Whenever I ask a nonprofit fundraiser or board member about their organization's impact, I know what kind of response I'm going to get. I'll hear about how many people they've served or the number of participants in last year's programs. With good reason, the fundraiser or board member is focused on the programmatic inputs and outcomes of their work, the efforts that are having a positive effect on the people their mission statement says they seek to benefit.

While there's nothing wrong with these answers to my questions about impact, they aren't comprehensive enough. Those measures don't take into account the full spectrum of the ways in which the organization is making an impact on the issue. And the most significant of those impacts come through the community a nonprofit builds.

Creating community

Your nonprofit may be advocating for policy change or helping others do so, raising the public's level of knowledge about an issue, changing attitudes and beliefs about the issue or the people affected, and helping engage stakeholders, institutions, and even lawmakers. All of these effects are part of the impact of your work that, together, contribute to the whole. They do not arise separately from your donor base, your advocates, or your volunteers, but together, they become the community you build that can influence the overall scope of the work you do, your ultimate success and, in the long run, effect the changes you seek.

The THNK School of Creative Leadership states: "A community stands alone by bringing together people that share a common belief, a lifestyle preference or inherited customs. Think about the bonding agents of a fraternity or a political movement...the solidifier is always within the boundaries of a shared belief or goal."

Your community is those who a) desire a connection to a social issue they consider important; and b) want to be connected to the issue and each other through your organization. They want to act alongside you, not for you, to inform others, pressure key stakeholders, and hold others accountable for their words and actions. Whether they do so through their dollars, voice, or time, they want their contributions to add value to the work already being done.

Nurturing community members

Such a community doesn't happen by itself, however. As THNK states, "Communities, however, will dissipate if neglected. They need nourishment and dedication...through traditions, behaviors and a sharing of knowledge." Your organization must nurture your community, or its members will take their impact somewhere else.

It's important to emphasize that building and nurturing community is not the same as stewardship, which is not the same as engagement. Stewardship, especially when donors contribute dollars, helps the individual supporter understand how their specific contribution (combined with others) has had a positive effect on the people being served and the issue overall. Community engagement means using everyone's assets to collectively address key milestones for the issue.

So, when you're building a community, what should be the aim and how should you work toward achieving it? Here's where your organization plays a pivotal role: This community should advance the agenda designed collectively, with input from stakeholders, beneficiaries, communities, and others with a verified stake in the issue. Thus, the agenda must provide clear, succinct opportunities for an individual to act with their voice, talent, skill, expertise, dollars, etc., toward a common purpose to achieve milestones toward social change.

Then, your organization can provide the tools needed to act within those opportunities.

Components of community

These opportunities most often will enable individuals within your community to act by making a commitment, applying pressure, and instigating action:

Commitment — personally committing to address an issue according to the community's shared belief. It's a promise made to fulfill values that involve personal, familial and social practices.

Acts of commitment include pledges, commitment forms and other signals that help family and peer networks understand their involvement. For example, Indiana Domestic Violence Coalition offers three levels of membership that gives increasingly deeper access to actions to individuals, partners, and organizations. Partners (governmental agencies, public service entities and organizations serving survivors) can access training and policies, specialized programs, and technical assistance, as well as voting rights. Organizational members (those whose primary purpose is providing direct service to survivors) get more of everything. Individuals can shop directly for survivors.

Pressure — using one's voice to help others understand the individual's and the community's view on an issue and what actions others should take. When exerted alongside efforts by other community members and the organization, pressure sends an important signal to institutions and those in power of how the public feels.

Acts of pressure include petitions, signature campaigns, and email and phone call campaigns to stakeholders. A good example is earthjustice.org, which hosts an Action Alerts web page with a variety of visually appealing, easy-to-access opportunities for individual and group actions for anyone interested in environmental law. On one day in September, supporters could sign up to receive text alerts, contact President Biden about Arctic drilling, protect indigenous sacred sites, stop a specific pipeline, and much more. One click provides what's at stake, a sample message that earthjustice.org would deliver on your behalf, and relevant educational information.

Instigation — individuals and cohorts of individuals within the community self-organize, create and build their own programs, events and campaigns that help those outside the community understand the issue, and what actions they should take.

These include small self-organized events, individual and group participation in local events and programs (such as tabling), and employee engagement in education or volunteer sessions. Moms Demand Action is a grassroots movement fighting for measures that can protect people from gun violence. They have nonpartisan chapters in every state and communities/networks of families, students, survivors, and others. Volunteers on the ground wear red T-shirts for easy identification and can use a mobile app to connect with others, keep track of tasks, and find ways to take action together.

Even companies are trying to accurately structure and measure the community impact of their CSR and ESG efforts. As I described in my book The Corporate Social Mind: How Companies Lead Social Change From the Inside Out, I worked with a company that was surprised to learn how many ways its employees were involved with social causes. They needed to nurture a community of those individuals to help direct their efforts toward the biggest impact.

As I've said before, nonprofits win not when the donor says we do good work, but when they say they have connected with resources to get more people involved and make a bigger impact. If your nonprofit provides an agenda of opportunities, the staff infrastructure to nudge connected people to perform, and a robust area in which to nurture them, then you can create a community with broader impact on your social issue.

Derrick Feldmann (@derrickfeldmann) is the founder of the Millennial Impact Project, lead researcher at Cause and Social Influence, and the author of The Corporate Social Mind. Read more by Derrick.