Growing with Rohit Mehta, DoGood Fundraising Solutions
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Rohit is the Founder and President of DoGood Fundraising. A University of Toronto graduate, Rohit has been active in the non-profit sector for 18 years. He was appointed to a five-year term with the Grant Review Team of the Ontario Trillium Foundation and served a two-year term with the Grant Review Committee of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services’ Youth Opportunities Fund. Rohit reviewed and assessed over 300 grant applications and distributed over $60 Million in funding to community-based non-profits, charities, and grassroots groups. Rohit has an extensive background in grant writing, prospect research, program development, and evaluation. He is a critical thinker who challenges the status quo and believes that the charitable sector has the power to transform society and create a better world. Rohit resides in Mississauga, Ontario.
Episode Transcript
Daniel
Let’s start off with you talking to us about DoGood Fundraising, what is it in one quick sentence?
Rohit
We raise money for charities and nonprofits to help them amplify their impact. It's a social enterprise that started four years ago.
Daniel
Amazing. Four years ago, what year was that?
Rohit
2019
Daniel
When you first started DoGood, what was your initial goal with the business? How did you actually come up with the idea?
Rohit
Having spent a lot of time in the nonprofit sector, I would say most of my life, I had a lucky opportunity to sit on the grant review team of the Ontario Trillium Foundation. So when I was busy reviewing and assessing grants, as a volunteer, I spent a lot of time understanding what makes a strong grant and what makes a weak grant, right. And then in the community, I started sharing that knowledge as a fundraising professional, and folks would say to me, “Rohit, you should do more with this, you should start a business”. And at the time, I didn't believe that I had the skills or knowledge to do so. But it became more and more apparent that I had to share this with the world. And so I started this business with the help of the Brampton Entrepreneur Center. And you know, today it's a growing business.
Daniel
And you're still doing it, which is amazing. Now prior to that, of course, you understood the need for funding and the challenges organizations face. So tell us a little bit of what led up to that what was your your past history before starting do good?
Rohit
I had the lucky opportunity to be mentored by someone named Stephanie Crocker, previously of Ecosource. And I got involved very early with Nonprofits and Charities and started looking for a way to make change through those organizations as a medium. I found that many organizations had staff who were burning out, many of them struggled significantly, with finances and with being able to generate money. Sometimes we were doing things that didn't make sense. So we were putting on bake sales, so to speak, and fundraising events where so much time and effort went into it, that it wasn't raising money the way it should be. And so that sparked something in me 15 or 16 years ago to start thinking about how we could do good work, and raise more money. And so I think from the early days of nonprofit work, it got me thinking about how we could raise money differently, and how we could put in less manpower upfront, then generate money that would fund the good work that had to happen on the front lines. So it was a natural progression from being involved in the nonprofit sector to want to come up with a way to make change. I always felt that grants and funds being given to an organization would make a lot of an impact, a lot more impact than then some of the fundraisers that I'd seen over the years
Daniel
So more and more effective use of the time and resources. If you really want organizations to be able to make sustainable change, they need more funding than just individual small events. Now, you've worked with, I'm gonna say, hundreds of organizations at this point. What are some of the causes or initiatives that you're actually personally passionate about?
Rohit
I would say one that's very close to me is food insecurity. And so I had the opportunity to work for Seva Food Bank, which is one of our clients today. They do really great work in Mississauga, and the word seva means selfless service, which is pretty important in my culture. And so food insecurity is a big one having worked within that organization, and then now we write grants for them. We've helped them to actually launch and grow their work and their impact and continue to do so.
Another one has to be decent work. So I was reflecting on it in preparation for our conversation today. And I thought, I want people to be happy at work, I want them to make more than just a living wage, and I want them to be contributing towards something bigger. You know, I talk a lot about social enterprise as a business model so we can make money and do good work. I think the making money part is straightforward, the doing good part is about treating people well. And making sure that they're in careers that are actually meaningful, where they're going to grow and where they're going to grow to the next stage in their career. And I think we can all contribute to the better good to improving society, to helping people in our work. So, beyond food security, it's about decent work and, and meaningful work, meaningful jobs where people are fulfilled in their work. That's pretty important.
Daniel
That's amazing. I think with what's happening over the last few years, the pandemic was kind of one thing that changed a bit of the employment landscape. But even now, you know, the economic situation is different. There's the whole remote work, and the way that roles are even valued and considered, has changed drastically. So it's definitely something that needs to be brought to the forefront.
