resource development – Page 22 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Is your non-profit preparing for the Times Square countdown?

July 1, 2013 erik Fundraising, Planning

I spent a decent amount of time last week in the car. When I do that, I typically listen to National Public Radio (NPR), which in the Chicago market is WBEZ 91.5 FM. So, all week long I heard how they were approaching the end of their fiscal year and how they need to hit their pledge drive goal.

When I woke up this morning, I had a few thoughts racing through my head:

OMG . . . it is July! How did THAT happen?
I wonder if WBEZ made its pledge drive goal?
I wonder how many other non-profits that don’t have June 30th year end financials are preparing for their December 31st year-end push?

I remember when I was on the front line and making decisions about fundraising matters. I typically wanted my year-end fundraising efforts and mailings to hit the post office in the beginning of November.

When I gave donors a few weeks before Thanksgiving to consider what they want to do with their year-end charitable giving, it usually worked out better. I tested all sorts of different launch times over the years, and the beginning of November always produced the best results.

So, if your agency follows the same blueprint . . . guess what? You only have four months left to get all of your ducks in a row.

My best advice is to get to work NOW and avoid the last minute rush. Why? Because in my experience the last minute rush always resulted in unexpected hiccups and delays in getting the mailings to the post office.

I’m not suggesting that you write your letter today (but I wouldn’t discourage it either), but there are things you can start doing now that will help you later. Here is a short laundry list of those things:

Determine your theme.
Put together your project management plan and establish deadlines.
Write your internal case for support, which will be the basis of your letter and package.
Pull together a focus group of donors and test your case for support.
Use the input that you get back from your donors to tweak your messaging and theme.
If you like to incorporate a client story into your year-end appeal, then start identifying the client and their story now.
We all know that the mailing list is the biggest factor in your success. So, start building your list today. It takes time to wrestle with your donor database and work with a mail house.
Plan on mailing out a cultivation / stewardship letter four to six weeks prior to mailing your year-end appeal. Start developing that messaging and package today.
Use social media to cultivate and steward your year-end donors. Develop a three month campaign that leads up to and culminates in the launch of your appeal in early November. This obviously starts NOW.

Your agency is probably preparing to march in a Fourth of July parade in the next few days, and year-end thoughts are probably far away, but don’t blink! Because Santa Claus will be coming down the chimney any day now.

You know I’m right!

Still not convinced? Well, consider the fact that more than one-third (and I’ve recently read it could be as big as one-half) of all charitable giving happens in the fourth quarter during the holiday season.

I’ll leave you with this thought and popular expression: “Prior proper preparation prevents piss poor performance.” I’ve heard it referred to as the Seven P’s.

When does your agency start preparing for its year-end appeal? What goes into your planning? What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced? When do you plan on starting this year?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

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

Ending the “overhead myth” is everywhere

June 27, 2013 erik Fundraising

For the last few years, I’ve come across snippets and whispers from non-profit thought-leaders about how we need to help donors change their views about evaluating a non-profit organization based on how little it spends on administrative and fundraising costs. It was mentioned in polite conversations. A few bloggers were chattering about. I even saw it on a website owned by a charity watchdog group.

Then a few years ago, Dan Pallotta published a book titled “Uncharitable,” and this discussion emerged from the shadows of the non-profit sector. For the last few years, everyone I know has been engaged in this discussion or pieces of it such as:

Executive compensation
Marketing & advertising
Risk aversion
Return on investment for donors
Spending on today versus tomorrow

The overhead myth has been building momentum for a few years now. I even jumped on this bandwagon a year ago with the following series of blog posts:

DonorDreams blog: “Does your non-profit make a difference? Americans don’t think so!“
DonorDreams blog: “Why is the non-profit sector hamstrung?“
DonorDreams blog: “Stop thinking. Stop planning. Start doing!“

AND THEN IT WENT VIRAL . . .

A few weeks ago I received an email from a dear friend of mine with a link to “Letter to the Donors of America” from the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Guidestar and Charity Navigator. The letter was simple and straightforward. It asked donors to please stop looking at overhead when making charitable contributions. It was a case for support document. Pure and simple!

