Tag: philanthropy

Who’s on first?

Board development, volunteers

Since I quit my job and started work on opening a consulting practice, I decided to take some time-off this summer to work on “me” which included getting involved in a few volunteer opportunities and miscellaneous projects. I am so glad I decided to do this because it has served as a gentle reminder that well-run meetings and a sense of organization is critical for any non-profit organization to engage and inspire volunteers.

Have you ever found yourself sitting in the middle of meeting thinking that you are in the middle of this very famous Abbott & Costello sketch titled “Who’s On First“?

Well, I have felt this way on a few very recent occasions and it can be very frustrating, which is why I thought I’d share some thoughts today on how to stop chasing your volunteers from the room. Here are just a few simple ideas:

  • Develop an agenda — this way people know what is being discussed and decided.
  • Send the agenda out in advance of the meeting — this way participants can formulate and focus their thoughts and not just organically babble.
  • Recruit a volunteer leader who can stick to the agenda — this minimizes time “down the rabbit hole” and keeps people’s time from being wasted.
  • Take meeting notes — meeting notes with a section focused solely on “action items” will remind participants who agreed to do what and by when. It will also ensure we didn’t just meet for no reason and keep us focused on actionable tasks. Send the meeting notes out immediately after the meeting as a reminder rather than handing them out at the beginning of the next meeting.
  • Honest recruiting — be clear in writing with a volunteer job description during the recruitment process. There is nothing worse than showing up to a meeting and finding out it is something very different (and more involved) than what you thought you had agreed to do.
  • Find painless ways to coordinate schedules and schedule future meetings — Try setting a future meeting date/time while you have everyone in the room. If that isn’t possible, use easy and free technology tools like Doodle or Tungle.  Stop the endless and confusing email threads.

As the Baby Boom generation retires (e.g. potential volunteers) and the volunteer-minded Millennial generation comes of age, non-profit organizations need to get better at volunteer management. Those who fail to do so will fall short in the following areas: board development, program/operations, and fundraising & resource development (e.g. annual campaigns, special events, etc).

Here is one interesting handbook resource I ran across online from the University of Texas at Austin titled “An Executive Director’s Guide to Maximizing Volunteer Engagement“. I thought I’d point those of you toward this manual just in case someone you know wants to stem the tide of volunteers who have been seen running and screaming after meetings.

The ideas in today’s post are only the tip of the iceberg. Please use the comment box to share how you have dealt with a frustrating volunteer opportunity. If you are a non-profit professional, please weigh-in with additional engagement strategies or things to avoid. We can learn from each other!

Here is to your health!

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

Recruit dogs to serve on your board

Board development

Yesterday, I made a quick trip to PETCO because I needed to purchase dog food and cat food. When I got home, I checked my receipt and discovered that the cashier had added 22 cents to my bill as a donation to the PETCO Foundation. Hmmmm? I didn’t remember agreeing to make that donation. So, I decided to call the store just in case they were experiencing a glitch in their cash register software.

Needless to say, there was no glitch in the store’s software program. I was informed that every cashier is “supposed to” ask each customer if they would like to round their bill up to the nearest dollar amount and donate that amount to the PETCO Foundation. While I definitely didn’t agree to make any donation, I also didn’t want to make trouble for a minimum wage employee or make a big deal out of 22 cents. However, this experience did get me thinking:

  • I wonder how many of us accidentally make charitable contributions as a result of a cash register promotion and a clerical mistake? I bet this happens often and all of us should heed the old warning of “Buyer Beware!”
  • I started wondering whether or not a cash register promotion is a successful fundraising solicitation tool. Well, guess what … The PETCO Foundation took in $10,473,709 according to their last 990 tax document. While this revenue came in from many sources, I can’t help thinking that chump change apparently must add up quickly.
  • Finally, I started thinking that these darn dogs are so clever! They have us trained to provide them with food, shelter, love and now they’ve become really successful at fundraising.

For those of you who think I am just being silly with the last bullet point, then please take a moment to watch this YouTube video and I challenge you to tell me that I am wrong. LOL

Here is the sad truth about everything I’ve just written today … The dog in the video is 10-times more effective at fundraising than those volunteers who serve on your board of directors who continually say: “I’ll do anything else, but please don’t ask me to fundraise”.  The next time you find yourself fretting about board engagement in your organization’s resource development efforts just remember that the problem might not be your resource development program. The problem might just be your board development efforts. It could also be that you don’t have enough dogs sitting around your board room table!