Now, you've been an active entrepreneur, activist, and volunteer your whole life since you were a student. For someone getting started in this in the nonprofit world, how important is being a public face to your personal brand? Some people don't think about it at the time, you probably just were out there doing stuff, because you're passionate, but how important is that now that you're running your business four years in?
Rohit
I wouldn't call myself a branding strategist, I think I've been learning along the way about how to build a personal brand. And I've attended one of your workshops on how to build a personal brand, I look to experts. On that piece, some of the things I picked up very early, was to set a brand and establish that brand across all your social media. So my brand is DoGood. If you go on my Twitter for example, I don't spend a lot of time complaining or putting out negativity, it is about positive messaging, sharing good work, showcasing good things. That's how I've designed my brand. I've designed it to be in line with my values. And I think that we can all work on creating a brand that is clearly communicated across personal websites, social media, and personal platforms. And I look for that, when I'm trying to get to know somebody who I'm doing business with, or an organization that I'm working with, I go on their different platforms. And I see what's out there, what's in their branding. I think the most important thing is to be consistent across all the platforms. So if you go to @RohitDoGood, which is sort of my personal brand, you'll see the same consistent messaging across. It is about showcasing good work and trying not to be negative or trying not to complain about the world's problems, but actually spinning in a positive light and showcasing people who are doing good work around those problems.
Daniel
I love that angle. We need more positive news and progress being shared. There's a whole publication that I subscribe to called The GoodGood Newspaper, they have a print edition and online edition. And that's what they're focused on is telling these positive stories, knowing that there are parts of the world that are totally falling apart, but there are all the advancements that are also being made.
For organizations of any size, there's going to be challenges. There's going to be things that you face at the beginning stage at the expansion stage scaling stage. Firstly, you can give some examples of any challenges you've gone through with organizations, but also your advice that you would have to others in your situation.
Rohit
I think capacity is a big one. And in our social enterprise, we really exist to build capacity. That's one of the main reasons why DoGood Fundraising exists. Many organizations are sometimes not ready to apply for grants, they're not ready to communicate with funders. I would start with the basics when you're applying for funding or applying for any sort of money, understand what you need the money for, right? Why are you applying? And if you had that money, specifically what would you spend it on? These are basic capacity.things that funders look for.
When it comes to organizational growth, I find that succession planning is something that most leaders don't think about. I was talking to one of our clients and I said, “in a few years, you may not be in this role, some of your staff may step up and one of them would become the executive director. Are you prepared for that?” And he laughed and he said no, and I think most organizations aren't. We just assume that somebody is going to be hired and they're going to solve everything and and we're seeing less and less people who want to go into leadership roles in the nonprofit sector because they know the pay isn't as competitive. And they know that there's a lot of burnout. And so I think organizations need to look within their own staff right now at who is a potential leader and start training them and start doing the team huddles and bringing them into management meetings and maybe bringing them into a board meeting and teaching them everything. So that if the current leadership of the organization has to move on or retire, or unfortunately if they burn out, you need to have somebody who's willing to step in. Otherwise all of your clients who rely on you for your services, they will inevitably struggle. So I think capacity and succession planning are the two big ones.
Daniel
With that being said, those are both things that you need to do preventatively or proactively.
So you see a lot of organizations looking for support, when it's like too late, when they've lost people, or where they realize that someone is transitioning out of a role, and they don't actually have anyone there. Those are super important challenges that I think the sector definitely faces.
On another note, in this sector, it's so important that we celebrate success and showcase our impact, right showcase our wins, showcase the impact we're making for the community. What are a couple of examples are one example from DoGood Fundraising clients you could share?
Rohit
Seva Food Bank is the one I love to talk about. It’s one of my favorite organizations to work with, because I've seen them grow over the years, and ever since we worked with them, we have doubled their budget. Through our work together, through the work that we've done with funding applications, we've managed to double that budget, and that's a big deal. There'll be opening a new space in 2023, with it with a significant grant that we were able to help secure. I think that's a huge win. Getting organizations past the million-dollar mark is huge.
The other one I'm really proud of is that we've raised almost $7 million to date for Nonprofits and Charities. I'm not a philanthropist that can donate millions of dollars, but to have built an organization that then raised that much money and was able to give that to charities and nonprofits is huge.
