Using a multi-channel approach for fundraising? Don’t forget ‘old school’ strategies!

multichannel1Have you ever intended to do something, but “life happened” and you dropped the ball? Well, this is what happened to me last week when I intended to write a post for the March Nonprofit Blog Carnival weaving together social media, fundraising and a multi-channel approach. While I missed the submission deadline, I’m pressing forward with the post because I think we can all learn something from the Community Crisis Center and their 2009 “Crisis Overnight” campaign.

In my hometown of Elgin, Illinois, our domestic violence shelter was experiencing a crisis of its own in 2009 because the nearly bankrupt State of Illinois kept falling behind on its accounts payable to non-profit organizations that it had contracted with to provide services (e.g. running a domestic violence program). In 2009, it was so bad that Community Crisis Center was owed $400,000 and cash flow management was becoming a challenge.

Years earlier, a staff person had written an article for The Courier-News newspaper focused on providing readers with a 24 hour look at what happens at Community Crisis Center. Looking a mountain of red ink, the executive director, Gretchen Vapnar, decided that a similar approach was warranted in order to generate public awareness about the center’s situation.

multichannel2The only difference this time around was that it was a different world. Newspaper readership was down. Internet usage was exploding. It was a brave new world, and social media experts like Ruth Munson and Sarah Evans advised the center to take their concept online. Here is what this campaign end up looking like:

  • Sarah Evans spent an evening at the center. She witnessed the impact that the center makes in the lives of everyday people, and she blogged and tweeted about her experience. (e.g. #crisisovernight)
  • In addition to bearing witness, she communicated a powerful case for support using a number of different online and social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, blog, Facebook, and YouTube).
  • Other non-tech channels were used by the center. For example, volunteers set-up camp outside the center and donors were invited to “drive by” and drop off donations. Staff also attempted to integrate a pre-existing direct mail campaign into the “crisis overnight” campaign.
  • The initial goal was to raise $150,000 in three weeks. Unfortunately, they didn’t achieve this goal, but they kept plugging away to get the campaign to go viral.
  • While they didn’t achieve their original goal, they did raise $161,000 in six weeks.
  • In the end, there were 756 online donors and the average size gift was less than $100/donor. There also was one sizable $40,000 gift from a local foundation.

If you want to learn more about this campaign, you can do a Google search on “crisis overnight.” You can also click here to view a SlideShare presentation by Sarah Evans.

The most interesting thing to me about this entire campaign was what the executive director had to say more than three years later when looking back on the entire experience.

First, Gretchen marveled at how “everything always comes down to the same things.”  What she is referring to is how the keys to success for this online campaign are many of the same best practices that work for traditional fundraising activities. She gave the following three examples to illustrate her point:

  1. Donors need to connected. (e.g. your agency needs to be visible to the donor or your mission needs to touch/connect with them).
  2. The “who” is still key. The person asking for the donation correlates greatly to your campaign’s success.
  3. There is a “trust factor.” Donors need to trust the organization will follow through and do what they said they’d do with the donor’s investment. If they don’t know the agency well, then the volunteer solicitor is leveraging their relationship with the donor to create that level of trust.

Old fashion fundraising strategies and best practices
plus

Online tactics (e.g. website, email, social media, etc)

equals

Success

There was also one other interesting lesson that Gretchen shared with me. She said that sustained success requires that non-profit organizations put someone in charge of their ePhilanthropy strategy (e.g. hire an online community manager).

Has your agency tied to undertake similar online fundraising campaigns? If so, what were the results? What did you learn? Please share your experiences in the comment box below because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Where will your fundraising journey take you?

road forwardWelcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking at posts from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

In a post titled “Ultimate Conquest,” John talks about the concept of conquering ourselves and our quest for self actualization. He starts by sharing a story about a king and his three sons. The king sends these three princes out into the world to “conquer dragons, maidens and black-hearted knights.” Each of princes returns to the kingdom having had a different experience. I won’t ruin the story for you, and I encourage you to click over and read it for yourself.

As I read John’s post, I realized that inside my fundraising soul I have many of the same experiences as the three princes.

