Uh oh . . . you’re thinking outside-the-box again

September 14, 2012 erik Fundraising, leadership, organizational development, Planning

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

Today, I am not really “focusing” on John’s recent post about inside-the-box thinking, outside-the-box thinking, and just plain old reconstruction of your box thinking. Instead, I’m using his post as a springboard to set-up deeper discussions next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on specific “inside-the-box thinking” topics pertaining to the non-profit community.

When I was a young executive director a decade ago, I decided a few years into my tenure that I probably didn’t know everything there was to know about running a non-profit organization and a business. So, I committed myself to becoming a lifelong learner about such things. I started reading various manuals that our national organization published. I used Google to search for online articles. I especially loved going to Borders book stores on weekends and purchasing business books.

When John talked about the importance of organizational leadership and building new boxes where employees can be productive again, it reminded me of a book I once read and still sits on my bookshelf. The author is Kirk Cheyfitz, and the book is titled “Thinking Inside The Box: The 12 Timeless Rules for Managing a Successful Business“.

After reading a sentence or two from that short promotional passage on the inside cover, purchasing the book was a forgone conclusion. It was these words that hooked me and succinctly captures the essence of the book:

“For the past decade and more, everyone in business was told that success in a rapidly changing world required constant “thinking outside the box.” The result has often been financially and ethically disastrous. Now, in a radical reassessment of what really works, this book shows that the business world lost its way when it forgot how to think inside the box.”

Hmmmm? Re-reading those same words today now makes me think about Wall Street, mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, and the economic crash of 2008. However, I will resist the temptation of going down that rabbit hole this morning.

There are many things that stick with me 10 years after reading this book. One of the biggest things is what goes through my mind every time I hear a non-profit executive director say those magical words:

“Thinking outside-the-box”

I don’t conjure up images of “innovation” or “leadership” like many other people apparently do. The first thing that runs through my head is “uh-oh, they’re in trouble”. For me, the phrase “thinking outside-the-box” represents all of the following:

magical thinking
hope (which is not a strategy)
abandonment of best practices

I believe there are some “business practices” that are timeless and always work regardless of which sector you’re working and in what boxes you find yourself. Abandoning those practices in the name of “outside-the-box thinking” is what gets you in trouble.

For example, the following are just a few of the chapter titles you will find in the book:

The Money Box: Cash Is Everything . . . If you don’t manage your cash, you won’t be managing anything for long.
The Box Top: Customers Are the Boss . . . Give customers what they want, not what you want to give them.
The Basic Box: Some Things Never Change . . . Know the difference between what will change and what won’t, and pay attention to the former.
The Marketing Box: Unifying the Whole Business . . . You should be selling all the time.
The People Box: Hire Smart or Manage Hard . . . When it comes to people, you can hire smart and get out of the way, or you can run yourself ragged micromanaging.

There are many more chapters with equally thought-provoking business practices. Every new non-profit executive director should read this book.

Next week I will choose three chapters and go in-depth on those subjects in a way that speaks to the challenges non-profit leaders face every day. I also will pull stories from my non-profit experiences to illustrate those points and have a little fund along the way.

Using the poll below, please vote for three ideas that interest you the most. If you’re a subscriber and reading this as an email, you may not be able to vote (you never know … please try). If you find that you can’t vote from the email copy of this post, please click the hyperlink blog post title, which will take you to my WordPress blog site and cast your vote there. I am genuinely interested in your opinion and need help shaping next week’s content. Please?

[polldaddy poll=6533936]

For the love of God, it is 2012 and it is a Presidential Election year. Please vote!

Have you ever done something that you and others considered “outside-the-box”? If so, what was it? Did it work? How do you know it worked? Would you have been better off building a different box per John Greco’s suggestion? Please weigh-in with your thoughts using the comment box below (and please take 5 seconds to cast your votes).

Here’s to your health!

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

Non-profit lessons from the Middle East

September 13, 2012 erik Fundraising, technology

On Tuesday, I joined the Fox West Philanthropic Network and attended my first meeting in Geneva, Illinois. The program that day focused on social media and the value it brings to non-profit organizations as a marketing tool. While no one openly expressed doubts about the premise of the presentation, I could almost hear some of the more “old school fundraising professionals” questioning the effectiveness of “this social media thing“.

