Donors and organizational politics

A good friend of mine (and a reader of this blog) sent me an email yesterday suggesting that I start reading another blog called “The Third Sector Report“. Being a firm believer that good writers are good readers, I clicked the link and tried that blog on for size. This week’s post by Jeffrey Wilcox CFRE talks about politics inside of non-profit organizations.

Wilcox’s words hit me sideways and personally. They took me back in time to board meetings where two or three groups of board members were discussing different building options prior to beginning work on a capital campaign. Some volunteers wanted us to acquire land and build in one place. Others wanted to expand on our current site. Still others (including one of our biggest and most influential donors) wanted us to acquire an existing building and renovate.

When you get a bunch of people together who are mission-focused and passionate, politics can’t help but enter the equation. Sometimes it is paid staff at odds with board volunteers, and it really gets interesting when donors get involved.

Wilcox suggests that politics is unavoidable and urges non-profit leaders to develop a political management toolkit. There are lots of awesome tools one of which is a written succession plan. <Yikes!> However, I don’t want to steal his thunder. I urge you read his blog post for suggestions of the other tools to include in your toolkit.

In the end, I am convinced this “political management toolkit” is a great opportunity for non-profit leaders to get donors involved. CEOs and development professionals are wasting an engagement opportunity if they sit down and pound out a communication policy by themselves. I don’t see any problem with involving key donors and board volunteers in development of the executive director’s annual performance management plan.

Some donors just don’t have time to join the board of directors, a standing committee or a special event committee. So, why not ask them if they want to help out with a small project that has a distinct start and end? If you can make the case for why these tools in your political management toolkit are important, you will likely find a few donors who are willing to help. In the end, that donor is likely to be more engaged and as we all know … “money follows involvement”.

The bonus, of course, is that you’ve simultaneously built more organizational capacity in addition to deepening key donors’ engagement. Additionally, if the project involves something that a donor is passionate about, then you are modeling what a good “donor-centered” resource development professional looks like.

Have you ever included key donors who are not board volunteers in short-term projects? What was your experience and the results? Please weigh-in and let us know.

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

Tin cup philanthropy

So, I was coming out of my local grocery store on Saturday and standing outside of the exit was a volunteer. She was holding a small plastic bank in the shape of a dog. Once I was in ear shot distance, she asked if I could spare some change for the local “low kill” animal shelter.

First, let me say that I know this charity. Second, let me say that I respect the work that this charity does. However, I did not part with my pocket change and found myself wondering instead:

  • How many hours was that volunteer standing there?
  • How much money could she possibly have collected during that time?
  • How much more money could she have raised in the same amount of time if she just asked a few of her friends who cared as much as she does about this cause to make a direct contribution?

Now there are some people who believe ALL charitable activities that ask people to make a contribution for nothing in return is “tin cup philanthropy”. If you don’t believe me, just read this Financial Times article for yourself. If you get really interested, you can cross check it with our friends at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who appear to have fallen in love with what they call “Experimental Entrepreneurship“.

As a donor and a resource development professional, I understand why so many people see traditional philanthropy as begging with a tin cup, and it goes beyond just the volunteer standing outside of my local grocery store begging for her charity of choice. It extends to many non-profit organizations who recruit volunteers who are “reluctant solicitors” in the first place and then provide little to no training to those volunteers. The end result is typically well-intentioned people going to their friends and neighbors begging them to make a pledge, purchase a raffle ticket or attend an event.

When this happens, very little time is spent talking about the community needs that the charity might be addressing with its programming. To be frank, it typically sounds like begging and sometimes degenerates into quid pro quo or favor granting.

While I am intrigued with “experimental entrepreneurship” and see nothing wrong with charities exploring it as revenue stream, I don’t think it is “the answer” to tin cup philanthropy.

Non-profit leaders need to recruit the right volunteers for their fundraising activities, and they need to do a better job of training and supporting those volunteers. Let’s stop begging and start talking about our mission; community needs & gaps; our programs, services & solutions; and most importantly the “return on investment” for the community that comes with making a charitable contribution.

Only once we start doing this will we be able to retire the old tin cup.