When I worked for the Boy Scouts, it really was the first time I had serious fundraising goals and expectations. I learned so much from that job. All of my inexperience contributed to fear, and the way I conquered my fear was to approach fundraising as a competition. I am very proud of those years. I excelled and built an annual campaign that doubled in size over a three-year period. I received many accolades and recognition for my work. What I didn’t realize was that it was simply the first phase of my journey because I had only learned that donors were something to conquer.

The next leg of my journey brought me to Boys & Girls Club of Elgin as the executive director. I was a young executive director, and I thought that I had “made it.”  LOL   If I only knew then what I know now.

During my years at Boys & Girls Club of Elgin, I honed my skills as a fundraising professional. I was no longer afraid of donors, and I was adding more and more fundraising experiences to my repertoire. I was no longer the knight of annual campaigns, but I was writing grants, developing direct mail appeals, organizing special events, and building capacity with a capital campaign in mind. Much like the second prince in John’s post, I worked on becoming more nuanced and polished.

I remember thinking at the end of my tenure at Boys & Girls Club of Elgin that I had finally made it.   LOL   Again, if I only knew then what I know now.  That experience was only one leg of my journey.

When I accepted an internal consulting job at Boys & Girls Clubs of America, my view of fundraising expanded yet again. I no longer wanted to conquer donors or nuance contributions out of them.  The amazing team of individuals with whom I worked helped me see that there is a difference between “fundraising” and “resource development”. Whoa!  They also exposed me to the difference between “transactional fundraising” and “donor-centered fundraising”. I also started to understand the difference between “resource development” and “philanthropy”.  Huh!

As I look back over the better part of two decades, I understand that hindsight in 20/20. More importantly, I see three very distinct experiences, but I understand that they are three legs of the same journey.

I am not naive enough to believe I am at the apex of this mountain that I am climbing. However, I do feel confident enough now to say I recognize that I am on a fundraising journey. While I cannot see very far down the path in front of me, I am excited about my new realization that the non-profit world is my playground and this voyage is going to take a lifetime.

Have you had a similar experience with your fundraising career path? Where are you at? What have you learned? Where do you want to go? Did John Greco’s post trigger any great thoughts about you or our profession? Please scroll down and share some of your thoughts in the comment box.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

If philanthropy was art, what would it look like?

art of philanthropyYesterday, I saw a news story about actress Tilda Swinton, who is sleeping in a glass box at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. While I’m not a huge modern art fan (but I’m not a hater either), I haven’t been able to get this story out of my head for some dumb reason. Whenever I have a free moment and my mind wanders (e.g. driving in the car, standing in line for coffee, cleaning dishes, etc), I can’t help but think about this modern art exhibit.

So, this morning while walking on the treadmill, it happened again. In a fit of frustration, I decided that I need to push past this because it is getting obnoxious. And then out of the blue, it hit me . . .

If philanthropy was art, what would it look like?

I think it would be fun if every DonorDreams blog reader took a moment to contemplate this question. Once you get a picture in your head, please use the comment box located below to share your thought or image.

Come on . . . this could be a fun little break from your very busy day!

Let me help get you started:

  • A painting of a child in a hospital bed with a nurse attending to their IV.
  • A theatrical production spoofing the life of a fundraising professional. The scene I’m picturing in my head has a donor being hit over the head and the fundraising professional’s hand reaching for their wallet. (Again, I emphasis this is a spoof. Please no hateful emails.)
  • Hmmmm . . . a modern art example?  How about a live donor pulling his pants down around his bum with a fundraising professional trying to swipe a credit card down their backside.

Did I take it too far?  Oooops. Sorry. But I bet that I brought a smile to your face on a stressful day and got your mind chewing on this question. So, come on . . . take 60 seconds out of your day and share a thought (either serious of silly) in the comment box below.

Do you need more inspiration? Click here or on the YouTube frame below to see Tilda Swinton sleeping at the Museum of Modern Art. Hopefully, it won’t haunt your thoughts like it is mine.  🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXkmI-8wLCE&feature=youtu.be]

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Non-profit donors, hospital visits, and stewardship opportunities

get well soonIt is the morning of Wednesday, March 27, 2013 and my soon-to-be 40-year-old brother is on his way to the hospital for hip replacement surgery. He is the youngest hip replacement patient that his doctor has ever seen. With all of this going on, my mind still wanders back to non-profit organizations and how they treat their donors at times like these.