On Wednesday morning, I learned (via Twitter) that the United States’ embassies in Egypt and Libya were under siege and American foreign service employees had been killed. This morning protests and violence seem to be spreading. After a quick Google search, I learned from a Washington Post article that the embassy in Yemen had been breached, and protests are now occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Where is this all coming from? Why are so many people angry? According to the Washington Post:

“The spreading violence comes as outrage grows over a movie called “Innocence of Muslims” that mocked Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The amateurish video was produced in the U.S. and excerpted on YouTube.”

You read that right . . . a crappy little YouTube video produced in California provoked action (aka mass violence and death) half way around the world.

For those of you who still think that this “social media thing” is a passing fad and holds little to no value for non-profit organization, I direct your attention to the Middle East and ask that you please re-think your position on these very powerful communication tools.

I believe there are a number of lessons to be learned and conclusions to be drawn about social media from recent events emanating from the other side of the planet. The following are just a few revelations I’ve recently had:

Facebook and Twitter were used as powerful tools of revolution that fueled the “Arab Spring”. If these tools can fuel a revolution and overthrow powerful dictators, then these tools can be useful to non-profit organizations who wish to communicate with clients, supporters, volunteers, staff and donors.
YouTube is especially powerful because it visual in nature. If one YouTube video can cause this much action half way around the world, then your agency can figure out how to introduce people to your mission and engage them in doing good.
These new communication technologies are powerful and shouldn’t be misused because the consequences can be huge and unforeseeable. If you don’t know about The Butterfly Effect, then I suggest you read up on it before developing any social media strategy.
Oh yeah . . . you probably should steer clear of anything to do with the Prophet Muhammad when it comes to your social media strategy.

Developing your organization’s social media strategy will not be easy. What works for the agency down the street from you, won’t necessarily work for you. I encourage you be brave and commit to experimenting. Those things that don’t feel right or don’t work . . . don’t do them again. Don’t be reckless (please see observation #4 above), but commit yourself to learning and be prepared to celebrate failure.

The following YouTube video washed into my email inbox just a few weeks ago from a small non-profit agency in Wheaton, Illinois called Senior Home Sharing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q-de0t_-nM&feature=youtu.be]

There are a lot of things I would’ve done differently, but you have to applaud this organization for what they are trying to accomplish and message to potential clients, supporters, and donors.

The following are a few resources you may want to investigate if recent Middle East events have changed your mind about your non-profit organization’s approach to social media:

Connection Cafe: “10 Tips to Jumpstart Your Nonprofit Social Media Plan“
idealware: “The Nonprofit Social Media Policy Workbook“
YouTube: YouTube Nonprofit Program

Good luck, and you may want to go back an re-read my list of observations and keep in the back of your mind my fourth observation as you proceed.

How does your agency use YouTube? Has it been effective? How do you know? Do you have a written social media plan? Policies? Are you willing to share those things with other non-profit professionals? Please scroll down to the comment box and take a moment to share your thoughts, experiences, and answers to one or more of these questions. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Is your fundraising program failing? Good!

September 11, 2012 erik Fundraising

I opened an email from a dear, old friend this morning. His name is Jim Chambers. We’ve known each other for 20-years and worked together at two different non-profit organizations. The email was titled “Something for you.” The message was equally simple and said, “Hope you are well. I thought you may like this video.”

Needless to say, I couldn’t resist clicking on the YouTube link at 7:00 am this morning.

At the other end of that link, I saw this title:

Innovation Keynote Speaker Jeremy Gutsche –
30 Minute Speech

I then realized that the YouTube video was 28:49 minutes in length. OMG!!!!!! It is 7:00 am in the morning. Are you kidding, Jim?

However, I knew in my heart that Jim knows me better than most people, and there must be a reason he sent me this video. So, I grabbed a cup of coffee and clicked on the link.

I’m glad I trusted Jim this morning because 28:49 minutes later I have more non-profit thoughts running through my head than I’ve had in a long time. So, I thought I’d take the next few minutes to dump those thoughts out into a bullet point list for your enjoyment and see if it sparks and discussion. Enjoy . . .

