Archive for the ‘100 Things We've Learned’ Category
Posted by Gayle Gifford on October 26, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Good reads
Sometimes a little reading is a good place to start.
Staff or directors of nonprofit organizations come to us every day seeking our help to improve their functioning. And while I would never discourage anyone from that, I also encourage my clients and prospective clients to do some reading on their own. (Maybe it’s because one of my best friends and my next door neighbors are all librarians!)
I happen to learn a whole lot from reading. It’s one thing that I wish I had much, much more time to do. Thankfully, with Twitter, I now have hundreds of helpers who are out there looking for good reads that they can recommend to their followers. (You can follow me @gaylegifford)
I often start retreats or planning sessions I facilitate with a good discussion about an interesting article that the group was asked to read in advance of the session.
There is lots of really, really interesting stuff out there. So let me just share a tiny few this Monday.
Founders.
I jut got off the phone with the founder of a relatively new nonprofit organization. While the conversation had little direct connection to founder-ness, it did remind me of two of my favorite articles about founders. Both are written from the perspective of colleagues who really honor the extraordinary role of founders, unlike some of the other pieces I’ve read that treat founders as a disease to be cured.
Nonprofit Funding and Financial Issues
There is so much to recommend here, but take a look at anything from Clara Miller of the Nonprofit Finance Fund. I find myself frequently recommending ” The Looking Glass World of Nonprofit Money.”
I’m also very much transfixed by The Bridgespan Group’s study “How Nonprofits Get Really Big” that raises lots of questions about the doctrine of diversification of nonprofit revenue sources.
Program Planning
If you haven’t yet, you’ve got to take a look at The Stages of Change model developed by James O. Prochaska, Ph.D. et al at the University of Rhode Island. While I could have titled this section Making Change, I really think that anyone designing programming should take a look at this five stage model of change before leaping in.
Okay, just a few of my favorites for a Monday. Care to share some of yours?
(Or course, we’ve got a whole library of reads in the Articles sections of our website.)
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on October 21, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Communicating, Effectiveness, Public engagement
What makes for a genuine process of engaging the public in policy-making?
After a summer of shout fests around health care reform, I’d like to suggest that the typical “public hearing” or even “town hall” process simply encourages this way of behaving.
Most of the problems that we face are pretty complex. In our current adversarial way of policy making, there will always be winners and losers rather than win/wins.
I’ve experienced countless public hearings where, as a member of the public, I have been frustrated and angry at the lack of adequate time to share complex views. Standing at a microphone with just 1-3 minutes to make a comment and with no ability to have a thoughtful conversation with the other side — I can’t imagine what else could be designed to make audience members feel frustrated and angry.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The 7 Characteristics of Meaningful Public Engagement
What is necessary to ensure that the public is meaningfully consulted in policy making?
In our primer Meaningful Participation, an activist’s guide to collaborative policy making which you can download for free here, we set out 7 principles that need to be included in any process.
For citizen consultation to be meaningful, it must be:
1. Broad-based. That is, the process must truly include the full range of interests and positions that are represented. As the Quakers like to say, “everyone owns a piece of the truth.”
2. Open. Anyone who is interested should be aware of and understand how they can contribute and participate. They should feel welcomed. Meeting places should be accessible and well located. Meeting formats should be accessible and understandable.
3. Truthful. It is absolutely essential to ensuring the good faith of the participants that everyone acts in good faith. Accurate information needs to be contributed and analyzed. Important data, even if contradictory to your own views, should be included.
4. Responsive. For people to contribute civilly and in good faith, they need to know that their opinions are in fact being listened to and that they might have the ability to actually help create a better outcome.
5. Deliberative. Whatever the process is, it needs to provide enough time for everyone involved to be able to develop a shared understanding of the problem, to create a common vision of what could be, to be creative about options and to have time to thoughtfully reflect on possible solutions. One shot public hearings with citizen comment aren’t set up for this. People expect to have to demonstrate and shout to get their voices heard. There are better ways to talk to each other.
6. Fair. All participants need to know that they are equally valued and have equal access and input. Not just the highly paid lobbyists, but ordinary citizens.
And finally, the process needs to be
7. Competent. That is, it should result in the best decision being made because hard data was examined, real examples of solutions in action were examined, evidence-based practices were considered.
