Robbins on Pallotta on The Overhead Myth

January 22, 2014 erik Fundraising, organizational development

Dan Pallotta, Dreams, Overhead and Accounting

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog

Have you seen Dan Pallotta’s TED Talk entitled “The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong?” It challenges us to question the way the public thinks about nonprofits and also the way we think of ourselves.
He says the right question is to ask “about a nonprofit’s dreams.” The wrong question is to ask about a charity’s overhead. Overhead is not the enemy.
Overhead including part of the CEO’s salary, the fundraising & support staff, the facility, utilities and the equipment in the administrative offices supports the provision of programming.
Organizations that have minimal overhead also have minimal capacity. Overhead is a part of growth, and challenging a non-profit’s ability to increase overhead comprises their ability to grow program services.
I’d also add that non-profits, like the rest of the world, get what they pay for.
While many nonprofit leaders are exceptional at getting goods and services pro-bono (read: free), it is hard to find excellent leaders to work for free. Some have the financial luxury to be able to do that – and that is wonderful – but most of us don’t. As such, I love Pallotta’s point about our society not wanting to pay a lot of money for people who are helping other people, but having no problem at all with people making a lot of money not helping people.
The other part of the overhead issue is this: It’s sometimes an accounting choice.
I used to have a Board member who said “There’s cash and there’s accounting.”
If you have a non-profit who books their CEO’s salary across the programs (based on a time study that reflects how much time they actually dedicate to programming) it will look like appreciably less overhead than the one who doesn’t. Even though the first CEO probably makes more than the second.
If you ask the question about overhead and don’t ask any follow up questions, you won’t get the right information. And any question that doesn’t get you the information you seek isn’t the right question.
Pallotta’s illustration of someone who really cares about hunger yet chooses against becoming a non-profit leader and ‘takes a huge salary working for a for-profit company and then gives $100,000 to a hunger charity, becomes a celebrated philanthropist and Board member of that charity supervising the person who became the CEO, while still making multiples of that CEO’s salary’ is brilliant!
He goes on to challenge us to “ask about the scale of their dreams; how they measure their progress toward those dreams and the resources they need to make those dreams come true.” Also brilliant!
I once heard someone say that to raise a million dollars you need to have million dollar dreams. The guardian angels who will fund your agency in full, no questions asked, are far and few between. As such, some questions for your consideration:

Do you have million dollar dreams?
Does your non-profit have a generous, or even reasonable, compensation package for the staff?
Can you communicate your organization’s impact?
Do you challenge the status quo?

For Board members and community leaders: Are your expectations for non-profit staff different than your expectations for your own staff?
Culture change is hard and so is changing the world. Let’s start asking the right questions, getting the right answers and allowing our non-profits to dream. Let’s fund the dreams that improve our communities!
As always, I welcome your experience and insight.

The case for developing your agency's Gift Acceptance Policies

January 15, 2014 erik Fundraising

With whom is your non-profit in bed?

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
bedfellows1 Politics — and non-profit fundraising — make strange bed fellows. Most non-profits look for donosr and sponsors. At some point, there will be a conflict between the mission of the non-profit and the reputation (earned or unfair) of the potential sponsor. Some donors and sponsors will be better for your mission than others. A Gift Acceptance Policy can help you determine what’s best for your organization.
When I used to run local Boys & Girls Clubs, the national organization — Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) — held a workshop encouraging board members and executive staff to talk through potential gift acceptance liabilities. The scenario they offered was this:

“A local restaurant, known for well endowed waitresses in skimpy uniforms, who’s owner is the friend of a Board member, wants to donate $10,000 and conduct a public media blitz connecting the two organizations.”