It should be no surprise to any fundraising professional that non-profit hospitals are very good at resource development. In 2011, non-profit hospitals and healthcare systems improved their fundraising efforts by 8.2 percent over the previous year’s efforts, according to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. That’s right. We’re talking about 2010 and 2011 when unemployment, the economy, and the housing sector were softer than they are today.

In a nutshell, I believe people are at their most vulnerable when they walk through the doors of a hospital. They are scared and their support networks (e.g. friends, family, neighbors, etc) stand by their side.

Here is the point . . . good non-profit organizations constantly message to their donors things like:

  • You’re part of our non-profit family.”
  • We care very much about you, and we appreciate how much you care about our mission and clients.”
  • You’re a valued friend.

If all of this is true, then shouldn’t you be by their side during their time of greatest need? And if you aren’t there, then aren’t you undercutting all of the stewardship messaging you’ve invested in throughout the years?

Non-profit hospitals have it easy in this one regard because donors (and prospective donors) are on their home turf. Of course, they still need to do a ton of hard work (e.g. quality care, bedside manner, compassion, service, etc).

My brother’s surgery this morning reminds me of a life lesson that I learned more than a decade ago when a board member, who was struggling with kidney disease, was admitted to the hospital. Not only did I not send a card/balloons/flowers, but I had left a number of emails and voicemail messages pushing him about an upcoming committee meeting.

Needless to say, the post-hospital phone call was more than a little uncomfortable for me. It was a lesson that I learned and carry with me to this very day.

Last week, I started working pledge cards for one of my favorite charities. One of the first donors I called to set-up an appointment informed me that she was being admitted for surgery in a few days. She didn’t want to schedule a solicitation meeting and asked that I call back after her surgery.

So, what did I do?

  1. I wished her well. I asked her when I should circle back around to check-in and set-up a meeting.
  2. I calendarized the date she told me to call her.
  3. I offered assistance. I told her that I’m happy to help in whatever way she thinks is appropriate. I can pick-up prescriptions, run to the store, or drive her to a doctor appointment.
  4. I called the agency to report this news, and they immediately mailed a “get well soon” card to the donor.

Did I do this because I am working the angles to secure a contribution in the long-term?

Heck NO!

I did these things because it is what friends do for each other. It also happens to be what donor-centered fundraising professionals do.

Do you have any stories about donors, hospitalization, and stewardship activities? If so, please take a minute out of your busy day to share that story or what you consider a best practice in the comment box below. Why? Because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

How does your community compare to others in fundraising?

elgin giving1My side of town is doing better than people expect! Hip Hip Hooray!”  In my opinion, this is cause for celebration because I live on the east side of Elgin, Illinois, which can come with a stigma or two according to some people (mostly those who live west of the Fox River). This morning I discovered an amazing online benchmarking tool from our friends at The Chronicle of Philanthropy that allows me to explore philanthropy in my state, city, and neighborhood.

So, all of my celebration this morning stems from the fact that I discovered my zip code (60120) is doing better than average in total charitable contributions compared all zip codes in the State of Illinois. We rank 3,976 out of 28,725. Woo Hoo!  Of course, we’re still behind our west side neighbors who rank 2,347, but frankly I don’t care. I am thrilled to be doing this well!

I am also intrigued by all of the data that The Chronicle of Philanthropy is able to put at my fingertips with regards to philanthropy and demographics data.  Here is some of what I learned about my side of town this morning:

  • Last year we contributed a total of $10.2 million.
  • The median level of contributions was $1,666 per household.
  • Median household discretionary income is $41,310.
  • Households in my zip code donate 4% of their income.
  • 55.6% of households identify as Hispanic.
  • 33.1% of people are under the age of 20 (which compares to 27% for the average zip code in the country).
  • 32.8% of people don’t possess a high school diploma (which compares to 14.4% for the average zip code in the country).