In times of tremendous economic crisis, chaos and upheaval, history has shown us that opportunity is abundant if you just open your eyes and look for it. What is your non-profit organization doing to take advantage of the chaos? Are you re-inventing your resource development plan? Are you approaching and engaging donors differently? Are you broadening your message or changing your services?
Companies that succeed and get stronger during crisis do a lot of experimenting. With this comes a lot of failure, which is what inspired today’s blog headline. What are you doing different? What are you failing at? Does your organization embrace failure and celebrate it with regards to your fundraising efforts?
We’re all focused on emotionally connecting with the customer, and fundraising professionals pursue this same connection with donors. However, there is something much more powerful — a “cultural connection“. Does your fundraising program make this distinction and even try to make this connection? I suspect that the fundraising thought-leader who figures this one out will de-throne Penelope Burk and her “Donor-Centered Fundraising” philosophies as the hottest new thing.
Does your fundraising case for support connect with donors or is something just connects with you and your volunteers? The speaker says that messages that connect with people travel faster than your competitors messaging. Are people buzzing about your agency? Is your fundraising message being talked about around the water cooler? Are people echoing your mission and fundraising messaging on social media?
When your mission and vision as well as your fundraising activities are just “average,” then that is all it will ever be. What are you doing that is fun, exceptional, and buzz-worthy. How are you communicating that? How do you get your clients, volunteers, and donors excited about anything?
Can you define in “7 words or less” what you do? Are you “obsessed” with your story? Is it simple? Is it direct? Is it supercharged?

I am willing to bet that I could go back to that 28:49 minute video, watch it again, and wring another six bullet points out of it, but there has to be at least one thing I shared with you or questions that I posed that has you scratching your head this morning. If that is the case, then please scroll down to the comment box and share your question, answer, or interesting thought.

If you have a little bit of time today, I really urge you to watch Jeremy Gutsche’s video about innovation. It is really awesome and thought-provoking. Here it is:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4gAkM72ah4&feature=player_embedded]

Here’s to your health!

Don’t sing the ‘goodbye song’ to your non-profit donors

September 7, 2012 erik Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising, organizational development

Today, I am focusing on a post that John wrote about attribution theory and contingency theory based upon a “classroom song” story that a friend shared with him over a fierce game of Scrabble. After reading his post, a song jumped into my head from my days at Grace Pre-School in Mount Prospect, Illinois. It goes something like this:

“Grace Pre-School is over and its time for us to go home;
Goodbye, goodbye;
Be always kind and good;
Goodbye, goodbye;
Be always kind and good.”

That was the song we sang at the end of the day when it was time to pack-up and go home. I can’t believe how four decades later that song sprung into my head as conveniently as if I had just sung it yesterday.

At the ripe old age of four, that pre-school song helped me bring the school day to a close. It reminded me to put my toys away, say goodbye to my friends, get my coat and bag, find my Mom, and leave the building without shedding a tear. It only worked within the confines of the church that housed my pre-school program. It didn’t result in me being “kind and good” . . . you can ask my Mom and she’ll tell you that I could be a terror on certain days.

To think that singing my pre-school — anywhere and anytime — would yield the same results or “cause” me to be “kind and good” is quite simply misattribution.

In the non-profit fundraising world, we do this all the time with donors and it goes something like this:

Contribution comes into the office,
The contribution is entered into the donor database,
The computer generates a thank you letter that is sent to the donor,
The donor gets added to a newsletter mailing list, and they receive a few newsletters,
Another solicitation is made that results in another contribution.

Cha-ching! The donor is conditioned. The money rolls in. It is oh so simple. I can almost hear fundraising professionals singing a song that goes something like this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq3tVrTFcKk]

Cause and effect is such a great thing until you realize that you’ve attributed the wrong stimulus to the wrong results.

Penelope Burk, CEO of Cygnus Applied Research, does a great job in this interview with The Chronicle of Philanthropy of debunking the myths associated with singing the donor song. She points to research illustrating how the average non-profit loses 50% of donors somewhere between their first and second contribution to their agency.