Is your organization successful at board development? Is 100% of your board room packed with what you would consider fundraising rock stars? If so, please share your secret best practices around prospecting, recruiting, orientation, evaluation, etc! We can learn from each other. Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts on these questions or anything I said earlier about cash register campaigns, etc.

(By the way, the picture in today’s blog is our dog “Lady Betrys of Cardiff”.  We call her Betrys, and this is her big internet debut. LOL)

Here is to your health!

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

Really? An exhausted board?

Board development

I opened a LinkedIn message from an old friend yesterday who asked me the following question: “I’ve got a board member that wants to give a challenge gift. What is the best way to present this to the board of directors that is exhausted of giving?”

In my response, I encouraged him to engage the donor as well as a few key board members in answering this question. However, this email weighed on my mind during a sleepless night and I awoke this morning both tired and with many more questions such as:

  • How exhausting can it be to open a checkbook and write a check? It isn’t like running a marathon! You have to watch this YouTube video on “Marathon Exhaustion“. If this is what your board looks like during any of your fundraising campaigns, then we have to talk soon! LOL
  • Who is responsible for situations like this one? Is there shared blame between volunteers and staff? Or can this quite simply be a case of bad staff leadership?
  • Is it possible that a “challenge gift” can solve a board burnout issue? What should be done to inspire and engage board members to once again become enthusiastic donors and volunteer solicitors?

After giving it some thought, I came to the realization that I’ve seen situations like this too many times. Oftentimes, this is what is going on:

  • Both staff and board lose sight of mission and they skip from fundraiser-to-fundraiser. It almost sounds like that “It’s time to make the donuts” commercial that Dunkin Donuts ran forever ago.
  • Board and staff start taking each other for granted and the tension builds.
  • Apathy sets in … board volunteers fall short on a few fundraisers and staff somehow magically find solutions by either trimming expenses or going out on solicitation calls by themselves. This creates a negative feedback loop and the cycle has begun.
  • Everyone has gotten too cozy with each other and board development efforts have been put on ice. New volunteer prospects aren’t identified or they come from the same old inbred circles. Volunteer training opportunities are not invested in. Annual board volunteer evaluation systems are shelved.

While I can make a living by blogging on this topic alone, let me just share a few things for you to think about. There are 9-keys to inspiring your volunteers and you need to be firing on all nine cylinders to be successful: 1) maintain mission-focus, 2) involve everyone in planning, 3) create a sense of “positive” urgency, 4) develop accountability tools, 5) celebrate ALL efforts (both successes and failures), 6) bring a sense of organization to everything, 7) make sure all meetings are well run and important, 8 ) set expectations up front during the recruitment process (stop ‘soft selling’ people), and 9) invest both time and money in training opportunities for volunteers. I want to thank Boys & Girls Clubs of America for teaching me these 9-keys because they have forever changed my life.

Here are two additional articles on this subject that I thought were pretty good:

So, if the shoe was on the other foot, how would you have advised my friend? Do you have any thoughts you’d like to share? How have you dealt with similar sitations at your organization? What have you done to put the “FUN” back in fun-draising? How have you continually kept mission-focus? Please use the comment box to weigh-in. We can learn from each other!

Here is to your health!

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

The big stewardship mistake

Donor-centered fundraising

Oftentimes, I’ve been told by non-profit organizations that they have limited resources and cannot implement a donor-centered communication program to steward their donors. After trying hard not to roll my eyes, I find myself forcing a smile and encouraging them to segment their range of gifts (ROG) chart and get as personal as possible (e.g. handwritten notes, periodic phone calls, and a face-to-face visit or two) with their largest donors. This seems to work and it moves them in the right direction, however …

It was not the BEST advice I could have given them!

Penelope Burk says it best on page 111 of her book “Donor Centered Fundraising“:

“Which donors need the most diligent investment from you? The answer is the ones whose loyalty is not yet secure, the ones whose current affiliation with your not-for-profit may still be tenuous. And who are they? They are your first time donors, those new contributors who demonstrate the highest rate of attrition between the first gift and the next ask.”