bedfellows4 Of course, my brain immediately went to the possibility of a billboard with two scantily clad waitresses in low cut very tight Boy & Girls Clubs tee-shirts. (Note: Boys & Girls Clubs, among many other amazing and life changing programs, have self esteem programs for young women as well as a similar program for boys teaching them what it means to be a man.)
BGCA offered the question “Do you accept the gift?”
The two Board members with whom I attended immediately said, “Yes!” My reply was “Over my dead body!”
bedfellows2 BGCA encourages its local Club leadership to talk about such things, and Clubs across the country are better for it. Since I opened my consulting firm, I have found that this to be the exception, not the rule.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation, in addition to the incredibly negative press it received in 2012 for its decision to defund and then re-fund Planned Parenthood, was also cited on NPR.org for its “2010 ‘Buckets for the Cure’ campaign with Kentucky Fried Chicken. Some studies have linked fatty foods to a higher risk of cancer.”
According to the documentary philanthropy.com, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) got in trouble with some of its supporters for accepting a large gift from Coca Cola. At the time, Coke was accused of sucking up (literally) the limited drinking water supply from the very poor in India to support a local bottling plant. Some WWF supporters claimed that Coke was only supporting the WWF to buy its way back into love.
Is there a similar PR problem in your non-profit’s future? Does your organization have a gift acceptance policy?
Polices, like plans, allow you to frame and respond to the question at hand. Do you know — and like — with whom your non-profit is in bed? Could you defend it publically? As Komen, the World Wildlife Fund and others have learned, the day might come when you have to.

2014 predictions for the non-profit sector

December 31, 2013 erik Board development, Fundraising, Planning

predictions3 It happened again yesterday. A non-profit friend of mine called and we talked for an hour about their revenue model and fundraising issues. Questions included:

We need to start doing more with private sector fundraising. Everyone at our agency agrees on this point. It is in the new strategic plan. But after lots of talking no one wants to do anything. What should we do? How do we move forward?
We are very dependent on government funding. How should we start diversifying our revenue streams?
Our revenue strategies that worked well prior to 2008 no longer work very well. We want to course correct, but the people sitting around our boardroom table were recruited with an old revenue model in mind. Can we ask these people to help us make the necessary changes? Or do we need to change the people sitting around the table? How quickly can all of this be done?

Ever since the economy changed in 2008, non-profits have been wrestling with these kind of questions. What economists and politicians are calling “The New Normal” has non-profit leaders scratching their heads and wondering what to do about it.
I’ve seen some non-profits pivot nicely, and I’ve seen many more struggle. This trend will continue into 2014!
Based on this prediction, I think the following trends are also likely to follow:

Non-profit boards and staff will continue re-examining and tweaking their revenue model. (Click here for more info on different types of non-profit revenue models)
Non-profit boards will continue to struggle with who should be sitting around their boardroom tables as they attempt to change their revenue models.
Non-profit staff will continue to struggle with developing and using volunteer engagement strategies and tools in an effort to move their agency FROM a pre-2008 revenue model TO a new 2014-and-beyond revamped fundraising plan.
There will be renewed interested by non-profit boards and staff to engage the services of fundraising professionals who can provide technical assistance around these questions.
The word “bankruptcy” will be used more and more by donors, stakeholders and the news media in 2014 to talk about non-profit organizations and municipalities (e.g. Detroit, etc) who weren’t successful in tweaking their revenue models.

Is your organization currently engaged in asking questions like the ones with which I started this post? Are there additional questions you’re asking in your boardroom? What do you think about these five predictions I’ve made? Am I full of bologna?
Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Why your non-profit agency should be blogging

December 30, 2013 erik Fundraising, technology

Non-profit blogging: What’s In It For Me?

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger

Last Monday, we explored chapter 5 of Lon Safko’s book “The Social Media Bible” and talked about how online forums might be helpful to your non-profit organization’s fundraising program. This week, we explore chapter 6 where Safko unpacks the history and power of blogs.

A little history

As we discovered last week, online forums or communities became public in the 1990’s. Using various online communities, people posted to bulletin board systems and forums. People started posting online diaries or journals that documented their personal activities to these sites, and they often included pictures and video. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, blogging began to move from personal diaries to include other topics.