I could go on and on with amazing little factoids about my little corner of the world, but I will stop here because I don’t want to take some of the fun out of you exploring this online tool.

elgin giving2Now some of you might be scratching your head and asking the age-old question “Who cares?”

Simply put, this online tool puts a powerful benchmarking tool in the hands of every non-profit organization in America. Powerful!!!

Again, some of you still might be scratching your head and asking the age-old question “Who cares?”

The following are just a few reasons why every non-profit organization regardless of their size or skill level should be looking at benchmarking exercises for their fundraising program:

  • Benchmarking allows you to see where you stand in comparison to others.
  • When your organization is faced with making a difficult choice between a number of different options, then benchmarking can help you make tough decisions.
  • Benchmarking allows you to clearly see what you’re doing well and where you might need to improve.

Let’s go back to my hometown of Elgin, Illinois for a moment . . .

Elgin, Illinois is made up of four zip codes (e.g. 60120, 60121, 60123, and 60124), and the total charitable giving reported on tax returns filed from these four zip codes adds up to $39,582,326. If I operated a non-profit organization with $1 million per year in private sector fundraising revenue, then I would know that I am capturing 2.53% of the reported philanthropy in the area. With this knowledge, I can do a better job of measuring success and progress.

There are countless other ways to slice and dice this benchmarking data, and there are many ways it can be used. We’ve already made the case for how this information can be used to evaluate and assess your fundraising program. It could also be used to make decisions on who and where to target your fundraising efforts.

Does your non-profit organization do any benchmarking? If so, please share your success stories in the comment box below. If not, please weigh-in on some of the obstacles you encounter. If you took a moment to click around The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s online tool, please also share your comments or thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Under promise and over deliver? Managing donor expectations?

promiseWelcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking at posts from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

In a post titled “Squeeze Out the Doubt,” John looks at both sides of the “Under promise . . . Over deliver“.  Yes, there is a debate surrounding this concept. One side says, this approach is the key to producing win-win business outcomes. The other side says, managing expectations will lead to inflated expectations and the need to always over deliver in order to attain a win-win outcome (e.g. unsustainable vicious cycle).

As someone who saw “Under promise . . . Over deliver” as a basic truism, I find this debate interesting and something I mentally chewed on for the last few days. While masticating on this concept, my mind turned to the relationship that non-profit organizations have with their donors (aka investors).

As I thought about it more, I think this debate is at the center of every agency’s fundraising program. Here are a few questions that I’ve heard clients and colleagues ask themselves:

  • Should we tell our donors how close we are to closing our doors? Or will it set the fundraising bar higher next time we solicit them for funds?
  • Do we share our mediocre program outcomes data with our donors? Or should we cherry pick the data and make them feel good about ROI?
  • When writing our case for support, should we under state our goals for program outputs and outcomes?
  • When talking about our fundraising campaign goals, should we talk about the stretch goal as if it is what we’ve budgeted?

It would be easy for me to come out and proclaim that honesty and transparency are always the best policies; however, I think it is much more complicated than a black-and-white proclamation.

For example, I am not a big fan of non-profits who run around their community screaming from every mountaintop that they are running out of money and weeks away from closing their doors. On one hand, I’ve talked to some non-profit professionals who see this as a way of low-balling expectations. If they keep the doors open, then they win. It also creates a heightened sense of urgency among donors. Right?  On the other hand, donors don’t like to throw good money after bad money. So, the next time your agency asks for money, donors will set the bar higher than they might have otherwise done because they want to make sure they aren’t investing in the S.S. Titanic.

OK . . . this might not be the best example, but the point that I’ve driving at is that employing an “Under promise . . . Over deliver” strategy takes careful thought and application.

Please use the comment box and share examples of where you successfully employed this strategy with your board members, donors, volunteers, or staff. Did it result in a win-win? Or do you subscribe to another school of thought entirely (e.g. honesty is always the best policy, never promise anything and just deliver, etc)? If so, please tell us how that has worked for you.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Charlie Brown would’ve been a great non-profit executive director

charlie brownAs many of you know, I spent last week in California visiting friends and a whole lot of wineries in Sonoma County. During my adventures, we stopped at the Charles M. Schultz museum in Santa Rose, CA. It was one of the highlights of my trip. Not only did I get to walk down memory lane (because Snoopy and his friends were a big part of my childhood), but I was reminded of why I loved this cartoon/comic strip so much.

