B-Cause followers will be aware that one of our Touchstones for a truly effective and impactful nonprofit organisation is Revenue Diversity. We are the first to acknowledge that this one is much easier said than done. So when are innovative idea crops up in this Touchstone area we are only too happy to share it.

TDA_Boulder, an advertising agency in Boulder Colorado, USA have come up with this novel revenue raising idea.

They chose 21 parking spots in their firms car park and replaced the standard “You will be towed” signs with these new ones:

They partner with 12 charities and donate $200 each time a parking violator parks in one of their spaces. The pesky illegal parker still pays the towing fee.

According to  Jonathan Schoenerg, a Partner at TDA, there seems to be a bit of a win-win here:

“Part of it is we’re really nice people, so the charity end of things is a way to relieve some of the tension of actually towing somebody”.

The mind boggles about how this simple idea could be expanded. Imagine signs on  Hume Highway which say something like:

“Get caught speeding on this section of highway and 10% of your fine will be donated to our local disability service provider”

How could you use this idea to generate more revenue for your cause-based organisation?

Image: From blog post by Osocio

Author: Todays post is by Chris Gandy MAPS, the Founder and Principal of Cause and Effective (www.causeandeffective.info) – a group utilising their knowledge and experience to help cause-based organisations to make even greater social impacts. You can now follow Chris on Twitter. We also invite you to be our guest on B-Cause – our guidelines are here.