Tag: donor

Fundraising zombies “doing the math”

Fundraising, volunteers

On Monday, I stirred the pot with my post titled “Beware of Fundraising Zombies!” and there has been lots and lots of reaction.

First, let me say thank you to everyone who read that post. Second, let me give an extra special thank you to those of you who forwarded it to others (I always appreciate that). Finally, let me clarify that I am not suggesting donors stop supporting non-profits who are selling tickets to the City of Elgin’s Halloween zombie event. What I advocated for in the post was donors boycotting those agency’s special events, but still sending a check to their charity for the full amount of what they would’ve spent at the event.

I am not suggesting that we put anyone out of business, and perhaps calling for a “boycott” was a bit dramatic . . . but it did get your attention didn’t it?  However, I am seriously suggesting that donors can play a huge role in helping non-profits change their behavior when it comes to the art of fundraising.

Perhaps, the most interesting thing to me that came out of Monday’s blog post and subsequent reaction is how many people apparently still grapple with the idea of “return on investment” and what Charity Navigator points out in its study on special event fundraising.

So, I’ve decided to use a purely hypothetical example to clarify this concept. Let’s just say a non-profit organization decided to run a rubber duck race raffle fundraiser. Drilling down into the hypothetical numbers, we might find something like this:

  • Gross income = $185,855 (remember that the “in-kind” prizes and media sponsorships are included in this number even though they aren’t cash)
  • Gross expense = $128,305 (again, remember that in-kind donations are washed out on both sides of the budget)
  • Net income = $57,550 (but this only accounts for “direct costs” and doesn’t take into account hidden indirect costs)
  • Let’s hypothetically say the agency’s CEO spends 60% of his/her time over a 12-week period working on this fundraiser. The agency’s Development Director is far more involved and easily sinks 90% of their time into this project during the same time period (this fails to account for the months of planning time incurred throughout the year). Finally, the poor administrative assistant is typing their fingers to the bone entering donations into two separate computer databases. Add up all these salaries and it probably comes to approximately $25,000, which means net income falls from $57,550 to $32,550.
  • It should be mentioned that at least 100 volunteers were hypothetically mobilized to make this event happen, and each volunteer probably averaged 10 to 15 hours (which included some combination of staffing two or three duck sales remotes, attending a few meetings/training/kickoff, and the day-of-event operations).

Without allocating other indirect costs (e.g. insurance, utilities, rent, gas for the duck van, payroll taxes, employee benefits, etc), let’s just say this event netted a realistic $32,550. The reality is that most special event fundraisers are not as productive as this hypothetical duck race example and end up closer to ZERO dollars raised or worse yet they end up “in the red” when all of the direct and indirect pennies are counted.

But wait! There is more . . . this duck race analysis wouldn’t be complete without factoring in a small concept like “opportunity cost“.

This same hypothetical non-profit agency ALSO runs an annual campaign (e.g. pledge drive where volunteers ask donors and community supporters to make a direct contribution and forego the fanfare of an event). Drilling down into the numbers, we might find something like this for this hypothetical agency’s annual campaign:

  • Gross revenue = $68,322
  • Gross expense = $4,174
  • Net income = $64,148
  • Add indirect costs that come from staff involvement (e.g. CEO, Development Director, Administrative Assistant) and another $7,903 of expense magically appears and the net income drops from 64,148 to $56,244.

Hmmm …. what would happen to this hypothetical agency’s annual campaign if the Duck Race was cancelled and those 100 duck volunteers all agreed to help with the annual campaign?

Let’s say these 100 volunteers all made face-to-face visits with five new donor prospects to the annual campaign. This represents an additional 500 people receiving visits and solicitations. Let’s also pretend that the “average size gift” to the annual campaign is $100 (it is usually much higher in my experience). This would push annual campaign net income up from $56,244 to $106,244.

Of course, there would be a loss of $32,550 in Duck Race net income in this scenario, but you just picked up $50,000 from shifting volunteer resources to a more productive fundraising activity. In other words, this hypothetical agency just LOST $17,450 by running what looked like (at first blush) to be a highly successful duck race special event. (Some agencies would look at this unrealized $17,450 and think it looks remarkably like a part-time employee position)

Yes … there are holes to be picked in this hypothetical story. For example, there is value in the publicity this non-profit receives from their Duck Race media sponsorships. The 500 new annual campaign asks might not all materialize into pledges. And the picking can go on and on and on. However, please keep in mind that this was a quick, rough and hypothetical example. You can ignore everything I just wrote and it doesn’t get us around the fact that there has been a study by Charity Navigator that empirically proves that special events don’t make money.

