Fundraising lessons from Team Obama

Since starting this blog back in May, I have twice posted articles about Team Obama because I firmly believe that non-profit organizations can learn a lot from what our political fundraising cousins are doing on the other side of town. Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t just mean that through careful observation non-profits will be able to steal all of their strategies and best practices. I also mean that we can learn from their mistakes.

For example, let’s look at what happened in my household just yesterday . . .

My phone rings. I answer it, and the person at the other end identifies herself as a someone working for an independent fundraising firm who is raising money “on behalf of” the Obama campaign.

Lesson #1: Think twice about farming out your fundraising to external firms. Keep it internal and recruit volunteers from your board of directors and the community to help solicit prospects and donors. There was nothing this woman could’ve done to prove to me over the telephone that she was actually representing the Obama campaign and not some kind of scam. Volunteers have more credibility than any staff person or hired gun.

Without getting into lots of boring political talk, let me just say that I explained to this solicitor that my partner and I won’t be making a direct contribution to Team Obama’s 2012 re-election efforts. Instead, we’ve decided to shift all of our political contributions to a national political action committee (PAC). I told her to go talk to them if she wants our money.

Lesson #2: My partner and I have changed our giving strategy because we feel powerless and unable to hold national politicians accountable to the things they promised (non-profit translation: the talking points from the campaign’s 2008 “case for support” that inspired us to give in the first place because we wanted to invest in that “impact agenda”). So, here is the lesson for non-profits . . . don’t make promises you cannot keep. Not only will it disenfranchise donors, but they might very well shift their charitable giving to third party funders like United Way in an attempt to attach more accountability to their contribution.

After explaining my position to the telephone solicitor three different ways, she started arguing with me. In the middle of her diatribe, she blurted out her solicitation: “Would you consider making a $5,000 contribution today?” I politely said no. She continued with her rant, and then blurted out “Would you consider making a $2,500 contribution today?” I politely said no and referenced all the reasons I gave 5 minutes earlier. Believe it or not, she continued onward and asked if I could just make an exception and contribute $250. Finally agitated, I firmly said that I wouldn’t even consider $25 and that she needs to go talk to the PAC I referenced earlier. I also asked her to update her donor database records so that I can stop getting these phone calls, emails and direct mail appeals.

By the way, this YouTube video does a nice job capturing what that phone conversation looked like. Check it out if you need a good chuckle today.  🙂   However, I think I just cast myself into the role of the “goat” in that video. Oh well!

Lesson #3: When a donor says “NO” there are two things you need to train your volunteer solicitors to do: 1) don’t argue with them and enter into a auction-like bidding war for their contribution and 2) shut-up, listen, take good mental notes, pass the info back along to staff, and enter the conversation into the donor database as a contact record. Hopefully, staff have developed good systems to address these kind of disenfranchised donors with intense cultivation and stewardship efforts before re-soliciting them in the future.

I used to think that United Way’s best days were behind them, but taking a step back and looking at my household’s new political giving strategy has me re-thinking this position. I suspect that if non-profits don’t start investing in measuring program outcomes and implementing an impact agenda, we might be looking at a time of re-birth for United Way.

What are your thoughts about third-party fundraisers and fund distributors like United Way? Am I way off base in my thinking? What about your thoughts on the three lessons I’ve highlighted? How do you train your volunteer solicitors to deal with donors like me? What systems do you have in place to secure donor conversations and react to a failed solicitation?

Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Monitor your organization’s heart rate

Last week after my Fitness Boot Camp session, I ran out to Target and bought my first heart rate monitor, which comes in the form of a strap that you fashion around your chest and a wrist watch. I made this purchase because according to my personal trainer I need to intensify my workouts and keep my heart rate in a particular target zone. This, of course, got me wondering. “Do they make heart rate monitors for non-profit organizations?”

While you might think this is a silly question, I urge you to stop and think about it for just one moment:

  • Shouldn’t board volunteers have a tool to monitor the health of their organization?
  • Wouldn’t the annual campaign leadership team appreciate something to track the collective progress of volunteer solicitors?
  • Couldn’t board and staff benefit from a tool that monitors implementation of any number of activities ranging from strategic planning to the health of the agency’s comprehensive resource development program?