After this first email from a friend, I received another and then another. I started to see bloggers tackle the subject, and then non-profit agencies started talking about it on their websites. Before long, it was all over social media and everyone in my circles was talking about “the overhead myth“.

For the record, I’ve always thought that the idea of using overhead to evaluate a non-profit organization’s worthiness was silly for two reasons:

Through the magic of accounting, every smart executive director keeps at least one eye on what donors consider the “percentage of overhead” and tweaks their allocation formulas to keep that percentage where it needs to be. So, this number really means nothing. It never has and never will.
When I am purchasing goods and services, I never hold for-profit companies to this standard. When I hired a marketing firm to help me during the start-up phase for The Healthy Non-Profit LLC, I didn’t look at how much money they spent on administration, executive compensation or their advertising budget. Heck no! I looked at the quality of their work. As a donor, I like to invest in organizations whose programs are having impact regardless of how much they pay their executive director.

I’ve been asked by some readers of this blog to write something about the “overhead myth“. As flattering and tempting it is to weigh-in on a compelling subject like this, I’m going to use some self-restraint and decline. (Surprising? I know!)

Why?

Have you see how much has already been written out there? OMG!!! Everyone with a blog, website, Facebook page, and Twitter account has jumped on this bandwagon.

I’m will use the remainder of my space to post links to those other blogs, websites, etc. If you are very interested in this topic, please click your heart away.

The Overhead Myth website: “It is Time to Move Beyond Overhead“
Bloomerang: “The Most Important Statement in the Nonprofit World in the Last Decade“
Nonprofit Association of the Midlands: “Help End the Overhead Myth“
The Rebecca Gordon Group: “Tackling the Overhead Myth — An Upcoming Blog Series“
Philantech: “Financial Ratios for Nonprofits — The Overhead Myth“
Huffington Post: “How a TED Talk Destroyed the Charity Overhead Myth“
Nonprofit Quarterly: “The Overhead Myth“
Sasha Dichter’s blog: “The Overhead Myth“
Sidekick Solutions: “Value Can Unlock the Nonprofit Overhead Myth“
Childfund International: “End the Overhead Myth”
Jazi: “End the Overhead Myth“
And this list is just the tip of the iceberg. If this doesn’t quench your thirst, then go to Google and click-click-click.

Your thoughts?

Let’s start a discussion using the comment box attached to this DonorDreams blog post.

I personally don’t think anything is going to change as a result of this “overhead myth” campaign push.

I think donors are set in their ways. I believe Dan Pallotta was right about the Puritan influence on our culture. I don’t think “culture” and “values” and “habits” are easy to change. AND I think talk is cheap.

In the comment box below, please tell me why you think I am right or why I am wrong.

Here’s to your health!

Lights. Camera. Action! Are you watching this stuff?

June 26, 2013 erik Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

lights camera action Last year I wrote a post titled “FREE fundraising movies every Monday morning? Sign me up!“. It was all about Chris Davenport and 501 Videos. I talked about some of the services provided to non-profit organizations by this company, but I focused mainly on the free videos that come out every Monday morning on a variety of fundraising topics.

Of course, I’m a subscriber to the “Monday Movies for Development Directors” service. Why? First, it is FREE. Duh! Second, I love listening to fundraising professionals and donors talk about philanthropy. I find it uplifting and a great way to start my week. Finally, each video is only approximately five minutes in length. Anything more would be too much of a time commitment on a busy Monday morning.

Have you been watching lately?

I ask because there was some amazing content published by 501 Videos in the last few months. Today, I will focus on two videos that I believe have the power to transform your fundraising program if you let them.

Looking at Donors as Partners

Episode #228 . . . this video is simply a testimonial from Sara Morris, who is the CEO of Alliance for Education. The content is focused on donor-centered fundraising.

I think this video grabbed my attention because donor-centered fundraising is one of those BUZZ words that has been circulating in fundraising circles for years. God knows that I’ve been worshiping at Penelope Burk’s alter for a good long time and blogging about it, too. (Penelope is pictured here. Click it to see her blog.)