Huh? I wonder if those fundraising professionals mistakenly sang my pre-school “goodbye song” to their donors instead of the “money song”. LOL

All kidding aside, Burk is the queen of “Donor-Centered Fundraising” which tells us that cookie cutter approaches to donor stewardship result in high turnover rates. Donors stop donating because they feel “over-solicited”. Many fundraising professionals hear this and think that fewer solicitations are the remedy. This conclusion is simply not true. Burk does a great job of explaining the subtle nuances behind “over-solicitation” in The Chronicle of Philanthropy interview:

“. . . over-solicitation is not a frequency of asks in a set period of time; rather, it is being asked to give again before donors are satisfied about what happened with their last gift.”

Let’s bottom-line this . . .

Every donor is like a snowflake — they’re different.
Everyone has a different threshold for what they need to see in order to be satisfied about what happened with their last gift.
No one responds to the same stewardship activities the same way.

When Burk talks about being “donor-centered,” she is really saying that we need to get to know our donors individually. We need to craft stewardship strategies around donors’ needs and preferences in order to avoid “over-solicitation”.

Am I hearing some of you mutter words like “crazy” and “impossible“? If so, then I encourage you to dwell and explore the following ideas:

database contact records
segmentation
surveys
discussions
focus groups
stewardship plan

My parting advice to you is stop misattributing the “money song” to securing donations because you are losing half of your donors after their first contribution and 90% by the fifth gift. Read up on the concepts of “Attribution Theory” and “Contingency Theory” and stop singing the “Goodbye song” to your donors.

How does your non-profit organization customize its stewardship activities to individual donors? Do you just do so for your major gift prospects? Where do you store your individualized stewardship plans? What role does your donor database play in managing your Moves Management program? Can you share your success results? Did your donor loyalty rate improve?

Here’s to your health!

Email is the foundation of your non-profit resource development program

September 6, 2012 erik Fundraising, technology

A few days ago, while vacationing in Michigan for the Labor Day weekend, I started reading “The Social Media Bible” by Lon Safko. As the pages turned and I read about marketing within a social media framework (including tactics, tools and strategies), I can’t tell you how many “ah-ha” and “hmmmm” fundraising moments that I experienced. On Tuesday, the book inspired me to post about the costs associated with bad word of mouth and how this should evolve into a “generative question” around which to organize your board meetings. Yesterday, the book had me wondering how many of your donors are “lurkers”. Today, we end this week’s series with a tip of the hat to the importance of email.

Safko reminds readers on page 62 that email is a lot older than you may remember. Sure, the first email was sent “around 7:00 pm in the autumn of 1971 as a test . . .” However, when you stop to think about it, many of us have actively and heavily been using email as an information tool (and many times inappropriately as a communication tool) for two decades.

On page 63, Safro shares a chart comparing direct mail to email marketing. I’ve tried to re-create that chart for you below:

Table 3.1 Direct Mail versus E-Mail Marketing
(Source: The Social Media Bible 3rd edition, page 63)

Measurement	Direct Mail	E-Mail
Development Time	3 to 6 weeks	2 days
Cost per Unit	$1.25	$0.10
Response Rate	0.1 to 2 percent	5 to 15 percent

In the table underneath this one (table 3.2), Safro lists a number of primary goals that businesses reported in a benchmark survey on MarketingProfs.com.

Can you guess which primary goal topped the list for companies email marketing programs?

If you guessed “Build relationships with existing customers,” then you are correct!

So, I suggested in today’s blog post title that email is really the cornerstone of most non-profit organization’s resource development programs. I came to this conclusion (kind of like those old forehead slapping V8 commercials) after reading the last few data points. Let’s do the math . . .

It takes less time to develop a stewardship piece that you email compared to the one you drop-off at the post office.
Communicating ROI to donors via email is significantly cheaper than a paper newsletter or mail piece.
More people will read your email piece; whereas, your letter or newsletter is likely bound for the shredder before it is even opened.
Our for-profit cousins (who have all of the money and calculate every ROI angle) have determined that email marketing programs are great for “building relationships”.

As I think back to my days on the front line, I start counting how many emails and html email documents I sent donors compared to stewardship letters and paper newsletters. From a pure “tally ’em up” perspective, it is now obvious to me how important email has become to most non-profit organization’s resource development programs.

So, here is the kicker . . .

When I speak to the average small non-profit organization about how many email addresses they have in their donor database and the size of their email house file, it is typically very small.