I think that there is enormous benefits in developing such a tool, and the good news is that they do exist. While you cannot go online to amazon.com and purchase a heart rate monitor for your non-profit organization, you can roll up your sleeves and create a DASHBOARD or SCORECARD that will do the same thing.

When consulting with Boys & Girls Clubs in Indiana on annual campaign implementation last year, I worked with a number of those organizations on developing a simple dashboard using Excel to track campaign progress. Typically, there were six to eight graphical indicators on the front page of their dashboard. Each indicator measured one aspect of their campaign that they thought was important enough to track. Here are a few examples of what they tracked:

  • Board solicitation phase – actual vs. goal
  • Community face-to-face solicitation phase – actual vs. goal
  • Targeted mail solicitation phase – actual vs. goal
  • New donor acquisition – actual vs. goal
  • Donor renewal – actual vs. goal
  • LYBUNT renewal – actual vs. goal
  • Individual volunteer solicitor progress – number of pledge cards assigned vs. number of worked & returned cards

Indicator and monitoring tools like dashboards and scorecards allow non-profits to create a sense of accountability and urgency, which are two elements of volunteer engagement that many non-profits find difficult to generate. Additionally, it provides staff and volunteers with a management tool that helps create the necessary performance to avoid failures.

Finally, the good news is that these tools can be used for almost any project/activity. Here are a few links I’ve dug up that might help you develop your own organizational heart rate monitors:

How does your organization monitor its overall health? Annual campaign? Special events or projects? What have you tracked using your monitoring tools? Please use the comment box to share because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Spotlight: Examples of Really Good Donor Recognition Societies

Thanks to my friend, Susan Rudd, in Bloomington, Indiana I ended up focusing the last 3-days on donor recognition societies. Please don’t misunderstand me . . . I am not complaining. I very much love annual campaigns and individual giving vehicles, and donor recognition societies are a very important tool for any resource development professional focused on individuals (which should be ALL of us because 75% of charitable giving comes directly from individuals).

As I wrote Wednesday and Thursday’s blog posts, I realized that I was focusing too much on institutions of higher education as examples of good donor recognition societies. So, I promised yesterday that I would end the week with some diverse examples from other non-profit sectors. Here are a few that I found that are worth your time reading about and mimicking:

The United Way’s Tocqueville Society — This donor recognition society is for donors giving $10,000 or more to the annual campaign. It is a very traditional approach, and local United Way chapters do a variety of different things to create a sense of engagement for donors belonging to this society. Most non-profit organizations who run annual campaigns have some version of this donor recognition society (e.g. Boys & Girls Clubs’ Jeremiah Milbank Society, etc)

The Boy Scouts of America rolled out a tiered donor recognition society for their Major Gifts program. Local councils are tasked with creating courtesies (aka membership benefits) for people donating to each of these societies. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that special patches and pins are part of Scouting’s benefits program for these societies.

  • James E. West Fellowship — This donor recognition society is focused solely on gifts to the endowment
  • Second Century Society — This society is more comprehensive and encourages large “major gifts” to operating, capital and/or endowment funds. It is flexible and covers outright gifts all the way through deferred ones.

The Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago developed a tiered donor recognition society named the Columbia Society for its annual campaign donors. The first tier of the society starts at $1,000 and the highest level is for $50,000 donors. Benefits/courtesies vary for each tier but include typical stewardship-based activities such as newsletters, events, etc.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) developed a similar tiered donor recognition society they called the Federal Club. As with the aforementioned Columbia Society, membership benefits include tickets to events, a special newsletter, and routine e-blasts with return on investment information on HRC’s lobbying efforts and community organizing.

One of the grand-daddies of all donor recognition societies is Rotary International’s Paul Harris Fellowship program. I’ve never seen any non-profit organization so focused on a donor recognition society as I have this one. As with all national programs, the local affiliates are responsible for making membership in this society feel special. However, Rotary International does a great job with recognizing its local affiliates for their work in securing repeat gifts and new donors. We can all learn a lot from Rotary’s work in this area.

Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I think it is a good start. Does your agency have any fun and effective donor recognition societies that you can share with us? Do you know of any donor recognition societies that integrate stewardship opportunities into their society as benefits/courtesies? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Donor recognition societies: The response

Well, no one responded to poor Susan Rudd’s questions about donor recognition societies from yesterday’s blog post. All I can assume is that the workload coming back from the long Labor Day weekend must have been intense. Never fear . . . I responded to Susan and provided a few nuggets of advice.

