stewardship – Page 15 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Make that call and express your thanks

November 25, 2011 DonorDreams Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

Ahhhhhh . . . Thanksgiving is over and the food comma is starting to wear off, but the spirit of this holiday looms for much longer. It might even set the table for the one of the most charitable times of the year by putting donors in the mood to give, give, give! So, if you believe this, then you should also believe that giving thanks doesn’t just end when the last piece of turkey is packed up in Tupperware and placed in the refrigerator in hopes of becoming a turkey sandwich in the not-so-distant-future.

I am suggesting that it would be a very nice donor-centered stewardship gesture if you picked up the phone on Monday and called one of the most impactful donors to your non-profit agency.

Don’t just call and say thank you.

When you finally get them on the telephone, you might consider telling them that the Thanksgiving spirit motivated you to call. Spend the rest of the call discussing the following:

What does their financial support mean to your agency?
Provide a few examples of how their contribution made a difference for your agency’s clients.
Ask them if they have any questions about anything they may have seen or heard about the organization.
Ask them what they see as the organization’s greatest strengths and weaknesses.
Explain to them how their contribution makes you personally feel. Share any emotions you may experience as a result of their support and involvement.
Tell them that you appreciate them and the agency couldn’t do what it does without support from caring people like them.
Wish them a happy holiday season and tell them you look forward to working with them again in the new year.

You’re all really busy. This doesn’t have to be an “initiative” or a “thank-a-thon” . . . even though that would be awesome. All I am suggesting is that you do this on Monday with JUST ONE very important donor.

Taking a few minutes on Monday represents your personal investment in doing good stewardship. It will renew your non-profit soul and set the stage for a great end of the year push!

Trust me . . . just do it . . . and then circle back to the comment box below and let us all know how you felt afterward. I’ll sit tight and wait to hear back from you. 😉

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

Being thankful!

November 24, 2011 DonorDreams Uncategorized

This Thanksgiving holiday season I am grateful to all of you who subscribe to this blog.

When I first started writing it a number of months ago, I set a goal of reaching 100 subscribers by the end of 2011. I am thrilled to inform you that our little online community currently sits at 124 and counting. The next goal is to figure out how to expand our little non-profit online community to 300 subscribers by the end of 2012.

As is the case with your special events and annual campaign fundraisers, you don’t increase the number of donors by hoping more new prospects spontaneously show up at your door with checks in hand. Hope is never a strategy!

So, I am asking for your help this holiday season. If you know of someone who works or volunteers for a non-profit organization and is committed to life-long learning, please forward a copy of one of my blog posts along to them and encourage them to subscribe. As you know, it is FREE and can be done by simplying typing an email address into the subscriptions widget in the upper right corner of my blog. After doing that, they need to verify they did it by clicking the link that is emailed to them by WordPress.

As you know, I write this blog because I believe in my heart we can all learn from each other. So, it stands to reason that the more people who join our little online community, the more collective knowledge we’ll have access to, which means we can increase our learning capacity exponentially.

Please know that I am thankful for your willingness to engage in a discussion about donors, fundraising, resource development and non-profits in general. Thank you! Enjoy the turkey today. And as always, here is to your health!

Gobble Gobble … pass the stewardship please?

November 21, 2011 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising, volunteers

This non-profit professional loves Thanksgiving! Yes, as you can tell from my picture, I love the epicurean delights that grace my table for this holiday. However, what I really love has almost nothing to do with food . . . it is the idea of taking time to simply say “thank you” that really appeals to my inner non-profit soul. It is for this reason I believe Thanksgiving is quintessentially a non-profit holiday.

What are you doing this Thanksgiving holiday to reach out to your donors and volunteers and express your thanks and gratitude?

When I worked for the Boy Scouts more than a decade ago, I found tremendous joy in cooking a full-blown Thanksgiving meal for my District Committee. Mmmmmm . . . I remember it as if it were just yesterday. Turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, beans, rolls, dutch oven cobbler . . . prepared and served with my own two hands in the church basement we used to meet every month.