If you are reading this- you can check “reading a blog” off your bucket list!

The very first guest blog that I posted on the DonorDreams platform addressed the key issue that all readers address every time they open an email, visit a website or visit a blog. Of course, it is the question of “What’s in it for me?” (aka WIIFM). What’s cool about today’s post is that we’re going to discuss WIIFM with regards to both reading a blog and writing a blog.

WIIFM? – Reading Blogs

We all know there is only so much time in the day, and while we work to fulfill our day-to-day job duties, it remains challenging to also fit in personal development and staying up-to-date on industry trends. Who has time for trainings and conferences?

There is an easier way!

I recommend hitting the web and taking a look at some blogs that speak to your profession.

Select a few that you can remain committed to reading. Subscribe to those blogs, and content will be delivered to your email inbox as frequently as the blogger publishes. Some bloggers write a monthly post, others do it weekly, and some (like our friend Erik Anderson at DonorDreams blog, try to post something every day).

My suggestion is to set aside about ten minutes into your schedule at the beginning of your day when you’re powering up your computer. Dedicate those 10 minutes to your professional development by reading a blog or two that you’ve subscribe to and speaks to your professional interests.

If you are not sure where to start you can ask colleagues about some of their favorites. Here is a short list of blogs that I suggest you check out:

For more suggestions, please check out the Blogroll section of the DonorDreams blog. If you have suggestions of other blogs to add to blogroll, please use the comment box to share your suggestion and Erik will add them to our online community. (Isn’t he always saying something like: “We can all learn from each other?”)

WIIFM?—Writing a Blog

This is the first time that I have ever blogged. I did one or two guest spots here on the DonorDreams blog platform, but this is the first ongoing guest spot that I have had.

The first several times that I sat down to write- I ended up:

stopping and doing the dishes
making a phone call to my mom
writing a little . . . erasing it
playing a game with my kids
finally pushing through to finish

Much like anything, with practice, it becomes less intimidating and each time I sharpened that skill a little more.

Any time you enhance communication with your donors or supporters, you continue to build trust. Depending on how you structure your blog contents, a blog can:

engage donors
keep them updated on news
align your organization with national trends or initiatives
demonstrate how your organization is working to meet needs and solve problems.

If your agency is striving to become a donor-centered organization, your blog content should be focused on:

appreciating and expressing gratitude to donors
showing donors that you are using their investments how you said you would during the solicitation visit
illustrating the impact that contributions are having on the lives of your clients and throughout the community

Blogging is a great way to show relevance within your industry. I believe that anytime you can differentiate your organization as an expert in a certain area, you build trust and accountability.

Are you thinking about starting a blog? If so, don’t just jump in and start blogging this afternoon. Ensure you are committed to the time it takes. Make sure your dedication to consistently blogging is a sustainable commitment. The worst thing to do is start with a bang and fizzle out.

So, now it’s your turn. I would love to hear more about your experience blogging. If you don’t blog, then please tell us the comment box to tell me about your favorite blogs.

Does your organization currently use blogging? If so, who is the target audience? Share your ideas for blogging for your organization. Do you think blogging is worth your investment of time?

Donors remorse is real and easily avoidable

December 26, 2013 erik Fundraising

remorse Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house, everyone was sleeping except for me. The reality is that I’ve not blogged in two days because of a deadly combination of holiday festivities and a horrible case of bronchitis. So, this morning I’m sitting at my computer and cleaning out my email inbox looking for blog ideas. There are scraps of ideas everywhere I look, but nothing cohesive was coming together until I opened an email from Tom Ahern, who is one of the biggest and brightest names in the field of donor communications.
Tom’s email newsletter was all over the road. It was speed dating for fundraising professionals.
The one topic that jumped off the page at me was something he termed “Donors Remorse.” Here is how he described it:

“But there is also a phenomenon let’s call ‘donor’s remorse.’ It’s just like buyer’s remorse: an oppressive feeling of disappointment and doubt that you’ve made a bad purchase decision. It’s a feeling of potential loss that happens immediately and automatically as soon as the first gift is completed. I’m feeling it right now. I just gave $500 of my hard-earned income to a political candidate whom I trust and admire. And yet I wonder….”