Whether you are a policy maker or a citizen advocate, you are going to need to work really hard to ensure that the process of developing major policies includes all of these elements. But it is truly worth it.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on October 19, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Big ideas, Nonprofit Highlights, World News
“The Humanities make us RICH.” Or so goes the sentiment on my morning tea mug.
October is once again National Arts and Humanities Month.It just so happens that I’ve been thinking a lot about the value of the humanities over the last few weeks.
What are the humanities?
According to the National Endowment for the Humanities, as described in the 1965 National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act:
“The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.”
The humanities are essential to Cause & Effect Inc.
In an evaluation of our work, we asked a colleague to interview a number of our clients. Our clients told her that one of the things that they appreciated about working with us was that we “got it.”
While clients meant our understanding of their organizational challenges, they also mentioned our ability to appreciate and comprehend the complexity of the societal issues that they faced.
In college, I was a geography major (concentration in urban social) with a strong sociology background. Jon was a history major with literature right behind. You might say we studied the humanities.
And while there are days that I long for more of an engineering or science background, I have always been grateful for the systems perspective that college studies helped me develop. I was constantly challenged to consider the interrelationships between political systems, markets, history, culture, art, climate, habitat, food production and more. To this day, we bring that approach to our work with clients – whether we are writing, facilitating strategic planning, or framing a strong fund development program.
The humanities provide the tools that help us make meaning of our world and our lives.
Just over the last few weeks, it seems that I’ve been especially reminded how the humanities manifest in our daily lives.
Last month, Lizzi Ross, the former director of adult programming at the ICA in Boston, spoke to the students in the class I teach at Brown. In describing how she went about designing programming to enable us to appreciate art that isn’t pretty pictures, Lizzi explained that contemporary art requires us to call on our knowledge of history, contemporary culture, literature, art, science and more.
“Ah, the humanities,” I thought.
Last Wednesday, I attended “What Now? 1932 – The Highlander Center Opens Its Doors,” a live taping from Action Speaks Radio. The premise of Action Speaks is to take an “under appreciated day in American History” and look at it through a contemporary lens. That show talked about the popular education approach of the Highlander Research and Education Center, which encourages activists from multiple walks of life to explore their personal experiences and connect them to larger historical and societal issues. “That’s the humanities in action,” I whispered to my neighbor. Rosa Parks, Andrew Young, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are just a few of the “graduates” of Highlander.
A love of the humanities can be demonstrated beyond textbooks and scholarly works.
Tonight I’m heading to the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities’ celebration of the humanities and their contribution to life in RI. I’m especially excited as I sat on the committee that nominated tonight’s awardees. A lifetime achievement award goes to cartoonist Don Bousquet, whose humorous cartoons have been lampooning Rhode Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on September 28, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Communicating, Fundraising, Strategic Thinking
What do kaleidoscopes and successful fundraisers have in common?
I hadn’t thought about kaleidoscopes in years until I received one as a gift for presenting a workshop at a fundraising conference. Instead of creating designs from shapes embedded in the kaleidoscope itself, this one made fascinating patterns out of whatever you were looking at.
So what do kaleidoscopes and great fundraisers have in common?
Both are really good at creating many beautiful new designs from one starting point.
In this challenging economic climate, nonprofit fundraisers have to be as resourcesful as they possibly can be to make better and stronger connections with donors. As fundraisers, we are always on the lookout for donors whose dreams and desires are a perfect match with our organization.
Sometimes that match is pretty straightforward, as when a loved one is stricken by a disease and family members give to the organization that is working to find a cure. Or the guidelines of a foundation are a perfect fit with our programs.
Often, however, the match isn’t immediately obvious and requires us to do some mental stretching. A very philanthropic individual I knew gave money to a figure skating association, a community service organization, a library, and other seemingly unrelated institutions. Was there a common thread? Yes, he loved young people and gave to programs that helped them flourish.
Resourceful development professionals have the uncanny talent of making lots of successful matches – from the easy fits to the mental stretches. The ability to see the many facets of our organization and our donor’s interests – like looking through a kaleidoscope – can open many more donor checkbooks.
Here are a few tips for developing your own kaleidoscope vision.
1. Listen to see what your donors care about.
I can’t say enough about listening. When we get too wrapped up in pitching our organization, we can’t hear what a donor wants.