Are you asking donors to provide their email addresses on your annual campaign pledge cards? Maybe.
Are you including an email field on your special event registration forms? Not typically.
Are you asking donors to provide their email as part of an eNewsletter request on your website. No.
Do you use online donor surveys as a way to capture donor email addresses? Huh?
Do you run online contests to secure donor email addresses? Never.
Do you flat-out just ask donors to provide their email address to you? No.

If email marketing is a relationship development tool according to the for-profit industry, then non-profits need to focus their efforts and start catching up.

In fact, email is more than just a cornerstone for your organization’s resource development program . . . it forms the foundation of your agency’s social media strategy (which is the funnel you need to get donors to the info on your website and that coveted “Donate Now” button).

Before some of you burn me at the stake for this blog post, please understand that I am not advocating elimination of your more traditional marketing and mail strategies. I am suggesting that the future is all about cross-channel communication and putting the decision-making into the hands of donors. THAT is what I call being “donor-centered”!!!

How many email addresses does your organization have in its house file or donor database? How did you acquire them? What strategies worked better than others? Have you tracked and compare your donor retention rates between donors who receive ROI info via email versus other traditional methods? Do you see a difference?

Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

How many of your non-profit donors are “lurkers”?

September 5, 2012 erik Fundraising

A few days ago, while vacationing in Michigan for the Labor Day weekend, I started reading “The Social Media Bible” by Lon Safko. As the pages turned and I read about marketing within a social media framework (including tactics, tools and strategies), I can’t tell you how many “ah-ha” and “hmmmm” fundraising moments that I experienced. Yesterday, the book inspired me to post about the costs associated with bad word of mouth and how this should evolve into a “generative question” around which to organize your board meetings. Today, the book has me looking at your donors very differently.

In the very early pages of this book (page 29), the author describes the various “phases in the membership life cycle” for social media users:

Lurkers — These users view content, but don’t participate.
Novices — These users view content, and periodically provide content.
Insiders — These users are regularly providing content, commenting, etc.
Leaders –These users are veterans and everyone watches what they do.
Elders — These users have left the network for any number of reasons.

After reading this page, I found myself thinking about donor database segmentation practices (because the social media content provider pyramid graphic reminded me so much of a tradition range of gifts chart donor pyramid).

In a white paper written by Roy Wollen and Bonnie Massa, they talk about five ways to segment a donor database (including why to do it). They describe various donor groups as follows:

Low dollar donors, volunteers, constituents, past & present employees
Buyers (e.g. those people who attended an event, bought something from you, subscribed to something, etc)
Lapsed donors
High dollar donors
Members, benefactors, patrons
Institutional givers

In the end, we segment people into groups because we understand that different groups have different dynamics and needs. Once this revelation hits us, we understand that “one-size-fits-all” fundraising solicitation strategies don’t work. Sending a letter to an institutional giver might get you a handful of dollars, but it will fall short of what they can and will donate to your cause. For this reason, a major gifts strategy is probably the right tool.

Conversely, employing a major gifts strategy is overkill and too expensive for the legion of low dollar donors that reside in your donor database.

Once you realize how important segmentation is to the success of your resource development program, a flood of new questions come down the pike, such as:

How many database records exist in each segment?
What characteristics and needs exist for each group? (e.g. what makes them tick)
Which solicitation tools in my fundraising toolbox work best for each group?
What stewardship activities do I need to employ with each group to maximize the odds of moving them from one group to the another?
Are there things I can do to increase each groups “frequency” of donation and “size” of contribution?
What is the ROI (e.g. the cost of raise one dollar) for each group? If I shift my attention ratio around, will I raise more money?
What metrics should I be tracking?

Ahhhhh, yes. It suddenly becomes a brave new world and your fundraising perspective changes quite quickly. Perhaps, that resource development audit or donor database review takes a different shape or level of importance now? 😉

Does your non-profit organization segment its donors? How do you do it? Into what categories do you use? What metrics are you tracking and how? Has your approach changed as a result? How many social media “lurkers” exist on your agency’s various social media platforms, and how many “lurkers” exist in your donor database?

Please scroll down and share your answers and thoughts using the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Good word of mouth or bad word of mouth?