To be clear, I am NOT suggesting that non-profit organizations stop doing special events altogether. If they can plan and implement cost-effective events that bring additional intangible benefits, then please add one or two of these events to your annual written resource development plan. If you need help with a Resource Development Audit or writing a Resource Development Plan, I know where you can hire a really talented consultant who is dying to help you.   😉

However, when your local municipality asks that you sell tickets to their special events (with the promise of netting a few hundred dollars) and asks you to recruit your volunteers to help with day-of-event activities, then perhaps you should think twice about committing your agency’s limited resources in such a way.

Again . . . one final disclaimer. I think the Nightmare on Chicago Street is a great event idea. It is fun and an innovative way for the city to entice residents to rediscover downtown and its merchants. I encourage people to attend, but I encourage them to buy their tickets at the door and not from the non-profits who are selling them. In my experience, non-profits don’t sit-up and pay attention to issues like this one until donors start speaking up. This is a golden opportunity to make a point. Please join me in doing so.

While I appreciated all of the supportive emails on Monday, I encourage all of you to weigh-in with your thoughts by using the comment box below. Let’s all learn from each other. We can disagree and do so in a respectful manner. After all, this is what America is all about.

Here is to your health! (Sorry for the super long blog post this morning . . . zombies always get me going. LOL)

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!

Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

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

Beware of Fundraising Zombies!

Fundraising

I’ve finally had my fill of special events ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

In my hometown of Elgin, Illinois, the city will host a “zombie-themed” Halloween event for adults on October 29, 2011. It is being promoted as “Nightmare on Chicago Street“. While this sounds fun and I am sure it is a great idea to entice people to visit our starving downtown merchants, I was shocked and disappointed when I heard that city staff, council members and our newly elected mayor were promoting this as one of their strategies to help area non-profit organizations during tough economic times.

Here is the back story in a quick nutshell.  The City of Elgin is facing tough times (as are most municipalities) and is projecting a $4.5 million budget deficit next year unless belt-tightening occurs. There are some who want to cut city spending to support non-profit organizations that align with key community strategic priorities. Please understand that the story is much more complicated than this quick synopsis, but let’s start here.

With non-profit organizations starting to light their torches and grab their pitchforks, someone at city hall came up with the genius idea to sell this event to non-profits as a way to make some money. Again . . . here it is in a quick nutshell . . . non-profits have been given 100 tickets on consignment, they sell tickets for $5.00 each, and they get to keep the profits (aka $500.00). In exchange for the city’s incredible generosity, participating non-profit organizations are supposed to rally their volunteers to help out on the day of the event.

Hmmmmmm? Where do I start?

  • Wow, really? An opportunity to net $500? Thanks! Let’s get real . . . weeks of ticket sales and a bushel basket of volunteer hours all for a $500.00 return on investment is paltry. In fact, a good non-profit agency can sit down with an individual donor and walk away with a $500.00 pledge to their annual campaign with a simple one-hour investment of time.
  • The ONLY reasons that intelligent non-profits organize a few well-run annual special events is to: 1) raise awareness of their brand and 2) create a venue for new prospective donors to join the party and get to know the charity in a fun atmosphere. This city event accomplishes neither of these goals for any of the participating organizations.
  • Most importantly, when will ANYONE out there read the “2007 Special Events Study” commissioned by Charity Navigator? Special event are a terrible way to raise money. The study found that the typical non-profit organization ends up spending $1.33 to raise $1.00 (looking at direct and indirect costs) with a special event vehicle.

My advice for Elgin area non-profit organizations — act like Nancy Reagan and “Just Say No!” Stop selling your tickets. Turn your tickets back into the city. Don’t recruit your volunteers to work this event. It isn’t worth it, and more to the point . . . you are being poor stewards of your organization’s resources if you go down this road.  Frankly, I can’t think of a bigger non-profit sin.