Have you ever felt donors remorse? I have, but I’ve never really processed it this way. So, reading Tom’s words got my brain engaged this morning (which kind of felt nice after days of existing in a fuzzy cold medicine state of being).
begging I’m not sure about you, but every time I’ve experienced donors remorse, it has been because I made a contribution out of a sense of obligation. Here are a few examples:

A friend asked me to make a donation to a charity because he serves on their board of directors
A friend asked me to make a political contribution because they were running for office
My neighbor’s son was selling stuff for his school’s fundraiser

The reason why donors remorse is a dangerous concept in fundraising circles is because it ties directly back to the idea of donor retention. When making a remorseful gift, the odds of the charity getting gift number two from me is extremely low. Since the non-profit organization most likely doesn’t know this (because they can’t read my mind), they are most likely about to embark on an expensive journey of trying to renew my support.
So, I’ve been thinking about ways to solve this problem this morning, and the answer surprised because it was remarkably simple.

Train your volunteers on how to use your case for support!

The reason why this work and does so every time is because it gets to the root of the problem.
In the three real-world examples I provided, the reason why I experienced donors remorse was because “The Ask” did not:

paint a picture of need
tell me how supporting the agency, school or cause would help address the need or make the world a better place
inspire me

We need to stop asking our volunteers to go out into the world with a fistful of pledge cards to ask their friends to support their cause without appropriate training and support. It also needs to be more than just a quick training on how to use the organization’s case statement.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve facilitated a campaign kickoff meeting and walked volunteers through the case for support only to find out they don’t use it. They fall back on the familiar fundraising pitch where they ask their friends to do them a solid favor by supporting their favorite charity.
Let’s treat our volunteers like the adults they actually are. Let’s take our trainings a step further by talking about:

the concept of donors remorse
the reasons why this happens
the business costs associated with it happening
how to avoid it

If volunteers knew they could help you avoid spending lots of donor renewal dollars in a wasted effort by simply making the ask in the right way, I think many more of them would do so.
I dunno . . . what do you think? Has the cold medication rotted my brain?
I love Tom Ahern, and I think you will, too. If you want to check out his free e-newsletter, please click here and have a look around Tom’s site.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Pre-blog technology might be helpful to your agency's fundraising program

December 23, 2013 erik Fundraising, technology

Internet forums: A valuable fundraising resource

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
Several weeks ago, when I started this blog series, we discussed the idea of opening the lines of communication with donors through social media outlets. In this week’s post, I dive into chapter five of Lon Safko’s “The Social Media Bible” where he talks about a tool that I see as potentially valuable to enhancing your relationship with your donors.
Internet forums were first seen in the 1970s through private Usenet and were seen publicly in 1995. The forum was the precursor to the blog. Since that time, these forums have built strong community ties, loyalty and trust. They are basically online communities that engage people around various topics.
If you are new to forums, you can do what I did . . . explore and click! The book suggested visiting and joining a site called Yuku, which houses a wide variety of forums. As I began to poke around, it was a little bit overwhelming to see the number of options for communities. However, once I sorted through it a bit, I took the first big step by commenting and soon I was part of the community!
Despite this exhilarating experience, the question remains:

What do community forums have to do with donors or your nonprofit?

First, let’s tackle the question of donors.
There are several benefits to engaging your donors in an on-line forum:

Donors can feel more engaged, as well as special for being a part of a community
You can utilize a forum to give updates on services, strategies or changes
You can also utilize a forum to gather feedback from donors

Second, let’s look at how forums can strengthen your non-profit’s resource development program. I found some awesome and unique communities that offer additional resources that you will definitely want to check out.