However, for those of you who read yesterday’s blog and thought: “Bah! Our donors don’t want recognition. In fact, they’re always telling us not to go through the trouble.” Let me assure you that what donors say and what they mean are very different things. In my experience, many of those donors who protest when it comes to recognition and stewardship are really saying: “Don’t engage me because my plans for giving to your agency are short-term.”

As I said yesterday, I’ve found that donor recognition societies are oftentimes misunderstood for “name-only,” donor giving levels that are listed in an annual report, newsletter or website. Unlike giving levels, donor recognition societies are ALIVE and a place for your donors to engage with your organization’s mission as well as with other donors of like-mind.

One great example is what the University of Michigan’s alumni association is doing with its members (and when I say members you should read it either as “donor” or “prospective donor”). Every summer the alumni association offers its members the opportunity to sign-up for 11 different sessions of summer camp. They call this program “Camp Michigania“.

I just spent last week vacationing with a number of retirees in Michigan on the shores of Saginaw Bay. One evening they couldn’t stop talking about their camp experiences. While they participated in typical camp activities (e.g. swimming, arts & crafts, etc), they mostly loved the “Faculty Forums” where they could hear U of M staff talk about various topics pertaining to their professional research.

Do you know what else I heart this group chattering about as they reminisced about camp? They were talking about the scholarships funds they were starting (or thinking about starting) as well as the planned gifts they were contemplating.

I can honestly say that I haven’t seen a more engaged and excited group of donors and prospective donors. And the amazing thing to me was that there wasn’t a single resource development employee from the university in the room stirring those conversations.

The moral to this story is: stewardship and cultivation activities that “ENGAGE” donors is like the fountain of youth for all resource development programs. It brings things to life. It makes fundraising and solicitation so much easier. It can breathe life into your planned giving program.

While Camp Michigania isn’t a textbook example of a donor recognition society, I really like what the Indiana University Foundation has done in this area. Click here to see examples of their donor recognition societies. I suggest you pay special attention to how they use “courtesies” to engage their donors after the gift. What IU is essentially doing is infusing cultivation and stewardship opportunities into these recognition vehicles.

Please use the comment box below to share links to other good examples of donor recognition societies that you’ve found. Does your organization use donor recognition societies? If so, how do you use them? Do you infuse stewardship opportunities into these structures? What has worked well and what hasn’t?

Tomorrow I will try to share other good examples of donor recognition societies from outside the education sector.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

A reader’s question about Donor Recognition Societies

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Susan Rudd, Resource Development Assistant for the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington, Indiana, about donor recognition societies. So, this is what I’ve decided to do . . . and I will need your help with this.  In the space below, I will paste Susan’s email into the blog. I would like you to think about some of the questions she poses and then use the comment box to weigh-in with your best world-class coaching and advice. The more readers who participate, the merrier!

Before I share Susan’s email, let me just say that I am of the opinion that many social service non-profit agencies don’t do a very good job with donor recognition societies compared to other sectors of the non-profit community. I suppose I’m of this mindset because when I’ve seen social service agencies take a stab at creating donor recognition societies, they oftentimes seem to melt into “donor giving levels” (e.g. listed online and in the annual report) with very little else associated with it.

With that being said, here is a copy of Susan’s email:

Hey Erik,
 
I am really enjoying your blog, thanks for doing that, it’s a refreshing break for me to read it and recharge my resource development batteries. 
 
Question for you, and maybe some fodder for you on your blog.  We have had a few conversations with our annual campaign committee and Resource Development committee about developing donor recognition societies.  At this year’s “Eat Thank Love” donor stewardship luncheon, we recognized nearly everyone there (and possibly everyone) in some way for what they contributed to the Club. However, we feel like we need a more formalized plan.  Nevertheless, when we started talking about how to do this, we ran into walls of questions about how to create and acknowledge those people using a donor recognition society strategy.  So here are a couple of questions we have:
 
* Do we create societies for all donors or just annual campaign donors?
* Should we include in-kind donors? How do you value those contributions?
* We started to look at names of levels (champion, gold, silver, etc) and special recognitions for long-term donors, etc. and got stuck there too.  What types of names should we use? Where should we create breaks in the levels of giving for recognition purposes?
* Is there any protocol or best practice to follow when developing Donor Recognition Societies? 
 
