On which level of fundraising hell will I see you?

April 16, 2013 erik Fundraising

Let me start today’s post off with this simply observation: “Jeff Brooks is an evil genius!” If you aren’t subscribed to or periodically clicking over to read Jeff’s blog — Future Fundraising Now — then you don’t know what you’re missing.

When I started blogging two years ago, I did a little research. While I found a number of great tips, one piece of advice really resonated and stuck with me. If you want to become a great blogger, then you need to subscribe to and read other blogs. In other words . . .

read a lot,
pay attention to what others are doing,
be open minded and willing to adapt,
participate and collaborate with others, and
commit to becoming a life-long learner.

If you read my blog regularly, then you can probably tell that I took this advice to heart and I consume a lot of other people’s blog content.

One of the blogs I follow regularly is Jeff Brook’s Future Fundraising Now. In addition to awesome content, the thing I really love is that his posts are always short, sweet and to the point. I am envious of his brevity (something with which I obviously struggle).

So, why am I using today’s post to proclaim my blogger crush on Jeff Brooks? Because for the last few Mondays he has kept me in stitches with his nine part “Fundraising Hell” series where he modified Dante’s Inferno for fundraising professionals.

While he still has a few weeks to go, you should take a few minutes out of your busy day to read his first seven posts (remember they are short unlike mine):

As many of you probably do, I periodically look back upon my career and reflect upon the mistakes I’ve made. When I’m feeling charitable, I look back upon my “lessons learned.” When I’m feeling pitiful and sorry for myself, I look back shamefully and wish there was a “do over button.”

Before being introduced to Penelope Burk and her donor-centered fundraising paradigm, my after-life probably would’ve been spent in fundraising hell on “Level 4: The Greedy and Wasteful“.

Are you a non-profit professional who strives to be a “life-long learner“? If so, how do you do that? What resources do you consume on a regular basis that adds to your knowledge base and feeds your non-profit soul?

Looking back upon your fundraising career, in which level of fundraising hell would you have found yourself if you had not started walking the path of righteous fundraisers?

I will end today’s post by asking you a BIG FAVOR. Please share with me other blogs that you follow and believe bring you tremendous value from a non-profit and fundraising perspective. I want to beef up the BLOGROLL section of the DonorDreams site by including websites and blogs you find inspirational and helpful.

WOW! There are three paragraphs of questions embedded in this mornings blog post. Well, you know what to do. Please scroll down to the comment box and share a few of your thoughts. Why? Because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health! (And here is hoping you avoid fundraising hell! LOL)

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

Great non-profit advice from those boxes in my basement: Part 1

April 8, 2013 erik Fundraising

In the corner of my basement, there is a small mountain of boxes from my last place of residence. It is stuff that was deemed unimportant at the time of unpacking, but important enough (for whatever reason) not to throw away. Of course, almost seven years later none of those boxes have been touched, which begs the question: “Can any of it be important and can we trash it?”

I opened my first box last night and found a treasure trove of training materials from when I worked for the Boy Scouts as a District Executiv in the 1990s. Yes, I did have the internal fortitude to put all of it in the recycling bin this morning. However, I decided that the readers of this blog might find some of it helpful and useful.

Throughout the week, I will periodically post some of the wisdom from those training documents here on DonorDreams. Hopefully, you will find some value in it.

Today, I will share with you the contents of a laminated card that measures two inches wide by three inches tall. The title on this card reads: “Elements of a Successful FOS Campaign.”

FOS is an acronym that stands for “Friends of Scouting,” which is an annual campaign pledge drive that every district executive runs in the beginning of the calendar year.

This laminated card contained the following eight pieces of advice for running a successful annual campaign:

Follow the plan.
Recruit the “right” volunteer.
Conduct effective prospect and evaluation meetings.
Conduct quality kickoff meetings.
Schedule report meetings.
Hold a first-class victory celebration.
Follow up in a timely manner.
Follow the plan.

Succinct. To the point. Right on target.

Does your agency run an annual campaign pledge drive? If so, what is missing from this 2×3 laminated card? Anything? What advice would you add? Or did the scouts hit the nail on the head? (And isn’t it amazing how much you can capture in such a small space when you put your mind to it?)