The executive director of a youth service organization wanted to upgrade a corporate donor from a modest in-kind gift to a major sponsorship. At an exploratory meeting with the CEO, the executive director spent the better part of five minutes pitching the organization and one particular sponsorship opportunity.
He wasn’t igniting any interest.
The development director then asked this corporate CEO a simple question: “What community projects are you working on?”
The CEO opened up. He explained how his company was exploring the idea of building playgrounds in inner city neighborhoods – something the youth service organization had a history of doing, but hadn’t mentioned. Suddenly, a match seemed inevitable. The company was excited to provide a corporate sponsorship that included building a city playground – and eventually went on to become one of the organization’s biggest supporters.
2. Look deep into your existing programs.
Just like a prospective donor, you’ll be more passionate about your organization if you see the work first hand. You’ll be better informed too. It’s hard to comprehend the complexity of your organization if you don’t get up close and personal with your program staff, your projects, and especially the people you serve.
A successful fundraiser I know recently took a position as the major gifts director for a hospital. In her first few weeks on the job, she arranged an intensive training program for herself:
“I wanted to meet everyone and see EVERYTHING: operations, autopsies, the emergency room, even the kitchen. I asked hundreds of questions so I could know how we made a difference and what our needs were. Not only did I feel more confident I could explain our work to a prospective donor, but I also knew I’d be better at finding giving matches. An added benefit — because I showed that I cared, I made lots of friends on our staff who are now willing to help in fundraising when I need them.”
3. Look beyond the usual funding suspects.
Arts groups look for arts funders. Senior groups for donors to the elderly. But sometimes it makes sense to look beyond the category in which your organization falls.
A small neighborhood organization heard that the Environmental Protection Agency had funding available for urban environmental projects. As they weren’t an environmental group, they easily might have dismissed this particular funder.
But with some research, the group discovered the EPA had funded vacant lot clean-ups similar to the programs they were already running. With a bit more detective work they discovered that garbage dumped in vacant lots frequently contained materials that the EPA would consider pollutants or even hazardous waste.
By understanding that vacant lot dumping was as much an environmental problem as it was a community development one, they were able to get funding from EPA to develop a more comprehensive program to prevent illegal dumping and clean up vacant lots.
4. Be creative about seeing the connections.
If your vision is too narrow, it’s easy to overlook opportunities.
A statewide organization located in the capital city ran a number of fee-based education programs for school kids. A prospective business donor only funded projects in the northern town in which it was located.
At first glance, there didn’t seem to be the opportunity for a match. But with a little more exploration, the business was pleased to donate the program fee and busing costs of a local school so that three fifth-grade classrooms were able to participate in this education program.
5. See where you fit in the big picture.
Locally-based organizations and nonprofits in small population states often have a hard time attracting regional or national funders. But if you can put your work into a much bigger framework, you may open doors that looked closed at first.
For example, an AIDS service organization from a small east coast city was alerted to a request for proposals from the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Five grants would be awarded nationwide for prevention work with young people in minority communities.
At first this organization didn’t think they had a chance competing with major population centers like San Francisco or New York. But they knew they had one of the highest HIV infection rates in the U.S. and that many immigrants from countries with high incidences of AIDS settled there first before heading to big cities like NYC. By articulating their connection to the bigger picture, they were able to win one of the five grants.
6. Look at yourself through someone else’s eyes.
Have you seen the optical illusion of two faces and the vase? If you look at the image in black, it forms two profiles looking at one another. But if you look at the white space between the faces, you can see a vase. Some people see the faces right away but have a hard time seeing the vase. For others, it’s just the opposite.
A senior center had a small, drab thrift shop that didn’t raise much money. While it was located in a college town, the center never really considered it would be of interest to college students so it never bothered to connect.
When a new director was hired, she was able to see the possibilities in the thrift shop. She approached the fashion merchandising program at a local college and offered the thrift shop as a class project. The students were excited at the chance to gain some real merchandising experience and volunteered their time to design attractive new window and floor displays for the shop. (And of course, college students love second hand bargains.)
Not only did the thrift shop start raising a lot more money, but the students recruited their friends for other volunteer work at the senior center.
7. But don’t make it up.
While I urge you to be creative about finding new connections between potential donors and your organization, don’t try to turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear. It never benefits your organization, your donor or philanthropy to misrepresent the work you do. Don’t try to pass a program off as something it is not.
