What Really Frightens Me…

It’s Halloween, but here’s what really frightens me…

1.) Declining donor participation rates.

2.) Development officers who are in the office more than 3 days a week.

3.) Direct mail appeals that don’t encourage online gifts.

4.) Trustees who don’t give to the Annual Fund.

5.) Managers who don’t measure ROI.

6.) VPs who don’t meet with their Annual Fund Director (at least) monthly.

7.) Fundraisers who doubt the power of social media.

8.) People who get offended when you ask them to support a worthy cause.

9.) Phonathon callers who don’t ask for email addresses.

10.) Annual Funds where 90% of the money comes from less than 10% of the donors.

The “Obligations” of Gift Club Membership

Last week, I spent a long afternoon listening to a discussion about gift clubs.  At the beginning of the meeting, everyone was asked how gift clubs could be better leveraged to increase giving.  The consensus was that members needed to be offered better benefits. 

Next came hours of brainstorming, scribbling on post-it notes, and summarizing concepts on a white board.  The list of ideas was long and not terribly original.  The first suggestion was recognition in an annual donor publication.  “Or do we already do that?” asked one senior manager.  Then came countless other ideas (most of which had already been implemented) including invitations to special events, names on a plaque, a subscription to a newsletter, and breakfast with the President. 

Things did get a little more creative when someone suggested offering members a dedicated development officer.  We’ll call it our “concierge service.”  The name was a nice touch, but most agreed it was really just a marketing tactic.  And so went the rest of the meeting, one attempt after another to come up with something new and exciting to offer donors in return for their generosity.

I came away thinking that an important point had been missed.  It’s not what donors get from us, but when we expect from them, that needs to be clarified.  Good philanthropy isn’t the result of an outstanding donor benefits program, just as good corporate leadership isn’t simply the result of good CEO pay. You only have to look to Wall Street over the past several years to see that.

In your next meeting see if the group can list five things you expect from donors.  Make it something you wouldn’t be afraid to post on your organization’s website.  Yes, one of them should be financial support, but don’t be afraid to explain the obligations that come with leadership including time, creativity, and shared relationships.  

I’m sure your donors are smart enough to figure out the benefits of philanthropy on their own.

10 Social Media Resources for Fundraisers

This month’s issue of Tech News features a great article by Adam Louie entitled Making Sense of Social Media.  Take 15min out of your day to read this article and familize yourself with these important tools.

• Firstgiving.com: users can create fundraising projects for you and send emails to friends and family to get them to donate.
• Change.org: Organizations can make profiles, blogs, post videos and take donations.
• Razoo.com: Online Donation site. No processing fees.
• Amazee.com: Online donation site. Users create projects to collaborate and donate money towards.
  Ning.com and Wikia.com Make your own social network site.
• Facebook.com: The most popular Social Network site today.
• LinkedIn.com: Is a great tool for finding companies and other professionals.
• Twitter.com: Broadcasts updates frequently and quickly – all in 140 characters.
• Mozes.com: Pushes your Twitter updates to cell phones as SMS text messages. Great for coordinating one-off events and volunteers.
• WordPress and Typepad: Easy to use blogging platforms. WordPress is free and open source, Typepad is free with the option to pay for upgrading. Both publish to RSS.
• Mailchimp and iContact: Both are mass mail programs you can use for free with the option to pay for more features.

Matt Damon & The Power of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

There are two ways to construct an annual giving program.

The first is to be staff centric.  Here you hire talented staff, assign them a portfolio of prospects, empower them build relationships with donors, and support them with marketing programs including direct mail, phonathons, and e-solicitations.  The benefit of this model is that you have a lot of control.  Your team determines who, how, and when to solicit.  The problem with this model, however, is that it’s more about asking for money and less about building a community.

The second way to be volunteer driven.  Here you hire talented staff and deploy them to support volunteers who, in turn, construct their own strategies for soliciting friends, family, and colleagues.  The challenge with this model is that you rely on others to do the most important work.  The benefit, however, is that peer-to-peer solicitations can be incredibly powerful.   

For a humorous example peer-to-peer fundraising’s power click here to watch a clip from last week’s season finale of the HBO series Entourage.  See how guest star Matt Damon solicits fellow actor Vincent Chase for a gift to an important children’s charity, and how a little peer pressure can go a long way.  WARNING: the language in this clip is only for mature audience.

What If Half Of Your Donors Didn’t Show Up?

With flu season near, concern over a possible H1N1 (or Swine Flu) outbreak prompted Harvard’s School of Public Health to conduct a study to determine how prepared businesses would be in the case of a pandemic.  They found that two-thirds of businesses would not be able to maintain normal operations if half their workers were out sick.

So what would you do if half of your donors didn’t show up?

The current recession has reminded us that nonprofits, like other businesses, are not immune to economic downturns.  And while many organizations struggle to raise money, their challenge has in many cases been compounded by a drop in donor head counts.

Annual Funds often highlight the importance of a broad base of support.  Yes, this means securing support at all levels of the gift pyramid.  But it also means engaging a donor population that is diverse in other ways including age, gender, interests, and geography. 

