Fundraising Made Simple
Activate more donors from your community-served. Meet your YMCA fundraising and capital campaign goals faster and easier. Zero cost to your Y. It’s possible with our novel and intuitive system.
Trusted by Organizations and Nonprofits
Attention Mid-Sized YMCA Development Directors!
We know you have a fundraising target of 10-15% of revenue. You also have:
- Limited staff, time, and budget.
- Goals and targets to consider, such as exposure
We also know you could be sitting on untapped donors that could be easily activated with the right approach. Let us show you how to meet your fundraising goals faster with your existing staff and resources.
Let The Appreciation Company help you engage both your membership AND your community-served populations by offering a two-in-one service at zero cost to the Y:
Step 1: We enable your community to appreciate your program staff quickly and easily with activation rates often exceeding 50%.
Step 2: We help you reach your fundraising goals by tapping into gratitude and offering donation opportunities alongside staff appreciation.
If you have primarily relied on major donors and foundations, as well as your own staff at the Y to meet your goals and feel there is untapped potential still in your membership and community served. Then, we should talk. [link to book a meeting – not a button]
The Appreciation Company has identified a novel way to activate your community’s feelings of gratitude towards your program staff to unlock significant fundraising potential.
Imagine Joyful, Exciting Fundraising Without the Frustration
With activation rates that can exceed 50%, The Appreciation Company has proven our novel approach is powerful and effective.
- Tap into latent gratitude and people’s giving spirit.
- At the same time, appreciate your organization’s program staff.
- Make “the ask” natural, seamless, and integrated into the gratitude experience.
- Reach previously untapped donor populations.
The Best Part: The Appreciation Company does the heavy lifting for you.
Let’s discuss what a pilot would look like.
How the YMCA Can Tap into Community Gratitude
Tapping into community gratitude is as simple as riding the wave of staff appreciation and offering donation opportunities alongside it.
Here’s how that might work with the thousands of people who walk through your doors each day:
Consider that parents are already primed for giving at the end of the school year—think group gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week or group gifts for coaches and teachers. If you have kids, you’ve probably participated in this kind of group-gifting experience.
How can the Y benefit? By riding this gratitude wave—appreciating program staff AND fundraising simultaneously with the Appreciation Company. With this method, we have seen activation rates that exceed 50%.
The individuals you serve participate in programs like daycare, recreational classes, and instruction. The parents who’s children attend programs know their instructors personally—they impact their kids’ lives. Therefore, when parents feel gratitude towards your program staff for that reason, you can activate their gratitude and stretch it towards both goals:
- Appreciating your staff
- Fundraising
How It Works: Appreciating Staff + Fundraising with The Appreciation Company
We take a natural approach to fundraising so it feels effortless and seamless for your members and community. Parents, especially, are primed to want to thank the people who impact their kids’ lives, including your staff members. That’s where we jump in.
Imagine:
- For every staff-run program at the Y, the Y runs a campaign prompting participants (or their parents) to appreciate the staff member.
- The campaign invites the participant (or parent) to express appreciation through a personal note, a photo, and a monetary gift.
- Simultaneously, the Y asks for a donation to support YMCA fundraising for your capital campaign.
Why is this type of campaign so effective?
Because the participant or parent knows the YMCA staff member personally, and if they’re a parent, they’ve seen that person’s impact on their kids. By the end of the program, the participant or parent naturally feels gratitude and wants to act on it. That is the exact moment you can tap into for fundraising.
The act of appreciation naturally extends to the act of generous giving. The Appreciation Company ties appreciation and generous gifting together into one easy, natural experience.
What Research Says: How Gratitude Unlocks Generous Giving
Research has shown that expressing gratitude makes us happy.
In one study, the act of properly thanking a person creates a surge in happiness for both individuals, with benefits lasting a month.
We feel gratitude to another person after a milestone, at the end of a season, or in moments of significant impact in our lives. Underlying that emotion is the need for deep human connection that is biologically hardwired into us as a reward system.
It’s a system of reciprocity: Additional research shows that acting on feelings of gratitude benefits both the recipient and the giver.
What does it all mean? Feeling and expressing gratitude—and showing appreciation—can open up a person to further generosity like making a donation.
Book a 15-minute call to discuss whether The Appreciation Company is right for your YMCA.
Why Should Your Organization Use The Appreciation Company?
A novel yet familiar way to engage donors
This is a new way to engage your community, even while it feels familiar to them. Parents with children already appreciate teachers, coaches, and other staff involved with their kids’ lives every year. Extend that to your organization’s staff and simultaneously introduce a new way to fundraise.
Create deep connections between your staff and community through the act of appreciation
The community you serve is a grateful community. You can activate the powerful emotion of gratitude by inviting your community to appreciate your staff.
High engagement rates
The connection between your staff and program participants is deeply personal. It is human to feel a need to say “Thank you” and reciprocate at the end of a program.
Zero incremental cost to your budget
There is no cost for the YMCA to leverage The Appreciation Company. We know budgets are tight, which is why we designed our business to serve and enable your organization.
Appreciation and Fundraising, Together
We achieve activation rates of 50% or greater with our novel approach. Your YMCA can simultaneously activate your members and community served for two benefits:
- Activate on Staff Appreciation: A member, donor, or community group can express gratitude to anyone in your organization with a digital Appreciation.
- Creative Fundraising: Activate a YMCA fundraising capital campaign to the organization simultaneously.
The results:
- Your Team Members will feel seen and appreciated by the community and leadership.
- Your Community will be strengthened and your donor base will expand.
Experience the Pure Joy of Appreciating Your Staff While Fundraising
Our fundraising and appreciation solution makes it simple. Set up your organization today to see how easy it is—and how joyful.