Here’s to your health!

The Millennials are coming: Non-profits will either evolve or die!

April 5, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, Planning

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 “Survival Is Not Mandatory,” John talks about our always changing world and workplaces and how we need to evolve in order to remain viable and relevant. His conclusions are simple: 1) Evolve or die and 2) Survival is not mandatory.

Sometimes timing is everything. When I read this blog post, I was on the treadmill with my new iPad with Morning Joe on the television in the background. The television talking heads were droning on about marijuana legalization and they flashed the following graphic on the screen:

My first reaction was “Huh, it’s interesting that the opinion lines recently crisscrossed.” My second reaction was “Hmmmm, where have I seen another graphic like that?” And within moments, I remembered that the other similar graphic was this one about same-sex marriage:

These two thoughts were colliding in my mind as my feet trudged along on the treadmill, and then my eyes went back to my iPad and John’s blog post about change. My first thought was “What is driving all of this immediate change so quickly?” And my second thought was “I wonder what implications these trends may have for non-profit organizations, fundraising, resource development and philanthropy?” Almost immediately, I remembered seeing the following chart in a Giving USA Spotlight newsletter:

It was at this point I realized the meteor has hit our planet, the weather patterns are changing, and change is starting to happen rapidly. The change we’re experiencing in our society is exponential.

If you are scratching your head and find yourself saying “HUH,” then I encourage you to look more carefully at the previous graphic. The oldest members of the Millennial generation are already in their 30s. Combine this with the fact that the Millennial generation is almost as large as the Baby Boomer generation (e.g. 79 million Boomers vs. 75 million Millennials) and then factor in the 51 million GenXers, and you have the recipe for rapid change.

Still not convinced? The consider the fact that every day for the next 19 years it is estimated that 10,000 Baby Boomers will retire EVERY DAY. In 2014, Millennials will make up 26% of the workplace and this number will soar to 36% by 2020.

Let’s face the grim realities here:

Every single day there are a number of Silent/Greatest generation and Baby Boomer generation individuals who are dying and retiring.
Every single day there are a number of Millennials who reach voting age and enter the workforce.

LOL . . . I am reminded of that famous quotation by Ross Perot speaking to that “giant sucking sound”. In this instance, I don’t think we’re talking about NAFTA. In this example, that giant sucking sound is the vacuum being filled by Millennials.

So, what is the end result? What does all of this mean for non-profit organizations? Fundraising? Philanthropy?

Well, I am not a fortune-teller, but the following thoughts have crossed my mind:

The workplace characteristics for non-profit organizations will change quickly.
The donor profile will change quickly.
The client profile will also change quickly.

I suspect most “best practices” won’t change (e.g. face-to-face solicitation is the most effective way to secure donations), but I can imagine that strategies and tactics need to adapt and evolve. For example . . .

We know that once a donor retires their charitable giving habits seem to change. With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring every day, I suspect resource development plans need to evolve because at this point in time Boomers make up the bulk of most agencies donor databases. (Did you know that 69% of Boomers donate to charity compared to 33% of Millennials? Source: Center on Philanthropy Panel Study)
We know that direct mail is effective with Baby Boomers much more so than it is with Millennials.
I suspect that fewer Millennials physically own checkbooks than their Baby Boomer counterparts.

(I wonder how eBanking impacts traditional charitable giving systems?)
We know that Millennials volunteer at higher rates than any other generation.

John ends his post by simply stating “But survival is not mandatory.” This revelation is striking because it causes me to wonder: Which non-profits are going to adapt? Which agencies are going to die? How will those who survive evolve and adapt? When will that process start? When will resource development plans start to reflect these changes? Who will step up and lead on these issues?

If you are feeling overwhelmed, I can appreciate that, but paralysis is the enemy of evolution and adapting.

My best suggestion to those of you who don’t know what to do or how to proceed is commit yourself to learning more. Click here to read a great publication titled “Charitable Giving and the Millennial Generation” from the Giving USA Foundation at The Center of Philanthropy at Indiana University. There are a lot of great “AH-HA” moments in this publication. Hopefully, it will get you and your organization pointed in the right direction.