Daniel
That's huge. And those and to put that into context for everyone, that's actual cash going into their hands, it's not promised money. It's not long-term donations, it's not in-kind gifts, that's actual funding that goes directly into their budgets, which helps then increase additional impact, right, to show what they can do with that money.
Rohit
Thank you so much. I think with the structure that we have now, as a social enterprise, we're trying to address the capacity issues, we're trying to make things more efficient. Soon, I'll be probably announcing that we've raised 10 million, and then we keep going bigger and bigger. And I think in the process, what we hope to do is try and change the funding landscape, how funders communicate with nonprofits, and how that conversation goes, we'd like to have a hand in that in the future, to ensure that the groups that need the funding the most are getting time with funders, something that doesn't always happen.
Daniel
Right, to kind of ensure that they're meeting those requirements and fulfilling the actual intention of the funding. Right. So what are you seeing in general, with grant funding that's been out there since the pandemic? Have you seen that funding is more specific, more open-ended?
Rohit
It's very specific. It's COVID-specific, so everything is COVID recovery, economic recovery, and economic resilience. We found that when COVID started, people weren't really sure what was happening, they thought maybe it would last for a few months. Now being three years in, we’ve seen that many grants that are out there are exclusively in response to the challenges. So for the Resilient Communities Fund by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, we’re working on round five. They've never had a grant that had rounds and rounds and rounds in this sense. And we've seen other COVID recovery money come back, there's one big grant that we're waiting for. Everyone's waiting for it. It's called the Community Services Recovery Fund. That would be the biggest COVID recovery grant ever unleashed in Canada, $400 million. The trend has been giving organizations a chance to recover, pivot and adapt from the impacts of COVID. And I don't think it's actually going to stop anytime soon. I think it's going to continue right into 2023.
Daniel
So has some of that shifted, because it has been three years, have they been able to adapt their operations accordingly?
Rohit
Some Yes, some No, I would say in December of 2021, one in five nonprofits was ready to shut down its doors, close its doors, so we have to continue to adapt to the new reality. Things are happening from home. People are burnt out mental health issues are read And, and issues have changed actually COVID has changed so many issues. I was listening to a talk by the former mayor of Calgary who said that every day during the pandemic a billionaire was created, which tells you a lot about income inequality and income disparity. And so and so the have-nots are now squeezed even tighter, we're heading into a recession, potentially, they're being squeezed even tighter. So the organizations that serve the most vulnerable populations are struggling to meet the demand. Funding isn't always as adaptive and as readily available. That's why we have new models emerging like social enterprise where you can sell a good or service and take some of the proceeds from that and use it to fund your operations when there's not enough money out there too, to fund everything entirely.
Daniel
Right. And then we see, with the goal being sustainability, when you have your own products and services that you sell to be able to generate that recurring income that's not specifically relying on grants, which is amazing.
For someone who is considering working in the sector, starting in a nonprofit, or even starting in fundraising, is there any advice or tips you can give?
Rohit
I think the biggest one is to have a really solid foundation for your health. I'm not just talking about mental health, I mean, physical health, a lot of the work is extremely demanding. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I've worked in probably 10 different organizations, even before I started this business, and burnout is a real thing. Because when you're helping others, they say your glass needs to be full, or maybe even overflowing before you can help others. So if your glass is empty, if you're running on fumes, you're not going to be able to help other people. And it can be really emotionally draining. I remember my first week, after university, I was working for a food bank. And I remember, just like the impact that had on me, it was actually emotionally draining. To do that work, because it's complex issues, you're coming across people who are really struggling. And then, you know, on other days, it can be really positive and really amazing and energizing. I also want to share that working in nonprofits and charities, you still get paid. In fact, you can get paid well, depending on where you go. The longer you spend the time doing the work, the higher likelihood that you're going to be paid accordingly. And benefits are often included in most organizations, there's performance pay, there are bonuses, you can be salaried, you can have restrictions so that you're not working 24/7; you work during business hours, and maybe the occasional evening work, maybe the occasional weekend. But I think mental health is number one, because I have seen a lot of folks burnout. And so be prepared that nonprofit work is often endless. The issues are ever-growing. And the need for people to actually take leadership in that field is growing. And so I hope the listeners of your podcast will want to step up and bring all the knowledge and experience they have from various sectors and take leadership in this sector, which I think is the most important sector of the economy.
