Start talking to donors about THE WHY and THE WHERE

February 12, 2013 erik Fundraising

On May 9, 2012, I blogged about something I thought was the next best thing since sliced bread. It was a post titled “FREE fundraising movies every Monday morning? Sign me up!” Not only did I write about this awesome service, but I took my own advice and signed up. I just love starting my week off with a short three-minute video nugget of fundraising goodness. So, when I opened yesterday’s Monday morning movie email and saw that the topic was “Articulating your vision to inspire others to give,” I knew it was going to be a great week.

One of the reasons I love these Monday morning fundraising videos is because they always make me stop and think. Yesterday’s video didn’t disappoint. It made me stop and think about my last few donor interactions. It even caused me to reflect back on the last time I was solicited by a charity. In this reflection exercise, here is what I found:

Sometimes my solicitation visits focus on big picture stuff like “mission.” These discussions focus on the question of WHY. They are 50,000 foot discussions, and some donors like to hear this message over and over again.
Sometimes my solicitation visits focus on big picture stuff like “vision.” These discussions focus on the question of WHERE (and a case can be made for WHY). They are also 50,000 foot discussions.
Sometimes my solicitation visits focus on the little picture stuff like “programming.” These discussions focus on the question of HOW (and a case can be made for WHAT). They are not 50,000 foot discussions. These conversations are in the trenches.
Sometimes, when I am having a good day and the donor is generous with their time, my solicitation visits are a combination of the last three bullet points.

The interesting thing I discovered when looking back is that each of those solicitation calls looked really different because each donor imposed their own set of constraints on the visit. One donor only had 15 minutes to give me; whereas, another donor is a real detail freak.

I’ve been known to say things like, “The golden rule in fundraising is ‘Know Thy Donor‘” or “Donors are like snowflakes because they’re all different“.

I am inclined to double down on these last two opinions after thinking about my last few solicitation visits. However, if you want to make a generalization about fundraising and donors, then this week’s Monday Fundraising Movie makes a great point. Many of us are getting so wrapped up in demonstrating ROI to our donors that our case for support drifts toward disproportionately talking about programming. This can limit our effectiveness because many donors give because they are inspired to do so, and many of the inspirational tools in our fundraising toolbox deal with our vision.

The next time you find yourself sitting down with a donor, try sticking to this simple script:

Tell them about the need in your community. Share a few statistics with them, but personalize it with a story about one of your clients.
Tell them about the vision your agency has for the future and how it impacts the need you just shared with them.
Tell them about how you know your agency is on the right path toward achieving this vision. Share a few outcomes/impact statistics with them, but personalize it with a story about one of your clients.
Of course, end all of this by asking for the donation or pledge.

If you practice, I bet you can do this in 15 minutes. I also suspect that you will become one very effective fundraiser.

Has your agency’s case for support started leaning more towards programming and operations in recent years? What have your last few solicitations looked and sounded like? What do you like to hear when getting solicited by other charities? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box below. 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
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http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Fundraising is broken. Fix it.

February 7, 2013 erik Fundraising, leadership

Good morning, DonorDreams blog subscribers. I thought I’d give you another day off from my random non-profit and fundraising thoughts by offering you an awesome article about DONOR COMMUNICATION, STEWARDSHIP AND RETENTION from a guest blogger. This guest post is from Nathan Hand, who is a fundraising professional in Central Indiana. Check out his blog posts at NonprofitNate.com. Enjoy!

It happened again. And I’ve had it up to here (*as he raises his hand 2 inches above his head*).

This post may get me in trouble but this is important.

I was visiting with a community business leader yesterday. He told me that he and his wife had supported an organization several times over the years,but he hadn’t heard from them in 14 months. The communication he received yesterday was a solicitation for a significant gift. Done via email. Out of the blue.

If that doesn’t surprise and horify you, it should, but surely this will. He politely declined. In his words, he and his wife had understandably ‘moved on’. In return, he immediately received a ranting email from the fundraiser calling him out for his lack of support.

Ho.Lee.Cow. Stop it already!