After feeding 50 of my best donors and volunteers, I relished the opportunity to take 2- or 3-minutes and tell them how thankful I was for their help and support. I also highlighted a handful of our collective successes from the last year.

Years later, as I worked with local Boys & Girls Club affiliates throughout the Midwest region, we worked on developing “thank-a-thon” events to steward donors around the Thanksgiving holiday. This was simply a handful of board volunteers who were armed with a list of donors, short script, and telephone. The message was short and sweet . . .

thank you for your support,
your support made a difference,
we accomplished X/Y/Z and couldn’t have done it without the support of caring and generous people like you,
we hope we can continue to count on your support in the future, and
this Thanksgiving we give thanks for people like you. Enjoy the holidays!

There was no solicitation for money. There was no guilt. It was an expression of simple gratitude. It demonstrated that donors and volunteers were part of a larger family — our “non-profit family”.

What are your personal plans to steward board volunteers, donors and volunteers this holiday season? I see many non-profits doing something. So, please take 30-seconds and share your favorite Thanksgiving stewardship activity of all time. If you’re a volunteer or donor, please share the best Thanksgiving stewardship activity that your favorite non-profit has ever included you in. We can all learn from each other . . . but that requires using the comment box below to share. Please?

Here is to your health! Enjoy your Thanksgiving with both your immediate family as well as your non-profit family. 🙂

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

When donors cry (literally)

November 18, 2011 DonorDreams Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

Have you ever been engaged in conversation with a donor and they spontaneously erupted into tears? This had never happened to me until recently, and I need to talk about it because it really shook me right down to my resource development foundation.

While I need to be sketchy with the details as not to embarrass anyone, I can provide some conversational context and set the scene. The conversation was about a specific non-profit organization that they had been donating to for a very long time. Long story short . . . the non-profit organization is now talking about going out of business and the newspaper is covering the story.

We talked for a long time as the tears flowed, and I was given one of the greatest gifts that any resource development profession could ever be given. I was allowed a glimpse inside the soul of a donor. Here is what they were saddened to tears over (this is their thoughts and not my analysis):

They believed in their heart in the mission of that organization and were mourning the possible death of something they loved.
They believed that their financial contributions had been making a difference in the lives of people. Now they have doubts and feel deceived
They personally solicited friends and asked them to also make a contribution to this organization. Now they feel like they perpetuated a fraud against their friends and aren’t sure they can face their friends.

I was given a gift when I was allowed to bear witness to the raw power of philanthropy. It affects me, and I wanted to share this with you because there are some important lessons that all non-profit professional need to take away from this story:

What we tell donors regardless of whether it is during cultivation, solicitation or stewardship efforts is like a sacred promise. Many donors take it to heart and deposit it in their emotional bank account. We need to remember this at all times.
There are people who “go to bat” for those non-profits that they love. They leverage personal relationships all in the name of mission. They are out there making promises to their friends, and we need to do a better job of recognizing that investment. They tell their friends that your agency is a wise investment, and we owe it to them to make sure that is true by always focusing on sustainability and organizational capacity building efforts. Just focusing on programs for our clients that our mission calls us to serve is simply not enough.
We need to be very careful about what we say publicly in the press about the present state of our agency. Donors take those things to heart. It can affect them deeply. Cavalierly talking about the possibility of closing your doors is the equivalent of playing with someone’s emotions. It isn’t nice and will cost you donors.

I decided to write this blog post because this tearful conversation was impactful. I can’t get it out of my head. It made me profoundly sad and even a little angry. I had hoped that sharing this with others would make me feel better and get beyond it because of my belief that we can all learn from each other. While I do believe this, I am also not feeling any better about things. In fact, I think I am a little sadder as I fight back some tears and a little angrier as I clench my teeth to get through this post.

