Donors are friends and NOT food!

Welcome to Thursday of individual giving week where we’re looking at different individual giving strategies as a way to replace dwindling pools of government funding. We’re using characters from the movie “Finding Nemo” to look at various individual giving strategies.

“Crush the Turtle” helped us look at special event fundraising on Monday. Tuesday’s post focused on “Marlin” and direct mail. Yesterday, Dory helped us peek at some of the considerations around ePhilanthropy. Today, we’re looking at the granddaddy of all individual giving strategies — an annual campaign driven by personal solicitation approaches.

Let’s turn to the shark characters from “Finding Nemo” to look at this classic individual giving strategy. Why the sharks? Here is the “Fish Friendly Shark Pledge” that Bruce the Shark took when we first met him on the silver screen:

“I am a nice shark. Not a mindless eatin’ machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends. Not food.”

When I read this movie quote, I was transported back in time to a Boys & Girls Clubs of America leadership training in which I participated with my friends Paula, Teri and Tom. The “Fish Friendly Shark Pledge” reminded me of our team’s motto: “Donors are not ATMs.”

Let’s back up and start at the beginning. I’ll circle back to the sharks in just a moment.

Annual campaigns that are powered by personal, face-to-face solicitations are one of the most classic individual giving strategies employed by many of our most successful non-profit organizations:

  • United Way’s annual campaign utilizes face-to-face group solicitations in the workplace.
  • Boy Scouts’ “Friends of Scouting” (FOS) campaign utilizes face-to-face solicitations. Some of these approaches are in group settings (e.g. Pack meetings) and others are one-on-one with local business leaders and scouting alumni.
  • Boys & Girls Clubs’ “It Just Takes One” (IJTO) campaign utilizes one-on-one, face-to-face solicitations with existing donors and qualified prospects from the community-at-large.

These kinds of campaigns are “classic” and ultra succesful because face-to-face solicitations are proven to be the most successful way to raise funds. National statistics demonstrate that 75-percent of prospects/donors who are asked in-person end up making a contribution of at least 50-percent of what the volunteer solicitor asked them to contribute.

Whoa! Compare this 75-percent success rate with direct mail’s response rate of 0.5-percent to 3-percent. Then consider that the response rate for an email campaign can vary wildly — lower than 0.5-percent or upwards of 10-percent from what I’ve seen — depending on how warm the list is.

Of course, nothing comes close to touching 75-percent!

However, there is always a “catch,” and in the case of annual campaigning and personal solicitation strategies “the catch” is that most fundraising volunteers are scared to death of it. Nevertheless, utilization of best practices can lower fear levels to something manageable. Here are just a few things your agency will want to use if it decided to use this classic individual giving strategy:

  • Develop a great case statement
  • Provide volunteers with good solicitation materials
  • Make sure volunteer solicitors have personally made a contribution before asking them to solicit their friends
  • Don’t overload volunteer solicitors with many more than 5 prospects
  • Be diligent with your prospect assignment process and only ask volunteer solicitors to visit prospect they know. NO COLD CALL!
  • Bring in an experienced training professional to teach volunteer solicitors about the 12-step process on how to make an effective face-to-face solicitation.
  • Develop and use “accountability tools” to help volunteer solicitors stay focused.
  • Find ways to inject a “sense of positive urgency” into the campaign. (I don’t mean using crisis messages. I am referring to deadlines, challenge gifts, campaign goals, etc)

Thoughtful use of the annual campaign and personal solicitation technique as a tool in your individual giving toolkit can net your agency amazing results in a very short period of time compared to the years-and-years it might take to develop a successful direct mail or ePhilanthropy program.

So, here is where “Bruce the Shark” from Finding Nemo comes into play . . .

Soliciting someone using an annual campaign personal solicitation technique is . . . well . . . very personal. It is relationship-based, which means the relationship needs to be fed in a very different way than you might interact with mail donors or online donors. Donors with whom you visit and ask for a contribution in-person expect updates on how their contribution is being used. They usually want to hear from you . . . newsletters, phone calls, personal follow-up visits, invitations to receptions, etc.

“Know Thy Donor” . . . and figure out how they like to be kept informed
b
ecause you’ll pay the price if you use a “cookie cutter approach” for this group of donors!