Talk is talk, and it can be cheap. What I love about this video is that Sara tells us what she and her agency actually did to shift FROM transactional fundraising TO donor-center fundraising.

Testimonials are powerful. I was transfixed to my computer monitor.

Click here to watch that video.

While you’re there, I suggest you subscribe to 501 Video’s free Monday morning video service if you already haven’t done so. Also, please scroll down and take a minute to share your thoughts and reactions in the comment box below.

Emotional Triggers and how to use them

Episode #239 . . . Tom Ahern. Do I need to say anything more? OMG! It is Tom Ahern, who I consider one of the rock stars of the written word.

I personally subscribe to Tom’s eNewsletter. As many of you know, I used to run a small town weekly newspaper in a different life. I didn’t win any Pulitzer prizes, but I did receive some awards from the Illinois Press Association. So, listening to Tom talk about how to use the written word to speak to a donor’s soul was a real treat for me. In fact, it was so inspiring that I ran out and bought Tom’s DVD titled “How do you create a compelling Case for Support?”

In this Monday morning video, Tom masterfully speaks to the idea of emotional triggers. This is where the art of writing and the science of psychology meet, and I find it fascinating.

Click here to watch that video.

As I said in the previous section, I suggest you subscribe to 501 Video’s free Monday morning video service if you already haven’t done so. Also, please scroll down and take a minute to share your thoughts and reactions about what Tom Ahern has to say about donor communications in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

The changing face of corporate philanthropy

June 25, 2013 erik Fundraising

online voting1 Yesterday, an email washed into my inbox from someone named Katie. She asked me to please use my megaphone (aka the DonorDreams blog platform) to tell the world about a corporate giving promotion by a Tom’s of Maine, which is a company producing environmentally safe products such as toothpaste, soap and deodorants. The program is called “50 States for Good,” and she described it in her email as “making it easy for nonprofits to secure $10,000 in funding to keep the goodness going“.

I’ve read Katie’s email at least five times in the last 24 hours. For some reason, I cannot get the words “. . . making it easy . . . ” out of my head.

Really? Easy?

I wonder if Katie has ever been responsible for running a non-profit organization before or been the point person for an agency’s fundraising program? My guess is that she has not, but if she has . . . then it is possible that she found it “easy“.

I’m not trying to pick on Katie and I didn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I just don’t find programs like 50 States for Good easy. Let’s take a closer look at what many of these programs require of non-profits who choose to participate:

A simple essay stating your case for support and outlining a specific project for which you’re hoping to securing funding,
The company hosts a “simple public vote” where the public will decide which 15 agencies receive $10,000, and
They host the vote, but agencies who are in the competition are frantically reaching out to donors, telling them about the competition, and begging people to go vote. I’ve seen contests consume some organizations . . . emails, tweets, Facebook post . . . push-push-push . . . promote-promote-promote.

Let me spell out my concerns more clearly:

I don’t think philanthropy is a contest, and I fear that programs like this warp the concept in some people’s minds.
I believe your board volunteers, supporters and donors are important people. Pushing them to vote-vote-vote isn’t how I suggest you ask them to invest their time on behalf of your mission.
These contests are not about advancing your mission. It is about the company’s marketing plan and getting their hands on your donors’ personal information and data.
Most agencies don’t win anything in contests like these, and they walk away empty-handed without anything to show for their time or all of that consumer data. This is a simple ROI calculation for me. How many annual campaign pledges could an organization have secured if it had invested the same amount of time in sitting down face-to-face with its supporters and donors.

I blogged about this more than a year ago in a post titled “Non-profits can do without the Pepsi-Starbucks-Chase-Kohls voting thing“.

So, why do so many agencies choose to participate? I think this YouTube video of last year’s big winner captures it best:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn-bgZnusY8]

These contests appeal to our basic desire to WIN-WIN-WIN. Additionally, I suspect these type of corporate giving campaigns are validating for the winners. Validation of your mission. Validation of your vision. Validation of the project you’re working on. Validation! Perhaps, Sally Fields summed it up best during her Oscars acceptance speech:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl_NpdAy3WY]

The fact of the matter is that the face of corporate philanthropy is (or perhaps has) changed. It used to be that companies focused on being good corporate citizens. You asked and they made decisions about where to give. Of course, their decisions aligned with business interests and creating a “halo effect” putting them in the best possible light with their customers and employees.