There can be no doubt that I am physically experiencing the power of philanthropy, and I hope I become a stronger more donor-centered fundraiser because of this experience. My holiday wish for you is that you walk away from this blog post feeling the same way and use this story to become more donor-centered, too.

Have you ever had a similar experience? Has any donor interaction ever affected you in a way that you’ve embraced it and used it to become a better professional? If so, please use the comment box below to share because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

All non-profits are Penn State?

November 14, 2011 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising, Planning

It has been a week since the Penn State child rape scandal broke, and I’ve been stewing in my emotions like most of you. There are so many aspects to this story, and it never dawned on me that any of these many storylines fit within the context of this non-profit blog until I read this quote from Moody’s in Forbes on Friday:

“Over the next several months, Moody’s will evaluate the potential scope of reputational and financial risk arising from these events. While the full impact of these increased risks will only unfold over a period of years, we will also assess the degree of near and medium term risks to determine whether to downgrade the current Aa1 rating. We will monitor possible emerging risks emanating from potential lawsuits/settlements, weaker student demand, declines in philanthropic support, changes in state relationship and significant management or governance changes.”

OMG . . . this story is so big that it blinded me to the fact that Penn State is a non-profit organization belonging to the higher education portion of the sector. Once this realization hit me, I saw the story from a whole different perspective. Here are some of the thoughts that ran through my head:

I wonder what it must be like for a board volunteer to sit on that board right now with all that liability hang over the university’s head?
I wonder what the fundraising professionals must be doing to prepare for and mitigate the impact this scandal will likely have on its resource development program?
I wonder what university staff must be doing to minimize the impact this scandal will likely have on volunteer, booster and alumni program recruiting?
How does a scandal like this affect the university’s strategic plan, and what are they doing to adjust their plans and factor in this new head wind?
How much money will this scandal cost the university in lawsuits, increased insurance premiums, philanthropic losses and an adjusted bond rating?

After processing all of these questions, it dawned on me that ALL NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS ARE PENN STATE and this is a “clarion call” for all non-profit agencies to take action immediate!

Take action? Huh? What are you talking about Erik?

Regardless of how big or small your agency is, this scandal should strongly motivate you and your board to immediately take action on development of a crisis management plan. No one ever thinks that tragedy will strike. It is always something that happens to other non-profit organizations. And when it happens your world changes in a blink of an eye.

Penn State administration didn’t see this coming. One day they were on top of the non-profit world, and in a flash they are looking at a financial catastrophe (not to mention the human collateral damage done by the action and inaction of just a few men).

The non-profit organizations in Joplin, Missouri couldn’t have predicted a devastating tornado. One day their agency was there, and the next day they were gone.

The non-profit sector is naturally chaotic because most agencies are under-resourced. One person is typically asked to do multiple jobs. There never seems to be enough time to do those necessary capacity building things like preparing for future crisis. In a word, most non-profits are “reactive” and not “proactive,” which is typically our undoing when disaster strikes. So, take a moment to ask yourself these questions:

Is my agency’s Director & Officer insurance up-to-date? When is the last time we looked at whether or not we have enough coverage?
Who is our organization’s spokesperson in the event of a crisis?
Do we have a “crisis team” that can be activated in the event of tragedy? Are there a diversity of people on that team (e.g. lawyer, psychologist, PR professional, board members, staff, etc)? Do they know they’re on that team? When is the last time this group went through an orientation looking at the “what if” types of questions?
When is the last time staff reviewed your agency’s disaster contingency plans? Do you even have those plans in writing?

I encourage you to read this great blog post by Joanne Fritz at about.com titled “Top 5 Tips for Effective Nonprofit Crisis Planning“. It is a good to place to start as you use this national news story to motivate your board of directors to take action around developing a plan and putting systems in place to deal with whatever lurks ahead for you on the path of life.

Look at it this way . . . developing a crisis management plan could be a great cultivation or stewardship opportunity for certain fundraising prospects or existing donors to your organization.

