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Are you looking for ways to increase money for your nonprofit, or nonprofits that you work with, that doesn’t include funding from grants?

Diversifying streams of income for nonprofits is vital. Many clients, especially start-up nonprofits, may think that grants are the only type of funding that they can get.

Today, you are going to learn many ways of creating products for your nonprofit. These ideas may help your nonprofit bring in extra revenue that is for operational funds.

Why Nonprofit Products Sell

You might say, “Ugh. Not another t-shirt for sale! We are competing with millions of others. Why would anyone buy our product?”

The truth is that consumers are spending their money more and more these days, on items that make a difference. Consumers are realizing the power and voice in how they spend their dollars.

We’ve seen a huge shift in the #shoppingforgood movement where consumers are comparing brands and shopping for items that are actually impacting the world in good ways. We see the reflection of how consumers are shopping with this conscious shopping in mind, especially among millennials.

A really cool online platform is called The Good Shop, where you can shop online for thousands of brands and then choose where you want a portion of the profits to go. These nonprofit causes are vetted and show transparency. It is pretty cool!

What Products Sell: Ideas for Goods/Products

Backpacks / fanny packs
Business Card Holders
Coffee mugs / Flasks
Cookies / Baked Goods
Sweatshirts and sweaters
Food Truck! (What, yeah!)
Hats and caps
Jewelry
Luggage Tags
Notebooks
Phone covers
Purses
Stuffed animals / plushies
Tote bags
T-shirts
Wallets

How Products Sell

Start Small
You’ll want to start small and test the market. Instead of investing thousands into a food truck or converting a kitchen into a commercial kitchen, maybe you test your cookies on a small scale first. Test out what types of cookies sell and unique recipes.

Do a survey
Put together some product ideas and ask your followers or community what they like and would purchase! This can easily be some mock-ups of different items and price points. If they won’t buy, make sure you ask them why not without badgering them. The feedback will help with your business design!

Get Start-Up Capital
There are 5 different ways to get capital to help you with developing the products:
Pre-Ordering, Corporate investment, Small Business Administration, Grants, and Crowdfunding campaigns.

Now is a great time to create products for your nonprofit. Consumers want to engage with your branding and to shop for good reasons. They need clothes, so why not advertise their ethics on their clothing? This will also raise the reach of your branding as often clothes with a great message or interesting logo can start conversations which lead to sharing the nonprofit’s mission.

Please share your different product ideas by tagging us @grantwriting_funding on Instagram!

I’m SUPER excited about next week’s post! I interviewed Mr. Rodney Walker, President of Grant Central USA. He is absolutely amazing and has helped secure well over $300 million for nonprofits. He also has a super active community on LinkedIn and is one of the most positive individuals I have ever met!

Don’t forget to grab the FREE downloadable from last week’s episode!

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