collect, analyze, and act on data. You likely already analyze donor data via your constituent relationship management platform (CRM) to see where you can improve immediately, but what about over the long term?

That’s where data forecasting comes in. Using technology, your nonprofit can predict and proactively adjust to leverage upcoming trends and plot your progress. That way, you can be prepared to tackle difficulties and achieve longevity. Here’s what nonprofits should know about data forecasting:

• Good data management and hygiene practices are crucial. Set a regular schedule for auditing data, use standard data formatting, and leverage a CRM that removes duplicate records for the best forecasting results.
• Leverage a well-rounded data portfolio. Integrate multiple data sources for the most accurate and holistic forecasts (i.e., donor data, program management data, accounting data, and holistic industry performance data).
• Use AI and predictive analytics. Tools with machine learning capabilities can provide more precise and unbiased predictions in a fraction of the time it takes for manual analysis.

Keep in mind that forecasts can be incorrect, so you’ll need to revisit and adjust your forecasts regularly. For instance, if you’re forecasting hiring trends and have recently switched to a hybrid model, you should incorporate data about how the global workforce has reacted to similar shifts, such as an increased demand for flexible work hours.

Remember, while these processes are solutions for many nonprofits, every organization is different. Choose the strategies that support your needs the most by collecting feedback from stakeholders, working with a nonprofit consultant, or analyzing greater nonprofit management trends.