If you look at this project as “one more thing that you don’t have time to do,” then it will be a burden and likely something that sinks to the bottom of your task list. If you look at it as an opportunity, then I suspect good things will happen for you and your agency.

Does your agency have a written plan? What is in that plan? How often do you review that plan? Is your plan posted online? If so, would you share that hyperlink with other readers of this blog so they can see a sample?

Please take a moment to answer one or more of these questions using the comment box below. It will only take a minute or two out of your very busy schedule and it could make a difference for another agency. If you don’t have time to comment, then click the forward button on your email and send this post to another non-profit professional who you care about and tell them that it isn’t too late to prepare for the apocalypse. After all, we can all all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Nothing up my sleeve! What about yours?

November 11, 2011 DonorDreams Fundraising

I started this week off by talking about government funding for non-profit organizations and how it might not be all that it appears to be. We transitioned mid-week into a discussion about executive compensation and now we’re ending the week totally focused on non-profit transparency. These topics are all related and go together as well as peanut butter and jelly. However, the issue of non-profit transparency still seems to be a murky subject for many of us including me.

What is transparency? How far should a non-profit organization go with transparency (e.g. should the executive director tatoo their salary on their forehead)? What are the best ways to share a large volume of organizational information if it wanted to be 100% transparent? I don’t know about you, but the more I think about this topic the more questions I seem to end up with.

I recently ran across a great blog post by GuideStar that dates back to November 2006. They asked their readers to define transparency, and I found a number of very interesting ideas. You should click the aforementioned link and read the post. Here is one of my favorite thoughts on this subject from one of their readers:

“. . . everything we do must be clearly understood and open to review and thoughtful discussion by all stakeholders to gain their complete confidence and respect.”

While getting a clear idea of what we’re talking about is important, it becomes equally important to wrap your arms around how to achieve organizational transparency. I’ve had a number of random thoughts about what I might do differently if I were on the frontline again as an executive director. Here are just a few of those ideas:

I would create a “transparency corner” of the agency’s website and post documents such as:
– most recent 990 tax return
– most recent financial audit and management letter
– a list of the agency’s Top 5 highest paid employees with their salaries and value of their
benefits package published
– board roster with contact information for each volunteer and a copy of the agency’s
whistleblower policy
– regularly updated program outcomes data and impact report
– updated financial dashboard that illustrates the current financial health of the organization
– most recent copy of the strategic plan along with a regularly updated scorecard that reports
on progress towards implementation
– if the organization is accredited, then a copy of the documentation from the last accreditation
visit (or if you’re a Boys & Girls Club a copy of the Club’s most recent SOE assessment from the national office)
– a list of government grants, program deliverable associated with those grants, program
outcomes data linked to those deliverables, and a way for the average citizen to contact the governmental agency
administering that grant to report questionable activity
Everyone seems to have a newsletter nowadays with an “Executive Director’s corner. I would focus every one of those “corners” on a different aspect of organizational transparency.
I would publish an “annual report” every year (even it is wasn’t glossy) and include a wide variety of transparency topics such as a list of people who support your agency; a thumbnail picture of how revenues and expense breakout; a snapshot of who the agency serves, a list of the organization’s biggest accomplishments in the last year; and much more.
I would produce and mail a quarterly “Community Impact Report” to ALL donors that answers the big picture questions of: “What are you doing with my money? What results is my charitable investment achieving? What have you learned and plan on doing differently?”

I am confident that this list can endlessly go on and on and one. So, I am going to stop here. However, I would encourage you to use the comment box below to answer one or both of these questions: 1) How do you define “transparency”? and 2) What additional transparency idea do you have that should be added to the list above (or what idea from this list should be removed)?