When an agency doesn’t follow-up and build upon the relationship, that donor feels used. They feel like an ATM, and you look like a shark who is just out there preying upon people’s good nature.

So, my final words today are this . . . 1) add an annual campaign with face-to-face solicitation at the heart of your approach to your agency’s individual giving toolbox and 2) develop a really good stewardship plan that grows the relationship between your agency and the donor. You may want to even develop your own version of the “Fish Friendly Shark Pledge“.

Does your agency run an annual campaign and visit with donors in-person? How is that working for you? What is your success rate? What does your stewardship plan look like? How do you communicate ROI, program outcomes, and community impact information to your donors? If you developed your own version of a “Donor Friendly Pledge,” what would it sound like?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts 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

Lessons from an e-video that will make you cry

So, my good friend Marissa sent me this tweet a few days ago:

@eanderson847 Check out this video showing what can be done with just  $1. Microphilanthropy at it’s finest. youtu.be/9DXL9vIUbWg

Please grab a tissue and click the link. The YouTube video is about 10-minutes long, but I promise you that it is well worth your investment in time.

As I watched the e-video, lots of different thoughts raced through my head including:

  • This video demonstrates the intense power of stewardship.
  • The producers remind us that while major gift donors are incredibly important to our non-profit agencies, we need to remember that charitable contributions that aren’t so major need to be treated as transformational. Why? Because they are!
  • The video’s point of view is that philanthropy, regardless of how small, is powerful. Not just for the person who receives it, but also for the person who gives it.
  • This video reminded me that there are differences between “fundraising” and “resource development” and “philanthropy”.  In my mind, “fundraising” is the act of soliciting a donor for a charitable contribution. “Resource development” speaks to the overall process — prospect identification & evaluation, introduction, cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, and the continuous feedback loop moving forward. “Philanthropy” is the love of humanity and goes beyond just giving money and includes volunteerism, mentoring, emergency response, etc.
  • This video points to an often overlooked trend called “microphilanthropy” that all non-profit professionals need to be aware. We need to understand this trend first and then analyze what it means. Is this growing trend something that can affect non-profit resource development and donor trends? Sure it can! . . . How? . . . I’m not sure, but it warrants our attention and time. Click here to check out an interesting blog calling itself the “1DollarClub.org” to read more.
  • This video also smacked me across the face and was a reminder about another emerging trend — non-profits are using the internet, social media, and e-videos to steward donors in an increasingly digital world where more and more people just don’t have time for traditional stewardship activities and tactics. ePhilanthropy is here to stay and it is evolving every day!!!

Wow! Thank you, Marissa (by the way, she is the blogger at One World One Plate and I think everyone who loves food should go check out her work).

After viewing the e-video, did you have any thoughts that struck you like a lightning bolt? Is your non-profit organization using online videos as part of its resource development plans and efforts? If so, how? Please use the comment box below and share your revelation. 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

Taking a page out of GE’s playbook

Have you ever been watching television, trying to zone out during the commercials, when all of a sudden “WHAM!” a powerful advertisement grabs your attention and almost moves you to tears? Come on! I know it has happened to most of you, and I am no exception.

I was most recently the victim of such an occurance last night. I was in my hotel bed watching television and trying to avoid doing work. Out of nowhere came this General Electric (GE) commercial . . . the ad was about cancer survivors who were given the opportunity to meet the GE employees who built the medical machinery that helped save their lives.

If you haven’t seen it, grab a tissue and click here to view the YouTube video of it.

It wasn’t more than 5-seconds after this commercial ended that I had these two thoughts:

  1. This GE commercial is the same thing as a non-profit organization’s “case for support” for their annual campaign pledge drive. The only difference was that it was in video format instead of a written case statement.
  2. Putting cancer survivors in the same room as GE employees was so powerful. It was almost like GE was stewarding their employees by reminding them of how powerful their gift of labor really is to everyday people who are trying to work through personal crisis.

I think the thing that got me most was when the employee at the end of the commercial says: “[It was] one of the most heartwarming events I’ve ever experienced”.

Earlier this week my Monday blog post titled “What gets measured gets done” spoke to the power of benchmarking. Tuesday’s blog post titled “Taking a page out of NPR’s playbook” highlighted National Public Radio (NPR) as a potential benchmarking opportunity for agencies looking for a successful road map to reduce dependency on government funding.

