Tips

Maybe you don’t think your business is the right kind or big enough to grow through government contracting. Think again.

Government contracting is a big chunk o’ change for businesses both large and small. Last year federal government contracts alone -- never mind state and local -- gave $477 billion to private businesses. And 5% of those contracts are supposed to go to women-owned businesses.

Last week, I laid out the trends in philanthropy that are forcing foundations and nonprofits to change the way they do business: the economy; the ability and demand to measure impact; generational shifts; and increased emphasis on competition/collaboration.

In it’s effort to ramp up nonprofit participation in its services, LinkedIn now has a “Volunteer Experience & Causes” section for your profile page. The idea is that professionals will share information about what causes they care about and their level of engagement with those causes.

Donors are different these days. I’m talking about the individual donor, not foundations. And I’m particularly talking about the donors you hit up for more than $10 per month. How do you inspire donations in the $10,000 range?

You’ve heard it before: Cause marketing helps small businesses improve their bottom lines while increasing their visibility in the community. Consumers notice when you show you care.

In fact, successful entrepreneurs start working with nonprofits when when their businesses are just starting. It seems to be good karma.

The social sector is at a tipping point, a place where great changes in process must take place so great social change can happen:

• The economy shifted.
• Funding sources have realigned.
• New funding options – private/public partnerships – are evolving.
• The world itself – water resources, illness, poverty – has changed. Social ills are so massive that massive projects are needed to address them.
• Technology now allows us to solve old problems with new techniques and to reach across borders, across cultures, and across sectors to find solutions and partners.

Let’s start with the basics. “Cloud computing” isn’t really a cloud. It’s a bunch of servers in a far-off, climate-controlled locked room, watched over by some serious techies. It’s just not your own server in your own room with your own techie. And the server holds your information right next to information from a whole lot of other people.

My recent emphasis on social media for nonprofits is really an emphasis on best practices, guidelines, and why-bother-with-it for small businesses as well.

Small businesses face many of the same problems that nonprofits do:

• small staff
• not much money for marketing
• need to expand customer (for nonprofits, donor) base