Giving Library

The Giving Library is a website that connects donors to non-profits through online video interviews. Donors can explore the online archive to locate, study, compare, and engage with hundreds of nonprofit organizations located across the country. The Giving Library also serves non-profits by enhancing donor access through a compelling medium, increasing overall visibility and providing an opportunity to learn about peer organizations. The Laura and John Arnold Foundation covers 100 percent of Giving Library costs for all non-profits selected to participate.

Donors Forum

Donors Forum is a resource for networking and education, information and knowledge, and leadership and advocacy on behalf of philanthropy and nonprofits in Illinois. This online resource provides information for both the donors and the non-profits with listings of workshops, trainings, publications, and best practices

Both of these forums are just two examples of online communities that work at engaging its audience. If you are new to the concept of online communities and forums, take a crash course and poke around at Yuku. Once you feel more comfortable consider hosting a forum or engaging your donors in two-way conversation.
I would love to hear more about your experiences with online forums and communities!
Has your organization every used an online forum to engage donors? What are some questions to pose to donors that could develop conversation? What have been challenges or downsides of this type of communication?

Is your agency's executive director out of the office enough?

December 18, 2013 erik Uncategorized

Raising Your Profile; Building Your Credibility

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
networking1 I was running a Boys & Girls Club in Texas, when I was offered the Executive Director position for the Boys & Girls Clubs in Akron, Ohio. I knew the President of the Akron Community Foundation and not another soul in town. Thankfully, my Board had a plan.
One Board member, who isn’t the mayor of Akron but could have been because he knows everyone, started setting up lunch meetings. We went to lunch with every community leader in town and:

We told them of our struggles
We told them about our kids and what they needed to be successful
we told them our plan to ensure they were, indeed, successful – and that our Club was as well.

After 6 months, I, too, knew everyone in town.
What’s the lesson for your organization? There are actually a few:

Who is on your Board and who do they know?
Will they introduce you?
Do you have a story?
Can you tell it in a way that engages people?
Who picks up the tab?

Now you might think it was silly of me to include the question of who pays for lunch on my list of lessons, but I cannot tell you the number of people who have asked. It matters. The question of what is a good use of agency resources is a blog for another day, but for today, it’s worth having the discussion and being clear about the answer before you ask Board members to set meetings.
Once you do, start having lunch, coffee and breakfast! Get to know people in your community and let them get to know you.
networking3 Program officers of foundations are incredibly generous with their time and are interested in learning about your organization. Community leaders, by definition, care about the community. Go talk to them. You will be pleasantly surprised by the number of people who say yes to your request for a meeting.
Profile building can and is partially done over lunch, but it only starts at lunch. It doesn’t end there.
To build your profile, you also have to build your credibility and the credibility of your program. Obviously, it won’t be enough to talk about your program if your program isn’t providing excellent services. Impactful programming is critical. Benchmark similar organizations, find and implement best practices and monitor and communicate your impact.
Speak in the community. Most service groups have a speaker at every meeting. Recruit and train a “public speaking team” to present at service group meetings and in the community. It is a wonderful opportunity to get your message out there.
You should also blog about the issues that impact your clients, write op-ed pieces and meet with local politicians.
Is there a Leadership group in your city? Leadership Akron was an incredible experience for me. It contributed to my professional development and knowledge about the city in ways that I could not have replicated on my own. It also provided incredible resources for my organization. Now that I live in Columbus, I am a member of the Leadership Columbus Alumni group. Consider participating in your local group. Most leadership programs offer scholarships for nonprofit senior leaders and it is an incredible investment of your time and resources.
networking2 Figure out the “must attend” event in town, and attend. And when you do, walk around and greet everyone, introduce yourself to people you haven’t been able to get in front of and ask if you can call them for a meeting. Again, you’ll be surprised at the number of people who say yes.
Finally, join groups that coalesce around the issues you care about. Most communities have nonprofit executive director groups, monthly or weekly educational forums, and leadership organizations. Find one and get involved. If there isn’t a group, start one.
We invited all the leaders of agencies that offered after school programming in Akron to a meeting. Akron had almost two dozen after school programs, yet there was no ongoing discussions about programming, best practices or service gaps. The discussion that started at that first meeting continued and our group later became the After School Council of Greater Akron.
You can do it! Profile raising, like everything else that is worth doing, takes time — lots of time. Spending the time will pay off in spades, for your organization, its mission and the community it serves!
Please let me know how it goes. As always, if you have other ideas for profile building, or suggestions for blog topics, please share. A rising tide raises all boats.