As I passed through one of the many exhibits on Charles Schultz’ amazing career, I was reminded of this very famous quotation by William Hickson:

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

How many times as a child did you see Lucy pull that football away from Charlie Brown as he flew through the air and crash to the ground?

It is an image burned in my head as I am sure it is for countless numbers of people around the world.

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Charles Schultz drew this image over and over and over again because he wanted kids to understand:

  • Failure is part of life.
  • It is OK to fail.
  • When you fail, you simply pick yourself off the ground.
  • You never stop trying.

What an incredibly important lesson to learn!

On my first day back from vacation, I had the privilege of having lunch with a friend who is the executive director of a non-profit organization. While breaking bread and catching up on things, my friend reflected on his career path as a non-profit professional and he said something that made me think of Charlie Brown. He said people who strive to be an executive director need to understand that they will fail, and they will do a lot of it.

Wise words from a very wise man.

The following is just a short list of failures that I’ve seen in my years from executive directors and fundraising professionals:

  • Recruiting the wrong volunteer to do the wrong job.
  • Pairing the wrong fundraising volunteer to solicit the wrong donor.
  • Pursuing the wrong strategies at the wrong time.
  • Not adhering to best practices when they are so desperately called for.
  • Cutting corners and thinking the ends justify the means.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all failed. And we’ve all picked ourselves off the ground and pushed forward.

Do you have the soul of Charlie Brown? Do you look for this quality in the people you hire? What about in the people you recruit as volunteers? Please scroll down and share a story in the comment box about a time you missed the football and how it made you a better non-profit professional.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Fundraising is like a fine wine

2013-03-11_10-56-44_547As you know, last week I re-ran five of the most viewed DonorDreams blog posts because I needed to take a break. What I didn’t tell readers is that the break was really a week-long vacation to see old friends and visit California’s Sonoma County wine country for the second time in my life. If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit California wine country, then you have to add it to your “bucket list”. It was spectacular!

So, here I am . . . sitting at my desk . . . first day back . . . struggling with the idea of getting back in the saddle again.

As I reflect back on the last week, I can honestly say that visiting wineries invoked lots of thought about fundraising such as:

  • Cultivation
  • Stewardship
  • Patience
  • Aging

So, I’ve decided that on my first day back at my desk, I will share a few vacation pictures with you as well as a few links from a Google search focused on the terms “wine” and “fundraising”.  Cheers!

Jus a few results from Google search

Mmmmm . . . all this talk about wine and fundraising is making me thirsty and it is only 8:00 am. Come to think of it, I also need to start making a few phone calls to set-up meetings with area donors to talk about this year’s annual campaign. Hmmmmm? I wonder if I can combine these two lovely tasks?  🙂

As they say in wine country . . . CHEERS! I’ll see you tomorrow where we’ll talk about the Charles M. Schultz Museum and how it inspired a few thoughts by which fundraising professionals should live their professional lives.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

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Non-profit fees for service and the smell test

It has been an exhausting whirlwind of work the last few months. While I would never dare complain about work so as not to upset the consulting gods, I need to take a short break.  So, this week I will re-run some of the most viewed DonorDreams blog posts on fundraising and leadership. I hope you enjoy today’s post on fees for service. Enjoy the flashback!  ~Erik

Non-profit fees for service and the smell test

Originally published on February 17, 2012

In a previous post, I blogged about the idea of non-profit organizations looking in some non-traditional places to generate revenue such as “selling things” through unrelated business income efforts. Of course, I see non-profits also looking at “related” business income opportunities. Today, I’m turning my attention from external opportunities to “sell stuff” (e.g. thrift stores, eBay, amazon.com, etc) in an effort to create revenue streams and looking inward at internal opportunities to sell your services by charging fees.

It would be too easy for me to take the position that instituting fees to sell your non-profit services to your clients amounts to nothing more than selling your soul. However, as we discovered in Tuesday’s post titled “Should the new non-profit mantra be: Sell! Sell! Sell!” many non-profits are generating a lot of revenue from fees for service — 45 percent of the approximate $1.5 trillion in non-profit revenue comes from fees and services.