Your success in fundraising ultimately depends on your reputation as being worthy and trustworthy of support.
So get out those kaleidoscopes to start finding the possibility in your organization.
We invite you to share you stories of how you successfully reimagined your giving opportunities.
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You can find an email or printer ready version of this post in the Articles Section of our Tools for Change library. Just click here.
A version of this article first appeared in Contributions Magazine.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on September 18, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Communicating, Fundraising
Friday. 4 pm.
Fifty young people dressed in puffy red jackets, white t-shirts, khaki pants, and work boots were swapping partners in a crazy reinterpretation of ballroom dancing and musical chairs – and my prospective donor (also a prospective Advisory Board member) was right in there with them.
I’m at community meeting at one of the sites of City Year, the national youth service organization. During this end-of-week event, the youth service corps and professional staff reflect on their service work using City Year’s unique form, complete with its own language.
When the dancing stopped, Alicia rose to tell us her Ripple about a child she was tutoring who came up to her today to show off the first ‘A’ he had ever received.
After that, Sam shared a Moccasin, his edgy original poem about racism and poverty.
Jane and Lekisa proudly introduced their community hero, Anthony, the owner of a tiny neighborhood diner, who made sure the three men living on the street nearby got lunch and a hot cup of coffee every day.
By the time that Thuan told his life’s work about his journey from a street gang to his work on a community garden in the neighborhood, my prospective donor was salivating to learn how he could get involved.
Reframing fundraising
For most of our history, humans have relied on stories, rituals and symbols to make sense of the chaos and unpredictability of our world. Our creation stories illuminate the unexplainable. Fables and parables convey moral lessons. Rituals mark important life passages.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on September 9, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Effectiveness, Fundraising
My Top 10 Worst Reasons for Choosing a Development Director
It seems one of the hardest assignments in any organization is hiring the right person for the job. Many organizations report that finding a great director of development seems a daunting challenge.
Executive Directors or board members often confide to me that their last development director didn’t work out as well as they hoped. When I probe a little deeper into how they came to select that individual, I’m not surprised. Predictably, the decisions to hire the unsuccessful individuals were based on reasons that had little to do with the competencies for successful fundraisers.
As a cautionary service, I thought I’d share with you my top ten list of tempting, but ill-advised reasons for selecting your director of development.
Reason # 10. They wore a really nice suit.
Yes, a well-pulled together physical appearance is usually an indication that the candidate took the interview and the job seriously. But just because they dressed nice and sounded great, don’t rely on appearances. It is essential both in your interviewing and your reference checking that you verify they can do what they said they will.
Reason # 9. They showed up.
Don’t hire the best of the worst. If you haven’t found the right candidate yet, keep looking. Like any other industry, the job market for fundraising professionals expands and contracts. Sometimes it’s just a matter of timing. Try sending out your search materials again. If you continue to have trouble attracting good candidates, do some investigating to find out why. Is the job underpaid? Does your nonprofit have a poor reputation for the way it treats staff? Word gets around. If you are repelling good candidates, you’ve got to fix the problems before you’ll ever find the best person.
Reason # 8. They were referred by your cousin Selma.
While I would certainly give cousin Selma the courtesy of interviewing her referral, I wouldn’t base my hiring decisions on Selma’s say so. I wouldn’t use Selma as my only reference either — even if Selma was a big donor. It is absolutely essential that you put the needs of the nonprofit first in your recruiting effort. Can this person do the job? Take the time to find good candidates, interview well, and check many references.
Reason # 7. They worked at a bank.
I don’t know how this started, but there seems to be a belief in the nonprofit world that people who work around money automatically know how to raise money. (See also Reason #3).While your development director certainly needs to be financially savvy, that doesn’t necessarily mean a good financial manager is a good fundraiser. Often, it’s just the opposite — while we want our money managers to be on the conservative side, we want our fundraisers to be people-center individuals who will take some risks (within reason) in their drive to turn straw into gold.
Reason # 6. They used to sell real estate…or boats, or insurance or whatever.