Any advice is valued, of course.  Wisdom please…whenever, no rush.  Thanks Erik.

Susan Rudd
Resource Development Assistant
Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington

So there you have it. Thanks to Susan for sending me this email and understanding that she isn’t in this alone because we can all learn from each other!

The challenge is now out there for you. How does your agency deal with Donor Recognition Societies? What is your best world-class coaching and advice for her?

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Killing sacred cows

A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine from down south sent me this message through LinkedIn:

“I would like to get your perspective on how to handle an advisory board that loves their special event (they gave birth to it), it costs $0.95 on each $1.00 raised and takes months of time and effort. “

My first thought here was: “WOW, it only costs 95 cents to raise a dollar with that special event?”

For those of you who are not familiar with Charity Navigator’s “2007  Special Events Study,” I strongly urge you to read it. They discovered that the average special event fundraiser (when considering direct and indirect costs) will cost a non-profit agency $1.33 to raise $1.00.

I wonder if the aforementioned 95 cent cost included indirect costs like staff time.

Not included in the study (because it would be impossible to do) is calculating the “opportunity cost” involved with a special event fundraiser. In other words, what other fundraising opportunity did we miss out on because we spent our volunteers’ time doing a special event? How much more money could we have raised (and at what cost) if we asked the same staff and volunteers to run an annual campaign pledge drive instead of that labor intensive gold outting?

Here’s the thing . . . volunteers LOVE special events because it is the least scary form of fundraising. They are out selling tickets and feel comfortable doing so because they’ve rationalized that their friend is getting something of value in exchange for their donation; whereas, no one is getting anything in return for an annual campagn pledge.

According to dictionary.com, a sacred cow is “an individual, organization, institution, etc., considered to be exempt from criticism or questioning.” In my opinion, special event fundraising is likely one of the non-profit volunteer’s most sacred cows, and killing sacred cows is hard to do!

If you are determined to kill a sacred cow, then you only have one path to travel . . . it has to be the idea of those people who hold it sacred.

How can that be done? Here are a few ideas:

  • Engage your event volunteers in a post-event evaluation meeting. Share the Charity Navigator study with them. Calculate the event’s TRUE cost (direct + indirect) and share info, too. Ask them how they’d handle the same situation back home at their place of employment if a product or service was losing money.
  • Use your resource development committee, as part of your annual resource development planning process, to look at every revenue stream and its true cost. Engage them in reviewing your agency’s resource development policies. If you don’t already have policies setting ROI standards for events, walk them through that exercise.
  • Pull together a focus group of key donors. Share the Charity Navigator study along with your special event data with them. Ask them for their observations and suggestions. See where the conversation takes you. It might be very interesting! Make sure all of the focus group’s feedback gets shared with the event committee, resource development committee and board of directors.

It is important to remember that special events do serve a good purpose, especially with providing an opportunity to engage new prospective donors. It is never a good idea to just eliminate all events. A few well oiled special event fundraisers (with decent ROI) can serve an important role in your agency’s resource development program.

What advice would you give my dear friend? How do you keep special events from getting out of hand at your agency? How have you killed sacred cows without incurring your volunteers’ wrath? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in on this subject because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Stewardship opportunity on Labor Day

Labor Day can be a stewardship opportunity. In fact, non-profit organizations can turn most holidays into stewardship opportunities for their donors.

When I was a young executive director, I used to write a letter to the editor of our local newspaper on Labor Day thanking the community’s labor unions for all of their support. In that open letter to the public, I tried to remind people that those unions were part of our community’s fabric and did “good works” that oftentimes didn’t get any press. For example:

  • The local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) chapter provided all of the volunteers and muscle necessary to run our duck race fundraiser.
  • The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Home (IUPAT) once marshalled their apprentice program to paint our facility for free.
  • The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the Laborers’ International Union, as well as other unions in town were all at one time or another outright donors to our annual campaign.

I chose Labor Day to write that letter to the editor, send letters of appreciation and make thank you phone calls because the stated purpose behind Labor Day is to celebrate “the economic and social contributions of workers”.

Many non-profit organizations struggle with stewarding their donors and instead become solicitation machines (which ironically burns out donors and creates a cycle of turnover). When I’ve talked to my non-profit friends and asked WHY, the most common answer I’ve heard is that time is a limited resource.