What happened? Where did this go wrong? It’s an epidemic racing across the country and affecting every cause. It’s destroying the field of fundraising and the nonprofit sector. And I don’t blame the fundraiser (entirely). For those unaware, data released recently from Compasspoint should have fundraisers and nonprofit CEOs more-than concerned. (Download and read the full report)

Simone Joyeaux summarized politely:

“In summary, here’s the scoop: Development officers quit. Bosses fire development officers. Boards don’t play. Organizations don’t get it. This vicious cycle threatens financing of the sector. And, this has been going on for years and we aren’t really fixing it.”

Why?

I think it’s a lack of patience and focusing on true philanthropy. Organizations are spread too thin (few staff, barely funded), causing the organization to put undue pressure on their fundraisers who then pressure donors and send clear signals of desperation (cue the story above) and have completely unrealistic expectations on top of it. It destroys any hope of a positive relationship and future with those donors. No wonder half of all donors don’t renew!?! We’re waisting an incredible amount of time and money recruiting/aquiring folks only to treat them horribly and then we have the nerve to wonder why they don’t stick around!?!?

Phew. Enough ranting. What’s the solution?

CEOs – Realize that donors want and expect to hear from you. Fundraising should be YOUR priority, not something you hire someone to take care of. Be intimately involved in the process, in the hiring and for goodness sake, pay a competitive salary to attract and retain talent in a relationship-based position. Understand that the development director’s job is to pull levers and orchestrate you, the board and other major advocates in engaging your network to build support for the organization. Until they’ve been a part of the team for several years, they won’t have the relational credibility to be successful. Like sales, financial advisors and other relationship-based business, the first few years are establishing repor and won’t bear fruit for some time.

Development pros – You’re more to blame than CEOs. Yes, I said it. This is YOUR profession. It doesn’t mean you should do it alone but OWN this issue. Fix it for yourself, then your organization, then help others do the same. Do your homework before taking a position. Then do it again. A strong relationship is imperative with the CEO. Spend some time with them. If you don’t get more than an hour or two – that should be a clear sign that they don’t understand the magnitude of hiring a development pro. Meet with the Board Chair. Talk about these issues. Push them on their fundraising philosophy and how they and the board have been involved thus far and how willing they’ll be in the future. Make sure they understand there’s no money-printing press in the back. And look in the mirror! It’s easy to point fingers but make sure you have the patience to do this work, understand how to navigate the involvement of others and balance the slow, relationship-based part with being strategically assertive and making asks when appropriate.

It’s not a big deal. It’s just the future of the entire sector we’re talking about…

What do you think? Do you struggle with this? Is there a different problem we should be zooming in on?

Not fundraising? Not engaged!

February 6, 2013 erik Board development, Fundraising, volunteers

Dani Robbins is the Founder & Principal Strategist at Non Profit Evolution located in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve invited my good friend and fellow non-profit consultant to blog the first Wednesday of each month about board development related topics. Dani also recently co-authored a book titled “Innovative Leadership Workbook for Nonprofit Executives” that you can find on Amazon.com.

Multiple conversations about the same topic with the leadership of a variety of organizations tend to lead to blog posts. When that happens, it is usually prompted by a question, though the question is rarely about the actual issue at hand. The issue that is really the issue at hand is usually behind the issue that is being presented.

For those of you know me, it will come as no surprise to you that I spend a lot of time thinking about the situation behind the situation. (When you make your living telling people what you think, you’d better have thought extensively about whatever they might want to know.)

When it comes to Boards and fundraising (and quite a few other topics as well), the issue behind the issue is often “engagement”.

The question I am being asked a lot lately is “How can I get my Board to fund raise?”

If your Board is not fundraising the way you want them to, I submit you do not have a fundraising issue; you have an engagement issue and possibly a Board Development issue.

Boards that are engaged, raise money. Boards that are not, don’t.

What is the emotional energy of the people in the room during a Board meeting?

When I ask this question while facilitating a session, I set up the answer on a scale of 1-4, with one being “I can’t believe I left my office for this” and 4 being “I feel privileged to be in this room.” Where do your Board members fall?