Yes, one of the earmarks of a good director of development is the love of the “sale.” You should be looking for someone who isn’t afraid of cold calls, meeting new people, building relationships, closing gifts and keeping donors connected. But, don’t expect that someone with good sales skills can just walk into the job of a development director without technical training and support. There is a lot to know about fund development in the nonprofit world — the legal and tax laws of fundraising, proven fund development techniques, managing volunteers, budgeting and planning, and negotiating the complex relationships between program and fund development, to name a few.
Reason # 5. They are related to the Board president.
(Refer back to Reason # 8.) If you think Selma is tough, hiring the boss’s son or daughter is sure to muck up the distinctions between governance and management — no matter what side of that fence you sit on. To prevent this problem, many organizations have conflict of interest policies that prohibit the family of board members from seeking employment with them. Only you can decide if that’s the right Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on August 31, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned
” Mind. Hands. Heart.” “Learning. Work. Service.”
This triad is the foundation of the Warren Wilson College experience. One of my sons transferred into WWC this year and we had the good fortune a few weeks ago to attend one of the better convocations welcoming new students that we’ve been to — and we’ve experienced four now.
I kept pulling out my pad and pencil to jot down quotes like this one from Ian Robertson, the Dean of Work:
“Always exceed the expectations of your supervisor because then you will always work for yourself.”
You’ve got to love a college that has a Dean of Work.
Every student on campus works 15 hours a week with a work crew, regardless of family income. Students perform 80% of the campus jobs and their work enables the college to offer a tuition that, while still pricey, is much more reasonable than many private liberal arts colleges. Work experiences include the usual suspects like dining services and library, but students might also care for the farm animals, or work in the garden, drive a tractor, serve as plumbers and carpenters, or perform a myriad of communications, office or other administrative functions . WWC considers the learning that comes from doing a job well, carrying your fair share of the community load, and recognizing the value of every job as a critical part of its college experience.
WWC also expects each student to complete 100 hours of service over four years (pro rated for transfers). Service Learning takes students into the world, gives them a fresh perspective on classroom topics and enables students to become active players in creating social change and social justice.
What struck me particularly about this triad is that it is an apt description of our jobs here at Cause & Effect Inc. We are extremely fortunate to be able to have jobs that integrate work with service to our community. We never lose sight of the mission of our clients, because that’s the whole reason for our being. To help you create the change you want to see in the world.
There isn’t a day that goes by that we aren’t learning something new about our community, our nation, our world, our sector or even about ourselves.
A heartfelt thank you to all of our clients, our colleagues and everyone we’ve met along the way. We receive so much in return. Mind. Hands. and Heart.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on August 24, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Big ideas, Fundraising
“Take no more than your fair share.”
That was one definition of sustainability offered by Margo Flood, Executive Director of the Environmenal Leadership Center and Chief Sustainability Official at the new student plenary at Warren Wilson College last week. (One of our sons transferred there this year).
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that one of my great concerns is the concentration of the resources of the nonprofit sector in the hands of so few organizations. Fewer than 6% of US institutions hold more than 80% of the income and assets of the sector.
I’ve asked the question before “How much is enough? Philanthropic greed”
That’s why Ms. Flood’s definition resonated so strongly with me. What would happen if all philanthropic institutions held themselves to the standard of taking no more than their fair share. Perhaps more philanthropy, bequests, grants and government funding would flow to organizations that are just as worthy (maybe even more so) but without the class connections and fund development capacity that accrue to many of the largest institutions.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on July 14, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Big ideas, Good reads, Helpful sites, Research, Strategic Thinking
Today is definitely a web discovery kind of day. It started this afternoon when I received an email from The TCC Group heralding a new study they released called “The Sustainability Formula.”
The Sustainability Formula is based on an analysis of TCC’s Core Capacity Assessment Tool.
The formula is:
Leadership + Adaptability + Program Capacity = Sustainability.
I really liked this framework (though I think there might be a few missing pieces of the definition, for example, how about something around longevity? Or resilience as in – the ability to bounce back from adversity).
I’m working on a project now with the Rhode Island Foundation’s Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence that enlists an organization assessment tool by the Marguerite Casey Foundation that is framed around the 4 Core Capacities developed by TCC. So I was particularly interested in reading this report.
But my really amazing discovery was captured in one small paragraph at the bottom of page 2. It talked about nonprofit lifecycles and offered a framework that I hadn’t bumped into before. The stages went like this:
“Stage 1: Core program development
“Stage 2: Infrastructure development for the purpose of taking programs to scale
“Stage 3: Impact expansion which is defined as community leadership that changes the systems and policies that affect an organization’s ability to achieve its mission.”