As many of you know, I am a GenXer. As I finish this blog post, I suddenly have a song running through my head and I can’t get it to stop. Upon a little reflection, I now realize that this song is my generation’s anthem and characterizes our lifelong struggle with Baby Boomers and Millennials. Click here if you want to get inside my head and enjoy what I am sure will become my generation’s rally cry. 😉

Please scroll down to the comment box and weigh-in with any thoughts you may have about the questions I posed a few paragraphs ago. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit lessons in a pot of split pea soup

April 4, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, volunteers

After last weekend’s Easter celebrations, I had a lot of ham leftovers. So, I decided to do what I normally do . . . I went to the store and bought all of the ingredients for split pea soup. This is what my mom did when I was a kid, and this is what I now do as an adult. Unfortunately, this year’s undertaking went horribly wrong, but the good news is that I walked away with a story that all non-profit organizations will appreciate.

I worked on this pot of soup all day long on Monday. Split peas, celery, carrot, onion, garlic, bay leaf, salt, pepper, marjoram, and leftover ham from Easter. Boil . . . then simmer . . . then gently heat throughout. Stir, stir, stir some more. Taste, stir, taste, stir . . . you get the idea.

As this process unfolded, I kept retreating to my home office to work on projects for clients. Long story short, I got really wrapped up in something work-related and forgot to stir the soup for an hour-and-a-half. Needless to say, I burned the soup. Here was what I ended up doing between 6:00 pm on Monday night and 11:00 am on Tuesday morning in an attempt to remedy the situation:

Call Mom and cry . . . then ask for her expert advice.
Transfer soup from burned pot to new pot.
Add water.
Add more spicing.
Add more onion, celery and carrot.
Add more peas.
Add more ham.
Add more spices.
Go to Google and search: “I burned my split pea soup.”
Read lots of crazy internet content about how to fix a pot of burned split pea soup.
Deep breath . . . add a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter to the soup.
Cry some more because now I had a pot of burned peanut butter soup.
Sleep and dream about burned peanut butter (supposed to be split pea soup)
Wake up to attend a meeting at a local coffee shop. Bringing a mug of my burned soup to the meeting and ask friends to taste it and weigh-in with their opinions.
Call Mom and brother fromon my way home from the Tuesday morning meeting to beg for any advice they may have been holding back on.

Let me stop here and bridge this topic over to our work as non-profit and fundraising professionals.

As I look back upon my time on the front line, I dealt with a ton of burnt pots of split pea soup. Here are just a few examples:

Hiring the wrong person to do a job.
Recruiting the wrong person to help with a fundraising campaign.
Recruiting the wrong person to serve on the board of directors.
Asking the wrong board members to serve on the wrong standing committee.
Investing way too much time cultivating a prospective donor who had no intention of ever making a contribution.

In each of these business examples, I did the same thing as I did with my pot of soup. I kept sinking more time, energy and resources into fixing a situation that just wasn’t fixable.

In the case of making the wrong hire, it was additional meetings, coaching, corrective action plans, and more corrective action plans.

In the case of the fundraising volunteer, it was additional meetings, taking tasks off their plate and doing it myself, and recruiting a co-chair and other volunteers to supplement the work I originally had counted on them to do.

My partner (and the love of my life) is a corporate sales tax guy. He hangs around accountants all day long, and he is constantly telling me:

“Sunk costs are never a consideration!”

As much as it pains me to say, he is right.

As for my pot of burned pot of split pea soup, my mother and brother convinced me to throw it out and start from scratch on Tuesday morning.

All of those sunk costs kept making the pot of soup bigger and bigger, which is what made throwing three gallons of soup in the trash so difficult. If I had only listened to what my partner is always telling me, there would’ve been a lot less food (and money) going in the garbage.

As it relates to your non-profit organization, it is important to remember that your time is money. This means hiring the right people and recruiting the right volunteers is very important. Failing to do so is the equivalent of making an ever expanding pot of burned split pea soup.

You might as well open your wallet and start burning dollar bills. It is the same thing! And what non-profit organization has enough money laying around to do that?

How do you make sure you are hiring and recruiting the right people? How do you know when to pull the trigger and cut your losses when it comes to volunteers and staff? Please use the comment box below to share stories or best practices because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Outcomes, impact and criminal prosecution — A harbinger for the non-profit community?