So, if I could go back in time or hit the “do over” button, I would tell those non-profit and resource development professionals to get really personal with the top 10% or so of their ROG chart. The after taking a cleansing breath, I would double down and tell them to put together a special stewardship program for first time donors. And by special, I mean more than just the typical gift acknowledgement letter and flurry of newsletters. Here are just a few crazy ideas I’ve had:

  • Create a special Donor Recognition Society for first time donors with a bunch of special “courtesies”.
  • Host a special town hall meeting (b/c I just hate “open houses”) for first time donors to hear first hand, witness and participate in mission-oriented messages and activities. This should help them see exactly what they have invested in.
  • Develop a donor communications series aimed only at first time donors with testimonials from larger, very influential donors talking about their excitement about various ROI success stories and their sense of fulfillment as a donor.
  • Institute a policy that all first time donors get a phone call from a board volunteer somewhere between three and six months after a donor’s first contribution. This phone call should include ROI-based information as well as the offer to answer any questions the donor may have. It would also be a nice touch to ask the donor if there is any feedback they might have for the non-profit and if there is anything they might want to get involved in.
  • Host a quarterly focus group session with first time donors and report the results and findings back to all first time donors.

And the ideas can go on and on … what do you do to help retain first time donors? How successful have you been at retaining first time donors? Please feel free to add onto the list of ideas that I just started by using the comment section of this blog. We can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1021153653
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Beyond newsletters

Donor-centered fundraising

My last two blog posts have been about transitioning your boring, ineffective newsletter into something more “donor-friendly” and effective. Today, I will attempt to put a cherry on top of this “donor-centered” sundae, but talking about those things that non-profit organizations need to do IN ADDITION TO just mailing a newsletter. Again … I want to give credit where credit is due. Penelope Burk is the author of “Donor-Centered Fundraising” and she does a much more eloquent job of discussing all of this in her book.

So, after Penelope goes in-depth on her ideas on how to transform your newsletter into a donor-centered communication tool, she gently reminds us that our work is just now beginning. Briefly, here are some of her other thoughts (pages 104-108):

  • Use email to communicate with those donors who give you permission to do so. Talk about the IMPACT a donor’s contribution is making.
  • Use your website to post important information for your donors and demonstrate to the world how to be transparent and accountable. (See page 106-07 for Penelope’s website content ideas)
  • Visit your donors in-person and invite them to visit you and the programming in which they are investing.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been told by resource development and non-profit professionals that they are hesitant to bother their donors because they are too busy. The next time you hear this from anyone, I encourage you to share this data quote from page 107 of Penelope’s book:

“72% of study donors have been invited on-site to one or more not-for-profits they support to see their work first hand. 77% of this group said that this is appealing and that the invitation is appreciated even when they are unable to go.”

It is true that we need to be respectful of our donors’ time, but we need to balance that with being respectful of their investment.

I will end today’s blog with a “tease” … tomorrow we will talk about which donors we should focus more of our energy on? In the meantime, please use the comment box below and weigh-in with your thoughts on the following questions:

  • What does your non-profit organization do in addition to a newsletter to inspire donor loyalty?
  • What did your last donor stewardship visit look like? Were there any surprising revelations or actions that came out of the visit?
  • When a donor has told you that they’re too busy to meet with you or visit your program, how have you handled it and made lemonade out of lemons?

We can learn from each other … please jump into the conversation.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1021153653
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Donor centered newsletters Part two

Donor-centered fundraising

On Friday, I used my blog post to start addressing a question posed by Susan Rudd from the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington in Indiana about donor-centered newsletters. Both Friday and today’s posts are based completely on the work of Penelope Burk’s book “Donor Centered Fundraising“. While I spent Friday sharing Penelope’s survey data in an effort to “make the case for change”, today I will share some thoughts (specifically from Penelope’s work) on what donor-centered newsletters look like.

On pages 99 through 103, Penelope Burk does a tremendous job of laying out her vision:

  • Turn the multi-page length newsletters into one-page bulletins complemented by a lengthier year-end annual report.
  • Sharply focus content on programmatic impact while taking great care not to turn it into a parade of yawn-inspired statistics (e.g. use success stories, client and/or donor testimonials, sporadic stats, etc. that has a “features news story feel to it”). Avoid fundraising news because donors see through it as blatant advertising. They want to know how their last contribution is making a difference not how they can make another contribution. The key here is always focus content on your organization’s “IMPACT AGENDA”.
  • The format of a one-page bulletin will mean there is very limited space after the masthead, a photo with cutline, list of board members, and contact info is included. So, content needs to be professional, crisp, compact and impactful.
  • The publication frequency can be driven by a well laid out schedule, but Penelope encourages us to be more organic and publish a one-page bulletin every time something newsworthy occurs. So, a bulletin could go out a number of months in a row and then go silent until something else of significance happens.