I think my blogger friend, Joanne Fritz of about.com, got it right in her post titled “Can a Nonprofit Charge Fees for Its Services?” when she suggested there is a “smell test” that needs to be passed before a non-profit should ask its clients to pay fees for the services it offers. Let’s have some fun with this smell test idea:

  • <<sniff>> I don’t think domestic violence victims should be asked to pay for a place to spend the night safe from their abuser.
  • <<sniff>> It seems reasonable to ask students at publicly subsidized universities to pay some tuition.
  • <<sniff>> It don’t think hungry people should be asked to pay for the food they’re given at a food bank.
  • <<sniff>> It seems reasonable to ask patients at a non-profit hospital to pay for care and medical attention

Well, that was easy wasn’t it? Hmmmmmm . . . not so fast! The reality is that this issue can put your agency on the proverbial “slippery slope”. Let’s take a closer look:

  • Why should YMCA’s be able to charge fees to access their fitness programs? Doesn’t their non-profit tax-exempt status give them an unfair competitive advantage over for-profit companies doing the exact same thing? If you ask Bally’s Total Fitness and the  fitness center industry, they’d likely say YES . . . the trail of lawsuits throughout the years would seem to support this assertion.
  • Why should public universities continue to charge more and more for a college education when they can also fundraise and access other funding streams that for-profit institutions of higher education can’t touch? Doesn’t their non-profit tax-exempt status give them an unfair competitive advantage?

In this “New Normal” economic environment, I do think non-profit professionals are eyeing opportunities to “sell stuff” to enhance their revenue streams. However, discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to giving in to this emerging trend because it is one thing to look at the for-profit marketplace to sell stuff, but it can be a completely different issue when you start selling your services (and your soul).

Take the Boys & Girls Club movement as a great example. It is the mission of Boys & Girls Clubs to help “those kids who need us most,” which in most cases translates into providing services to kids from “economically disadvantaged circumstances”. There are a number of Clubs doing the math on charging fees for their services.

While it is true that Clubs have charged membership fees for more than a century, it has always been nominal . . . $1.00, $5.00, $25.00 . . . for a one year membership to the Club. This was done to create a “sense of ownership” because the value associated with something given away for free is NOTHING.

However, what happens to this organization’s soul when fees go from being a program tool to a revenue stream . . . $50.00, $100.00, $250.00, $500.00 per year? At what point are you soulless? At what point do your clients walk away? At what point does your mission collapse under the weight of fee for service”? At what point does the IRS enter the picture and revoke your non-profit status?

I’m not suggesting that fee for service isn’t an acceptable model for some non-profit organizations. What I am suggesting is that passing the smell test is more difficult than you may think, and it requires serious board room consideration.

So, here are a few questions I recommend board members ask themselves:

  • Are there for-profit corporations in your community providing similar services? If so, then why should you have a competitive tax advantage over them?
  • If your fees for comparable services are similar to other for-profit competitors, what differentiates you and makes you special enough to have a tax advantage?
  • What is stopping you (and I mean really stopping you) from doing a better job with more traditional revenue streams that are unique remedies to non-profit corporations (e.g. fundraising, foundation grant writing, and various other philanthropic opportunities)?
  • What will your donors think? And at what point will fees damage your philanthropic business model? (e.g. donors balking at giving you a charitable gift because they think you can just hike fees or go sell some more stuff)

So, before you leap I suggest you look. You might not have a revenue problem that needs to be fixed with a fee for service solution. You may have a human resources and staffing issue. You may have  board development or volunteer issue. Of course, you may have a revenue model issue that needs to be tweaked with the addition of some fees for service.

Here is some unsolicited advice . . . If you want to “sell stuff” to generate revenue, it is far safer to open a store and weave your mission throughout its operation (e.g. Wednesday’s blog post about thrift stores or Thursday’s post about eBay and Amazon.com) than it is to look internally at selling your services and raising revenue on the backs of those you serve.