Today’s post continues on this week’s theme of benchmarking; however, the twist is that non-profits can also learn from and benchmark their for-profit cousins. For example, this GE commercial has me wondering:

  • Does putting employees together with the people who benefit from their efforts improve employee retention? If so, how significant is the retention? Can the same effect be produced if non-profit donors are given more regular access to the people whose lives they changed (e.g. your customers/clients)?
  • Does creating this commercial and storyline help GE’s sales force more effectively articulate the case to purchase this particular product? If so, how significant is the improvement in sales? Can the same effect be produced in board members and volunteer solicitors who are reluctant to solicit charitable contributions to the annual campaign?

I’ve been hearing way too often from non-profit professionals that donors don’t have time for personal stewardship visits and touches. I’ve also recently had the opportunity to spend lots of time with a number of donors, and they don’t seem to be saying the same thing. What I am hearing donors say is they are sick and tired of one solicitation after another after another. They look forward to events where they can see, hear, and touch the charity’s mission.

I am going to hold onto the visual imagery of how those cancer survivors and GE employees looked when they met for the first time. Am I wrong or was it powerful? They were moved to tears, right? Heck, I was moved to tears. My “fundraiser’s gut feeling” is telling me that there are many valuable take-aways for non-profit organizations from that commercial. I suspect successful non-profits are tapping into that same raw power and emotion when it comes to donors and those folks you serve everyday.

Yes, we can learn a lot from each other as non-profit professionals, but I suspect we are limiting ourself. If we expand our world, we can learn a lot from everywhere we look everyday. Don’t just benchmark organizations that are just like you . . . expand your horizons and look at for-profits that you can benchmark, too.

While benchmarking multinational corporations might not be realistic for many of you, I bet there are a number of small businesses in most of our backyards that will work equally well.

What did you take away from the GE commercial as it relates to your non-profit work? How do you connect your donors to mission in similarly powerful ways that don’t involve more solicitation (e.g. special events don’t count when answering this question)? How does your organization track the effectiveness of those personal and powerful stewardship touches? Have you ever done any benchmarking? Who? And what was the result of your experience?

Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with an answer to any of these questions. Remember, 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

When donors cry (literally)

Have you ever been engaged in conversation with a donor and they spontaneously erupted into tears? This had never happened to me until recently, and I need to talk about it because it really shook me right down to my resource development foundation.

While I need to be sketchy with the details as not to embarrass anyone, I can provide some conversational context and set the scene. The conversation was about a specific non-profit organization that they had been donating to for a very long time.  Long story short . . . the non-profit organization is now talking about going out of business and the newspaper is covering the story.

We talked for a long time as the tears flowed, and I was given one of the greatest gifts that any resource development profession could ever be given. I was allowed a glimpse inside the soul of a donor. Here is what they were saddened to tears over (this is their thoughts and not my analysis):

  • They believed in their heart in the mission of that organization and were mourning the possible death of something they loved.
  • They believed that their financial contributions had been making a difference in the lives of people. Now they have doubts and feel deceived
  • They personally solicited friends and asked them to also make a contribution to this organization. Now they feel like they perpetuated a fraud against their friends and aren’t sure they can face their friends.

I was given a gift when I was allowed to bear witness to the raw power of philanthropy. It affects me, and I wanted to share this with you because there are some important lessons that all non-profit professional need to take away from this story:

  1. What we tell donors regardless of whether it is during cultivation, solicitation or stewardship efforts is like a sacred promise. Many donors take it to heart and deposit it in their emotional bank account. We need to remember this at all times.
  2. There are people who “go to bat” for those non-profits that they love. They leverage personal relationships all in the name of mission. They are out there making promises to their friends, and we need to do a better job of recognizing that investment. They tell their friends that your agency is a wise investment, and we owe it to them to make sure that is true by always focusing on sustainability and organizational capacity building efforts. Just focusing on programs for our clients that our mission calls us to serve is simply not enough.
  3. We need to be very careful about what we say publicly in the press about the present state of our agency. Donors take those things to heart. It can affect them deeply. Cavalierly talking about the possibility of closing your doors is the equivalent of playing with someone’s emotions. It isn’t nice and will cost you donors.