 

My advice to the City of Elgin (or any city doing this kind of thing with their non-profit sector) — do this event and do it in style. The downtown merchants are in desperate need of your help. You need to drive traffic downtown. However, you need to stop exploiting your influence with non-profit organizations. It just isn’t cool! You know non-profits will jump through any hoops you put out there for them because they mistakenly believe that currying your favor might lead to city grants or government funding. Start partnering with non-profits by reaching out to those who align with the city’s strategic interests. This collaboration could include any number of things: helping identify grant opportunities at the state and federal level, partnering on grant writing,  and providing access to key city resources including your employees (e.g. volunteer opportunities, etc).

My advice to donors — Go to the Nightmare on Chicago Street or whatever your local municipality is organizing. We need to re-ignite our collective sense of community during these tough economic times. With regard to Elgin’s event, DO NOT purchase tickets from your favorite non-profit organization. You are doing them a great disservice, sending the wrong message, and enabling bad fundraising practices. Instead, pay the extra $2.00 at the door and send a personal check to the charity you would’ve bought your tickets from (because a direct donation to a non-profit’s annual campaign is the least expensive way for an organization to raise funds). As a matter of fact, I encourage donors to go a step further . . . send a message to those non-profits who are selling tickets by boycotting all of their events for the next year. Whenever you get an event invitation in the mail, just send them the money you would’ve spent. If no one shows up to their events, non-profits will stop organizing them and you will have more time to spend at home with your family.

OK . . . there are lots of people having fun with the Nightmare on Chicago Street (and countless other special events being organized in other communities) as evidenced by this YouTube video on Elgin zombies and this YouTube video of pumpkins and ghosts on Chicago Street. Have a ton of fun, but join me in sending a strong message to non-profit organizations about being more attentive to concepts like “return on investment” and being “good stewards” of their agency’s resources.

Where is your organization regarding the question of special event fundraising? How do you perceive the government funding trends? What are you doing to insulate your agency against city council and city staff belt-tightening initiatives? Please weigh-in using the comment box below 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

Taking a peek behind the corporate veil

Fundraising

Last week I had the honor and privilege of organizing and facilitating a general session at a Boys & Girls Club conference in Milwaukee. The title of the session was “Corporate Leaders & Philanthropy”.  For approximately an hour, conference attendees got an opportunity to take a peek behind the corporate curtain.

Serving on that panel was:

  • Craig Omtvedt, Senior VP & Chief Operating Officer of Fortune Brands
  • Paul Jones, Chairman & CEO of A.O. Smith
  • Matthew Levatich, President & Chief Operating Officer of Harley-Davidson Motor Company

I am extremely appreciative to these gentlemen for taking time out of their very busy schedules for serving on our panel and answering questions about cultivation, solicitation and stewardship. I cannot tell you how many non-profit leaders ask me questions about what they should do to become more effective at engaging corporations. So, last week’s session was a tremendous gift to the non-profit leaders in the Boys & Girls Club movement.

After taking the panel through four set questions, I invited the audience to submit their questions on paper. While I was able to get through another eight questions generated from the field, there were a ton of other written questions that I just couldn’t get around to asking due to time constraints. So, I thought I’d take the opportunity with today’s blog post to list some of those unasked questions and invite subscribers (aka YOU) and anyone else who views this blog via social media networks (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc) to weigh-in with their thoughts using the comment box located at the bottom of your screen.

Here are some of the remaining questions that I wish I had time to ask and hope you want to comment on:

  • What gestures have [non-profit] organizations made beyond outcome measurements that have [intrigued] your company to invest in them?
  • What can [our organization] do to distinguish itself from all the other charities out there in regards to requesting or receiving your support?
  • Given the current economic trends, how do you determine if you are able to sustain the same level of philanthropic support? What impacts that decision? What should non-profits know?
  • When reviewing requests [for funding] and you come to the organization’s financial statements, what do you look for? What turns you off? If [the financials] reflect that an organization is running or budgeted a deficit, is there anything the agency can do to engage that company in a strategy for pulling out of a deficit situation? Or is it a lost cause?
  • What are some of the key factors that you consider when deciding to continue funding to a particular organization?
  • What do you want non-profit organizations to stop doing in their approach that is ineffective or irritating to you as a funder?

I still have a pile of additional questions, but I’m running out of room. My thanks to those who took time to submit a question.