What has been your experience as a donor? A volunteer solicitor? If you are a non-profit staff person, am I off-base with my conclusions? And is anyone excited about experimental entrepreneurship and why?

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

Gross or net?

Last week, a very dear friend of mine emailed me with a question. She was wondering how is the right way to report to her donors and the public how much money one of her special event fundraisers had generated. Is it more transparent and appropriate to report the event’s “gross income”? Or is it more honest to report “net income”?

As I typically do, I went to the great “internet oracle” called Google and conducted a search on the question. I didn’t find anything exactly “on point,” but I did find some very interesting stuff that I think is worthy of sharing:

Getting back to the original question: “how to report special event revenue to donors” … perhaps we should try to first create a litmus test to measure “transparency related questions”. I think a transparent non-profit organization might exhibit the following traits:

  • always telling the truth
  • sharing all relevant fact with stakeholders
  • being accurate and authentic
  • being upfront and avoiding surprises

Here is what guidestar.org says about “non-profit transparency“.

Applying a “transparency test” to this question, I lean towards the conclusion that it is appropriate to share ALL relevant information about the special event. Why not tell donors that the event grossed $X and costed $Y, which resulted in net revenue of $Z?

That is just my two cents … what do you think? How does your non-profit organization report its special event revenue to donors, board volunteers and the community?

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

Boards should meet NOT email

I opened my e-newsletter from Jean Block yesterday, scrolled through it, and nearly jumped out of my chair when I read her link to an article in The Non-Profit Quarterly about boards that are voting on issues in between meetings using email . In a nutshell, the article spells out all the reasons why taking email votes is neither legal nor a very practice. I strongly encourage you to click the previous link and read the article for yourself (after you are done reading this blog, of course … LOL).

My former supervisor at Boys & Girls Clubs of America used to periodically rant to me about email. If I heard it once I heard it one hundred times … “email is an information technology and not a communication tool”.  Regardless of whether or not you agree with him, I think we can all agree that email has its limitations. I thought the MAXIMUMadvantage website did a good job of naming the times that email is not appropriate.

Board members that use email voting are not exercising their fiduciary responsibilities. How in the world can we “discuss” important issues unless we’re engaged in a “real-time” discussion?

I know that there are people reading this blog who are saying to themselves that board members are “too busy”. To those folks, I suggest that anyone who doesn’t have time to attend board meetings probably shouldn’t be a board volunteer.

Please don’t misunderstand … there are appropriate roles for everyone in your organization. You just need to take the time to be donor-centered and relationship-oriented by getting to know the person and finding the right opportunity for them to support your mission.

Not every big donor or important person needs to be on the board of directors. It is possible to “engage” donors and community decision-makers without asking them to join the board.

  • Ask them to be a program volunteer or fundraising volunteer.
  • Ask them to help with strategic planning or participate in a focus group or a special project.
  • Just listen and then ask them to do something they are passionate about.

My bottom line is that square pegs shouldn’t be asked to fit into round holes.

Others of you might be saying that non-profit organizations have a tendency to “over meet” their volunteers. If that is the case, then I simply suggest that we need to figure out how not to do that. Instead, we should focus our efforts on having powerful and effective meetings. It “must be” possible because there is a website with the name effectivemeetings.com. LOL. At the very least, in all seriousness look into instituting a consent agenda.  Additionally, here is a YouTube video with a few meeting tips.

Other than a consent agenda, what other strategies are you using to streamline board meetings while maximizing impactful and strategic discussions that serve to engage and empower board volunteers? Please share your thoughts and practices in the comment section before another email proxy vote is sent out for consideration.

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

Fundraiser-in-Chief?

My partner and I have been bombarded in the last few weeks by the Obama fundraising team with countless solicitations. There have been phone calls, emails and even snail-mail appeals. There is even one interesting email enticing us to donate in order to get entered into a raffle for a chance to have dinner with the President. Ohhh, let the fundraising fun begin!

After closing the “Dinner with Barack” email, I randomly decided to look at the Wikipedia page for “fundraising“. Interestingly enough, the only picture on that page was of U.S. President Barack Obama.