I decided to write this blog post because this tearful conversation was impactful. I can’t get it out of my head. It made me profoundly sad and even a little angry. I had hoped that sharing this with others would make me feel better and get beyond it because of my belief that we can all learn from each other. While I do believe this, I am also not feeling any better about things. In fact, I think I am a little sadder as I fight back some tears and a little angrier as I clench my teeth to get through this post.

There can be no doubt that I am physically experiencing the power of philanthropy, and I hope I become a stronger more donor-centered fundraiser because of this experience. My holiday wish for you is that you walk away from this blog post feeling the same way and use this story to become more donor-centered, too.

Have you ever had a similar experience? Has any donor interaction ever affected you in a way that you’ve embraced it and used it to become a better professional? If so, please use the comment box below to share because we can all learn from each other.

Here is 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

BOO: Halloween is a Non-Profit Holiday

I just love this time of the year. The temperature outside is lovely. Trees are turning colors and putting on a show. Charity is coming into focus for millions of Americans. Last year approximately 174 million Americans donated approximately $50 billion to charities during the holiday season. While most resource development people will tell you this all starts with Thanksgiving, I contend that Halloween is when the starters gun goes off in my head.

I was reminded this past Saturday afternoon when two kids came to my door holding a small orange box and asked if I’d consider donating some pocket change to UNICEF. Not only do I have fond memories of doing the same thing as a child, but I realized that it might have been the very first time I ever solicited anyone for anything on behalf of a child.

My passion for charity and professional career path might have started all because of a UNICEF box more than 35 years ago.

This realization got me thinking . . . perhaps the year-end charitable giving season starts with Halloween and not Thanksgiving. If I am “stretching” this point, then consider this thought: “Perhaps, Halloween offers non-profit organizations a great opportunity to position itself for the season of charity.

Halloween can be a stewardship opportunity. In fact, non-profit organizations can turn most holidays into stewardship opportunities for their donors as I wrote in my post titled “Stewardship opportunity on Labor Day” which is one of my better read posts of all time. Go figure!

Here are just a few thoughts I have for how your agency can use Halloween to frame your case for support during the holiday season:

  • Host a Halloween costume party for your top 100 donors. Don’t solicit them. Just invite them to come to a free event, have some fun, and hear a few short testimonials about how your agency is using their investment from earlier this year to do good things. End everything by saying you hope they will consider reinvesting with a contribution to your year-end holiday mail appeal that is sure to appear in their mailbox in a few weeks.
  • Organize a phone-a-thon where volunteers call donors to whom you plan on mailing your holiday mail appeal. Use a “trick-or-treat” script that talks about how your non-profit doesn’t believe in “tricks” which is why you are calling with a Halloween “treat,” and then read a small snippet of outcomes measurement data that you’ve recently been collected. Thank the donor for helping your agency achieve that specific accomplishment and then end by saying you hope they will consider re-investing when your year-end holiday mail appeal arrives in their mailbox in a few weeks.
  • Simply organize a Halloween theme inspired stewardship mailing (e.g. a ghoulish looking impact report). Don’t ask for any money. Just communicate some return on investment information and thank them for their previous charitable contribution. This can softly frame your case for support in donors minds just a few weeks before you send a solicitation mailing.

As I said in my Labor Day blog post . . .

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, take a look at your stewardship calendar and ask yourself how you can do a better job of aligning these activities with holidays.

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 . . . BOO . . . Happy Halloween!!!

Here is 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

Engaging donors directly? Brilliant!

Marketing works. I know this because periodically I catch myself associating real life things with television commercials.

For example, I was at city hall in Elgin, Illinois the other day trying to acquire my small business license. I thought doing something in person might be more efficient. Unfortunately, that was NOT true. I was turned away by a clerk who asked to me to do this online. When I turned around to talk out of the building, I saw this huge sign sitting on an easel. It advertised Mayor Dave Kaptain’s “Listening Sessions” and promoted public participation.

At that very moment, the old Guinness beer commercial came streaming into my head. Do you know which one I’m talking about? Click here to enjoy this flashback to the not-so-distant past.

So, why is this so “brilliant” and what does it have anything to do with non-profit organizations, which is at the heart of this blog?

For starters, I think it is brilliant because in this day and age of mass media, the answer always seems to be: send them a letter, advertise on television, put it on the website, “tweet” it, organize an email blast, and the list goes on and on. I haven’t heard anyone say in a very long time: “let’s go out there and engage people directly” on issues that are important to them.