Regardless of whether you are a donor or a non-profit leader, please take a moment to process these questions and weigh-in with your thoughts. We can all learn from each other. You will find the comment box below if you scroll down.

I will leave you with some YouTube links I found when researching and preparing to facilitate this session. I included one or two of these links in my blog post on Wednesday titled “Corporate Philanthropy: He loves me — He loves me NOT“. But there are new videos that I’m also including. Enjoy and please take a moment to post a comment on this subject.

If you are a non-profit leader who still has a lot of questions about what happens behind the corporate veil, then why not pick-up the phone, set an appointment with a corporate leader in your community, and go ask those questions?  Engaging donors doesn’t start with a solicitation . . . it begins with asking questions and listening to their answers.

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

Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

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

Corporate philanthropy: He loves me — He loves me NOT

Board development, Fundraising, resource development, volunteers

Last week I facilitated a panel discussion about corporate philanthropy at a Boys & Girls Club regional conference in Milwaukee. Serving on that panel was a CEO, COO and CFO from two companies in the Fortune 500 and another company from the Fortune 1000. I personally had a great time interviewing those gentlemen, but later that evening I caught some of the news coverage about the Occupy Wall Street protests. Needless to say, it was a confusing day for me that represented quite a dichotomy.

When I feel this way, I typically like to retreat back to listing off simple facts and try to find some truth and clarity. Here are a few of those facts running through my head this morning:

  • Of the $300 billion given to charities every year, approximately 5-percent comes from corporations and more than 75% comes from individuals
  • There are CEOs who are committed to corporate responsibility and making our world a better place to live as seen in this YouTube video from the 2011 Board of Boards CEO conference.
  • There are individuals who are afraid of corporations and banks as you can see in this YouTube video of a 20-year-old Wall Street protester.
  • While corporations are legal structures without emotions, there are countless numbers of people behind the corporate veil who are living, breathing and compassionate.

From a charitable giving and non-profit perspective, I am always amazed at how aggressive we go after corporate sponsorship and donations even though the statistics don’t seem to justify that strategy. After giving this some thought, I’ve concluded the following two things:

  1. Non-profit volunteer solicitors must feel more uncomfortable talking to individuals about making a donation than even I thought possible.
  2. Non-profit volunteers exhibit this sense of “entitlement” when talking to corporations about charitable giving. (e.g. corporations “owe” this charitable money to our non-profit organizations because we shop at their stores every day and give them our hard-earned money).

If my two conclusions are “on the mark,” then non-profit leaders have a problem on their hands, and I assure you that things are not going to end well. Regardless of how much we cross our fingers and wish, these two things will NOT change: 1) corporations will not suddenly find more money to give away (go back and listen to the CEO conference video very carefully) and 2) individuals will always be the at the heart of a successful charitable giving program.

Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying here. Don’t stop engaging corporate America . . . continue writing grants, asking for contributions and sponsorships, and building partnerships. However, you need to keep perspective and your eyes on the prize. Listen carefully to this corporate philanthropy manager and I suspect you will come to the realization that your corporate philanthropy strategy can drive the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING to your resource development plans — increased individual giving and support.

Non-profit leaders need to pick themselves up off the ground, put the daisy down and stop singing songs related to: “She loves me, she loves me not“. We need to start LEADING and understand that corporate leaders need to make tough decisions around their limited charitable giving budgets. CEOs want to see return on investment, but even more so, they want their non-profit partners to help them engage their employees and advance their brand.

Additionally, non-profit leaders need to double down on training and working with their fundraising volunteers. We need to help these people get over their fear associated with soliciting individuals. We also need to help them let go of their entitlement attitudes around corporate philanthropy. These two things won’t happen without your leadership, and this paradigm shift must occur if your non-profit organization is going to get healthy during these tough economic times.

So, please feel free to go down to the Wall Street protests in your community, pick-up a sign and march to your heart’s content. It is quintessentially American to do so if you feel that way about the state of our economy and corporate America. However, you ALSO need to figure out how to build bridges to your corporate partners that will enable you to walk their employees (and your future donors) across that bridge and towards your organization’s mission.

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

Screw a donor and you screw all of us!

Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

Here is a scenario for you . . . a somewhat famous actor dies and his family decides to make a memorial contribution to the deceased’s college alma mater and establish a scholarship fund. In setting up the fund, the family outlines their wishes that the annual scholarship be awarded to someone with an interest in poetry who exhibits an economic need.