So, I encourage you to look at the myriad of holidays on your calendar and ask yourself this simple question: “How can this holiday be used to steward our agency’s donors?” I assure you that with a little effort, you will find the opportunities are limitless.

Does your non-profit organization have any fun and effective stewardship activities and best practices wrapped around holidays? If so, please use the comment box to share because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health! And oh yeah . . . Happy Labor Day!!!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Tips for surviving a double dip recession

Yesterday I blogged about my neighbor Larry and how I see his handyman business as an economic indicator and proof the economy is dipping again into recession. I also cited recent survey data indicating that donors are planning to tighten their belts in the coming months. If you didn’t get a chance to read that post, click here and then come back for today’s follow-up post.

While there is nothing any of us can do to stop the economic tides from rising and falling, I submit that there are things we can do to prepare for such occurences and the following are a few tips you might want to consider:

Tip#1: Get closer to your donors and not farther away.
Donors are part of your non-profit family. During tough times, families pull together. They don’t ignore each other. Your instinct might be to give donors space, solicit them less, and be respectful of limited resources. Even though these are good intentions, the message you’re sending is that donors are only your friends during prosperous times when they have money. Don’t send the message that donors are only ATMs in your eyes. Find ways to engage them.

Tip #2: Tell donors what you are doing to help your clients get through tough economic times.
Donors like to see “return on investment” when they make a charitable contribution. When recession-thinking permeates our donors thoughts, lets embrace the moment and show them how their contributions are making a difference in the lives of others. Don’t use “guilt messaging” to solicit. Use “we’re all in this together” and “neighbors-helping-neighbors” as part of your stewardship messaging.

Tip #3: Invest in volunteer management and promote volunteerism like never before.
There will be people who want to support your mission, but cannot do so financially during tough times. Providing people an opportunity to support your mission by donating their time will: 1) help you pull them closer and not push them away (see first tip), 2) cultivate future donors (because the recession will end one day and they will be able to donate again), and 3) help your agency’s staffing budget as you might be considering budgetary cuts.

Tip #4: Invest a lot more time in re-building or manicuring your board of directors.
Your case for support will never be greater than now. As you approach board volunteer prospects, they won’t need any convincing that you need as many talented people around your board room table to help make difficult decisions and weather an economic storm. Find the time! Figure out how much time your organization spent on board development in 2010, then double or triple the amount of time you spend on it going forward. Doing so will help you survive and position you to be very strong on the other side of this recession.

Tip#5: Don’t stop soliciting individuals.
Individual giving is where it is at in charitable giving. Spend most of your time cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding individuals and less time on foundations, corporations and government. This is a great time to invest in building your annual campaign or annual fund drive and dial back a little bit on special events. Think about it for a moment . . . during tough times people eliminate “frills” like entertainment. Many of your donors probably see their special event contributions are “nights out on the town with a charitable angle”. I assure you that they look at their annual campaign pledge very differently. Don’t eliminate all of your events, but now might be the time to kill old and tired events.

There are literally two or three more handfuls of tips I would’ve provided, but I’m running out of space. So, I encourage you to use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts, tips and current strategies. We can all learn from each other!

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

It’s baaaack: Double dip recession

My neighbor is the owner of Larry’s Home Maintenance, a small handyman business. He has been in business for approximately five years after getting laid-off from his IT job at Motorola. While Larry (pictured on the right) is our friend and handyman (yes, his work is awesome), he is also my “canary in the coal mine”.

When Larry’s phone stops ringing (like it did in 2008), I know the economy is in bad shape and a recession is either around the corner or it is already here. For most of 2011, Larry’s phone has been ringing off the hook. This isn’t surprising because when the housing market is in the toilet people tend to start pouring money into home improvement projects. On average, he has been receiving 20 phone calls per day.

In the beginning of August, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating and the European Union entered into another round of debt crisis discussions involving Greece, Spain and Italy. The future of the eurozone was called into question. When this happened a few weeks ago, Larry’s call volume dropped from 20 calls per day to approximately five. When I saw Larry yesterday, he said that his phone has “stopped ringing”. And he means that literally . . . potential customers have stopped calling.

Larry’s call volume is a lagging economic indicator. It accurately forecasted 2008 and I suspect it is doing the same thing now.