While today’s corporate giving efforts are still about these things, it goes much farther than good citizenship and creating positive publicity. It is also all about driving foot traffic, making sales, gathering consumer data, building the company’s social media presence, and alignment of business objectives and charitable objectives.

In a nutshell . . . corporate philanthropy is becoming the for-profit sector’s “engagement strategy“.

The question being begged by this morning’s blog post is:

Has your resource development plan adjusted to this shift?

Your annual written resource development plan should look like an inventory of strategies and tactics. If you’re having a hard time answering this question, I suggest taking your plan off the shelf, turning to the pages pertaining to corporate giving, and looking for evidence that your strategies and tactics address the needs outlined in the previous few paragraphs.

How many of these online corporate voting contests will you undertake in the upcoming year? What are your strategies when entering these contests? If your plan doesn’t address these questions, then your agency obviously hasn’t made the adjustment. Here are a few links and resources pertaining specifically to these online contests:

PR 20/20: “Online Corporate-Giving Contests: Tips and Strategies for Non-Profits“
Joanne Fritz at about.com: “Tips for Charity Nonprofit Contests“
Skoll World Forum: “The Dark Side of Online Voting Contests“

My best advice?

Engage your resource development committee in this discussion. Write into your annual resource development plan a set of policies and rules that will drive future decisions on when it makes sense for your agency to participate in these contests. Personally, I would make it a policy to never do more than one of these contests per year because you don’t want to run the risk of pissing off your donors with countless requests to vote-vote-vote.

Have you ever participated in one of these contests? If so, what was your experience? Have you shifted your approach to corporate philanthropy in recent years? If so, what are you doing now that you weren’t doing previously to align with the for-profit sector and market professionals’ desires to use philanthropy to drive sales and traffic, cultivate new customers, and secure ROI? Please scroll down and share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below.

Oh yeah . . . a quick disclaimer. I am not picking on Tom’s of Maine. They are an awesome company, and they are not doing anything wrong by organizing an online charitable giving contest. I like Tom’s products, and you should check them out online by clicking here. If your agency up for the challenge and convinced this contest is a good fit for your fundraising program, then by all means please check it out and participate. Tom’s is one of those socially responsible companies who has worked hard to earn their “halo,” and I salute them!

Here’s to your health!

There is something about this picture that I just don’t like!

June 24, 2013 erik Fundraising

Just the other day I visited my parents to drop off our dog before leaving on a business trip. I stopped at a gas station near their home to gas up before weaving my way to the interstate and ultimately the first stop on my trip. As I pulled into the gas station, I saw something that made me recoil and react negatively to a non-profit organization. This is what I saw:

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a gas station air pump being used to solicit money for a charity. In fact, there is one at the 7-Eleven near my house, and I believe that I even took a picture of that pump and incorporated into a blog post a few years ago.

The fact of the matter is . . . every time I see something like this it bothers me for some unknown reason. So, I decided to make a list of all the possible things that might be offending my fundraising soul:

I remember when gas station air used to be FREE. Now, when I need a little air in my tires, I am forced to make a donation.
I don’t know anything about this non-profit organization, and I don’t make a habit out of donating money to agencies about which I know nothing. What am I supposed to do? Whip out my smart phone, surf to this organization’s website (which is prominently displayed on the air machine) and do some research?
There is no case for support. It is almost as if they are saying, “Feel good about paying a dollar for air because it supports a charity.“
I don’t really know “how much” of my contribution goes to this non-profit organization. Are they getting 75%, 50%, 25% . . . 1%??? Perhaps, they’re getting 100% of the proceeds, but I doubt it because the phrase “. . . a portion of . . .” appears on the machine.
This is a faith-based organization, but they don’t say anything about being a christian organization. There are people who don’t like to support non-secular causes. There are also people who are secular, but who only like to support causes affiliated with their religious institutions. Could it be that no mention is made on the air machine about religion because they are trying to maximize their appeal? If so, perhaps the issue of transparency is bothering me.