Is your non-profit's website changing with the times?

December 16, 2013 erik Fundraising, technology

Using best practices to improve your agency’s website

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
rose1 It has almost been a year since I took on my new role as Marketing & Outreach Coordinator for a local federally qualified health center. One of the first things I set my sights on changing was our agency’s website.
Our website was made with love by my President/CEO . . . with lots of love . . . but . . . umm . . . lots of words.
You can imagine this was a very delicate project to propose, but I was determined. I am proud to say that nine months after starting, we launched the new website, and it has been our pride and joy ever since. I will insert a shameless plug for you to check out our new website and see what you think!
In chapter four of “The Social Media Bible,” Lon Safkow presents the subject of “The World of Web Pages.” I loved this chapter! I was intrigued by the history of websites. I also loved reading about the “Eye Tracking Study” that discussed people’s reading patterns and confirmed that we look first, and refer back to the upper left corner the most often.
With all of what Safkow talks about in this chapter, I hit the web and learned more about the role that Web Pages play in philanthropy, engagement and donor relations.
Of course, by now, we know that a website can do wonders for:

engaging people
sharing your story
providing a platform for donations

However, we need to ask: “Is simply ensuring your non-profit has a web site enough?”
We learned in last week’s blog that when sending an e-mail or e-blast to an audience, we only have their attention for a few seconds. A website is much the same.
website2 Once someone plops on your home page what do they see? Is it mobile friendly? Can they easily navigate it?
Each click and movement to another page is another transaction with our audience. It is also another commitment on their part to give time to learn more. If they grow frustrated, confused or turned off, they can quickly disengage.
In marketing, I often look to those on the cutting edge of technology for trends (in other words . . . those younger than me of course! LOL). There is no doubt that non-profits must figure out how to engage the younger generations to ensure that philanthropy and engagement continued.
So, when we take a look at websites, what do we see and what do our donors want to see?
The Millennial Project is an initiative that assists companies and organizations in learning about and engaging the Millennial generation. (Note: The Millennial generation is made up of those sometimes referred to as Generation Y, with birth years from the early 1980’s to the early 2000’s.)
The 2013 Millennial Impact Report was completed by Achieve which is an agency working with causes to provide research, awareness and support campaigns. This report provides research on what interests this generation, including how to capture their support via your website, social media and other factors. I highly recommend you take a look as it provides insight on so many different topics.
The report highlights the importance of ensuring your website is mobile friendly. (Note: ‘mobile friendly’ does not just mean your site can be pulled up on your phone) If you are pulling up a site and have to zoom in and out in order to see the site, it is more than likely not categorized as “mobile friendly”.
mobile Does mobile friendly really matter?
According to a recent article, “What Users Want Most from Mobile Sites Today,” on Google’s Think Insights, it is clear being mobile friendly indeed does matter:

When they visited a mobile-friendly site, 74% of people say they’re more likely to return to that site in the future
48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that’s not mobile-friendly
36% said they felt like they’ve wasted their time by visiting those sites

Not only is accessibility important, but obviously content is just as critical. Here is more great info from the Achieve research:

75% of young donors are turned off by out-to-date web sites.
Six in 10 said they wanted non-profits to share stories about successful projects and programs and appreciated information about an organization’s cause and the people it serves.
The donors also prefer to give online, with 84 percent saying they want to give through a Web site.