These two unrelated things in my life got me thinking. “Is Barack Obama not just the Commander-in-Chief but also the nation’s Fundraiser-in-Chief?”  Here are some of the thoughts floating around in my head as I contemplate this question:

  • Team Obama raised approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars in 2007-08 and experts are predicting they will top the $1 billion mark in 2011-12. I don’t know of anyone who has done that in any sector.
  • Team Obama raised their money from approximately 4 million donors, many of which were individuals.
  • Many fundraising experts who looked closely at the numbers said the Obama people did very well with getting small donors to contribute to their first political campaign and then did an even better with getting small multiple gifts from those same donor.

While I’ve come to learn the hard way that political fundraising is very different from doing so for a non-profit organization, I still believe the upcoming Presidential campaign fundraising efforts (all of them and not just Team Obama) are worth watching because there will likely be some interesting take-away lessons for social service non-profit organizations.

Team Obama did much to move the needle with regards to making political fundraising more “donor-centered” and less “transactional” compared to previous campaigns, and they seemed to do so using a blended approach of traditional fundraising (e.g. events, mail, phone, face-to-face) and e-philanthropy (e.g. email, website, social media, text, etc).  I personally came to these conclusion because of the countless “update emails with videos” I received in 2008. It was obviously an attempt at stewardship and a way of demonstrating ROI to individual donors. It must have also been successfully because of the number of small donors who made multiple contributions.

In addition to non-profit resource development professionals getting an opportunity to observe up-close-and-personal donor-centered techniques being applied, I think it will also be interesting to watch how 2008 Obama donors behave in 2012. There were lots of promises made in 2008. As non-profit organizations have learned (mostly the hard way), when we over-promise and under-deliver, donors tend to be a little more reluctant to renew their contribution.

Finally, I’m also interested in watching how “transparency” in political fundraising continues to evolve in 2012. Have you ever checked out The Huffington Post’s “Fundrace” resource? Unfortunately, I have done so and found myself sucked into countless hours of looking up friends, family and donors to see who was donating what and to whom. Interestingly, I found my personal contributions to be under-reported. I wonder if that was a problem that resulted from having to reconcile contributions made via so many different avenues (e.g. website vs. snail-mail vs phone).

So, I think the jury is out on whether Barack Obama is our country’s Fundraising-in-Chief and the proof will be in the 2012 numbers. What do you think?

Were there any best practices or lessons learned that your non-profit used after the 2008 campaign? Are you watching anything in particular from a fundraising standpoint as we head into 2012?

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

Symbols and philanthropy

Yesterday was June 14th and that can only mean one thing — Flag Day — which got me thinking about the importance of “symbols” in philanthropy.

Quite simply, symbols are things that help us quickly and clearly understand for what something stands. For example, the American flag represents the historic formation of our country (e.g. 13 independent colonies) and stands for the values put forth by our Founding Fathers (e.g. freedom, justice, democratic principles, self-determination, etc).

Symbols are powerful communication tools for organizations according to Anat Rafaeli and Momica Worline in their paper titled “Symbols in Organizational Culture“.  The following are a few examples of symbols that I’ve seen non-profits use effectively:

  • Boys & Girls Clubs use a logo of two hands gasping each other. It is commonly known as “The Knuckles”.  It symbolizes hope and opportunity as well as a partnership between kids and those willing to extend a helping hand in partnership.  Donors see the logo and immediately understand in what they are investing.
  • The Boy Scouts integrated the fleur-de-lis into its logo. This symbol has had many meanings throughout human history; however, within a scouting context it is supposed to make donors think of a compass, which symbolizes scouting’s power in a person’s life to always keep them pointed in the right direction.
  • Getting back to Boys & Girls Clubs … this organization effectively uses its alumni assets as “symbols” and a way to effortlessly communicate to donors that the Club is 1) an effective after-school program that yields success stories, 2) all about lifting people up, 3) about forging positive kid-adult mentoring relationships, and 4) lots and lots of fun. Check out this Denzel Washington commercial and see if you can see those messages embodied in their spokesperson.