Let me be clear. I don’t have anything bad to say about this non-profit organization. In fact, I’ve done a little Googling around and it looks like they do good work.

However, the points I’m trying to make today are:

Non-profit organizations need to be careful with where they put their name.
All cause-related marketing opportunities are not equal (e.g. ask me to donate a dollar at the check-out versus make me donate a dollar when I need air).

Please take a good, hard look at the picture in this post. Does it bother you? If so, why? If I’m being overly sensitive, let me know why you think so. Have you ever seen something similar that evoked a similar reaction? Please scroll down and use the comment box below to share your thoughts.

Here’s to your health!

Are fundraising professionals “ashamed”? Too busy? Too lazy?

June 21, 2013 erik Fundraising

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

In a post titled “I’m Ashamed?,” John talks about an old Danish proverb that goes something like this: “He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning.” This post and the proverb made me think of so many of my friends who are fundraising professionals, and it got me wondering if “shame” has something to do with how they shy away from engaging board members, donors and fundraising volunteers.

Some of you are probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about because every time you show up at a fundraising event you see volunteers running in every direction. So, let me provide a few examples:

Too many resource development plans (aka fundraising plans) are written behind close doors without any input from those who we depend upon to help with implementation. And then we wonder why no one is jumping in to help and why board members are acting as if to say: “That’s not what I agreed to do … go implement YOUR plan.”
Too many donors make one charitable contribution and then are never heard from again. I don’t see many fundraising professionals picking up the phone, organizing lapsed donor focus groups, meeting individually with, or surveying these donors and asking a few simple questions.
I certainly hear many of my fundraising friends complain about how their executive director is disengaged from the fundraising program. However, I don’t see many of those folks exhibiting tenacity by asking-asking-asking. There are so many different questions to ask an executive director, and I witness lots of surrendering before they get to the second question.

I could go on and on with examples, but I’ll stop here because I think the better question, which is posed by the Danish proverb, is WHY don’t we ask more questions and WHY don’t we ask for more help?

So, I thought about the WHY and here are some of the possibilities I came up with:

The Danish are right . . . some people feel a sense of shame in asking for help. It gives people the impression that you’re not capable of doing the task at hand, even though you might be perfectly capable and trying to cultivate, engage, steward, etc.
It is easier to just do it yourself. Asking and involving others usually means investing more time in doing something. Even though a case can be made for it being time well spent, it is easy to rationalize and justify not doing so because your calendar and task list is slammed.
There is a sense of having “job security” in being the only person making the agency’s fundraising program work.
Perhaps, it is simply a matter of not caring???

I’m sure there are a number of other possible explanationz, but it is Friday and thought I should ask you for some help. 😉

Please take a moment to ponder WHY and then scroll down and share one additional explanation in the comment box below.

Have you ever sat in a meeting or training, had a question and not asked it? Have you ever been in a board meeting marveling at why a board was making a particular decision and not jumped in with your questions? Have you ever been in front of a donor and not asked a ton of questions about what makes them tick, who they really are, and why they’re giving to you?

After you think through some of these questions, you’ve earned the opportunity to peek at some of the following websites that speak to the issue of asking good questions:

The Resource Alliance: “7 questions every fundraiser should ask a potential donor“
GuideStar: “Fundraising’s Four Magic Questions: Answer These and the Gifts are Yours“
Joan Garry: “10 Good Questions Board Members Should Ask“
Denver Post: “Five questions every nonprofit donor should ask“

You should also go back to a series of posts I wrote a year ago on this subject:

DonorDreams blog: “Questions every non-profit board member should be asking“
DonorDreams blog: “Questions you need to get answered before asking people to join your board“
DonorDreams blog: “Fundraising questions to ask donors and anticipate from them“

Here’s to your health!

Giving USA report is out. Are you benchmarking yet?

June 19, 2013 erik Fundraising

waybackmachine I love this time of the year because Giving USA allows fundraising professionals to jump in Mr. Peabody and Sherman’s “Way Back Machine” (aka WABAC machine) and look at what happened in philanthropy in the previous year. This activity has become an event of sorts. Reports are released. There are webinars. The media covers it, and then there is lots of chatter throughout the sector.