September 4, 2012 erik Fundraising, technology

So, I managed to sneak away to Michigan for the long Labor Day weekend. During that time, I started reading “The Social Media Bible” by Lon Safko. As the pages turned and I read about marketing within a social media framework (including tactics, tools and strategies), I can’t tell you how many “ah-ha” and “hmmmm” fundraising moments that I experienced. Over the next few days, I will share a few of those moments with you and hope to spark some discussion.

In the very early pages of this book (page 6-7), the author shares a statistic that is probably very familiar:

“Studies have shown that: An angry customer will tell up to 20 other people about a bad experience. A satisfied customer shares good experiences with 9 to 12 people. . . With the use of social media like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, those 20 people can quickly become 20,000 or even 200,000!”

The next few pages contain social media stories about scorned customers who used social media to exact justice. One scary example involves a musician, Dave Carroll, who had a bad experience with United Airlines and told the world by producing and posting a music video about it on YouTube. I’ve embedded the video below so that you can become one of the 12 MILLION people who have viewed it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo]

As I read this portion of the book and viewed the YouTube video, I realized this is one of the big reasons that your non-profit organization needs to get involved in social media. You need to know what people are saying about your brand, especially before it becomes a YouTube video that gets viewed by millions of people.

However, this first thought passed quickly, and a second thought came into focus:

Does your non-profit organization know whether its clients, volunteers and donors are having good experiences or bad experiences?

And I am not just asking this question within a social media context. This big picture question struck me as one of those “generative questions” with which your non-profit board of directors should be OBSESSED.

Do we know the answer to this question?
How do we know?
What data are we collecting?
What is the data saying?
How do we improve what the data is telling us?

Generative questions promote creative thinking and create new knowledge. Good board meetings and boardroom discussions should be centered around these types of questions.

This feedback from clients, volunteers and donors is gathered in a number of different ways from a number of different sources and places.

Are your board volunteers meeting with donors outside of the solicitation process?
How are you capturing that feedback from those stewardship meeting?
Are you using surveys or focus groups with your clients and volunteers?
Are you asking the right questions?
How do you aggregate that data and report it back to the board in a meaningful way?

Too often, our under-resourced non-profit organizations get focused on the very basics of just providing service to clients, recruiting volunteers and soliciting donors. We don’t take a step back to check-in with people to see if we’re doing a good job.

What is the harm of not doing so? Circle back and re-read the first few paragraphs of this blog post . . . high turnover rates and extremely bad word of mouth that can spread like wildfire.

In the end, this generative question gets to the root of everything and answers this question:

Are you on a sustainable path?

Let’s talk about this today. Please scroll down and take 60 seconds of your time this morning by asking a question or answering any of the previous or following questions.

Does your agency have a social media presence? How do you listen to social media conversations? Is someone specifically tasked with this job? How do you monitor what is being said on the street? Do you have an example of how you intercepted “bad word of mouth” and addressed it before it spread like wildfire? How did you do so?

Here’s to your health!

Labor Day 2012: An opportunity to steward your donors

September 3, 2012 erik Fundraising

Happy Labor Day 2012, everyone! Well, Marissa is camping and I am visiting an old, dear friend in Michigan. So, I dug back deep into the DonorDream archives and thought you might enjoy reading about how Labor Day can be a stewardship opportunity. Enjoy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reaching for the stars? Do your homework first!

August 31, 2012 erik Fundraising, organizational development, Planning

Today, I am focusing on a post that John wrote that was inspired by the following quotation from Robert Browning:

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, else what’s a heaven for?”

He uses Browning’s words to springboard off into two significant issues that every non-profit organization confronts during strategic planning.

How lofty should the strategic goals be?
What capacity building efforts need to be undertaken to support the new vision and strategic goals?

If you’re a non-profit professional who dislikes strategic planning, I suspect that John’s blog post might speak to you. I also suspect it will give you a much-needed new perspective before heading into your next strategic planning initiative.

While it is tempting for me to use John’s post to get on a soapbox and pontificate about strategic planning, I will resist doing so and instead talk about annual campaign planning.

As many of you know, I spent the last six years working with countless non-profit organizations on planning, implementing and evaluating annual campaigns. During the planning process, there are a variety of decisions that must be made including how big is the fundraising goal.

