Archive for the ‘Fundraising’ Category
Posted by Gayle Gifford on August 10, 2010 in Fundraising
Below the fold in Monday morning’s Providence Journal was a lovely story about Ram and Nishi Nehra, a retired couple from Middletown, Rhode Island, who have been supporting an educational NGO in their native India since 2001.
I know that their story is not unique, that each day there are millions, probably billions, of philanthropic acts across the globe.
But what made me smile over my morning tea was the way that Ram described his philanthropy:
“I get so much satisfaction, so much pleasure out of this — I can’t tell you in words. You have to experience this. This is full of life.”
Demonstrating again the principle of “giving till you feel good” that my departed colleague, Herb Kaplan, always espoused.
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Posted by Jon Howard on August 4, 2010 in Communicating, Fundraising, Nonprofit Highlights, Profiles of passion and courage
We got a wonderful letter out of the blue last week. The letter was from Alex Marthews, the executive director of Growth Through Learning, one of our very first Cause & Effect clients, and one we hadn’t heard from in the last 13 years.
“Dear Jonathan and Gayle,
“In 1997 a man named Roger Whiting came to you with a story about a Tanzanian woman named Alice Mnaku, who dreamed of going to college but could not afford it. Thanks to your sage advice, Roger went on to found Growth Through Learning. It is lessons he learned from Cause & Effect that has enabled us to become the successful non-profit we are today. This year alone, GTL granted 317 scholarships to bright girls from poor families in East Africa….”
Roger Whiting was a retired insurance man from Worcester, Massachusetts. With no background in international development or education, Roger devised a simple and direct response to Africa’s poverty that has, in the years since 1997, also proven to be profoundly life-changing for hundreds of young women. We were sad to learn that Roger passed away in May of this year. But we are pleased and proud to know that we played a part in setting Growth Through Learning on the path to success.
Just like business start-ups, new nonprofits face an uphill struggle for survival and growth — and with far less access to start-up investment capital. Only yesterday, Gayle and I met a whole roomful of passionate volunteers and staff at the New Roots Providence consultant fair, many of them seeking guidance in their start-up processes.
What might this new generation learn from a file we closed in 1997? We dug deep into Gayle’s hard drive and had a long talk with Alex Marthews to find out. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on July 14, 2010 in Fundraising
The Institute for Conservation Leadership has just done small organizations a great service by releasing a study of the online fundraising experiences of 16 grassroots organizations. And a hearty thank you to those organizations that were willing to share their experiences in this report.
The study was compiled by consultant, author and trainer extraordinaire Andy Robinson (if you haven’t, you should check out Andy’s wonderful books through our mutual publisher Emerson & Church ).
Andy’s title cues us up for what’s inside: “Reality Check: How Grassroots Environmental Organizations are (or are not) raising money online.”
Some of the lessons learned by small organizations:
- “Personal contact and relationship-building trumps everything – and will become more valuable because fewer people will be doing it.”
- “Websites are still essential for effective fundraising.”
- “Social networks like Facebook remain a lower -tier for fundraising strategy – at least for now.”
- “Many online strategies won’t pay off for awhile, but try them anyway as time and money are available.”
One particularly interesting finding came from the Ohio Environmental Council. While most of their membership giving came offline, those donors who had email and received ongoing contact through a robust online program gave twice as much annually as their no-email counterparts.
You can download a free copy of the report here from ICL, though you will need to register.
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Posted by Jon Howard on June 17, 2010 in Communicating, Fundraising
At first glance, I don’t welcome the email from Christina Wellington Traister. The body reminds me that I haven’t sent in my pledge to Bates. Not a word about what amount I had pledged, which I’ve long forgotten. Righteous annoyance almost cancels appropriate guilt.
But the PS grabbed me. (And yes, I read the PS first. I quickly see that the main message holds bad news for me).
“P.S. Have you heard the Bates parking meter story? It’s two minutes and guaranteed to make you smile…this was sent to alumni (who hadn’t made a Bates Fund gift or pledge) two weeks ago.”
