Well, they seem to offer a "premium membership" for $9.99/month [1] and presumably that hasn't raised enough. If the aim of the charity is to get career resources in front of as many women as possible, they probably don't want to put their most impactful resources behind a paywall - that would be contrary to their goal.

I suppose they could try an appeal to generosity instead? Depends if they've got a network of grateful people they helped 17 years ago who are now making six-figure salaries.

[1] https://girlsintech.org/membership/premium/

I know almost nothing about non-profit fundraising, but this benefits tier membership model looks very familiar as a tech for-profit service, rather than a charitable non-profit for the benefit of all.

(Specifically, in a tech, like a SaaS, the free tier are sales leads and inflated "market share" numbers, and the premium tier are the real customers of the service value you're providing and is your whole reason for existing. In a charity, however, you don't measure out benefits based on how much that person is paying you. Though a charity will have special recognition for exceptional donations, like the donor's name listed on some page, or mentioned as a sponsor of an event.)

Given the dire runway situation they were in, I wonder whether they sent out a recent urgent appeal to their free-tier, as more like a charity, asking for donations? (And if so, was the obvious benefits tier model hurting any charitable goodwill they might've otherwise generated?) Or did they try to push their free-tier members an upsell to their premium tier, like a business? Or neither?

Like many orgs, probably, their funding model was working, and then got hammered by COVID-19, and were stuck holding on, hoping for return to "normalcy".

It's very hard to pivot. Fund raising costs money. Some one needs an idea, a plan, a strategy. Everyone needs to agree to it. Meanwhile, an org's (remaining) execs and board members are doing triage. To execute a new plan means even more work.

And so on.

I've met and worked with terrific fund raisers. For me, personally, fund raising is just the worst. I've done enough to know a) it's very hard and b) I suck at it.

130,000 members x $1/member = $130,000