What do you do? Honor the family’s wishes or use the scholarship however you see fit?

In this scenario, the college awarded the scholarship to someone disinterested in the arts who came from a family who could’ve written one check for their daughter’s enter four-year undergraduate education. Would you believe this is a real life story that just happened?

When I heard the story from the deceased’s living relatives, my heart shattered into a million small pieces. This was their beloved’s legacy. The family had a philanthropic wish and the resource development people weren’t up to the task of making that dream come true.

This is what gives resource development folks a bad name regardless of what non-profit sector you work in. The reality is this family is now less likely to respond to anyone’s charitable giving appeal. Even more damaging is this family is wandering the countryside telling anyone who will listen (and I was one of those people) that fundraising professionals are crooks and the equivalent of unethical used car salespeople.

I know many of you are currently thinking this would never happen in your organization . . . but are you sure? Are you on every solicitation call with your volunteers? In my experience, many social service non-profit organizations don’t possess the written policies or use the appropriate gift agreement forms to document restrictions. While organizational capacity is often to blame, the reality is that many volunteer solicitors are also not well-trained to recognize gift restrictions and aren’t trained to know what to do when they encounter one.

Here are just a few tips you might consider in order to become more donor-centered and avoid giving our entire profession a bad name:

  1. Engage a resource development audit using an external consultant and ask them as part of that project to keep an eye open for gaps in your written gift acceptance, gift acknowledgement, and resource development policies and procedures. If these documents don’t exist, then engage donors and volunteers to help you write them.
  2. Organize an annual focus group of LYBUNT donors and explore reasons for their inactivity. You might be surprised at what you find.
  3. Develop a donor’s bill of rights and post it to your website. Connect this to a whistleblower policy so that donors can bypass those who “did them wrong” when they call and try to get some justice.
  4. Include in your annual campaign kickoff a training segment designed to teach volunteers how to recognize when a donor is trying to “restrict” their contribution and how to respond to/deal with such a request.

Stewardship begins before a gift is even received. You should have written policies and procedures in place to guide how gifts will be accepted, acknowledged and to ensure the contribution is spent as the donor wishes. Finally, stewardship is about reporting back to the donor in a meaningful way that shows you care about the donor.

If we don’t clean-up our profession, then we’ll find ourselves channeling this song from the Osmond family more and more.

Are you confident in your organization’s written policies? If so, please share a link in the comment box below so everyone can compare. Do you train your volunteers in what to do or say when confronted with a donor who wants to make a restricted gift? When do you conduct that training? How do you instruct them to handle the situation. Please use the comment box and share your thoughts, practices and stories 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

Attention Tweeps: Twitter me this!?!

Fundraising

I just returned from the Boys & Girls Club conference and I’m back in the blog saddle again. Wow, I missed all of you! I hope you enjoyed reading Nathan Hand’s 5-part series last week on Twitter. I really think he is a wickedly smart resource development professional and blogger who we will all hear a lot from in the future. As for today’s post, I want to put a bow on everything Nathan wrote about last week by answering this simple question:

What should my non-profit Tweet about now that I know how to do it?

I think Nathan did a nice job last week of describing Twitter as a cocktail party, and my best advice is to Tweet about similar sorts of things you might chat about at such party. Please don’t gossip or tell the world what you just had for lunch. Perhaps, it would be best for us to look at a real life example from my hometown — United Way of Elgin. The following are just a few Tweets they posted in the last few weeks:

You can see from these three examples, that my United Way does a nice job of: 1) promoting causes that align with one of the issues in their impact agenda (e.g. education), 2) pay tribute to and provide a sense of “connectivity” and “family” between volunteers and donors (e.g. the passing of Steve Munson), and 3) support other non-profits with whom they collaborate and are aligned (e.g. YWCA Elgin).