I can’t imagine a parking meter on the leafy Bates quad of my memory, nor even on the surrounding streets of sleepy Lewiston, Maine, so “the parking meter story” monicker raises a question I can’t answer without clicking on the link, a classic teaser trope. Christina promises to answer the question in two minutes or less and amuse me in the process.
I like the quick and indirect way Christina clues me in that this is not just a funny story. She tells me this story was sent to non-contributing alums a couple of weeks ago. That truth-in-advertising builds vital trust and gently reminds me that I’m a delinquent, too. I click on the link. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on June 7, 2010 in 100 Things We've Learned, Fundraising, Nonprofit Highlights
Just released is the case study from the Infrastructure Collaborative of the Land and Water Partnership. You can find it in the articles section of our website: Sharing back office at small nonprofits: A case study of conservation organizations in RI.
The Infrastructure Collaborative was a collaboration of grassroots land trusts, watershed organizations and technical assistance providers in Rhode Island that started in 2004 and is just wrapping up. With support from Third Sector New England, they formed a learning network to consider how they might pilot a model for sharing services that could improve the administrative and fundraising capacity of small conservation nonprofits.
Throughout, all of the members learned a lot about the challenges of building capacity in very small nonprofits. Rather than crafting a typical final report to a foundation, they decided instead to share their experiences in the form of a case study so that others could benefit as well.
Some of the lessons learned:
- In the smallest organizations, capacity is in individuals and their institutional knowledge, not organizational systems. When inevitable transitions occur, built capacity can quickly be lost. Attention must be paid to building sustained people capacity somewhere in the network. Transitions often occur at a rate that prohibits capacity building.
- Small groups need either a large organization with significant built capacity already on their team or they will need a much larger cash investment to buy what they lack.
- Small nonprofits live in the moment, focused on the urgent needs that caused their formation. Rarely planning for financial or operational sustainability, at the extremes they can be alternately overwhelmed by or overlook even key short-term administrative tasks.
- Leadership matters. They never would have moved forward without the steady guiding hand of their two lead organizers. At the same time, leadership changes among the members shifted organizational commitments.
- Hiring staff and vendors is always risky, even with very diligent screening. A bad selection can thwart the best plans, undermine confidence in a project and create fatal delays in implementation.
- Research and development investments need to be much bigger to allow experimentation, buy better solutions, and include enough cash to fail, learn and recover. The investment needed for small nonprofits to launch back office services was much larger than they anticipated.
I think you’ll find their experience very interesting.
(I’ve been participating in the project on and off since its inception. In the early years, I was a volunteer representing the RI chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which was interested in improving the way it supported very small organizations. Later, I provided some training and technical assistance in fundraising and helped them reflect on what they learned — including helping them draft this final summary of their work.)
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on March 18, 2010 in 100 Things We've Learned, Fundraising
The idea that raising money is a great way to strengthen your programs isn’t often discussed in nonprofit circles.
Yes, yes, we’d all agree that your programs are funded by the money you raise and thus are strengthened in that way.
But that’s not what I’m describing. I’m making a case that the fundraising process itself, in particular, donor relationship building, is program building, and not just the means to an ends.
7 Ways Fundraising Can Strengthen Your Programming
- You get out the door and talk to your constituents — the best way to get feedback on the issues and concerns that matter to them.
- You see the real life, real people impact of your work.
- You can educate your constituents — and key influencers – about the importance of your issues and your solutions.
- You can build long-term, good faith relationships that help you weather short-term program storms.
- You create powerful allies and an ready constituency for your public policy reform.
- Over and over, you are forced to confront the quality, design and impact of your programs.
- You continuously test your relevance to your community.
Here’s an example:
When I was development director at a regional environmental organization, my Executive Director and I set out to meet as many of our business donors as we could. Among our donors were many small businesses who gave $50-$250 annually.
This wasn’t surprising as the organization had successfully run a classic annual corporate giving campaign for many years (campaign chair, captains, teams, etc). As both of us were new in our positions, we were eager to meet these donors.