Every non-profit organization has relationships with a “canary in the coal mine” like Larry. They are called “DONORS,” and staying in regular contact with them will help you kinda/sorta predict the immediate future and allow you to take corrective action that might permit you to glance off of the iceberg rather than hit it head-on.

So, if you think Larry is “off his rocker,” you might want to read this blog post from yesterday’s The Chronicle of Philanthropy titled “Two-Thirds of Donors Plan to Cut Back on Giving This Fall“.

If you already clicked the link, read the article and returned to finish this blog post, then you know that 68-percent of survey respondents recently said they plan on cutting back their charitable giving for the remainder of 2011. While I am usually suspicious of “survey data,” the combination of Larry’s situation and The Chronicle’s story has me saying “Uh-Oh”.

Of course, there isn’t anything a non-profit organization can do to change this situation. So, the better question we should all be asking is: “What should we be doing TODAY to position ourselves for a double dip recession that minimizes the impact on our clients?”

I will use tomorrow’s blog post to look at a few options you might want to consider implementing. In the meantime, please use the comment box below and share what you are thinking and possibly planning to do. What are your donors telling you? Share your canary in the coal mine stories.  We can all learn from each other!

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

The Brady Bunch and eliminating government funding dependency

Before I left on vacation, I sent approximately 75 of my closest non-profit friends an online survey that would give me necessary insights on services and pricing I should offer as part of my new consulting business. It was an anonymous survey so I don’t know who responded, but I wish to thank the 56 people who took time out of their busy schedules to help me out. The information they provided have helped me greatly with my business plan.

Some people also dropped me an email when they completed the survey because they were compelled to share additional comments. I very much appreciated those emails because the advice provided in each instance was “pure gold.” However, one response caught my attention and has had my mind spinning for a few days. Here is part of what she said:

“This is probably just me, but I am so frustrated with the concept and the reality of ‘strategic planning’.  These past two years have shown that in order to be strategic an organization needs information…at least somewhat reliable information.  The only strategic goal that makes sense would be to eliminate government funding. I am hoping that someone will come up with a way to address plans for the future based on the way not-for-profits really live.”

It is funny how my brain works sometimes. As I’ve stewed on this input, I couldn’t get The Brady Bunch’s song “Time to Change” out of my head. Click the YouTube link if you want to enjoy a blast from the past. LOL

So, I googled the lyrics to the song and found this great advice:

“When it’s time to change, then its time to change
Don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride, don’t you see
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
who you are into what you’re gonna be.”

I think this is great advice for non-profit organizations regarding how to approach what is likely to be a government funding crisis for many non-profit organizations. Essentially, the song suggests that fighting change is the wrong course of action. Those who will survive will figure out how to adapt and ride the tide.

So, many of you are probably saying (just like my friend did in her email), “That’s great Erik, but where do I start? Strategic planning hasn’t worked for me in the past.” Here are just a few random thoughts I hope you will chew on and consider as you start preparing for 2012:

  • Engage board volunteers to help with a benchmarking project (identify nonprofit agencies that look like yours and have a different funding model then study their best practices … figure out what they are doing and how to measure it at your organization).
  • Conduct a resource development audit or a resource development review. This might help you identify new opportunities and paths forward.
  • Engage key stakeholders (e.g. staff, board, donors, etc) in creating a written resource development plan that doesn’t rely on government funding. Use the process to “engage” people … which means asking at each turn “who wants to help with this part of the plan?” And when no one wants to implement the suggestions they just provided, then axe it from the plan and ask them what else should be done? Realistic plans work; whereas, unsupported, pie-in-the-sky plans never work!

If this all seems like too much work and you are exhausted from the daily grind, then how about just starting with this one simple idea:

  • Call your top 5 donors
  • Ask them to join you for lunch or after-work cocktails
  • Tell them your story and the future forecast of government funding
  • Ask them what they think your agency should do
  • Then just shut-up, listen, take notes and ask for their help in taking the next small step

Donors can be MORE THAN just a source of funding for your agency … they can be the voices of change much like Peter Brady was for the Brady Bunch.

What are you and your agency doing to prepare for a future with scarce government resources? How do you plan on strategically repositioning your organization? What tools and strategies will you use? Who will you engage? Please use the comment box below to share because we can learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
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