Please take a moment to weigh-in with your thoughts and opinions. It is just 60 seconds of your time and it could make a difference in another readers’ agency. Remember, we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Magic words? Be ‘transparent’ and ask to be held ‘accountable’

November 4, 2011 DonorDreams nonprofit, Planning

When I think of non-profit organizations who embark upon a strategic planning process, I usually get a mental picture of Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear standing on that bed post proclaiming “To infinity and beyond!” However, in my experience, many non-profit organizations jump and their results are not nearly as good.

What I am referring to is the phenomenon of: engaging stakeholders . . . building consensus around vision/goals/objectives/action steps . . . writing the plan . . . approving the plan . . . putting the plan on the shelf and letting it die a dusty death.

So, the question being begged here is: “What do non-profits leaders (board and staff) need to do in order to bring their plans to life and avoid that ‘dusty death’?”

The simple and straightforward answer can be captured in two words:

Transparency

and

Accountability

In a nutshell, “transparency” means that everyone can see your plan including: who has agreed to what, where, when, why and how. “Accountability” means that everyone can see your measurement indicators and how well (or not so well) you are doing at accomplishing the various aspects of your plan.

I love what my college alma mater — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — has done in the area of transparency with their strategic plan. Click here to check out how they’ve put everything on the internet for alumni, faculty, students, parents of students, residents of Urbana and Champaign, and especially donors to view.

I also like what Binghamton University did in the area of accountability with their online strategic planning dashboard. Click here to see that dashboard tool.

So, if you find yourself saying “Well, those are large university institutions and we’re different and unique,” let me help you bring these ideas into focus for your unique situation. The following is a short list of questions I encourage you to ask yourself about your specific non-profit situation:

Do I want my plans to be implemented or do I want them to sit on the shelf and collect dust?
Do I need other people to help with plan implementation or am I OK with doing it all myself?
Do the donors who support my organization deserve to see how well (or not well) we are doing with implementing the plan they helped create and pay for?

If you answered “YES” to these questions, then I encourage you to pull that dusty plan off the shelf, identify the measurements and indicators you likely built into the plan, and invest in creating tools like dashboard or scorecards that easily communicate implementation progress (or hire someone who knows how to do it . . . aka an external consultant). Once that tool is developed, post it online and integrate it into all of your committee and board meetings. To quote a number of very famous people who all take credit for this expression:

“What gets measured, gets done!”

These ideas don’t just apply to strategic planning. You can employ the ideas of accountability and transparency to your resource development plan, annual campaign plan, marketing plan, business plan, etc etc etc.

There is a whole flip side to this blog post pertaining to “measuring the right things to get the right results,” but let’s save that discussion for another time.

What is stopping your agency from being bold and asking donors to hold you accountable for achieving your plans? How do you share your currently organizational progress with your donors, supporters and board volunteers? Can you use the comment box below to share examples of how you are transparent and ask others to hold you accountable? If you use online resources to accomplish these objectives, would you please include links to those examples in your comment so we can all see it?

Please take 30 seconds to weigh-in with a comment. We can and should all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Hey Mom, non-profits can have cavities too!

November 3, 2011 DonorDreams Fundraising, resource development

Last Monday, I made that dreaded trip to see the dentist. I am proud to say I have no cavities; however, I need to apparently stop biting my cheeks and grinding my teeth. While I am proud of my oral hygiene, the big news is that my dentist has gotten very good at stewarding his clients.

Right about now, I suspect that many of you are blinking at the screen and thinking something like: “Huh? A for-profit dentist is stewarding his clients like a non-profit organization stewards its donors? Whatcha talking about, Erik!”