For those of you who are hoping for a quick down-n-dirty synopsis, here you go:

Overall, charitable giving is up, but it is small and reflects our slow economic recovery (1.5% increase when adjusted for inflation.)
An increase in corporate giving was robust (but it still only accounts for less than 6% of total private sector fundraising.)
Individual giving is still the biggest piece of the pie (approximately three-fourths of philanthropy . . . DUH!)
The sector is still nowhere near approaching its pre-recession peak. (at this pace, it may take another five to eight years to get back to 2007 charitable giving levels . . . welcome to the “New Normal” for non-profit organizations.)

In a nutshell, slow-and-steady progress which is a re-run from the last many years of Giving USA reports. Is it just me or is this beginning to feel a little bit like that scene in the movie Groundhog Day?

Maybe you will feel better if you click the Giving USA link I provided in the first paragraph, purchase the report, and try smashing it like Bill Murray did to that alarm clock in the movie. LOL (Well, it is worth a try because nothing else seems to be working. Right?)

For me, this time of the year isn’t so much about the excitement and the numbers. Instead, it is a gentle reminder that benchmarking opportunities exist all around us, and non-profits should invest more of their time in benchmarking if they want to improve their performance.

I was reminded of this while on the Giving USA website where I ran into the following testimonial from Heidi Jark, who is the Managing Director & Vice President at The Foundation Office at Fifth Third Bank:

“I look forward to the Giving USA report every year to better help me work with not for profit organizations and our private foundation clients. The data helps me to better understand the philanthropic world around me and, many times, confirms what I see on a day to day basis. We can better serve our clients when we have research data. It helps us to better explain and structure gifts to meet both the needs of our individual clients and the missions they wish to advance.”

I think Heidi and I are kindred spirits. While she didn’t specifically talk about benchmarking, she is in the ballpark.

Some of you might still be a little hazy on the concept of benchmarking so here is a quick thumbnail sketch:

It is a process where you: 1) measure your performance, 2) measure like-minded organizations’ performance, and 3) compare and contrast to draw conclusions on how well you’re doing.
It is a process by which you will manage and improve your performance.
It goes beyond measurement, it also involves looking for and using best practices that make sense for an organization of your size.

Here are some resources for those of you who are intrigued and want to learn more:

Christine Letts, William Ryan & Allen Grossman at tgci.com: “Benchmarking: How nonprofits are adapting a business planning tool for enhanced performance“
Author Jason Saul at amazon.com: “Benchmarking for Nonprofits“
Wikipedia: Benchmarking

As I thumb through the Giving USA numbers and reports, I think I’d be asking myself some of the following questions if I were still on the front line running an agency:

Did our private sector fundraising increase last year? Did it mirror the national numbers? Better? Worse?
How well did other local non-profit organizations who are approximately our size do last year?
What did those organizations that did better than our agency and better than the national benchmarks do differently?
What changes (if any) should we look at making to next year’s written resource development plan to improve our fundraising performance?

Does your organization do any benchmarking? Do you benchmark your fundraising efforts? Programming? Marketing? Please share your thoughts and practices in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Is “fear of failure” defining your fundraising program?

June 18, 2013 erik Fundraising, Planning

Last week I was on the road working with clients. One evening when I was out to dinner, a revelation about your fundraising program struck me like a bolt of lightning while in the restroom of a restaurant. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. I was thunderstruck in the bathroom. Inspiration came in the form of a little sign sitting by the sink.

This is kind of what that sign looked like:

I’ve been chewing on this question for a week now, which tells me that there is a good blog post somewhere in there. 😉

Failure and your fundraising plan

The first flurry of thoughts that ran through my head pertained to many fundraising programs I’ve seen throughout the years. Here are just a few questions I find myself asking about many agencies’ annual resource development plans:

Why are they running so many special events?
Why aren’t they measuring return on investment (ROI) on each of their events and campaigns?
Why aren’t they evaluating and critiquing each event and campaign?
Why aren’t they innovating and trying new things (e.g. email, social media, etc)?