My approach has always been to starts off conservatively:

Identify prospective donors
Evaluate capacity to give and propensity to give
Set a suggested ask amount based upon what the prospect is likely to give (factoring in who is asking, giving history to the agency, and state of the relationship between the organization and prospective donor)

After going through all of these gymnastics, we have a spreadsheet with names and ask amounts. It is at this point that I urge the planning committee to sum the column of ask amounts and then divide by two.

Why divide by two? First, not everyone is going to say ‘YES’ to your request for a contribution. Second, not everyone who agrees to contribute will agree to the give at the suggested ask amount. Third, we sometimes miss the mark when setting suggested ask amounts.

This approach flies in the face of Robert Browning’s quotation and John Greco’s blog post.

But wait . . . there’s more!

Looking around the planning table, the sight isn’t pretty. Campaign volunteers are usually a little upset. All of that work and the goal seems small. The executive director or fundraising professional is wringing their hands and they look nauseated.

It is at this point that I like to introduce the idea of “reaching for the stars”.

In my opinion, timing is everything. To introduce the idea of reaching for the stars, before everyone has a realistic view of organizational and campaign capacity, is irresponsible.

Truth be told, this is my favorite part of the annual campaign planning process. Campaign volunteers are chomping at the bit to talk about what needs to be done to increase the size of the campaign goal. The following are just a few of the questions that get asked and answered:

How many more prospects need to be identified and added to our prospect list?
How many more volunteer solicitors need to be recruited?
Does the case for support need to be strengthened?
Is there more cultivation or stewardship activities that should be done prior to the solicitation that would maximize the chances of getting what we need to reach our campaign goal?

These are engaging and powerful discussions that are tons of fun to facilitate!

Finally, these conversations always end with a robust discussion about how the new annual campaign stretch goal should be included in the agency’s budget. This is where it gets interesting.

Some folks are conservative and advocate for budgeting the original smaller goal. Others want to go for it and budget the whole amount.

Over the years, I’ve given lots of different sounding advice to a number of different organizations. However, the common thread has always been that you need to have “skin in the game”. If you don’t hold yourself accountable to reaching the stretch goal, then you’ll never reach it.

Human beings normally don’t accomplish things unless we absolutely have to do so. Behind every audacious vision has been an urgent and pressing need to do it. So, whatever you end up budgeting, it needs to feel like a bit of a stretch.

In conclusion, I encourage you to set an annual campaign goal that is a bit of a stretch, but whatever you do don’t just pull the number out of the air or apply a percentage increase over last year. Do the hard work around prospecting and evaluating propensity and capacity, then conservatively divide everything by a factor of two or three.

It is only at this point that everyone will be ready to reach for the stars and focus on those capacity building questions that are necessary for success!

How has your organization set its annual campaign goals? What has worked or not worked for you? Please share your thoughts in the comment section because we can all learn from each other.

If you aren’t laughing you’re probably crying

August 30, 2012 erik Fundraising

Non-profit work is not for the weak hearted. It is hard work and frustrating at times. I’ve personal seen too many executive directors and fundraising professionals reduced to a pool of tears. So, when about.com’s non-profit blogger, Joanne Fritz, wrote about a website dedicated to non-profit humor, I decided to go check it out.

The site is called Non-Profit Humour, and today’s post is titled “Charity tags major donors with GPS tracker to monitor behavior“. The basic premise behind this site is similar to The Onion. The stories are fake, but the satire hits very close to home.

I believe that humor is a powerful tool that every non-profit professional needs to have at their disposal. Not only does laughing prevent you from crying, but I think it puts things in perspective. I suspect this is why cable television shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are so popular.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit Non-Profit Humour, I encourage you to take a quick minute and click-through right now. If you’re stressed out and nearing the end of your rope, you might want to subscribe because laughing is a whole heck of a lot better than crying.

What coping mechanisms and tools do you use to keep things in perspective at your non-profit agency? Please scroll down and share your tips and tricks with other non-profit professionals who might be looking for relief. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Innovation Keynote Speaker Jeremy Gutsche – 30 Minute Speech

Innovation Keynote Speaker Jeremy Gutsche –
30 Minute Speech