April 2, 2013 erik Fundraising

Attention non-profit professionals . . . are you paying attention to the news? There is a news story developing in Atlanta, and it may be a harbinger of things to come for non-profit agencies who take money from the government. This made-for-cable-television-drama involves a school superintendent, dozens of teachers and administrators, and a conspiracy to change thousands of standardized tests. All of this was done in the name of maintaining government pass-through funding.

Click here or on the YouTube window below to get a better explanation of what is going on, and then we’ll talk about why I believe this is relevant to the non-profit sector.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3CDcWDmbL8]

When I heard this story, my mind immediately turned to the countless number of non-profit organizations that are struggling to develop a community impact and program outcomes model. The intent behind these efforts usually include:

evolving with their local United Way community impact initiative,
becoming more competitive when it comes to foundation and government grant writing, and
being able to show individual and corporate donors a return on their investment.

Of course, one of the central questions at the center of this struggle (as well as at the center of the No Child Left Behind debate) is:

“Who cares if test scores go up if it doesn’t result in solving the greater community need?”

For example, there is some evidence that shows students doing better on standardized tests, but more and more of incoming college students are enrolling in remedial classes their freshman year because they didn’t learn what they needed to learn prior to applying for college.

Isn’t it the same question for non-profit organizations?

How many youth development agencies are running child obesity programming with government funding and using pre- and post-test methods to determine if the participant was able to digest and regurgitate the program curriculum. Of course, knowing that I shouldn’t eat Cheetos and actually not eating them are two different things. Right? So, what is the donor really paying for and are we measuring the right things?

The bigger question being begged by the Atlanta school district news story is:

“If we tie student test performance to school funding, then aren’t we creating a situation where institutions are tempted to bend rules and even cheat the system?”

As I asked earlier, isn’t it the same question for non-profit organizations?

Do I believe there are non-profit organizations who “fudge” their program outcomes evaluation in order to keep their United Way happy? Sure I do!

Do I also believe there are non-profit organizations who do the same thing with their government grant deliverables? Yes, I believe there are a few.

You can chalk this blog post up to my cynicism. Or you can use it to ward off temptation to game the system. I suggest the later and not the former because there isn’t any difference between what the educators in Atlanta did and a non-profit organization misrepresenting its outcomes data to a local, state or federal funding source.

If you buy into this line of reasoning, then keep your eyes on the Atlanta news story because I predict the plot will thicken and jail time could be in a few people’s future.

Does your agency have policies in place that help protect against any of this happening (e.g. ethics policy, whistleblower policy, document destruction policy, etc)? Are these policies just on paper or are their routinely used? Does your organization have shared values? If so, how are those values integrated into the hiring process to ensure that you’re hiring ethical employees? Do you believe the Atlanta school story is a harbinger or am I just over reacting? Please weigh-in using the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Using a multi-channel approach for fundraising? Don’t forget ‘old school’ strategies!

April 1, 2013 erik Fundraising, technology

Have you ever intended to do something, but “life happened” and you dropped the ball? Well, this is what happened to me last week when I intended to write a post for the March Nonprofit Blog Carnival weaving together social media, fundraising and a multi-channel approach. While I missed the submission deadline, I’m pressing forward with the post because I think we can all learn something from the Community Crisis Center and their 2009 “Crisis Overnight” campaign.

In my hometown of Elgin, Illinois, our domestic violence shelter was experiencing a crisis of its own in 2009 because the nearly bankrupt State of Illinois kept falling behind on its accounts payable to non-profit organizations that it had contracted with to provide services (e.g. running a domestic violence program). In 2009, it was so bad that Community Crisis Center was owed $400,000 and cash flow management was becoming a challenge.

Years earlier, a staff person had written an article for The Courier-News newspaper focused on providing readers with a 24 hour look at what happens at Community Crisis Center. Looking a mountain of red ink, the executive director, Gretchen Vapnar, decided that a similar approach was warranted in order to generate public awareness about the center’s situation.

