{"id":587478,"date":"2018-01-03T15:24:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T20:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joangarry.com\/?p=587478"},"modified":"2024-07-26T10:53:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T14:53:26","slug":"new-tax-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joangarry.com\/new-tax-law\/","title":{"rendered":"How Nonprofits Should React to the New Tax Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Is the new tax law making you anxious? You\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

What will the impact be? This question is coming up everywhere we turn \u2013 emails from readers, conversations at nonprofit conference room tables, and certainly in our Nonprofit Leadership Lab. In the Lab, it\u2019s been such a big topic, we\u2019re working to bring in a tax expert to help us make sense of it all.<\/p>\n

(Side note: if you\u2019re curious about the Lab, which is designed to support leaders at smaller nonprofits, there\u2019s a lot of information available here<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Will our worst fears be realized and way fewer people will donate<\/a>? Or simply donate less?<\/p>\n

Some have argued that wealthy people will have more disposable income and actually donate more, offsetting other potential losses. It\u2019s possible that some \u2013 even many \u2013 nonprofits will see an increase<\/em> in revenues this year.<\/p>\n

For now, we can only speculate. Time will tell.<\/p>\n

But one thing I know to be true is this. It\u2019s time to take a renewed look at how we approach fundraising. Any strategy that relied on the tax deduction is going to be a whole lot less likely to work.<\/p>\n

So what should we do instead? Here\u2019s a hint\u2026 think about New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/p>\n

THE EXACT WRONG WAY TO FUNDRAISE<\/h2>\n

How was your New Year\u2019s Eve? Did you go to a party?<\/p>\n

I did. A friend invited me and, even though I barely knew anybody there, I decided to go.<\/p>\n

I spent the entire time begging the other guests \u2013 these total strangers \u2013 for donations. What a great chance to get that last-minute tax deduction, <\/em>I told them. It\u2019s a great cause, and we really need your help. We might not make our end-of-year fundraising goal if we don\u2019t raise at least $5,000 more.<\/em><\/p>\n

How did it go? Well, after about an hour, I had raised a little bit of money, but then a bunch of people complained, and I was asked to leave. On related article checkout this link on how you can get IRA services for the workforce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

OK, I\u2019m just kidding. I didn\u2019t do any of that. Can you even imagine?<\/p>\n

And yet that\u2019s essentially the way many nonprofits approach online fundraising.<\/p>\n

TRANSACTIONS VS. RELATIONSHIPS<\/h2>\n

The old tax code gave an incentive for transactional relationships between nonprofits and donors. You didn\u2019t have to care all that much about an organization to decide to donate. You can do some good, feel good about yourself, and cut your taxes by quite a bit. Not bad.<\/p>\n

Now, with the new tax law, way fewer people will itemize, which means they will no longer have the same financial incentive to donate. Love it or hate it, it is what it is. We have to live with the consequences, good or bad.<\/p>\n

And one consequence (and in my view it\u2019s a good one) is that more than ever, you MUST focus on building relationships. You can\u2019t hit up total strangers to give you money. First, you have to make your donors feel like a million bucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My expertise is in digital marketing,\u00a0so for the rest of this post I\u2019m going to focus on that. And more specifically, I\u2019m going to focus on social media.<\/p>\n

I believe that the new tax law has only made strategic social media marketing that much more critical. Social media works best when you\u2019re being social rather than transactional. People spend time on social media to be entertained, informed, and social\u2026not to be solicited.<\/p>\n

SOCIAL MEDIA IS GOOD FOR WHAT?<\/h2>\n

For nonprofits, social media is best for:<\/p>\n