OK … so this might sound a little radical to some of you. It also might sound intimidating because this approach requires time, tender loving care, and professional writing skills (which many non-profits don’t have a lot of). It is for this reason, Penelope encourages those wishing to move in this direction to do the following (page 102):

“Newsletters, like all communication pieces produced by not-for-profit organizations, need to look sharp and professional but not expensive. In-house publishing software makes this entirely achievable today. The savings you can accrue through shorter production time, lower printing costs, cheaper postage, etc. can be turned back into programs and services or devoted to other communication enhancements. My choice would be to put that savings into contract writers.”

As a former writer and editor for a weekly newspaper and currently a non-profit / fundraising consultant and coach, I find it hard to argue with Penelope probably because it is in my best interest to agree with her. LOL.

With that disclosure, let me say this … I am happy to provide a free consultation to anyone investigating how to shift from boring ineffective newsletters to something more donor-centered. Who knows … you might even be able to engage my services, produce and mail your new donor-centered news bulletins for what is currently in your budget. Please contact me if you wish to talk.

So, what do you think? Does this new approach sound too radical? What are your barriers to change? Please use the comment box below and share your thoughts.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1021153653
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Donor centered newsletters Part One

Donor-centered fundraising

A few days ago, Susan Rudd from the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington in Indiana emailed me and asked: “Do you have any suggestions on how to make our newsletter more donor-centered?” I promised her that I’d think about it and blog about it this week. So, I immediately cracked open my copy of Penelope Burk’s book “Donor Centered Fundraising” and started researching. As you can imagine, there are lots and lots of data points (based on Penelope’s survey data), and I’ve decided to break my response into two separate blog posts.

Today’s blog post focuses on the case for changing your non-profit’s newsletter. Monday’s post will look at specific ideas on how to change this critically important donor communication tool. I again want to thank Penelope Burk for her groundbreaking research and reiterate that none of what I am about to share with you are my original thoughts or work. Please go out and purchase a copy of “Donor Centered Fundraising” … it will change your life!

The following is a quick summary of survey data on the current state of affairs regarding non-profit newsletters (please note that these results are based upon “survey respondents” and hopefully I don’t need to go into any detail with you about the limitations of survey research):

  • 66% of donors reported that “they don’t have time to read newsletters thoroughly”.
  • 58% of donors said they believe non-profit newsletters are “too long”.
  • The average newsletter dedicates 52% of space to programs/services and 24% of space to fundraising.
  • 99% of non-profits participating in the study produced printed newsletters and 22% also produced an e-newsletter.
  • Only 19% of donors reported that they were “satisfied” with the current length of the newsletters they receive.
  • Only one-third of donors said newsletter content is “exciting and compelling” with approximately the same number of respondents reporting that there is “too much fundraising content”.
  • 54% of donors feel that newsletters can be improved if “more targeted information on how donations are being used” was included.
  • 53% of donors said they are “concerned about the cost of newsletters”.

There can be no doubt after reviewing this research that there is but one conclusion — something must change if non-profits want to make the transition to a new donor-centered paradigm of resource development.

So, this is where I will leave the “cliff hanger” and ask that you take time this weekend to ponder the case for change. While digesting the facts, please ask yourself the following questions … How do my donors feel about our newsletter? Have I asked donors how they’d improve it?  What have I heard? If I haven’t asked, what is stopping me from doing so? How much of our content is focused on programmatic ROI versus fundraising? How “stale” is the newsletter content by the time donors receive it in their mailbox? If you get a chance, please share some of your observations in the comment box of this blog.

Stay tuned for part two of this series when I share some possible solutions with you on Monday.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1021153653
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Millennial generation puzzle

Uncategorized

I recently received an email from a special event manager in Milwaukee, Wisconisn who recently read conflicting advice about the Millennial generation and whether or not it is worth resource development professionals spending the time and money to engage them. Here is how those two camps break-out:

  • School-of-thought #1: The Millennial generation is big (almost as big as the Baby Boomers) and they are streaming into the workplace and philanthropic marketplace at a very fast pace. These newcomers to the economy have the capacity to make charitable contributions and will one day replace their Baby Boomer parents as a driving force in philanthropy. A proactive thinking non-profit organization should invest the time and money to acquire these donors at a young age (regardless of how small their charitable giving actual is at this stage in their lives), steward them and earn their trust, and retain them well into their prime giving years.
  • School-of-thought #2: The Millennial generation might be big, but they don’t possess the same long-term giving potential as the Baby Boom generation. This generation will have a lower standard of living and wage scale than previous generations. They will be saddled with paying off government debts racked up by Baby Boomers. They also won’t have entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare to count on in their retirement years; therefore, they will have to personally save more and donate less. Long-term retention of donors can be an expensive proposition, and it might be cheaper to wait until this generation reaches the height of its economic potential (in 10 or 20 years?!?!). Non-profits have limited resources and should prioritize time and money towards acquisition and retention of Baby Boomers until there is little to no return on investment left in doing so.