The only difference this time around was that it was a different world. Newspaper readership was down. Internet usage was exploding. It was a brave new world, and social media experts like Ruth Munson and Sarah Evans advised the center to take their concept online. Here is what this campaign end up looking like:

Sarah Evans spent an evening at the center. She witnessed the impact that the center makes in the lives of everyday people, and she blogged and tweeted about her experience. (e.g. #crisisovernight)
In addition to bearing witness, she communicated a powerful case for support using a number of different online and social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, blog, Facebook, and YouTube).
Other non-tech channels were used by the center. For example, volunteers set-up camp outside the center and donors were invited to “drive by” and drop off donations. Staff also attempted to integrate a pre-existing direct mail campaign into the “crisis overnight” campaign.
The initial goal was to raise $150,000 in three weeks. Unfortunately, they didn’t achieve this goal, but they kept plugging away to get the campaign to go viral.
While they didn’t achieve their original goal, they did raise $161,000 in six weeks.
In the end, there were 756 online donors and the average size gift was less than $100/donor. There also was one sizable $40,000 gift from a local foundation.

If you want to learn more about this campaign, you can do a Google search on “crisis overnight.” You can also click here to view a SlideShare presentation by Sarah Evans.

The most interesting thing to me about this entire campaign was what the executive director had to say more than three years later when looking back on the entire experience.

First, Gretchen marveled at how “everything always comes down to the same things.” What she is referring to is how the keys to success for this online campaign are many of the same best practices that work for traditional fundraising activities. She gave the following three examples to illustrate her point:

Donors need to connected. (e.g. your agency needs to be visible to the donor or your mission needs to touch/connect with them).
The “who” is still key. The person asking for the donation correlates greatly to your campaign’s success.
There is a “trust factor.” Donors need to trust the organization will follow through and do what they said they’d do with the donor’s investment. If they don’t know the agency well, then the volunteer solicitor is leveraging their relationship with the donor to create that level of trust.

Old fashion fundraising strategies and best practices

Online tactics (e.g. website, email, social media, etc)

Success

There was also one other interesting lesson that Gretchen shared with me. She said that sustained success requires that non-profit organizations put someone in charge of their ePhilanthropy strategy (e.g. hire an online community manager).

Has your agency tied to undertake similar online fundraising campaigns? If so, what were the results? What did you learn? Please share your experiences in the comment box below because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Where will your fundraising journey take you?

March 29, 2013 erik Fundraising, leadership, organizational development

In a post titled “Ultimate Conquest,” John talks about the concept of conquering ourselves and our quest for self actualization. He starts by sharing a story about a king and his three sons. The king sends these three princes out into the world to “conquer dragons, maidens and black-hearted knights.” Each of princes returns to the kingdom having had a different experience. I won’t ruin the story for you, and I encourage you to click over and read it for yourself.

As I read John’s post, I realized that inside my fundraising soul I have many of the same experiences as the three princes.

When I worked for the Boy Scouts, it really was the first time I had serious fundraising goals and expectations. I learned so much from that job. All of my inexperience contributed to fear, and the way I conquered my fear was to approach fundraising as a competition. I am very proud of those years. I excelled and built an annual campaign that doubled in size over a three-year period. I received many accolades and recognition for my work. What I didn’t realize was that it was simply the first phase of my journey because I had only learned that donors were something to conquer.

The next leg of my journey brought me to Boys & Girls Club of Elgin as the executive director. I was a young executive director, and I thought that I had “made it.” LOL If I only knew then what I know now.

During my years at Boys & Girls Club of Elgin, I honed my skills as a fundraising professional. I was no longer afraid of donors, and I was adding more and more fundraising experiences to my repertoire. I was no longer the knight of annual campaigns, but I was writing grants, developing direct mail appeals, organizing special events, and building capacity with a capital campaign in mind. Much like the second prince in John’s post, I worked on becoming more nuanced and polished.

I remember thinking at the end of my tenure at Boys & Girls Club of Elgin that I had finally made it. LOL Again, if I only knew then what I know now. That experience was only one leg of my journey.

When I accepted an internal consulting job at Boys & Girls Clubs of America, my view of fundraising expanded yet again. I no longer wanted to conquer donors or nuance contributions out of them. The amazing team of individuals with whom I worked helped me see that there is a difference between “fundraising” and “resource development”. Whoa! They also exposed me to the difference between “transactional fundraising” and “donor-centered fundraising”. I also started to understand the difference between “resource development” and “philanthropy”. Huh!