As we look at continuing to engage the current and next generations through our website, taking a fresh look can be helpful.
There are some easy ways to get outside input on how your website can be improved including:

Work with an area college to set up focus groups
use on-line surveys
gather feedback during donor visits

Take a look at your web site. What do you see? What are some ways you could offer a fresh look? Do you have the infrastructure to support updates to you your site? Share some of your experiences from your favorite websites in the comment box below.
rose draft sig

A fundraising lesson in persistence and much more

December 12, 2013 erik Fundraising

university1 I graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with my graduate degree in Urban Planning in 1994. In the summer immediately following graduation, I received my first fundraising appeal from the university. So, this story started almost 20 years ago, and it ended last night in an Applebee’s restaurant in Roswell, NM. In my opinion, there are lots and lots of little lessons throughout this story that every fundraiser should internalize.
I graduated at the height of the Chief Illiniwek controversy. For those of you who don’t know the story, it is akin to what the Washington Redskins are currently going through. It is simply a question of whether or not a sports team mascot can be a racist and insensitive symbol.
I came down on the side of the argument that “racial stereotypes dehumanize people“.
So, when my first fundraising letter came in the mail, I responded with a letter asking the university to stop soliciting me until the board of trustees addressed the Chief Illiniwek issue.
Believe it or not, the letters stopped.
university2 Almost 13 years later, The Chief danced his last dance at a football or basketball game.
I couldn’t believe it when the fundraising letters started arriving in my mailbox again. Wow … 13 years later. I kinda thought they would’ve forgotten about me.
Not only did the letters start coming, but it felt like I got something every few months.
And then the phone calls started coming.
And then the email started coming.
I almost caved at first. After all, I kind of felt obligated to give to a fundraising solicitation that was 13 years in the making. Yet, I held off on making my first contribution. Our charitable giving budget was big back then and we had lots of charities we liked to support.
I decided that my alma mater would have to earn it just like the other charities did.
On September 17th of this year, I blogged about the Urban & Regional Planning Department at the University of Illinois and their 100th anniversary. I used their event to talk about how your agency should use anniversaries to engage donors as well as do some fundraising.
In that post, I shared some of the activities and communication strategies being employed by the university. I openly wondered if I would attend the big weekend celebration or make a contribution.
Fast forwarding to last night . . .
I am on the road for business and find myself in Roswell, NM. Across the street from my Holiday Inn Express is an Applebee’s restaurant, which is where I found myself for dinner eating alone and reading a white paper on monthly giving campaign best practices. (LOL . . . isn’t my life glamorous?)
While I’m on the road, I forward my home phone to my cell phone because I hate weeding through tons of voicemail upon returning from the road.
In the middle of my wedge salad, my phone rings. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered it anyway. Of course, it was a student from the university asking if I would like to make a contribution to contribute to a scholarship fund as a tribute to the Urban Planning Department’s 100th anniversary.
Six years of countless mail . . . a steady stream of email . . . and diligent phone calls from students . . . and it finally happened last night.
She asked me specifically for $300. I declined, but countered with my first $100 contribution to the University of Illinois. It is perhaps the hardest earned $100 contribution any non-profit organization has ever received.
Why last night? I have no idea. The spirit moved me? The ambiance of Applebee’s set the stage? The case for support language included support of a scholarship fund and had a tribute angle? Who knows!
I think this story is ripe with lessons for fundraising professions. Here are just a few

Persistence is an important element for a successful fundraising program
Donor databases (when used appropriately) are powerful tools
Multi-channel communication is the wave of the future (e.g. mail, email, phone, etc)
The case for support is important
What your agency does on the front line impacts donor perceptions (e.g. Chief Illiniwek impacted my charitable giving; whereas, bad press or not offering certain programs may impact your donors’ appetite for giving)

For the record, I am excited to now see how the university stewards its donors. Stay tuned! 😉
Are there other lessons that you see from this story. Please use the comment box below to share. We can all learn from each other.
Here’s to your health! (And congrats to the university for a job well done)
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

When is the last time your non-profit turned down funding?