As for the question about how this pertains to non-profit organizations, all I have to say is that non-profits should take a page out of Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain’s book. Here are just a few ideas for non-profits that I thought of as I walked out of city hall:

  • Organize a “town hall meeting” at your non-profit service site on any number of issues your agency helps address every day. Invite donors, volunteers, community leaders, and collaborative partners to attend and participate.
  • Organize a series of quarterly or monthly “brown bag lunch meetings” focused on one of the issues your agency deals with every day. Invite a guest speaker from the community to speak about some part of the issue (e.g. your state representative, city council member, chamber of commerce or hospital CEO, etc). Also invite donors to bring their brown bag lunches and participate in this lunch program.
  • Organize a small reception and honor someone in the community who works hard and does something related to your agency’s mission. For example, a domestic violence shelter could put together a small after-work reception to honor a local police officer for their commitment to working differently and compassionately with victims. Invite your donors and ask them to turn-out and help you honor this person.
  • Organize a petition drive around one of your issues and ask donors to help secure signatures.
  • Organize focus groups for each of your fundraisers and ask donors to provide feedback. Invite your donors to help you dream by asking them what they think it would take to “double” the funds raised from that specific fundraisers. After all, who else would know best other than the participating donor?

Non-profit organizations don’t always need to be out front, jumping around screaming “look at me . . . look at me!” Donors are capable of digesting subtle messages, and these types of activities will position you as a leader in your field. Mix in a few subtle “return on investment” messages, and donors will walk away feeling very good about their most recent investment in your organization.

Don’t charge any money. Resist the urge to solicit your donors during these mission-moments. This is about engagement . . . not about cash flow. If you find yourself saying “you don’t have the time or resources” to do these kinds of things, then I suspect you aren’t interested in looking at your donor loyalty numbers either (and with Halloween around the corner this could be a very scary activity to undertake).

Non-profit organizations need to get back to investing in personal stewardship and engaging donors in real mission-focused activities in between solicitation opportunities. I urge you to go beyond the donor database generated acknowledgement letter, email or Tweet. There are countless examples of how to do this if you just keep your eyes open. We can all learn something from politicians, for-profit corporations and our fellow non-profit friends.

This entire post aligns well with my teachable point of view that non-profits need to stop treating donors like ATMs!!! Of course, if you don’t commit to being a life-long learner on the subject of donor engagement, then you might start looking like Ms. Swan from this old Mad TV comedy sketch  (albeit less fortunate than she turned out to be in the end of the sketch).

How is your organization stewarding its donors? How are you going beyond traditional stewardship and engaging them? Have you done any benchmarking to see how your efforts impact your donor loyalty numbers? If so, what was the result? We can all learn from each other. So, please use the comment box below and share your secrets. Because failing to do so would not be BRILLIANT!

Here is 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

Stop trying to be a COWBOY — invest in the power of ideas

Most of last week I spent time in Milwaukee with friends of mine from the Boys & Girls Club movement. I spoke to executive directors, board volunteers, fundraising professionals and program staff. Since I just opened the doors to my new consulting practice — The Healthy Non-Profit LLC — this was my first ever conference as an exhibitor. I found it very interesting that many of the conversations I entered into started with the words: “Erik, I have a problem that I need your help with . . .”

After taking a few days to digest the conference and all the people I spoke with, I’ve come to this very simple and disturbing conclusion:

Y’all need to stop trying to be cowboys!

As I revisit those conversations, they sounded something like this:

  • My revenue budget looks grim for next year. What should I do?
  • Our board members only want to cut their way out of this budget crisis. What should I do?
  • My donor database is a mess. What should I do?
  • The board of directors is disengaged and expects me fix everything. What should I do?

As I think back to those conversations, I realize that there was one song that ran through my head (kinda like background music on an elevator) and it was this song by Bonnie Tyler. Of course, if you just clicked that YouTube link, then you’re probably laughing because I just accidentally cast myself in the role of Shrek. ROTFLMAO!

As someone who is new to consulting, these conversations are very encouraging because they validate my business plan. However, truth be told, this isn’t what I am actually thinking about today . . . I keep circling back to the idea that my non-profit friends need to stop trying to solve these problems alone. You are not a cowboy! You are not Superman!