As I look back over the better part of two decades, I understand that hindsight in 20/20. More importantly, I see three very distinct experiences, but I understand that they are three legs of the same journey.

I am not naive enough to believe I am at the apex of this mountain that I am climbing. However, I do feel confident enough now to say I recognize that I am on a fundraising journey. While I cannot see very far down the path in front of me, I am excited about my new realization that the non-profit world is my playground and this voyage is going to take a lifetime.

Have you had a similar experience with your fundraising career path? Where are you at? What have you learned? Where do you want to go? Did John Greco’s post trigger any great thoughts about you or our profession? Please scroll down and share some of your thoughts in the comment box.

Here’s to your health!

If philanthropy was art, what would it look like?

March 28, 2013 erik Fundraising

Yesterday, I saw a news story about actress Tilda Swinton, who is sleeping in a glass box at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. While I’m not a huge modern art fan (but I’m not a hater either), I haven’t been able to get this story out of my head for some dumb reason. Whenever I have a free moment and my mind wanders (e.g. driving in the car, standing in line for coffee, cleaning dishes, etc), I can’t help but think about this modern art exhibit.

So, this morning while walking on the treadmill, it happened again. In a fit of frustration, I decided that I need to push past this because it is getting obnoxious. And then out of the blue, it hit me . . .

If philanthropy was art, what would it look like?

I think it would be fun if every DonorDreams blog reader took a moment to contemplate this question. Once you get a picture in your head, please use the comment box located below to share your thought or image.

Come on . . . this could be a fun little break from your very busy day!

Let me help get you started:

A painting of a child in a hospital bed with a nurse attending to their IV.
A theatrical production spoofing the life of a fundraising professional. The scene I’m picturing in my head has a donor being hit over the head and the fundraising professional’s hand reaching for their wallet. (Again, I emphasis this is a spoof. Please no hateful emails.)
Hmmmm . . . a modern art example? How about a live donor pulling his pants down around his bum with a fundraising professional trying to swipe a credit card down their backside.

Did I take it too far? Oooops. Sorry. But I bet that I brought a smile to your face on a stressful day and got your mind chewing on this question. So, come on . . . take 60 seconds out of your day and share a thought (either serious of silly) in the comment box below.

Do you need more inspiration? Click here or on the YouTube frame below to see Tilda Swinton sleeping at the Museum of Modern Art. Hopefully, it won’t haunt your thoughts like it is mine. 🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXkmI-8wLCE&feature=youtu.be]

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit donors, hospital visits, and stewardship opportunities

March 27, 2013 erik Fundraising

It is the morning of Wednesday, March 27, 2013 and my soon-to-be 40-year-old brother is on his way to the hospital for hip replacement surgery. He is the youngest hip replacement patient that his doctor has ever seen. With all of this going on, my mind still wanders back to non-profit organizations and how they treat their donors at times like these.

It should be no surprise to any fundraising professional that non-profit hospitals are very good at resource development. In 2011, non-profit hospitals and healthcare systems improved their fundraising efforts by 8.2 percent over the previous year’s efforts, according to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. That’s right. We’re talking about 2010 and 2011 when unemployment, the economy, and the housing sector were softer than they are today.

In a nutshell, I believe people are at their most vulnerable when they walk through the doors of a hospital. They are scared and their support networks (e.g. friends, family, neighbors, etc) stand by their side.

Here is the point . . . good non-profit organizations constantly message to their donors things like:

“You’re part of our non-profit family.”
“We care very much about you, and we appreciate how much you care about our mission and clients.”
“You’re a valued friend.“

If all of this is true, then shouldn’t you be by their side during their time of greatest need? And if you aren’t there, then aren’t you undercutting all of the stewardship messaging you’ve invested in throughout the years?

Non-profit hospitals have it easy in this one regard because donors (and prospective donors) are on their home turf. Of course, they still need to do a ton of hard work (e.g. quality care, bedside manner, compassion, service, etc).

My brother’s surgery this morning reminds me of a life lesson that I learned more than a decade ago when a board member, who was struggling with kidney disease, was admitted to the hospital. Not only did I not send a card/balloons/flowers, but I had left a number of emails and voicemail messages pushing him about an upcoming committee meeting.