I’m now wondering if the answer to these questions is that we’re afraid of failure, and it is just easier to keep doing the same thing over and over again. After all, if we evaluate and ask questions, then shouldn’t we “do something” about those things that don’t look so good?

As for innovation and trying new things, there has to be all kinds of “fears” associated with venturing off into the great unknown. Right?

I know that talking about those things we’re afraid of is difficult for many of us. It is this simple truism that keeps countless counselors, therapists and psychologists employed every year. However, I encourage you to take 30 seconds our of your busy day right now and consider these questions and the possibility that your fundraising program is in the grip of fear-based decision-making by staff, fundraising volunteers, and board members.

What would you do . . . if you knew?

What an interesting question to ponder. Dontcha think?

What would I do, if I knew, I could not fail?

Let me step off that cliff first. The following is a list of things (as it pertains to non-profit management and fundraising) I thought of in 30 seconds:

I would call the top 10 most influential people in town and ask them to join my board or get involved in some aspect of my fundraising program.
I would kill every special event fundraiser that was older than 5 years old and replace it with something new and fun.
I would calculate ROI on every event and campaign and stop doing everything that didn’t bring me at least a 75% return (and I’m talking about using both direct AND indirect costs in that calculation)
I would find the time to add an ePhilanthropy aspect to my annual fundraising plan that includes blogging, social media, email and website (and I’d add a robust evaluation component to this program).

Now it is your turn. Please take a few second to contemplate the question at hand. What would you do? Once you have one thing in your head, please scroll down and share it in the comment box below. Let’s inspire each other today.

Here’s another thought. Why not start off your next board meeting and all of your upcoming committee meetings with this question. You might just be surprised by what your volunteers tell you. If you do, I hope you’ll circle back around to this post and share what they said.

Here’s to your health!

Have you fallen in love with Michael Stelzner yet?

June 17, 2013 erik technology

Non-profit professionals all seem to be saying the same thing to me about technology and social media . . . “We’re tired. It is confusing. It evolves too quickly. We still haven’t figured out what works. We don’t have the time or money to invest in conferences, trainings, staff and resource manuals to figure all of this out.”

Yep! This is the plight of the modern, small, under-resourced non-profit organization. For some executive directors, fundraising professionals and program/ops staff, this becomes frustrating and even hopeless.

My best advice to everyone is to fight this feeling and fight it with every fiber of your being. The future is upon us, and the way non-profit agencies communicate with the outside world is changing rapidly. The consequences associated with falling too far behind the social media and technology curve can mean the difference between staying in business and becoming obsolete.

You’re reaction is probably something like . . . WHAT?!?!

I get that, but I really don’t think I am being a drama queen here. In the future (and I do mean the not-so-distant future), social media and technology will be how your non-profit does a lot of communicating with:

clients
board members
volunteers
staff
donors
prospective donors and the community-at-large

Don’t believe me?

Well, just the other day I was walking down the street while in Vancouver on vacation when I saw a homeless man sitting outside of a restaurant on the sidewalk. While it is impossible to know if he was homeless, he was at least someone who was obviously “down on his luck“. He was young and couldn’t have been older than 25-years-old. He was frantically pecking away on a smartphone and obviously stealing a WiFi signal from the restaurant. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was searching webpages or social media sites to see which soup kitchens, food pantries or shelters were open that day.

The future is upon us, friends! To give in now to those hopeless feelings you have about social media and technology would be a mistake. The solution is to push forward and embrace change.

I know, I know. There are no resources. It always comes down to this for non-profit organizations. Doesn’t it?

Well, this is where Michael Stelzner enters the picture!

What? You haven’t discovered Mike yet? In a nutshell, he is the CEO of Social Media Examiner. Here is an excerpt from his website describing his company:

“The world’s largest online social media magazine, Social Media Examiner helps businesses discover how to best use social media, blogs and podcasts to connect with customers, drive traffic, generate more brand awareness and increase sales. Our mission is to help you navigate the constantly changing social media jungle.“

Click here or on the YouTube video below for a fun little introduction:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=54c5M2IrX0I]

He regularly publishes blogs and podcasts about a variety of social media topics. Here are just a few of his recent works:

Here is the bottom line. Dedicating yourself to the idea of becoming a “lifelong learner” will be the saving grace for your non-profit organization. People like Michael Stelzner are your salvation. He puts out good stuff, and it is FREE. All you need to do now is:

click-through and subscribe to his online magazine and podcasts,
prepare for the regular stream of emails containing his material, and
find time to read and listen to his stuff.