For me, I like to straddle the fence between these two points of view. I believe that non-profit organizations need to concern themselves with acquiring and retaining as many Baby Boomer donors as possible. Additionally, resource development professionals need to work with Baby Boomers on funding the needs of today as well as engaging in planned giving/estate planning discussions to fund the needs of tomorrow and leave a legacy.

I also believe the Baby Boomer’s time in the philanthropic spotlight is waning and might only significantly last another 10 years. So, acquiring and retaining new, younger donors is important for the sustainability of any non-profit organization. Good non-profits will figure out how to balance these two competing camps.

Of course, there are far too many non-profit organizations that are not capable of doing both things because they are resource strapped and stretched too thin for comfort. These resource-challenged non-profits will most likely fall squarely into the second school of thought. However, I hope that as those staff and volunteers journey down this path, they fully understanding they’re “kicking the can down the road” and will have to “pay the piper” someday. They are possibly running the risk that Millennial generation donors (who might not have the resources their parents had at their disposal) are in love with other non-profit organization who courted and wooed them 10 years earlier.

If your organization has just a little time and/or money to invest in acquiring Millennials, I urge you to do so. It doesn’t have to be a huge investment. Here are just a few examples:

  • Invest the time and money in maintaining a website that is transparent and shows the whole world how charitable contributions make a difference in your organization, with your clients, and in our community. Go so far as to routinely upload audits, annual reports, monthly financials, programmatic outcomes data, strategic planning scorecards, etc.
  • Work on creating your organization’s space on the social media frontier. Engage Millennials to help you evolve it and maintain it.
  • Create and maintain a volunteer management program focused on engaging Millennials.  If you have the resources, get very serious and create a staff position to recruit, management, and steward these volunteers. Remember, Millennials are volunteer-oriented and the fundraising axiom that “money follows involvement” applies to all generations.
  • Create a young professionals group like a “guild society” to help young professionals network while getting more acquainted with your organization’s mission. This also could be a training ground for Millennials to experience philanthropy and learn more about the art of fundraising.

All of these ideas will cost you a fair amount of time (and even some money), but none of them are prohibitive in-and-of-themselves even for the smallest non-profit organization. However, this balancing act will NOT be easy for many reasons including limited resources and what appears to be increasing tensions between America’s generations. If you don’t buy into the fact that there are increasing tensions, check out some of these YouTube video clips as proof (including a dissection of a 60 Minutes segment on Millennials):

Resource development professionals best get started soon because the road ahead promises to be bumpy. How is your organization trying to acquire Millennial donors? Is there a difference in strategies and tactics between attracting, soliciting, and stewarding Boomers versus Millennials? Which school-of-thought does your non-profit fall into and why? Please use the comment box of this blog to weigh-in with your thoughts and best-practices. We can learn from each other!

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1021153653
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Celebrating failure

Board development

Have you ever seen a new fundraising volunteer crash and burn … aka FAIL?  I know I have seen this phenomenon too many times in my 15-year career, and I am never comfortable when it happens … until today!

While reading an assigned textbook (Co-Active Coaching) as I study for my business coaching certification, I came across a section that talks about celebrating failure. It talked at length about how failure is one of the fastest ways of learning and used the example of toddlers learning how to walk. This got me thinking and sent me scurrying off to Google to do a little research about celebrating failure, which is when I came across a YouTube link for FAILfaire.