Many non-profit organizations also develop “signature fundraisers” or publicize “signature programs” that become symbols of their organization. I can specifically think of the United Way’s fundraising thermometer, poppies to support veterans causes, and cookie sales to help the Girl Scouts. Think of how powerful it must be for a donor to instantly understand in what they are investing.

In my opinion, the biggest challenge for your organization is integrating a sense of “mission-focus” into the symbols you construct. This is especially true for those non-profit organization’s pursuing cause-related marketing efforts. Who can ever forget when Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure affiliated their “symbol” (aka brand) with KFC’s brand (greasy, unhealthy food)?

Jump in and comment on other non-profit symbols that you’ve seen used very well or poorly by a non-profit organization in their resource development program. And enjoy this final link to the Chinese symbol for “philanthropy”

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

Hiring a fundraising professional

Yesterday, we talked about the qualities and traits you should look for when hiring a “donor-centered” resource development professional. We ended up with some great comments and discussion. So, I decided to continue down this path a little farther today.

I oftentimes get asked the following two questions by small to mid-size non-profit organizations when it comes to hiring a RD professional:

  • When should we hire our first RD professional?
  • How much should we expect them to raise?

I believe an organization should consider hiring its first fundraising pro when it reaches a point when it feels like it needs more help to go to the next level. So, if a small organization is using committed board volunteers and an executive director to go from Point A to Point B in its resource development program, then it is a natural question during the annual evaluation process to ask once they get to Point B — “Do we need help getting to Point C or can we do it by ourselves?”

Evaluation is key to getting perspective and thinking through the question of when to hire your first RD professional. I also think Tony Poderis does a masterful job addressing this issue. Click here to read his article on this subject.

It is easier for me to definitively say that the following examples are times when an organization should NOT hire a RD professional:

  • When the board is tired of fundraising and wants to hire someone to do it for them
  • When the executive director of the organization is deemed to be inadequate at fundraising
  • When the organization doesn’t know in what direction it wants to go with its comprehensive resource development program.

As for ROI, I have heard lots of different opinions on this subject ranging anywhere FROM “one-times/two-times/three-times the RD professional’s salary” TO “you cannot measure it by dollars & cents because a good RD person makes board volunteers better fundraisers which leads to increased donor engagement”. I thought The Foundation Center did a nice job answering this question in their blog post.

When do you think an organization should hire its first fundraising professional or add more development people to the department? And do you have any suggestions on how to measure ROI? Please jump in 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

Searching for a donor-centered fundraiser

As I said on Friday, I am currently reading the book Co-Active Coaching as part of a business coaching certificate program. While digesting this text, it caused me to reflect back on Penelope Burk’s book, Donor Centered Fundraising. I think this is happening in part because when I read Penelope Burk’s book, I kept asking myself questions like “what would that look like in practice?” and “what skill sets would a donor-centered resource development professional need to possess?”.

I think some of the coaching material I’m currently reading fills in some of those blanks in my head, and I want to share those thoughts with you here today.

Chapter 5 in Co-Active Coaching talks about how one quality of a successful coach is “curiosity” and one skill set required to be curious is being able to ask powerful questions and dumb questions (which can also be quite powerful).  On page 79, the authors list a few example questions:

  • What does what you want look (or feel) like?
  • What about that is important to you?
  • What else?
  • What will you do and when will you do it?

I now see the importance of limiting the number of “Yes-No” and “Why” questions because these questions can be intimidating and limit discussion. Likewise, I found myself thinking that open ended and naturally curious questions help deepen understandings and in turn deepen relationships.

If I was an executive director again and looking to hire a development professional with donor-centered fundraising skills sets, I suspect I would build a search process around finding someone with the following qualities:

  • listening skills
  • curiosity & engagement
  • action-oriented
  • life-long learner
  • authenticity
  • the ability to create accountability
  • connectivity & relationship building

Have you ever hired a donor-centered fundraising professional? If so, what qualities, characteristics, competencies and skill sets did they possess? What were some of the questions you used to tease these qualities out of your candidate pool? Please jump in and share.

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