What is the going price for a soul today? I think is it PRICELESS.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Fundraising questions to ask of donors and anticipate from them

It has been an exhausting whirlwind of work the last few months. While I would never dare complain about work so as not to upset the consulting gods, I need to take a short break.  So, this week I will re-run some of the most viewed DonorDreams blog posts on fundraising and leadership. I hope you enjoy today’s post on questions you should ask of and expect from your donors. Enjoy the flashback!  ~Erik

Fundraising questions to ask donors and anticipate from them

Originally published on June 21, 2012

Last week we started a series of blog posts focused on the art of asking questions, and this theme has carried over into this week. So far, we’ve looked at questions that executive directors should be asking themselves and their boards. We’ve also looked at questions board members should be ask of themselves and their fellow board volunteers. Yesterday, we looked at various questions you need to ask prospective board members before asking them to join your board. Today, we’re ending this series of posts by looking at 1) powerful questions that donors should be asking the non-profit agencies they support and 2) questions non-profits should be asking their supporters.

Questions that donors have of you

Over the last 15 years, I have been part of countless solicitation teams and answered more questions than I care to recall at this time of the morning. While those questions tend to be all over the place thanks in part to “unique circumstances,” there are commonly asked questions that many donors seem to ask after they’ve been asked to consider making a charitable contribution.

  • What will my contribution help accomplish?
  • Specifically, how will my contribution make a difference in your clients’ lives?
  • How financial stable is your organization?
  • There are so many worthy causes that keep asking for support. Why should I support you?
  • How much of my contribution directly supports programming and how much will underwrite administrative and fundraising expenses?
  • Tell me more about your fee structure and why are you charging your clients what you’re charging them? How do you know that is the right amount? Why not more?

The list of FAQs is much larger, but these are just questions that I recall answering over and over again. If you want a more comprehensive list of questions, you may want to read Harvey McKinnon’s book “The 11 Questions Every Donor Asks: And the Answers All Donors Crave“.

Why is it important to know what burning questions to expect? I think there are two HUGEreasons:

  1. If you do a better job “anticipating” these questions and build those answers into your case for support and solicitation presentation, I predict that your annual campaign numbers will start climbing.
  2. There is a long list of fears that get in the way of people volunteering to help your agency with fundraising. One of the top reasons is their fear of not being able to answer questions. Addressing FAQs as part of your annual campaign training program will improve volunteer confidence, reduce the amount of avoidance behavior during the campaign, and result in better solicitations (and hopeful result in better fundraising numbers).

Questions that you should have of donors

As I said earlier, I’ve been on many fundraising solicitation teams, and I’ve seen many things throughout the years. Too often, I’ve seen volunteers rush through the solicitation, get a commitment, and quickly downshift into chit-chat of a personal nature. It is almost as if the volunteer solicitor is non-verbally saying “Phew! Thank goodness that is over.”

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with chit-chat after the solicitation is completed. In fact, there is all sorts of important personal information that could and should be harvested from that conversation, captured on a contact report form, and entered into the donor database. However, most volunteer solicitors don’t receive training on what those conversations should look like.

While it would be easy to use that post-solicitation time to talk about family and personal things, it think the following questions might be more useful in developing a deeper philanthropic relationship with your donors:

  • If you only had one year to live, what would be most important to you to accomplish?
  • What are the issues, injustices, principles or causes in this world that get you riled up?
  • If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
  • What accomplishment or legacy would have ultimate significance to you?
  • In philanthropic terms, if you had unlimited resources, what would you set out to do?

While it is important to know the names of a donor’s spouse and children as well as where they went to school or go to church, I think it is far more important to understand a donor’s passions, dreams, and desires. Knowing and understanding these things puts you in a position of helping them achieve big things. I believe this is one of the biggest differences between transactional fundraising and donor-centered fundraising™.

I believe these types of questions can transform how a donor views you and your organization    . . . FROM fundraising vulture TO philanthropic dream-maker.

Please take a minute this morning to share a commonly asked question that you hear donors asking your volunteer solicitors in the comment box below. Or share with this online community one or two questions that you like to ask donors that helps you better understand their philanthropic hopes and dreams. We can all learn from each other and it is just 60 seconds out of your day. Please?

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847