While you might think I am trying to turn this blog post into a “case for support” for hiring a consultant or coach, please believe me when I say I am not. In fact, I believe almost everyone I spoke to at the conference currently has the resources to solve their problems if they just engaged their volunteers, donors and community leaders in an open and honest dialog about whatever ails them.

I live in the Chicago area of the country, and this week is “Chicago Ideas Week“. In this event’s own words this week-long event includes 100 speakers in 7 days that will result in ONE inspired city. “Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) will bring the world’s top speakers together with Chicago’s best thinkers to create an ecosystem of innovation, exploration, and intellectual recreation.” Click here to visit their website and learn more.

So, here is my crazy idea . . .  why not leverage the collective talent and genius of your non-profit supporters and community much like the City of Chicago is trying to do?

I can see it now. A room full of donors and supporters hearing board volunteers and staff honestly talk about the “state of your non-profit organization”. After hearing an update on a particular subject matter (e.g. program outcomes, board development, fundraising, etc), a question is posed to the audience. Participants break into smaller work groups to brainstorm. After a sufficient amount of time, these sub-groups report back, notes are taken, and solutions are generated. Before leaving this ideas conference, donors/volunteers/supporters are invited to help implement the solutions they just generated (but they are asked to only volunteer for what they feel passionate about working on).

Am I crazy to think that we need to let our defenses down and find ways to engage all stakeholders in solving our agency’s challenges?

Please use the comment box located below to weigh-in with your thoughts. What would stop you from doing something like this? Why not engage supporters in brainstorming and rolling up their sleeves to help you? Are there any take-aways from the Chicago Ideas Week concept that you think you might be able to use at your non-profit organization?

We can all learn from each other. Don’t be shy. Please share your thoughts below. And if you don’t know where to start in organizing an event like this, please give me a call because I’d love to help!

Here is 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

The Sounds of Annual Campaign Planning: Part 3

In case you didn’t tune in on Monday or Tuesday, please know that I am dedicating all of this week’s blog posts to the 2012 annual campaign planning process, and I’m putting it all to music just for the fun of it. Today’s post focuses on constructing your campaign’s case for support (aka case statement).

Cue the music . . . click here for your first musical selection then start reading.  🙂

I think it is important to start off by saying there are many different ‘schools of thought’ about what is and is not a case statement (aka case for support). However, when it is all said and done, I don’t think it matters in which camp you find yourself. It is far more important to be in a camp and in possession of a powerful case statement by the time you complete your annual campaign planning process.

Ann Fitzgerald of A.C. Fitzgerald & Associates does a nice job explaining what a case statement is when she says:

“The case for support, or case statement, is a marketing and fundraising tool that explains in an urgent and compelling manner why someone should support the campaign. It answers the prospective donor’s questions about the nonprofit organization, the project and the cost. And it does so in a way that connects the donor emotionally to a grander vision.”

On Ann’s website, she does a nice job of channeling Tom Ahern’s point of view in his book “Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes” on how to go about writing an effective case statement.

Putting your case statement together during the pre-campaign planning process is important. It allows you to utilize volunteers to craft your powerful messaging about why a donor should support your campaign with a contribution. Going through this exercise during the campaign planning process should mean volunteers have bought into the messaging and will use the case statement resource later on when they’re out soliciting prospects and donors. Finally, if your case statement is done as part of your planning efforts, it can be used as a recruitment tool when you’re out recruiting volunteer solicitors in December and January.

While some organizations turn their case document into actual marketing material for use during the solicitation meeting (e.g. Jewish Federation of San Diego County). Others treat the case strictly as an internal document and use it to train volunteer solicitors in what to say during a solicitation call (and they create other solicitation materials based upon the messaging found in the case statement).

In addition to helping shape and support the face-to-face solicitation process of an annual campaign, your organization’s case statement should be used to construct the letter for the targeted mail phase of the campaign. It can even be used to craft more effective post-solicitation gift acknowledgement letters and subsequent stewardship materials and messaging.

In an effort to help you internalize some of the most important portions of an effective case statement, I am putting each section to music. I hope you enjoy!