United Way of Elgin — otherwise known as @UnitedWayElgin in the Twitterverse — is not perfect. They could do a better job of Tweeting more content on a daily basis and refining their voice and online personality. However, they certainly are further ahead of the curve than most other non-profits in my community. They are learning as they experiment and refuse to be left behind on the information super-highway.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter is still very new and evolving. I’ve seen non-profits use Twitter for prospect cultivation, donor solicitation, and stewardship. Everyone seems to be using this social media platform in different ways, and I think we can all learn from each other. Here are just a few tips I have for those of you who were inspired to jump into Twitter by Nathan’s 5-part Twitter series last week:

  1. Try to read posts about Twitter best practices for non-profit organizations once per week (simply use Google). Click here to read a good article I found this morning when I searched teh following key words: “Twitter nonprofit best practices”.
  2. Some of the best advice I ever received was from following Beth Kanter, who once suggested actively “listen” for awhile before starting to Tweet. So, open your account . . . follow a handful of other organizations you think do a good job with Twitter . . . and take good notes on what you like and dislike.
  3. Speaking of Beth Kanter, subscribe to a blog or two that specializes in social media or Twitter. You will learn a lot in a very short period of time . . . and it is FREE!!!
  4. Be strategic with your organization’s social media strategy. What will you use Facebook for? Twitter? LinkedIn? YouTube? Each social network can serve a different function in your ePhilanthropy strategy. I wouldn’t waste time duplicating information on each of these platforms. Take time to develop individual strategies for each niche. Perhaps, Twitter is where you cultivate new prospective donors AND Facebook is where you steward existing donors (aka Friends) AND your website is where you drive people for online solicitation purposes. I don’t know . . . but I suggest you figure it out.

My best advice is don’t get too carried away (like you can see when clicking on this funny YouTube video) with social media technology. If you get totally consumed by “cutting edge technology” before the market figures out best practices, then you run the risk of bleeding to death. However, it makes sense to set-up your account, start listening, and experiment so that you aren’t left behind in the cyber-dust.

How is your organization using Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? YouTube? What response have you received from donors and volunteers? Has anyone used these social media tools to help add more connectivity between your annual campaign volunteers or manage your campaign? Please use the comment box to weigh-in with your thoughts because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

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

Twitter Bootcamp Lesson 5: Engaging Correctly

Fundraising

Good morning everyone! This week I am privileged to be attending Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Midwest Leadership Conference in Milwaukee, WI. With all hustle and bustle associated with attending a conference, I decided to find a “guest blogger” to take over for me this week. It wasn’t a difficult search. As a subscriber to the Nonprofit Nate blog on WordPress, I have become a huge fan of Nathan Hand and was thrilled when he agreed to step in for me. The cherry on top of this sundae is that Nate agreed to post all week on the subject of Twitter and how non-profit organizations can/should use that social media network. So, the following is a little bit more about Nathan and today’s post. Enjoy . . . and I’ll see you next week. Here is to your health! ~Erik Anderson, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC

Nathan Hand is an AmeriCorps alumnus, holds an Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University, a Masters in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from DePauw University. Nathan is Vice President of Development at School on Wheels, an organization helping homeless children in Indianapolis. He writes at www.nonprofitnate.com sharing thoughts for nonprofiteers and helping visitors navigate the world of giving. For more, follow Nathan on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to his blog!

Twitter Bootcamp Lesson 5: Engaging Correctly

You made it! You understand Twitter, you’ve signed up, tweeted and set up your Twitter management system. In the last of our week-long series, it’s time to make magic happen and talk with strangers. That sounded much better in my head.

Technicals

There are two ways to talk to a particular person or entity. One is doing it publicly – for all to see on Twitter. It’s called a ‘reply’ and looks like this “@carknow Thanks for reading my blog, see you soon!”.  The other way is private, called a Direct Message or DM.  You can DM (or reply) by clicking the appropriate button on their tweet (in hootsuite) or in their profile (the info box about them that pops up when you click on their name in hootsuite).  In your tweeting bar in Hootsuite, DMs will start with a lowercase ‘d’. (Note: you can tweet via text but the commands may be different, be careful.) Hootsuite also has a ‘reply all’ feature in the drop down of their tweet so you can reply all to several people if more than one are included in a conversation.

The culture of Twitterville

In college I had the great opportunity to spend some time in Ghana, Africa. In Ghanian culture, you don’t cross your legs (because it blocks the traditional good spirits from flowing) and you don’t use your left hand to shake hands or pass food (because in rural villages you wipe with that hand – yes, just what you’re thinking).  Breaking these cultural norms offend people, make you look stupid and ruin your chances of a healthy relationship with the locals. Same goes for Twitterville.