Mission moments, generative discussions and strategic conversations are engaging. Upholding the fiduciary responsibilities, while critical for an organization is also, for the most part, disengaging. It’s boring. It’s necessary but it’s still boring and boring is disengaging.

Every time I facilitate a planning session with a Board, someone comes up to me and says something to the effect of “That was great! I’m so happy to be talking about strategy and issues and not about the building” (or the finances, or fill in whatever you are sick of).

We engage Board members initially by talking to them about our organization’s mission, the impact it makes in our communities and our vision for changing our corner of the world. They join our Boards in order to help us do those things – and then we never talk with them ever again about any of it. Ever.

We talk with Board members about money — what we spent and why we need more of it. We talk with them about fundraising, and why they need to do more of it. We talk with them about the problems we’re having, and what we need from them to fix it.

We don’t talk with them nearly enough about what they want, about why they joined our Board, and what they hoped to get out of their service.

It is a great opportunity to change the discussion; change the topic; change the impact; change the engagement level.

Call a retreat. Take a survey. Add some client stories to the agenda. Have a strategic planning strategy session, and then continue to talk strategy throughout the year. Present a horizontal scan and discuss how it will impact your clients, not just your agency, but your clients. Introduce some generative discussions at a Board meeting. Here are a few ideas how from my favorite Board book Governance as Leadership:

“At the end of discussions give each member 2-3 minutes to write down any thoughts or questions that weren’t expressed.
Randomly designate 2-3 trustees to make the powerful counter arguments to initial recommendations.
Ask a subset of the Board to assume the perspective of different constituent groups likely to be affected by the decision at hand.”

Find out what people expect when they joined your Board and meet their expectations. You’ll be glad you did and so will your Board members. They might become so engaged, they might even start telling people about your agency, and asking people to support it.

Are you too busy or are you just prioritizing?

February 1, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, Planning

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking more closely at a recent post 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 “Take Your Time,” John talks about the difference between not having time and not taking the time to do important things. I especially love how he starts his post off with a quote from The Merovingian in The Matrix, who said: “Who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?”

I’ve been stewing on this for days because if I had a nickel for every time I heard a non-profit professional say something about not having enough time to do something, then I’d be a very rich man. Here are a few very real examples:

I didn’t have time to recruit an annual campaign committee and engage them in writing a plan.
I don’t have time to work on adding a major gifts initiative to our agency’s resource development program. And don’t get me started on planned giving.
Critique meeting? Are you kidding? We don’t have time to do that. We’re already late for the next special event.
I didn’t get around to writing an annual performance plan for my direct reports because there just wasn’t enough time.

I am the first person to point out that the non-profit community is severely under-resourced, and this means time is a precious commodity for non-profit professionals who are wearing multiple hats. HOWEVER . . . John pulls no punches when he says: “When we say we don’t have the time to do something, what we’re really saying is that something is not a priority.”

So, I find myself wondering:

Why is a written annual campaign plan (aka project management plan) not a priority?
How can it not be a priority to write a performance management plan for your direct reports?
What can be more important than working on complex fundraising tools that will bring in more funding?

I will be the first person to admit that I sometimes find myself practicing “avoidance behavior;” however, I know that this isn’t productive. More importantly it is destructive behavior and something that a non-profit organization cannot afford.

Do you find yourself routinely saying: “There just aren’t enough hours in the day to . . .”? If so, then I strongly suggest that you do an informal self assessment. You can accomplish this by doing the following:

Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper,
List all of the things you find yourself saying that you don’t have time to do on one side,
List all of the things you decided to do that same day on the other side of the paper, and
Go item by item and ask yourself: “Was this more important than . . .”

You may just discover that you’re not prioritizing your time effectively. Or you may not. Regardless of the outcome, I think this process is good to go through periodically just to make sure you’re prioritizing your time effectively.

If you do go through this exercise and discover that you are doing a good job with prioritizing your time, then please stop saying that you don’t have enough time. Own the fact that you have limited time and need to make tough decisions about what gets accomplished. Once you start doing this, you might be surprised at how many people start telling you that what you’re deciding not to do is very important. Once THAT starts happening, then you have achieved the necessary leverage to turn the tables and ask them to please lend a hand with what they have just described as a very important task.