Many were manufacturers, including metal platers, as our region had historically been a big producer of costume jewelry. Metal platers had historically been notorious water polluters. Our organization had aggressively pushed for the toughest standards for industrial pretreatment to force these manufacturers to remove these metals and other toxins from their water discharges into our rivers and Bay.
(Aside: For those of you who get discouraged at the impact you are having, this has been one of the great success stories of environmental regulation. From 1981 to 2008, discharge of toxic metals and cyanide into the two main sewer systems had declined by 97%.”)
But at the time that we were visiting these manufacturers, the battles over industrial pretreatment were still fresh. Cautiously they let us into their plants and shared their stories with us.
The two of us walked many a shop floor and looked at a lot of industrial pretreatment. What we found were business owners who loved the Bay as much as any environmentalist. They were boaters and swimmers and fishing enthusiasts who also loved our state. That’s why they contributed to our organization. While they didn’t always like the positions we took, most of these owners were working very hard to comply with environmental regulations. They were proud to show us their newly installed pretreatment systems and their continuing experiments to “be green” (long before that was a recognized business strategy).
What we also learned was that this wasn’t simple. Too often, as these business owners and their environmental compliance officers reported, the regulations that were supposed to push them along their path were holding them back. Promising innovations weren’t allowed. By complying with one set of regulations they often found themselves wading into a different quagmire with more onerous regulations and hugely costly paperwork.
After dozens of these conversations, my Executive Director emerged with a new perspective on the unintended local impact of what appeared to be well-crafted law and regulations. As a result of his knowledge, Carol Browner, the new Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, invited him to serve on the metal-finishing subcommittee of her aptly named “Common Sense Initiative,” a national project designed to cut paperwork and simplify environmental regulations at the same time advancing environmental protection and fostering industry innovation.
All of which started with our simple goal of wanting to get to know our donors a little bit better.
(By the way, many increased their gifts into the $500-$2,500 range. At least two of the manufacturers became major financial supporters of the organization, giving over $10,000 annually).
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on March 10, 2010 in Fundraising
If you can’t confidently say a strong YES to each question, you have some work to do.
- You have an inspirational vision of the community change you’d like to create.
- You can connect the resources you seek to the societal change you’d like to create.
- You have a strategic plan for least 3 years into the future.
- You cherish results and measure the impact of your programs.
- Your staff are passionate and evangelical leaders for your organization and its programs.
- Your board members are passionate and evangelical leaders for your organization and its programs.
- You are wise stewards of all of your resources.
- You have many long-standing friends and partners.
- You have created opportunities for people to be involved with you on many levels.
- You have clear goals and objectives for how much money you need to raise and have done the “math” of fundraising.
- You have a well-designed plan for raising resources.
- You regularly communicate with your “stakeholders” about your activities, needs and accomplishments.
- Staff (or volunteers) have been individually assigned responsibility and are held accountable for revenue goals.
- You believe you can do it (failure is not an option).
- You are not afraid to ask for what you need.
- Your internal systems support fundraising (e.g. a well functioning and documented donor management database).
- You know how to use and adapt proven fundraising techniques.
- You invest the most resources where you receive the greatest fundraising return.
- You insist on ethical fundraising.
- You make an annual investment in professional development for fundraising.
You can find a copy of this quiz to share with your staff and board in our Toolbox.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on February 23, 2010 in Fundraising
Dear Gayle and Jon,
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for the Workshop “Getting the Most from your Annual Appeal” that you gave on Oct. 8th for the Land and Water Partnership at the Audubon Society of RI. I think that our letter was not as good as what you had presented, but it was a big improvement from previous ventures.
But the proof is in the pudding, right?!
So, the bottom line, proof of the pudding is that last year we raised $31,365 through 88 gifts with our single page, tear off and send back approach.
This year, we received 173 gifts for a total of $62,570 for our two page, bulleted, story telling approach to support stewardship with the envelope provided!
So, we are giving you a ’soft’ credit (as they say in our business!) for doubling our gifts! We are so grateful!
