Nonprofit Business Tips and Thoughts of Gratitude from

Stephanie Shokrian,

Director of Development at Dress For Success San Antonio.

Seeking creative means of marketing and funding is crucial in an organizations efforts to maintain public visibility and a donation stream during the pandemic.  Here are a few helpful pandemic-friendly nonprofit business tips from Dress for Success San Antonio Director of Development, Stephanie Shokrian on how to overcome some of the unforeseen hurdles the year 2020 has presented. 

• Branded facemasks –

Offering merchandise such a face masks with your nonprofit logo on them with all proceeds benefiting funding the organization help support donations, marketing, and helps keep your supporters & community safe in the pandemic. 

• Host online giveaways, sponsored by local small businesses-

Hosting online giveaways with products from local small businesses & restaurants help maintain unity and give a sense of some much appreciated social interaction.  By using local small business products for your giveaway items, you help support a local for-profit business which has either supported your nonprofit in the past, is currently supporting through the pandemic, or without a doubt will support you when they get back on their feet in the future. 

• Support and partner with other local nonprofit businesses-

Reach out directly to your local food bank, battered women’s shelter, pediatric cancer care center, animal adoption agency. There are so many causes needing love, awareness, and financial support. Partner up, volunteer at their organizations, team up together on social media, host a safe, socially-distanced small and intimate donor appreciation event. 

• Call your donors and supporters-

Make a habit of calling your existing supporters and donors on other occasions aside from only when your organization is in immediate need. Let’s face it, donor burn out is very real. Take a vested interest in who your donors are, what this season of surviving a world health pandemic has brought to their lives, both personal and professional. Remember that each of us are carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders and the last thing you want to make a donor feel like is that they are a walking atm. Select representatives and employees for your organization that have a genuine heart for fostering and stewarding your organizations donor relationships, will attend their events in support of their businesses, and who will reach out to them via a phone call or hand written note with genuine care, concern and reciprocal support.

If you are a nonprofit that sees clients, as Dress for Success San Antonio is, be sure to check in on them as well. Remember that many times, clients come full circle and become incredible supporters and donors, relay the most accurate and inspiring success stories, and are living proof that your organization changes the lives of so many in our community!

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I am very proud to be leading the Donor and Development-related world at Dress for Success San Antonio. Our organization not only helps women in San Antonio create and cultivate their own personal professional branding, access valuable training and skills, and obtain professional attire, we empower her to receive the support she needs to sustain financial economic stability and independence in an ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic landscape. Our Operations team, Client Services team, Social Media team, and our Board of Directors are composed of a dedicated & detail-oriented group of intelligent, professionally-driven women & men who are dedicated to the women we serve and hold tightly the importance & value of this type of work. She does not merely leave our organization with a few suits, but the confidence, encouragement, direction, and tools to follow her professional dreams. 

As a woman in Economic Development, and a married mother with five little ones in my family, I know first-hand how important it is to have a support system in place, so that I may be as successful as possible in my chosen career path.  The majority of our clients at Dress For Success have little to no support system and I can say with full confidence that each of us at our organization are grateful to become part of that support system for them. We don’t just see clients once only to never reach out to them again. We offer a monthly Professional Women’s Group where clients can share success stories, feel good around like-minded women, socialize, have a bite to eat & a glass of wine, and share where their professional journeys have led them. 

What has truly carried us through the pandemic is a deepened sense of gratitude. We are grateful for our donors, supporters, and sponsors who have carried the torch for us throughout the years so we may see clearly and vividly what it is our clients need most and bring those needs to fruition. 

If you would like to donate to Dress For Success San Antonio and empower a women today to achieve her professional dreams, please visit www.successfulconnections.org to make an online donation or email stephanie@dfssa.org.