How can they say ‘NO’?

Do you find yourself saying that you don’t have enough time? How do you ensure that you’re prioritizing effectively? Please scroll down and share your best practices with your non-profit friends and family in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Your non-profit event isn’t over until you critique it

January 31, 2013 erik Fundraising

For the last few months, I’ve been involved in the planning and implementation of one of my favorite non-profit organization’s special event fundraisers. I was reminded last night at the post-event gathering of how important critique meetings really are to the long-term success of a special event. I was also reminded that post-event evaluation needs to focus on so much more than simply the question “Did we make our financial goal?”

Before last night’s meeting, staff gathered information on the following metrics:

Amount raised vs. event goal (e.g. revenue)
Amount spent vs. event budget (e.g. expense)
Costs as a percentage of amount raised
Number of donors
Number of new donors
Number of repeat donors
Number of lapsed donors
Breakout of various revenue streams compared to previous years (e.g. ticket sales, sponsorships, raffles, auction, fund-a-need, etc)

After getting past the numbers, deeper questions were asked about process such as:

What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to recruiting the committee?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to event planning and project management?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to selling sponsorships?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to securing auction items?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to conducting the raffles?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to check-in and check-out?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to the script and program?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to post-event communication and stewardship?
Should we change the event theme? Has this event gotten old and stale? Is it time to change format?
What are three things we must tell next year’s committee to keep doing because it really made a huge difference?
What are the three things we must tell next year’s committee to re-examine and change because it was a challenge?

No one likes to look in the mirror and talk about room for improvement; however, there is another way to look at these type of activities. A post-event critique meeting is like writing a “love letter” to next year’s event planning committee. I believe that if it is done in this spirit, then this activity becomes significantly easier.

At the end of last night’s post-event meeting, we also talked about the importance of building a binder that can be passed along to next year’s committee. Of course, the notes from last night’s meeting would be included as would budgets, invoices, invitation lists, volunteer prospect lists, etc.

There was celebration and lots of hugs and appreciation was exchanged. Wine, popcorn, and awesome parting gifts for everyone!

How does your organization handle itself after the event is over? What do you look at? What questions do you ask at the critique meeting? What goes into your binder? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

5 Way to Validate Giving Decisions and Drive Retention

January 30, 2013 erik Fundraising

Good morning, DonorDreams blog subscribers. I thought I’d give you a day off from my random non-profit and fundraising thoughts by offering you an awesome article about DONOR RETENTION from a guest blogger. This guest post is from Matthew Mielcarek, the VP of Consulting at Charity Dynamics, who is a contributor for the online consultancy, Software Advice. Enjoy!

With a third of annual donations collected in December, many by first-time donors to an organization, finding a way to keep as many of those as possible going into a new year is a retention strategy proving quite valuable over time. A 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report shows that 70 percent of first-time donors won’t donate again. Here are five steps Mielcarek suggests to foster lasting relationships with as many of them as possible.

1) Mielcarek says, “First time donors are qualified leads.” Therefore, consider first donations an acquisition gift. He goes on to suggest implementing a new donor conversion plan with the end-goal being to establish an ongoing relationship

2) Secondly, he says to be mindful of what a new donor may be communicating with you. He suggests the following metrics to gain insight to constituent behaviors: gift amount, billing city/state, solicitation campaign, and giving channel. He says that analyzing these key points is valuable. “Online acquired donors, for instance, generally have poor online retention; we know that a multichannel communication strategy will be important. In contrast, offline acquired donors are far less likely to cross the multichannel bridge and a single channel communication strategy may be appropriate.

3) Mielcarek also emphasizes the importance of showing gratefulness to donors. One NTEN and Charity Dynamics study shows that 21 percent of donors say there were not thanked for giving. He says that follow-up thank yous are also of immense value. Tell them how your year ended in terms of its goals. Show them they’re donation made an impact to their overall mission.

4) He adds, “Engage relevantly.” Beyond thank-yous, communicate with your donors and supporters on an ongoing basis. Personalize messages based on constituent interests, affinities, and locations. Keeping websites up-to-date and engaging is a key element to achieving lasting constituent interest too.