December 11, 2013 erik Fundraising

Forks and Funding Streams

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
fork I once heard a local Executive Director say that fundraising in a non-profit was like a new restaurant looking for investors by asking people to pay for forks. That’s exactly right! It’s illogical, yet it’s exactly right.
Nonprofits raise money through a myriad of sources, often one part of a program, project or piece of equipment a time. Then once a year, or more often, we submit reports on the use of those funds.
Grants, which used to fund general operating, are now far more often restricted to the priorities areas of the funding institution. Major donors fund in a similar way, with fewer restrictions usually, but still often to support a specific program or project and for a specific purpose.
It’s how it’s done, both on the side of the giving, and also on the side of the asking.
Granting intuitions – which for the purpose of this post includes corporate, community and family foundations as well as government awards – fund portions (and occasionally all) of projects, programs and staff; some fund only supplies, capital expenses or materials.
Donors and funding institutions absolutely and unequivocally have the right to support whatever they want in whatever method they choose.
It’s the nonprofit leader’s role to decline to accept funding that doesn’t meet their mission or make sense for their agency. The caveat to all this, of course, is that those restrictions are not just that one foundation; they’re most foundations and other funding sources too.
Everyone funds like that and we all fundraise like that too — to support forks. Forks – or in the nonprofit world, programs, projects or things – are important, and so are utilities, rent, staff, and programming.
Please let me be clear. This post is not intended to insult or be in any way disrespectful of the many, many institutions and people who support local organizations. We are grateful to you!
This post is intended to question the efficacy of the status quo.
I am not naïve; I’ve been in this field for 20 years. I know that part of how we got here was a lack of accountability. There was a lot of good feeling and a minimal amount of impact. I know there are still nonprofits out there not tracking their programs, not measuring outcomes and spinning their wheels but not advancing their missions.
I also know there are many more non profits that are running good programs, measuring the impact of those programs and being excellent stewards of the community’s resources. They’re also spending a lot of time and energy to raise money and report on that money; time and energy that is taken away from programs.
When I ran the Boys & Girl Clubs of the Western Reserve, we wrote and usually received (and reported on) around 50 grants a year. We asked many more donors each year for financial support. We received money from the United Way, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the Ohio Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs. We hosted events and had an endowment.
A large portion of the money we received was restricted.
We tracked every restricted dollar to ensure we spent it the way the donor intended. We were transparent in our business practices and followed financial management best practices.
That is good financial stewardship.
It’s also expensive and time-consuming. However, it is critically important and not free.
Someone has to track, coordinate and manage all the pots, and agencies can usually only change a percentage of such costs to the grant. It’s labor intensive. It’s expensive. It’s how it’s done. The current non-profit funding model works.
It’s not unacceptable, but it is illogical.
I can’t imagine anyone planned it to be like this. There is no version of a past that I will believe that has donors, foundation, corporate and government leaders sitting around table envisioning a funding system that this one.
By this system, I mean one program being supported by three different grants each paying for a different percentage of the program staff salaries (and a much smaller percentage of the program leadership’s salary) with yet another grant paying for materials and special event income making up the difference.
There’s got to be a better way.
The nonprofit service delivery system has been greatly improved through technology, professional and leadership development opportunities, improved tracking and a lens that is focused on impact. Income generating efforts have similarly evolved, with the introduction of social enterprise and expanded efforts to embrace major donors and mergers when appropriate.
It’s time to re-imagine the funding model.
What else is out there? How else can we ensure financial stewardship, maintain donor confidence and demonstrate our impact? What else can we do to ensure the nonprofits in our communities have the resources they need to impact their corner of the world?
Let’s come up with a new plan: I’d rather do that than raise money for forks any day of the week.
As always, I welcome your experience, insight and ideas.