I think Jon got me when he said he knew there were some people who just threw these letters in the trash, but for those who really care and want to know, give them something worth reading. I know many of our members in the land trust are the latter types, and I appreciate so much that you brought this to my attention.
I truly appreciate a good teacher, and this deserves recognition all its own. Many heartfelt thanks from the South Kingstown Land Trust!
Ever,
Claudia E. Swain
Director of Development
South Kingstown Land Trust
*************************************************************************************
Claudia, We’re blushing! But how could anyone resist those gorgeous Scottish Highlander cattle!
Thank you so for sharing this with us and letting us share your letter with our readers. You can read the full letter here.
And continued good fundraising for the South Kingstown Land Trust. Local land trusts like yours absolutely prove the Margaret Mead quote:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on February 10, 2010 in 100 Things We've Learned, Fundraising
In How we got the grant – Part I, I started telling you the story of how one organization overcame a long history of rejections to finally receive a grant from a very desired funder.
To quickly summarize:
The international child sponsorshop and development organization I worked for had tried and failed many times to receive a development education grant from the US Agency for International Development.
We learned that one of the reasons for this was that our donor-to-sponsored child and family communications were not taken seriously by the funder and undercut our credibility.
We initiated a process to explain the theory and practice behind our communications program to USAID. As a result of that, the door opened a crack.
Our first three lessons learned:
- Get involved with your colleagues
- Find out what funders think about you
- You have to have and discuss a theory of change
That’s were I left off. On to the next set of lessons.
So, I now had the task of designing a development education program that would win funding and achieve our desired mission impact.
Lesson Four: Build your new program on your existing assets
Because our experience showed that people-to-people contact helped North Americans care about other parts of the world, we knew our development education program could take advantage of our 50 year history of direct communications. Our office was rich with the stories, photos, drawings and reports from sponsored children, their families, our international staff and town or village leaders. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on February 3, 2010 in 100 Things We've Learned, Fundraising
Back in the 80s, I was director of development and communications for the US affiliate of an international child sponsorship organization.
Keeping the advertising, invoicing, fundraising, and donor stewardship running was an expensive investment for an organization that relied primarily on monthly giving from tens of thousands of donors.
While that funding model was clearly our strength, it also lost us donors who determined which organization they chose to support solely on the basis of overhead ratios. Because we didn’t have lots of low-fundraising-cost government grants and commodities passing through our books, our overhead costs were already slightly higher than our colleague agencies that did.
(Note: Why overhead ratios tell only a tiny part of the story).
In particular, we had our eye on “development education” grant funds awarded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Those funds supported programs that taught US audiences about global issues, especially those facing the world’s most poor and vulnerable people. We wanted to expand our outreach in this area but those tight overhead ratios were stopping us.
We also saw that those agencies that received USAID development education grants seemed to have a “more favored” status than those of us who didn’t. We wanted to be in the “in crowd.” Being “in” often led to more media exposure, more opportunity for partnerships with our colleagues, and, ultimately, more donors and more funding to support our programs overseas.
But year after year (before I arrived), our proposals kept getting rejected. And we couldn’t understand why.
And to put the frosting on the cake, we kept hearing the funder and our non-sponsorship colleagues talk about the need to personalize international development for US citizens by sharing the stories of communities and families overseas.
But but but… each and every day, we were sending very real and personalized stories about those very same communities and families to tens of thousands of donors in the US.
What were we doing wrong?
Lesson One: Get involved with your colleagues
Luckily, my boss was determined to shift the perception of our agency in the eyes of his international colleagues. So he became very active in the US international development community. He joined committees in strategic networks. He lobbied our international program staff to participate in the US as well. He brought onto our Board of Directors individuals with international development expertise and got them involved in those networks as well.
Through those activities, he also got to work with and come to know the staff in the development education division at USAID. And that’s how we learned what was wrong with us.
Lesson Two: Find out what funders think about you.
Without getting into too much detail, suffice it to say that child sponsorship organizations like ours — the ones that invested in active communications between donors here in the US and their sponsored families overseas — were not seen by many of their colleagues as serious international development organizations. Read More >>
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