5) Lastly is the actual conversion to the next stage of giving, Mielcarek says. This stage involves suggesting an affinity-driven gift — whether that be a “renewal gift, or an upgrade or graduation to a monthly or mid-level giving program.”

To read more about Mielcarek’s suggestions, read the original story here.

The Chicago Cubs Convention through non-profit eyes: Part One

January 22, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development

This last weekend I attended the Chicago Cubs Convention with my family. As we drifted from session to session, I couldn’t help but see all sorts of blog themes and things that non-profit organizations could learn from this major league franchise. I will use the next few days to share a few of these observations and hopefully stimulate a few new ideas for you and your agency. Today, I want to drill down on the idea of stewardship.

In one of the sessions that I attended, there sat Cubs General Manager Theo Epstein and the brain trust for the entire Chicago Cubs organization. There was a lot of talk about improving the stadium, improving the product of the field, and a lot of blah-blah-blah. I’ve attended a number of these conventions, and I always marvel at how I am paying them to market to me. I also can’t believe that the script never seems to change very much.

However, something struck me as very interesting this year. It was Theo’s second convention since being hired, and I heard him say this:

“The Cubs have a covenant with the fans.”

This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard him say this. I heard it at last year’s convention. I’ve heard it and read it in various media interviews. And this time it sparked the following questions and thoughts:

I wonder what he means by that?
He is emphasizing this point . . . this must be part of a larger narrative?!?!
This sounds and feels remarkably similar to non-profit stewardship efforts. Huh?

So, I went back to the basics and looked up the word “covenant” and thefreedictionary.com defines it as follows:

“cov·e·nant (kuv’e-nent) noun. 1. A binding agreement; a compact.”

Of course, every time I hear this word it takes me back to my childhood and confirmation classes. There are obvious Biblical connotations.

I believe that when Theo talks about this covenant with Cubs fans, he is referring to:

Transparency,
Accountability,
Reporting,
Recognition, and
essentially demonstrating that the team is doing what they say they’re doing.

Isn’t this exactly what non-profit organizations mean when they talk about stewardship? I believe so.

If you agree, then this raises another interesting question: “With whom does your agency have a covenant?”

I believe that non-profit professionals and board volunteers form a covenant with many different stakeholders such as: donors, clients, collaborative partners, staff, funding partners and institutions (e.g. United Way and other foundations), and the at-large community. While there are common threads that run through each of those covenants, there are also some unique promises being made by your organization.

Have you ever thought through this part of your social contract? If not, then I suggest this might be an interesting “generative discussion” at an upcoming board meeting.

After a little more thinking, I started identifying ways the Chicago Cubs try to hold up their end of this covenant. For example:

The annual convention is in part an accountability exercise where ownership, management and players open themselves up to answering questions (e.g. ticket pricing, player acquisition, organizational development philosophy, etc).
The Cubs talked a lot about investing time and resources last year in fan surveys and focus groups.
The Cubs publish a magazine called “Vine Line” in an effort to keep fans informed.

How is this any different that what some non-profit organizations do with newsletters, annual meetings, and donor communications.

As I always say . . . “We can all learn from each other.” And I do mean ALL because the Chicago Cubs Convention proves to me that there is more commonality between for-profits and non-profits than we care to admit.

What is your non-profit agency doing to fulfill its covenant? With whom do you think you have a covenant? What tactics are you using? Where do you find your inspiration and new ideas? Who do you see doing a good job with this?

Here’s to your health!

Facebook Graph Search will impact your non-profit social media strategy

January 21, 2013 erik Fundraising, Mondays with Marissa, technology

Last week, Mark Zuckerburg and friends held a press conference announcing a new feature for Facebook. No one had any real idea of what it was going to be. Were they changing privacy setting again? Did they buy another social media network? Was Facebook finally going to make a Facebook phone? It turns out that none of those questions were the topic for the press conference and what they announced was a change in “Facebook Search” with something called Graph Search. Today, we are going to take a look at what Graph Search is and how it will impact the social media strategy of your nonprofit.

What is Graph Search?