Daniel
The charitable sector is not often listed when we talk about the different industries that are out there, but it makes up a huge percentage of employment opportunities. And not to mention the hundreds of 1000s of people that volunteer and actually help to drive these causes forward. So that's definitely an important consideration from someone who’s been involved in all kinds of organizations.
When it comes to inspiration or education, things that you go to to keep up to date, are there any resources that you turn to or any books or podcasts or anything like that?
Rohit
There are certain books out there, I would categorize them as sort of self-help books which I love. authors like Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits, and Jim Collins's Good to Great. There's a book I'm reading right now called Traction, it's about how to really get your business going. These are books that I think nonprofit leaders need to read, because the books are talking a lot about business. I think in nonprofit one of the biggest challenges that we face is we think like a nonprofit. We think in a way that we need to keep asking for handouts. And really, we constantly want things donated, we need to start thinking differently, we need to think like businesses because the most effective nonprofits are run like a business. And actually, a nonprofit organization is a business. It's just categorized as not for profit, the profits that are generated, do not go back to the shareholders, it's owned by the community, those profits are reinvested. So we need to run it like a business. And you know, this is why DoGood Fundraising is a social enterprise business and not a nonprofit, right? Because I think we can make a big difference. But we can also make money and get paid fairly, and everyone deserves to be paid well. And so again, it comes back to what I was saying about decent work, if you want to be paid and respected in your organization, you need to learn how to operate efficiently and do it in a way so that you have a healthy mix of revenues. That might include grants, that might include earned revenue from the sales of goods or services that might include donations. So you need to read what business leaders are saying, and Good to Great is one of those books that tells you for major Fortune 500 companies all over the world, how they do things. It has a lot of case studies in there that I think folks should look at. Traction does the same thing, it gives you examples of where people have done things really well and where they've gone wrong. And we need to learn from other people and do it quickly so that we can start to solve some of the big issues in society that are really in need of being resolved.
Daniel
I think that's super powerful. A lot of times people are focused on the actual issue they're trying to solve, but not necessarily what's the most effective way to get there. Because ultimately, we want to create an actual impact, right? We want to create a sustainable impact. So looking at it from that perspective is great. Those are three amazing books you recommended. And I love that perspective.
If someone has no idea, they've never worked with an organization before to get funding, an established organization, surviving off of donors. What does the process look like to work with DoGood Fundraising?
Rohit
We generally start by understanding what it is that they're raising money for, and how much money they need to raise. A question I often ask prospective clients is, if you had $50,000 tomorrow, what would you do with it? So you have to have a clear idea of what change you're trying to create. We usually call this the mission. So having a clear and defined mission, you know, that we're, for instance, we're going to ensure that children ages five to 12, receive a healthy, nutritious breakfast every day. That can be a mission. And that's something you can probably achieve within five years. So I think having an achievable mission, which is reasonable and realistic, within a few years is a huge step. And then knowing what you would do with that money. So let's say with that $50,000, you would hire a part-time coordinator to coordinate the movement of those breakfasts, you would actually purchase some of the food items, the breakfasts, and then maybe you would track, you know, in a specific geography or neighborhood, how many young people are getting that and what kind of an impact is that having. So that tells me you're ready, you can come up with a budget, you've defined your strategy very well, you have a clear goal, and you know what to do with those targets. And so this is all you need to know, we take care of the rest, right? So we have a process. It's called our all-inclusive grant writing process, we write the grant from start to finish, and we're very well trained on how to take your ideas and put it into writing using words that the funder is going to understand and be happy with. And in a given year, we have about 20 to 30 grants that are called our priority grants. So the priority grants are the most important ones that we really advertise, we focus on them, we do them really well. We're good at it, we also win those grants. And so and so those are the ones that we put a lot of emphasis on like the Ontario Trillium Foundation funds. And so we can take your concept, your clear mission, your clear definition of, of how you're going to achieve success, your metrics, your budget, we can take all that and we can communicate that in a way that funders get it and will also help you jump through all the administrative hoops, all the documentation, logins and using all these various Portals we take care of all that and make it easy and not every grant writer can do that. So we don't just have subject matter expertise. We're also very good at process. I think that's what somebody would need to know if they're starting out. You could do it yourself but working with us, you're probably going to have a higher chance of success,
Daniel
It sounds like a very well-oiled machine and a very effective process for someone who has a great project, has a great cause and is looking to actually help fund that and expand it. Thank you so much. Rohit. For anyone who's interested, you could check out dogoodfundraising.ca.