The best suggestion I have is to remember our cocktail party analogy from day 1. You’re walking into a room with millions ofpeople. You have no idea who’s watching, no idea who you’ll meet and no idea what you’re doing there (though you’ve got a good start).

So, don’t be rude, over-share, brag, interrupt, beg, curse, etc.

Do – be honest, open, genuine, fun, funny, make connections, offer wisdom, spread good karma, compliment, make introductions, remember no one’s an expert and be responsive.

You’ll quickly learn that many people don’t follow the rules/norms above. Like it or not, you have a personal brand and you can either keep that in mind and work to improve/protect it, or not. For more on branding yourself, check this out.

Increasing engagement

Your network is measured by quality, not quantity. However, there are some things you can do to increase the likeliness that your tweets are seen and increase both the size and quality of your network.

1. Participate in twitter chats.

It’s when 10-100 people set a day/time to discuss a particular topic. For a HUGE list of over 500 chats, check out this Twitter Chat Calendar and do a search for keywords or topics of interest.

2. Thank people.

For mentions or retweets (RTs). Not only are they paying attention to you, but they’re doing it publicly and some of their followers may start following you.

3. Give kudos.

‘Follow Friday’ is a Twitterville cultural norm that happens mostly on Fridays. You’ll see hashtags #followfriday or #FF and it’s basically a public endorsement of a handle or group of handles. There are two ways to do it.  You can either list a bunch of people that you suggest others follow. Or, you can list one person and share why people should follow them and/or what topics they’re knowledgeable of.

4. Pay it forward. Give Klout.

Klout is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a measure of someone’s online influence. In reality, a company started measuring it, Twitter now includes it in your profile. It’s based on some super-top-secret algorithm of followers, retweets, regularity, etc. You can go to Klout’s website to learn more BUT you can actually give Klout to other people (also via their site).  Spend some time paying it forward and ‘giving’ influence points to someone who’s helped you, educated you, connected you, informed you, etc.  Like karma, it’ll come back in its own way.

There you have it – it you made it this far through the series, you should be off to a great start! Tweet away and have a ball. Keep me posted on your progress and share what you learned. We’re all here to learn from each other.

Twitter Bootcamp Lesson 4: Managing Twitterville

Fundraising

Good morning everyone! This week I am privileged to be attending Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Midwest Leadership Conference in Milwaukee, WI. With all hustle and bustle associated with attending a conference, I decided to find a “guest blogger” to take over for me this week. It wasn’t a difficult search. As a subscriber to the Nonprofit Nate blog on WordPress, I have become a huge fan of Nathan Hand and was thrilled when he agreed to step in for me. The cherry on top of this sundae is that Nate agreed to post all week on the subject of Twitter and how non-profit organizations can/should use that social media network. So, the following is a little bit more about Nathan and today’s post. Enjoy . . . and I’ll see you next week. Here is to your health! ~Erik Anderson, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC

Nathan Hand is an AmeriCorps alumnus, holds an Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University, a Masters in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from DePauw University. Nathan is Vice President of Development at School on Wheels, an organization helping homeless children in Indianapolis. He writes at www.nonprofitnate.com sharing thoughts for nonprofiteers and helping visitors navigate the world of giving. For more, follow Nathan on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to his blog!

Twitter Bootcamp Lesson 4: Managing Twitterville?

Ok, so you understand the concept, you’ve signed up and you’ve tweeted! Congratulations. Now comes the fun part. A backstage pass, behind the scenes look at my own personal Twitter management system. The 4th in this week’s series, we’re going to make sense of the neighborhood that is Twitterville.

Remember the bazillion messages we talked about in the first post? We’re going to get you set up on Hootsuite so you can filter all those tweets and only see what you want, when you want to see it – so that you can get to the holy grail of social media – appropriately engaging with the right people and not being so overwhelmed with info that you loose sight of its value.

Understanding streams

First, it’s important to understand that I only use Hootsuite for Twitter.  You can connect all sorts of social media outlets to it but I haven’t…yet.  That said, here’s how I think of streams. Take a colander from the kitchen and put it under a running faucet.  The water goes from one faucet stream to 10-100 smaller streams of water. Same concept in twitter streams – you’re using keywords and searches to separate tweets you want to see from those you don’t. As a bonus, you can lump similar streams into tabs – think of tabs as overarching categories. Hootsuite has made it pretty easy to technically set up a stream, the harder part is thinking through what all you want to see.