Facebook has tons of information on every user. Just think about it. Not only does Facebook have your name, but it knows where you live, what school you attended, what music you listen to and even in some cases what toothpaste you prefer. What is Facebook going to do with all of this information? Make it searchable.

Graph Search will change how people use Facebook for searching for information. It has been said that Mark Zuckerburg wants people to use Facebook as their internet and never leave the page. Instituting Graph Search will make that possible.

Currently, if you try to use Facebook Search to find a name of a company or a person, it isn’t very helpful to you. It is easier to go use a search engine like Google to find the information you need.

With Graph Search you can search for topics such as – people who give to charity – and it will bring up a list of your friends or people who live in your area that give to charity. The search results will be based on who you know and where you are located. Because of this, it is important to note that two people could search for the same topic and get different results.

How Will Graph Search Impact Your Nonprofit’s Social Media Strategy?

Before answering that question, let’s think about how Facebook has changed in the past few months. At the end of 2012, Facebook began to limit the amount of times a post from your brand page (not your personal page) would show up in your supporters News Feed. To get around this, they introduced Sponsored Stories and Promoted Posts causing people to pay money to get their message across.

With the launch of Graph Search, the number of “likes” on your page and the amount of engagement will be more important than ever. These two metrics will determine where you show up in Graph Search search results. Because Facebook has shortened the visibility of a post by a page, your non-profit might want to start thinking about allocating some money for a promoted post every now and then. This can help expand the reach of your message outside of your current supporter base and help you in both the short-term and long-term.

What Can Nonprofits Do Now to Prepare for Graph Search?

Graph Search is still currently in beta, but there a few things that you can do to your Facebook page to make sure it is ready to go when Graph Search launches.

Create Engaging Content – Post frequently and use photos to create a community on Facebook where supporters want to comment on or like what is being posted.
Fill Out Your About Section – Make sure you have all of the information filled out in your Facebook profile. Don’t forget to include a location as this is one of the main data points for Graph Search.
Plan Ahead – Take some time to think about what this change in search will mean for your organization. How will you grow support with more “likes”? What content are you publishing and when? What posts are most successful? For more help on what posts people are responding to, check out your page’s Insights data.

It will be interesting to see how Graph Search pans out and what impact it will have in the land of search engines. I am interested to see how Facebook plans to monetize their search. People take what their friends have to say seriously. So, a more personal search might be what non-profits need to gain more support.

Hopefully this post helped clear up what Graph Search is and helped you to start thinking about how it will impact your non-profit organization.

What do you think? Will Graph Search make an impact? How are you going to change your organization’s page to prepare for Graph Search Launch? Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

Are you a “Fred the Baker” type of non-profit leader?

January 18, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, Planning

In a post titled “Tracking,” John talks about the power of planning by sharing an amazing story about a stretch of mountains in the Alps that is next to impossible to pass. Instead of waiting for the train technology to catch up, Europeans decided years ago to build train tracks through that part of the mountains in anticipation that train technology will one day produce an engine with enough horsepower to get the job done.

Reading John’s post made me think of the countless non-profit executive directors and fundraising professionals who take on the role of “Fred the Baker” instead of embodying the spirit of those European planners who built those train tracks.

What? You don’t remember who Fred the Baker is? Check out this YouTube video and ask yourself this simple question: “Do I look like this every day and evening on my way to and from my non-profit job?”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=petqFm94osQ]

The story that immediately comes to mind and is very common and why many non-profit organizations can’t seem to get a major gifts program off the ground. When asked what is stopping them from building the capacity to add a major gifts program to their fundraising program, the explanation looks and sounds remarkably like “Fred the Baker”:

The day-to-day, month-to-month routine is so fast and mundane that there is no time for planning.
In January, we do the dinner.
In February-March-April we do the annual campaign.
In May we do the golf outing.
Etc, Etc, Etc

I recently had the privilege of working with a group of non-profit volunteers who said . . . ENOUGH . . . let’s build some train tracks.

They understood the following:

They didn’t have the right staff in place to implement a major gifts initiative.
Their technology (e.g. donor database) needs a lot of work to support an initiative like this.
Their resource development practices and systems need to change (e.g. stewardship)
They might even need to change the people sitting around the table.