Needless to say, the post-hospital phone call was more than a little uncomfortable for me. It was a lesson that I learned and carry with me to this very day.

Last week, I started working pledge cards for one of my favorite charities. One of the first donors I called to set-up an appointment informed me that she was being admitted for surgery in a few days. She didn’t want to schedule a solicitation meeting and asked that I call back after her surgery.

So, what did I do?

I wished her well. I asked her when I should circle back around to check-in and set-up a meeting.
I calendarized the date she told me to call her.
I offered assistance. I told her that I’m happy to help in whatever way she thinks is appropriate. I can pick-up prescriptions, run to the store, or drive her to a doctor appointment.
I called the agency to report this news, and they immediately mailed a “get well soon” card to the donor.

Did I do this because I am working the angles to secure a contribution in the long-term?

Heck NO!

I did these things because it is what friends do for each other. It also happens to be what donor-centered fundraising professionals do.

Do you have any stories about donors, hospitalization, and stewardship activities? If so, please take a minute out of your busy day to share that story or what you consider a best practice in the comment box below. Why? Because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

How does your community compare to others in fundraising?

March 25, 2013 erik Fundraising, technology

My side of town is doing better than people expect! Hip Hip Hooray!” In my opinion, this is cause for celebration because I live on the east side of Elgin, Illinois, which can come with a stigma or two according to some people (mostly those who live west of the Fox River). This morning I discovered an amazing online benchmarking tool from our friends at The Chronicle of Philanthropy that allows me to explore philanthropy in my state, city, and neighborhood.

So, all of my celebration this morning stems from the fact that I discovered my zip code (60120) is doing better than average in total charitable contributions compared all zip codes in the State of Illinois. We rank 3,976 out of 28,725. Woo Hoo! Of course, we’re still behind our west side neighbors who rank 2,347, but frankly I don’t care. I am thrilled to be doing this well!

I am also intrigued by all of the data that The Chronicle of Philanthropy is able to put at my fingertips with regards to philanthropy and demographics data. Here is some of what I learned about my side of town this morning:

Last year we contributed a total of $10.2 million.
The median level of contributions was $1,666 per household.
Median household discretionary income is $41,310.
Households in my zip code donate 4% of their income.
55.6% of households identify as Hispanic.
33.1% of people are under the age of 20 (which compares to 27% for the average zip code in the country).
32.8% of people don’t possess a high school diploma (which compares to 14.4% for the average zip code in the country).

I could go on and on with amazing little factoids about my little corner of the world, but I will stop here because I don’t want to take some of the fun out of you exploring this online tool.

Now some of you might be scratching your head and asking the age-old question “Who cares?”

Simply put, this online tool puts a powerful benchmarking tool in the hands of every non-profit organization in America. Powerful!!!

Again, some of you still might be scratching your head and asking the age-old question “Who cares?”

The following are just a few reasons why every non-profit organization regardless of their size or skill level should be looking at benchmarking exercises for their fundraising program:

Benchmarking allows you to see where you stand in comparison to others.
When your organization is faced with making a difficult choice between a number of different options, then benchmarking can help you make tough decisions.
Benchmarking allows you to clearly see what you’re doing well and where you might need to improve.

Let’s go back to my hometown of Elgin, Illinois for a moment . . .

Elgin, Illinois is made up of four zip codes (e.g. 60120, 60121, 60123, and 60124), and the total charitable giving reported on tax returns filed from these four zip codes adds up to $39,582,326. If I operated a non-profit organization with $1 million per year in private sector fundraising revenue, then I would know that I am capturing 2.53% of the reported philanthropy in the area. With this knowledge, I can do a better job of measuring success and progress.

There are countless other ways to slice and dice this benchmarking data, and there are many ways it can be used. We’ve already made the case for how this information can be used to evaluate and assess your fundraising program. It could also be used to make decisions on who and where to target your fundraising efforts.

Does your non-profit organization do any benchmarking? If so, please share your success stories in the comment box below. If not, please weigh-in on some of the obstacles you encounter. If you took a moment to click around The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s online tool, please also share your comments or thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!