  • Section #1: Who are you? Mission? Vision? Who you serve? What you do? . . . let’s channel a little Lionel Richie here.
  • Section #2: What is the problem(s) in your community that need solving? You are channeling part of a ‘community need assessment’ here, and teh challanges should be things your agency is positioned to help with. These are not your organizational needs.  As for a song . . . I think Paul got it right when he sang about yesterday.
  • Section #3: What does your non-profit do to help solve these community problems? What programs are you running and how effective are they? I’m going to go with Michael Stipe and REM for this selection to pay tribute to this band’s 31-year run.
  • Section #4: Call to action! How can a donor get involved in being part of the solution. And can there be any other musical selection than Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero“?

There are tons of online resources you can access to help you write an effective case for support. Click around and you’ll find what you’re looking for. However, I encourage you to involve volunteers and donors. After all, these are the people who need to use this resource or get inspired by its messaging. And by all means . . . please start your annual campaign planning process TODAY (see Monday’s post for a starting point) because we’re all going to blink and 2011 will be a distant memory and we’ll all be saying “Let’s do the time warp again“. LOL

How does your organization craft its annual campaign case statement? How do you know it is effective? How do you use it? Have you ever involved donors and volunteers in the process? If so, how? 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

I feel manipulated!

I wake up on Sunday mornings, brew a pot of coffee and tune into my favorite Sunday morning news shows like The Chris Matthews Show and Meet the Press. However, this last Sunday morning I woke up to a parade of coverage focusing exclusively on the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. So, I sat on my couch all morning, sipping coffee and fought back the tears and horrible memories.

Like most Americans, I have vivid memories of those difficult days. I can tell you exactly where I was when the first news broke. I can give you a blow-by-blow accounting of my day. I couldn’t stop watching the news coverage in the weeks after Sept. 11th, and those videos of the planes crashing into the towers and people wandering around the New York streets with pictures of their fallen loved ones are just haunting. In fact, I am getting teary right now typing about it, and I have goosebumps on my arms. UGH!

So, as I watched television on Sunday morning, I found myself getting angry whenever a network would cut away from their coverage and some company’s commercial exploited 9-11  as an opportunity to sell their product. They masterfully pulled at my heart-strings and tapped into raw emotions all in the name of consumerism. Check out this Budweiser commercial to see what I mean.

Unfortunately, the beer company wasn’t the only ones doing it. Stephen Colbert did a nice job nailing a number of these culprits. Click here to check-out his comedic report.

You might be asking right about now: “What does this have anything to do with non-profit organizations, fundraising or donors?”

As I processed my thoughts and feelings in the wake of Sunday’s emotional coverage, I came to two very strong conclusions.

  1. This kind of marketing is manipulative, feels really yucky and makes me not want to buy those products.
  2. Non-profit organizations sometimes do the same kind of thing.

What?!?! Huh?!?! Where did THAT come from?

Come on! You know what I mean:

  • Please sir . . . won’t you please make a contribution? Without YOUR support we will have to close our doors and throw those kids out onto the street.
  • Please ma’am . . . for just the cost of that “Triple Venti Skinny Cinnamon Dulce Latte” you can feed a village of starving people for a day.”
  • Please make a donation today to remember the 9-11 victims, which will allow our organization to invest in a “get out the vote” effort. (This really was a fundraising pitch. Don’t believe me? Click here!)

I know, I know . . . appealing to people’s emotions is very effective and is considered a best practice for all good fundraising and marketing campaigns. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am NOT saying that we need to strip the emotion out of our messaging, but I am saying that we need to be very careful about not crossing that line and using FEAR to motivate donors.

Knowing where that emotional line is can be difficult and different when deal with individual donors. For example, my partner detests the fundraising commercials for the ASPCA, and he swears that he will never give to that charity because he feels manipulated by them.

So, how can you and your agency know where that line is? While it is a tough question that probably doesn’t have a good answer, you better figure it out if you’re committed to a donor-centered fundraising paradigm.

The one suggestion I can offer is . . .  get your donors engaged in the process. Before sending out an emotional mail appeal (or for that matter any piece aimed at cultivation, solicitation or stewardship), what would be so wrong will convening a donor focus group to review the package and provide feedback?

What are your thoughts? What does your organization do to minimize the possibility of tripping over your donors’ emotional-point-of-no-return? What is the most manipulative thing you’ve ever seen a non-profit organization do? Please use the comment box below to share 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

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