I was floored, I have to admit it. One of those AHA! moments.
Some people have AHA! moments by finding the wreckage of the Titanic on the ocean floor. I have them when I discover amazing new organizational frameworks or research nuggets that challenge our sector’s core assumptions. (Or when I eat some really fabulous dark chocolate)
This was SO MUCH MORE VALUABLE than the typical “Start Up, Growth, Maturity, Decline/Renewal” lifecycle model I see so often. This was a lifecycle framework that was MISSION-focused.
Be still my beating heart.
As someone who tries to pay attention to new literature on nonprofits, I kept scratching my head on how I could have missed this gem. So of course I went on a Google journey to find more details about this model.
After a nonproductive search on TCC Group’s own website (though there are lots of interesting publications there), I ended up on The Philadelphia Foundation’s website where I found the article “Characteristics of High Performing Nonprofits based on Organizational Lifecycle.” Which I spent time reading.
That article referenced a 2005 BoardSource publication, Navigating the Organizational Lifecyle: A Capacity Building Guide for Nonprofit Leaders I had seen the book as a subscriber to BoardSource but I never ordered it because I figured it was just the same old same lifecycle framework. That will teach me to assume!
Yes, you may be asking about now, other than alerting your readers to all these great resources, what is the point of this blog entry?
Okay, here it is.
I regularly encounter individuals, usually good-hearted souls, who have done little research on best practices about how to build a great nonprofit. Or how best to build effective programs that address the problems or needs they’ve taken on. I’m always curious, when there is such great stuff out there usually for free, why they didn’t take the time to look.
Maybe they’ve taken to heart the old adage about curiosity killing cats and been scared away?
My problem is just the opposite. I rarely have difficulty finding really valuable information – besides Google, I’ve got great colleagues and Twitter to keep me busy.
No, my problem is trying to tear myself away from the next great read.
So, a word of advice: Try some research. You can learn a whole lot by looking, to paraphrase the great Yogi Berra.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on July 8, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Communicating, Fundraising
To paraphrase the Golden Rule: Do onto your donors as you would have some organization do onto you.
Fundraisers attend lots of workshops to find the magic technique that will attract and retain donors. But really, don’t most of us already know what it takes to get and keep donors?
At a workshop I facilitated last month for small environmental organizations, I asked these as the starting questions:
- Thinking about an organization that really matters to you, what makes you donate to it?
- What keeps you donating?
- Why wouldn’t you donate to an organization?
Here’s what people said.
Why I donated:
- I had a personal connection or involvement with the organization.
- My family is connected to the organization and its mission.
- The organization makes me feel good.
- Giving makes me feel that I’m doing good – that my contributions matter.
- I want others to experience what I have.
- I have a sense of obligation – payback.
- The organization does work (eg. advocacy) that I know is important but that I can not do myself at this point.
- I wouldn’t want the organization to go away!
What keeps me donating:
- I know that most of the money goes to the mission.
- The group has an important mission that matters to me.
- The group takes time to help me understand the whys.
- They deliver results.
- They tell me what they are doing.
- There is honesty and transparency – even about challenges and failure.
- The web site has lots of good information.
- The group is doing a lot including activities I can participate in.
- The organization has a local connection – I can SEE what they are doing.
- The organization makes me feel valued.
- They personalize their connections with me.
- They are responsive – they speak to me and respond if I connect.
- They do what I ask them to do (especially around their solicitation of my support).
- They model my values.
What I don’t like:
- The organization has no idea who I am or what I care about.
- I get too much information and it’s not useful.
- The organization only wants my money and nothing else.
- Publications are not well matched to mission.
- They use too much guilt.
- We are sent products (mailing labels) that we don’t want.
- The organization is not transparent, or we hear of scandals.
- The materials raise doubts about the financial management of the organization.
- We are concerned that our name was sold or traded without our permission.
- The organization has no website or a poor website.
Now, while not every single donor will respond exactly the way that you respond to some approach from an organization, overall, must of like to be treated as if we matter, we appreciate honesty and we want to give to something that makes a difference about an issue that we truly care about. So why is this so hard to get right?
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