Oh right . . . time is a resource and something many of my non-profit friends tell me that don’t have enough of. OK, I suggest that you download Michael’s podcasts to your smartphone and listen to him on the treadmill in the morning or while driving between your daily meetings.

Nothing in life is as simple as clicking on a button. You will need to work at this and find the time to become a lifelong learner, but the viability of your non-profit organization is depending on you.

Please go check-out Michael Stelzner and his amazing online magazine. Click around his site. Listen to a few podcast. Circle back around to this blog post and share your thoughts in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Donors don’t like deception

June 14, 2013 erik Fundraising

In a post titled “Fire and Rain,” John talks about the story behind the story with regard to James Taylor’s song “Fire and Rain” and his personal reaction when he discovered some of the urban legend associated with it. While it is obvious that John will use this post as a springboard to another post, I think John’s reaction as he describes it in his post speaks to a basic truism:

No one likes to feel like they’ve been deceived.

Even when there are elements of truth, I’ve seen people react strongly just because it “FEELS” deceptive.

This idea is something that non-profit organizations deal with all of the time as it relates to donor communications. Right?

The following few examples spring immediately to mind for me:

Example #1: Agency X is experiencing cash flow issues, but doesn’t share this news with its donors. Why? They are afraid that this news will deter donors from writing checks.
Example #2: Agency Y is getting ready for it annual audit. In preparation for a visit from their auditor, they discover that their administrative and fundraising costs were a little higher than they anticipated. So, they change some of their salary allocations in order to put their numbers back where they should be. Why? They know that individual donors, United Way agencies, foundations, and even the Better Business Bureau have expectations (and standards) associated with how much money a “responsible” non-profit organization spends on fundraising and administrative costs.
Example #3: Agency Z is developing a direct mail appeal and knows that people don’t like to give money to the “general fund”. So, they craft a letter that says something like “It costs $X to run program A, it costs $Y to purchase equipment B, and $Z to purchase program supplies”. When the responses start rolling in, the money is not used for A, B or C and instead put into the general fund to pay for the electric bill or employee salaries. Why? The intent of the letter was to raise unrestricted income, and the organization thinks donors understand that “cash is fungible“.

These are fictitious examples, but do you remember the 1994 Christian Children’s Fund scandal? Here are a few other recent examples of when donors were deceived or “felt” deceived:

Susan G. Komen for the Cure threatening to not fund Planned Parenthood. How was this deception? Donors never thought their contributions were supporting an organization with an alleged political agenda.
LIVESTRONG’s founder, Lance Armstrong, admits to doping. How was this deception? The foundation co-branded itself with its founder’s image and donors invested based on his story, character and credibility. After the confession, donors couldn’t help but openly wonder: “If he lied about doping, what else is he lying about?“
Boy Scouts of America and their long standing battle with the LGBTQ community. How was this deception (after all haven’t they been very vocal about their membership restrictions)? Some donors see hypocrisy with this policy because a case can be made that the policy contradicts some of the 12 points of the Scout Law. Moreover, the Scouts announced to the world a few months ago that they were poised to re-visit and possibly reverse this policy. As the date got closer, they postponed and stalled. “Deception” is sometimes as simple as saying you will do something and then dragging your feet on doing it.

In John’s post, he admits that his feelings for James Taylor’s song “Fire and Rain” changed after he learned the truth. The reality is that your donors’ feelings for your agency will change if they feel deceived. The point here is that it doesn’t even have to be outright deception. It only has to be the “feeling” of deception.

What does your agency have in place to insure honesty, transparency and ethics? Please use the comment box below to talk about things like ethics policies, whistleblower policies, evaluation practices, etc. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!