This is what I am talking about:

A few weeks before my appointment I received a newsletter in my mailbox from the dentist. Of course, the newsletter contained some articles about dental services he provides. However, there was also interesting reading about the growing body of research between dental hygiene and heart disease as well as oral cancers and HPV. I walked away from that newsletter feeling better about my semi-annual investment in my mouth. Ah-ha . . . STEWARDSHIP!
By the time I got home from my dentist appointment, there were already two emails sitting in my inbox from my dentist. The first email thanked me for visiting and asked me to take an online survey. The rationale was that he values my business and wants to continue providing high quality service. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but . . . ah-ha . . . STEWARDSHIP!
The second email invited me to join his “online community” where members are able to: receive email appointment reminders; request appointments online; receive special announcements; write a review; refer a friend; watch a YouTube video of him talking about the overall health-ROI associated with investing in your mouth. I was directed to his website. I was directed to his Facebook page. I was directed to his Twitter account. OMG . . . this isn’t just STEWARDSHIP, but it was electronic stewardship (ala ePhilanthropy for non-profits).

Back in the old days, dentists used to clean your teeth and you wouldn’t hear from them again for another 6-months when someone called to remind you about your upcoming appointment. This got me thinking about the number of non-profit agencies out there who take a donor’s charitable contribution, fire out a generic computer generated recognition letter, and then do nothing until it is time to ask for the next gift.

Hmmmm . . . if my dentist can evolve, then so can many of those non-profit organizations who are still engaging in “transactional fundraising”.

What is your agency doing to enhance the “donor experience” and improve stewardship efforts? Have you ever considered sending donors a survey immediately after their solicitation to ask about the quality of their solicitation experience? Think about it for a moment . . . it starts to sound less and less silly the more you ponder it. Are you keeping your eyes open for how other non-profits and for-profits are changing the way they steward their donors and clients? What are you seeing?

Please use the comment box below and weigh-in with a your thoughts and observations. It doesn’t have to be a long comment . . . 30 seconds will suffice. We can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health (both non-profit health and dental health)!!!

How much Klout does your nonprofit have?

November 1, 2011 DonorDreams Fundraising

This morning I awoke to a present in my email inbox. My good friend and fellow-blogger at One World One Plate, Marissa Garza, gave me a +K point in the topic area of “non-profit” on Klout. I know some of you may be wondering “What is Klout?” In a nutshell, it is a website that measures your influence in the social media world through the use of a complicated algorithm. There are a number of different measurement instruments including an “overall Klout score” based on a scale of 1 to 100. My current score is 42 and Marissa’s +K point helped bump my score up a little.

I know what some of you are thinking . . . this is a passing fad . . . this is a subjective measurement gimmick . . . or even “uh-oh” another social media thing to suck my time.

My response to all of these reactions is: “Let’s not be so quick to rush to judgment on this one”. After playing with Klout for a few months, here are a few conclusions I’ve reached:

Many non-profit friends ask me how they should measure the “return” on their resource development investment when it comes to social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, blogging, etc). Well, Klout is the first tool I’ve seen that begins to answer this question. So, now non-profits can invest their resource development time, energy, and money with peace of mind that they can measure the return.
Going beyond the idea of measuring ROI, Klout gives non-profits a barometer when it comes to social media efforts (e.g. similar to analytics tools attached to websites, blogs, and email marketing services). If what you’re Tweeting or posting on Facebook or blogging isn’t being looked at and shared, then your Klout score will reflect it. So, as your Klout score drops, you’ll be able to stop doing those things that aren’t being well received and start Tweeting and posting other things that might be better received. It is kind of like “being in a donor’s head” . . . something every fundraising professional has periodically wished for.
Going beyond ROI and measurement, I think I’ve become enamoured by Klout mostly because it allows you see other people’s and agency’s Klout scores. While this site probably appeals to the social media voyeurism in all of us, I encourage you to embrace this feeling. So, one non-profit can look for another non-profit who has a higher Klout score. Once they find someone who is similar to them (e.g. budget size, approach to resource development, social media savvy, etc) and who has a higher Klout score, then they have the ability to start benchmarking that agency. I oftentimes end my blogs by saying something like “We can all learn from each other”. Well, Klout embraces this idea and I must admit that I LOVE IT. Click here to read a post by NonProfit Nate and see who the top non-profits are on Twitter based on their Klout scores.