While diversity provides an organization with a dynamic and flexible source of donors, it also reduces the risk that comes with depending on one kind of patron.  Take time to know what your community looks like.  Create lists and run counts, and do so frequently.  Consider what percentage each characteristic represents in your entire donor universe. 

Understanding the characteristics of your current supporters will always help you identify new ones, but understanding where you are under-represented will help you build the broadest base of support.

Online Strategies in New Orleans, Nov 4-6th

Next month (November 4-6), I’ll be serving as a faculty member at the 2009 CASE Online Strategies Conference in New Orleans. 

Attendees will learn about the most progressive tactics and important issues in online fundraising today including social media, email marketing, user experience design, strategy development, program management, and outcomes assessment. 

The results of CASE’s recent online giving survey will be presented during one of four general sessions and elective sessions will be available on two different tracks: strategy and tactics.  Small group sessions will provide an opportunity to ask questions and discuss individual challenges with faculty and colleagues.

Click here for more information.

Happy Birthday Google!

Google turned 11 years old yesterday.  It’s hard to imagine how, in a little over a decade, one company was able to have such an enormous impact on the way people search for and manage information, shop, travel, read, and view images. 

As a technology firm, Google has stayed on the cutting edge.  As a media agency, it has revolutionized advertising.  As a service provider, it has changed the way businesses solve problems.  But what has Google done for philanthropy?

The answer is “a lot.”  Here are just a few examples of how Google has served the nonprofit sector in the 21st century:

• Google Checkout for Nonprofits – Provides fundraising organizations of all sizes with an easy solution for collecting and processing gifts online.
• Google Grants - Awards free advertising to select charities allowing them to promote their websites through search engine optimization and making it easier for donors to find great organizations to support.
• Google.org – This tax paying philanthropic arm of Google has already contributed more than $100 million toward important causes including green energy and world health.

Thanks Google!  Happy Birthday!

The Benefit of “No”

Fundraisers often think that the end goal in cultivating a donor is to hear them say “yes” after a gift solicitation.  But while “yes” may be nice to hear, “no” is often overlooked as good news.

When a donor says “yes” it can be the beginning of a long process of clarifying intentions, interests, and expectations.  How much will they want to restrict their gift?  Will it relieve existing expenses or add costs?  What conditions or stipulations are tied to their gift?  Will they make the entire gift this year or will they schedule payments over time?  Who will be responsible for stewarding the donor over time?

But when a donor says “no”, it’s absolute.  It may not be what you had hoped to hear, but it let’s you know exactly how they feel about that particular program, project, or cause.  It tells you something about that person’s values and interests so that you no longer have to waste your time (or their time) discussing things that don’t interest them.  “No” helps you know your donor better.

Like a sculpture artist chipping at clay one piece of a time, “no” helps a fundraiser eliminate those things that don’t belong.  Donor cultivation is about asking questions and listening to the answers so that, over time, you’re able to find a donor and a need that are the best fit for one another.

Philanthropy’s Dirty Little Secret

I recently listened to the Provost of one of America’s top research universities give a lecture on active learning.  A renown neuroscientist, he described how students today (with unlimited access to information through the internet) are no longer satisfied to simply study a particular subject.  They want to do things.

They’re not interested in just reading about a foreign city, they want to go there.  They don’t want to look at pictures of an MRI machine, they want to use one.  They don’t want to listen to someone talk about money, they want to make real investments.  The dirty little secret of learning, he said, is that without actually doing things we forget.

Philanthropy has a similar secret.

To a donor, making a gift is an experience.  Too often, though, it gets treated like a transaction.  Their relationship with your organization likely started long before they received your solicitation and it shouldn’t end when you send them for a receipt. 

Active donors are more likely to renew their financial support in the future, so don’t be afraid to ask them to volunteer their time, solicit their friends, or promote your organization on Facebook.  Donor retention problems are rarely the result of not soliciting donors enough.  It’s usually the result of not asking them to do enough.

Beyond making a gift, what do you ask your donors to do?

Don’t Be Afraid To Lose Control

When my daughter was born I couldn’t wait to tell the world.  

I knew that my siblings would be looking-out for an email, that my parents would be waiting by their phone, and that my friends would be expecting a text message.  I faced a complicated marketing mix and an audience that was nearly impossible to prioritize.  But my biggest challenge was I insisted on being the messenger. 

First, I emailed my brother from my mobile phone.  Then, while I fumbled to send more messages at the expense of not spending time with my new baby, I received a surprising influx of congratulatory messages from people who I hadn’t yet been able to contact.  My brother, it turns out, had immediately posted the news on Facebook.  It only took minutes for it to be viewed dozens of people who shared networks with my brother and me.  I felt frustrated.  Not because of outcome, but because I wasn’t in control.

Fundraisers have a tremendous chance to use networks through social media to spread good news about their organization.  Unfortunately, the need for control can compromise this opportunity by wasting important time and resources. 

Give up some control and you may find you have more time to do the really important things.