Top 4 Ways to Help Your Social Profit Survive a Crisis (like COVID)
2020 has been quite a year and sadly many nonprofits and small businesses weren’t able to survive the COVID pandemic. Luckily, if you have made it this far your chances of success through the rest of the year are pretty good (but if not be sure to keep reading)! To help you succeed I’m sharing some ideas and techniques that I have seen first hand in how social profits can pivot and make changes to keep providing value and bringing in revenue.
Think differently
The first and most important step in pivoting your social profit is to stop and think about every piece and ask yourself a few questions. Are there other streams of income I could explore? What is most important to our customers (or participants) and what are they missing? How can we stay in the forefront of their minds so they don’t forget about us? If possible, survey your customers and find out what they are really needing right now. Is there something you can do to help them through this time? Take some time to brainstorm and think about new opportunities.
Create timely products
One of the nonprofits I work with is strictly service based and doesn’t typically sell products however they started selling branded masks. This was a nice little fundraiser but more importantly it was also a way to help our customers and stay connected with them. Masks would certainly be a great option right now as well as branded hand sanitizer but is there anything else? Could you create something that would help educate kids and be included in homeschooling? How about a product that helps entertain your customers while they are home and can’t visit you in person?
Go after a new target customer
Maybe you typically serve a vulnerable population and can’t reach that audience right now so think about how you can pivot to serve someone new. I work with a small business that up until the recent pandemic strictly served as wholesale to museum gift shops. All of their customers have stopped operating and they have lost their entire business. To solve that I am helping them to go after a direct to consumer model by really highlighting the benefits of the products and in addition to that it also happens to be a really timely product as discussed above. Is there a customer base that has interested you (or shown interest in you) but you haven’t had the time to strategize? Time to get creative and follow any new leads or ideas.
Offer virtual services
This is the most common solution I have seen to social profits pivoting during this time. While many organizations simply don’t have this option (for a wide variety of reasons) maybe you can offer something different. Just because you can’t provide your services in a virtual capacity doesn’t mean you should do nothing. Can you create classes, videos, lessons, printables that offer exceptional value to your customers or participants (or at least keep them happy and entertained)? Of course you can!
The world is a strange place right now and very difficult for many. I hope that I have given you something to think about and maybe even a little hope. If you are truly stuck or need help brainstorming please reach out and I would be happy to help you get creative and think about your social profit in new ways. What do you recommend? How has your social profit weathered this crisis? Please share in the comments below.