Read through these examples and we’ll work on your shortly.  I get a little stream/tab happy and to be honest, can’t keep up with the ones towards the end…but here’s what I have…

My tabs and streams

Tab 1 – Mine still has the default name of ‘Featured’.  I use this tab for hashtags (remember, index/topics) at conferences or when I’m using Hootsuite on my iPhone – because it’s all about the quickest access on the fly. Currently on that tab I have streams for #afpmeet, #fundchat, #SMindyNP, #ynpn, #11ntc #ynpchat and #ynpn.

Tab 2 – My second tab is titled with my Twitter name and follows (in order) my home feed, mentions, a search stream for @nathan_hand (I use this as a fail-safe/backup for mentions because hootsuite can sometimes miss mentions and it’s embarrasing/rude to not respond to peeps!), #fundchat, #bin2011, #millennialchat, #givingshow, Direct Message Inbox, Direct Message Outbox, Sent tweets.

I manage several other Twitter accounts – each account gets its own tab along with relevant streams.

Tab 3 – Titled @indysow and includes streams for Home, Mentions, search for @indysow (fail-safe), Direct Message Inbox, Direct Message outbox, Sent Tweets, Pending Tweets, and a list of those that tutor for us – ambassadors of sorts.

Tab 4 – Titled @AFPIndiana and includes streams for Home, Mentions, search for @AFPIndiana, Direct Message Inbox, Direct Message outbox, Sent Tweets, Pending Tweets and #afpmeet.

Tab 5 – Titled @Backpackattack and includes streams for Home, Mentions, search for @Backpackattack, Direct Message Inbox, Direct Message outbox, Sent Tweets, Pending Tweets

The remaining tabs are for particular subjects/topics that include streams for ‘sub-topics’.  For better or worse, I only use searches and keywords.

Tab 6 – Titled indysow – for topics related to that entity that show tweets we might care about. Streams are @indysow, “School on Wheels” (a search for our org name in quotes so it grabs those exact words), homeless, homelessness, homeless indianapolis, homeless children, homeless education, homeless youth, donate homeless, donate homelessness.

Tab 7 – Titled ‘fundraising’ – streams are fundraising, major gift, annual fund, planned giving, fundraising indiana

Tab 8 – Titled ‘nonprofit’ – streams for nonprofit, nonprofit management, nonprofit marketing, nonprofit leadership, not for profit

Tab 9 – Titled ‘marketing – streams for nonprofit marketing, social marketing, nonprofit email marketing, cause marketing

Tab 10, 11 & 12 are for ‘philanthropy’, ‘Indianapolis’ and ‘Leadership’ with streams for related sub-topics.

The advantages to tabs and streams are abundant. If you follow more than 20 or so people, the ‘home’ stream is difficult to keep up with – especially if those you follow are prolific tweeters.  Let’s work on your set-up.

(UPDATE: At the request of @Maggie_Stevens – here’s a screenshot of my hootsuite dashboard)

Your tabs and streams

Grab a blank piece of paper and map out the keywords and topics you want to follow, personally and professionally.  Use the bio you wrote as guidance.  Let’s say you wrote “Dir Digital Communications for Seattle Agency for the Aging. Husband, Dad, aspiring BBQ judge, runner, photographer and organic chef.”  I’d suggest,

Tab “Work” w/ streams – digital communication, social media, nonprofit email, aging, elder care, elderly, over 60

Tab “BBQ” w/ streams – BBQ, bar-b-que, BBQ judge, BBQ judging, food contest, BBQ festival, BBQ expert

Tab “Run” w/ streams – running, run, runners, marathon, fitness, 26.2, distance running

Tab “photo” w/ streams – photography, digital photography, photo composition, digital camera

Tab “chef” w/ streams – foodie, organic, chef, food network, hell’s kitchen, chef show

Use paper or a white board and map this stuff out before you set it up. The reality is that you’ve got to start somewhere. As you engage further on Twitter, you’ll learn the different hashtags and terms people use to discuss all these.  You may start out following words, and later you’ll have streams and tabs of hashtags.

So you understand Twitter, you’re set up, you’ve tweeted and now you’re managing tweets and info. Tomorrow is the big, last and most important. Engaging!