FAILfaire is an annual conference where technology non-profit organizations come together to look objectively and with humor at failed projects with the goal of learning valuable lessons. This got me thinking. Why can’t non-profit fundraising professionals engage our fundraising volunteers in a similar way with our annual campaigns? Here is how it might look:

  • During your organization’s annual campaign period, host periodic “report meetings” (e.g. weekly, bi-weekly, monthly).
  • In addition to the traditional activities associated with an annual campaign report meeting, add one additional agenda item titled “Celebrating Failure”.
  • Set ground rules (e.g. no mocking, no mean-spirited criticism, a “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” policy, etc) and remind all participants that there is a HUGE difference between failing and being a failure.
  • Ask volunteer solicitors (could be some or it could be all) to please share something that happened during a recent solicitation visit that didn’t seem to work (or didn’t feel right).
  • Engage the group in a short, facilitated discussion around why it didn’t work and what else could be done next time to get a different result.
  • Get silly and celebrate failures. Consider giving out a “traveling trophy” for the best story or the best suggestion for change.

This type of activity can take the shame out of failure for our volunteer solicitors and help fundraising professionals better coach volunteers towards becoming better solicitors.

If you don’t like this suggestion, I am sure there are countless other ways for you to help fundraising volunteers celebrate failure because if you don’t do so then it is likely that your volunteers will 1) stop taking risks, 2) continue repeating the same mistakes over-and-over again, and/or 3) possibly even quit.

I know this approach is not something to which  many of us currently subscribe; however, I think this actual “tweet” on FAILfaire’s Twitter page sums it up nicely: “RT @rgkirkpatrick RT @TonyYLyu However much room you give people to fail, is exactly how much they can potentially succeed #singularityu“.

Does anyone out there do a good job of celebrating failure with their volunteers? How do you do it? Please use the comment box of this blog to share your best practices!

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1021153653
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

The magic of engagement

Donor-centered fundraising

Here I was last night watching fireworks when found myself engaged in a conversation with a gentleman by the name of “Dan”. In no time, our conversation turned to non-profit organizations and philanthropy. As he ticked through a number of different organizations he has supported over the years, he ended each of those thoughts with a negative memory attached to a fundraising issue or event. Here is a list of terms he used repeatedly used:

  • Dreaded special events
  • Rubber chicken dinners
  • Money grubbers
  • Beggars

If you personally know me, then you know how enthusiastic I am about philanthropy. So, this conversation was painful to sit through. However, five minutes into our chat Dan’s tone changed completely when he started talking about a new charity in which he has recently gotten involved. The name of this non-profit organization is Year Up.

I was desperate to change the path we had been on, so I started asking questions about this particular  non-profit organization. What I discovered just confirms everything I’ve learned about philanthropy over the last 15 years. In a nutshell, Dan glowed on and on about a recent “rubber chicken fundraising dinner” where participants weren’t just asked to give money, but the entire program was geared towards promoting involvement.

  • Creating internship opportunities for clients
  • Helping clients with resumes, cover letters, and their job search
  • Mentoring clients

While these words didn’t exactly come out of Dan’s mouth, he essentially said, “Ah ha! Finally a non-profit organization that isn’t just after my money. I am more than just a meal ticket. I am seen as a partner who is willing to roll up his sleeves and help advance the mission.” Most importantly, he had a twinkle in his eye and was obviously excited.

In my opinion, this is exactly what Penelope Burk is talking about when she writes about “donor centered fundraising”.

Isn’t it funny how many fundraising and non-profit professionals are afraid to ask donors to get involved? All I can figure is that we practice this avoidance behavior because we’re afraid donors will see us as “asking for too much” and withdraw their support completely. So, instead of letting donors make decisions about their own time and level of engagement, we oftentimes make that decision for them.

I can imagine that there are donors who might stop supporting a non-profit organization if they feel harassed. With that being said, I’m not advocating harassment tactics. So, here is my challenge to you … identify 10 current donors and schedule face-to-face visits with them sometime in the next 30 days. During your sitdown meeting, talk to them about the impact their most recent financial contribution has made and then ask each donor this simple question: “in addition to your generous financial support, is there anything else you would like to do to support the mission?” Don’t offer up your ideas and thoughts. Just like when you are soliciting a contribution, be very quiet and still after asking the question.

You might just be surprised with where the conversation leads you. You might also like what kind of fundraising and non-profit professional or volunteer you become. I bet you will find an army of people just like Dan who will roll up their sleeves and end up becoming some of your most loyal donors. And those donors who are happy remaining financial supporters and cheerleaders will likely be thrilled that you asked.

Do you know anyone like Dan? What words have they used to describe fundraising and non-profit organizations? Have they fallen in love with a particular charity? If so, what do you attribute to their change of heart? Please use the comment section of this blog to share because these stories can be so transformative for so many of us.

Sorry for today’s super long post, but I always get excited when I can relay a real life donor story to those of you who care so much about philanthropy.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
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