Yet, none of this stopped them from working on those train tracks. They made it a goal in their resource development plan to some day have a fully functional major gifts program. They then look realistically at what they could start doing rather than what they couldn’t do and came up with the following handful of objectives for this year:

Develop an internal case for support.
Develop a menu of gift opportunities.
Identify a small handful of potential major gift prospects.
Develop personal confidential personal strategy plans for each prospect.
Engage in implementing each plan and start cultivating.

They are laying train tracks for the future and doing what they can today in anticipation for what they want to happen tomorrow.

How are you ensuring that you and the folks at your agency are NOT “Fred the Baker”? Do you use the planning process (e.g. strategic plan, board development plan, resource development plan, marketing plan, program plan, etc) to lay future train tracks for your organization? Do you have a great success story that you want to share? Please scroll down and use the comment box to jump into this discussion because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Avoid 19th Century donor cultivation tactics

January 15, 2013 erik Fundraising

Here is a tip for all of you fundraising professionals and volunteers out there: ” Women are powerful donors in their own right, and we settled most Women’s suffrage issues almost a century ago.” Those of us who cannot understand this simple yet powerful idea are “cruisin’ for a bruisin’” as a friend of mine used to say.

You’re probably wondering where this is coming from . . . so let me provide a little context. In the last few weeks, I’ve heard people twice say something that made me wonder if we were living in 1913 or 2013. Here are the two examples:

Some very nice woman was receiving an award and there was a group discussion about whether or not to tell her or surprise her from the podium. The decision was to talk to her husband and ask him to make the decision.
One group wants to get closer to a donor because he is one of those “very influential philanthropists” in town. You know the type. So, the decision was to start cultivating his daughter’s husband.

The first example is innocent enough and didn’t raise any red flags, but when put together with the second example it just got me thinking about the concept of “Women in Philanthropy”.

Did you know that Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis’ Center on Philanthropy has an internal division named the “Women’s Philanthropy Institute“? Here is a blurb from their website:

“The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) studies how and why gender matters in philanthropy. Men’s and women’s motivations for giving and patterns of giving differ. What works for men in philanthropy may not work for women. As women’s economic power and educational achievements continue to increase in the 21st century, women are leveraging that power to influence philanthropic decision-making and to transform the philanthropic landscape in many ways.”

When I read something like this, it makes me immediately think:

Wow! Men and women make philanthropic decisions differently. I wonder how I should incorporate that from a strategic and tactical perspective into a written resource development plan?
If women are as influential as they appear to be in philanthropy, then why are we still doing these weird cultivation dances with their fathers and their husbands?

Am I off base? Maybe a little, but I know that I am close to hitting on something big.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a board volunteer who is a strong woman. She and I are working on a fundraising project together, and she talked about a conversation that she and her husband had about a particular charity. To make a long story short, here are the highlights:

She is concerned about the organization’s financial health.
He knows his wife too well and knows that she will give this organization more money to help them out.
He strongly stated his wishes not to let their philanthropy get out of hand because he wants to retire in a few years.

I look at this conversation and now see things very clearly. She is the person who makes charitable giving decisions in that family. He is pleading his case to “The Decider”. I wonder how many charities don’t see that and try to engage him first?

Still not convinced that your agency needs to do a better job planning for and engaging women in your resource development efforts? Then please consider what Betsy Brill wrote in Forbes magazine on August 18, 2009:

“Women now control more than half of the private wealth in the U.S. and make 80% of all purchases. According to Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, women will inherit 70% of the $41 trillion in intergenerational wealth transfer expected over the next 40 years. In addition to controlling wealth and consumer activity, women tend to donate more of their wealth than men do. A Barclay’s Wealth study titled Tomorrow’s Philanthropist, released in July 2009, showed that women in the U.S. give an average of 3.5% of their wealth to charity, while men give an average of 1.8%.”

What is your non-profit agency doing to make this adjustment? Will the next generation of philanthropists in America be dominated by women? Please use the comment box below to share what your agency is doing about this resource development trend?

Here’s to your health!