OK . . . I am done braggin’ on Klout and I encourage you to sign up (because it is FREE). You don’t need to go wild from the start. I know how busy many of you are. So, just sign-up and visit your Klout page once per week for approximately 30 seconds. Watch your Klout score (and other various metrics) and marinade on what you see happening. When you are ready to start doing something about the numbers, your “inner fundraising voice” will tell you.

You might also want to bookmark some of these links and circle back from time-to-time and read up on Klout:

Is your agency dabbling in social media? If so, what are your objectives? How are you measuring your success? Can you share any anecdotal stories about donors you acquired online who have since migrated into other areas of your resource development program? What kind of things are you Tweeting and posting? What material seems to be well-received?

Please weigh-in using the comment box below. We can all learn from each other. Please take 30 seconds to share.

Here is to your health! Oh yeah . . . I am not beneath begging my readers for some more +K points. 😉 Please?

BOO: Halloween is a Non-Profit Holiday

October 31, 2011 DonorDreams Fundraising

I just love this time of the year. The temperature outside is lovely. Trees are turning colors and putting on a show. Charity is coming into focus for millions of Americans. Last year approximately 174 million Americans donated approximately $50 billion to charities during the holiday season. While most resource development people will tell you this all starts with Thanksgiving, I contend that Halloween is when the starters gun goes off in my head.

I was reminded this past Saturday afternoon when two kids came to my door holding a small orange box and asked if I’d consider donating some pocket change to UNICEF. Not only do I have fond memories of doing the same thing as a child, but I realized that it might have been the very first time I ever solicited anyone for anything on behalf of a child.

My passion for charity and professional career path might have started all because of a UNICEF box more than 35 years ago.

This realization got me thinking . . . perhaps the year-end charitable giving season starts with Halloween and not Thanksgiving. If I am “stretching” this point, then consider this thought: “Perhaps, Halloween offers non-profit organizations a great opportunity to position itself for the season of charity.

Halloween can be a stewardship opportunity. In fact, non-profit organizations can turn most holidays into stewardship opportunities for their donors as I wrote in my post titled “Stewardship opportunity on Labor Day” which is one of my better read posts of all time. Go figure!

Here are just a few thoughts I have for how your agency can use Halloween to frame your case for support during the holiday season:

Host a Halloween costume party for your top 100 donors. Don’t solicit them. Just invite them to come to a free event, have some fun, and hear a few short testimonials about how your agency is using their investment from earlier this year to do good things. End everything by saying you hope they will consider reinvesting with a contribution to your year-end holiday mail appeal that is sure to appear in their mailbox in a few weeks.
Organize a phone-a-thon where volunteers call donors to whom you plan on mailing your holiday mail appeal. Use a “trick-or-treat” script that talks about how your non-profit doesn’t believe in “tricks” which is why you are calling with a Halloween “treat,” and then read a small snippet of outcomes measurement data that you’ve recently been collected. Thank the donor for helping your agency achieve that specific accomplishment and then end by saying you hope they will consider re-investing when your year-end holiday mail appeal arrives in their mailbox in a few weeks.
Simply organize a Halloween theme inspired stewardship mailing (e.g. a ghoulish looking impact report). Don’t ask for any money. Just communicate some return on investment information and thank them for their previous charitable contribution. This can softly frame your case for support in donors minds just a few weeks before you send a solicitation mailing.

As I said in my Labor Day blog post . . .

Many non-profit organizations struggle with stewarding their donors and instead become solicitation machines (which ironically burns out donors and creates a cycle of turnover). When I’ve talked to my non-profit friends and asked WHY, the most common answer I’ve heard is that time is a limited resource.

So, take a look at your stewardship calendar and ask yourself how you can do a better job of aligning these activities with holidays.

Does your non-profit organization have any fun and effective stewardship activities and best practices wrapped around holidays? If so, please use the comment box to share because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health! And oh yeah . . . BOO . . . Happy Halloween!!!

Here is to your health!