Archive for the ‘Fundraising’ Category
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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Posted by Gayle Gifford on January 11, 2010 in Fundraising
I was just re-reading the report released last January this time “Call to Service Assessment 2008: Community Volunteer Service Needs and Opportunities; July – September 2008″ of Serve Rhode Island (the RI Commission on National and Community Service). 
Among other things, I was struck by the data on where volunteers spend their time. According to statistics gathered by the US Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics and reported here:
Main Activities of Volunteers (2005-2007)
Fundraise 29.7% (RI) 27.9% (US)
Collect/Distribute Food 19.5% (RI) 24.5% (US)
Professional/Management 16.6% (RI) 17.4% (US)
Tutor/Teach 15.7% (RI) 20.5% (US)
At first glance I was somewhat surprised that fundraising was at the top of the volunteer activity list given the number of complaints I hear from organizations about their inability to recruit volunteers to help them raise funds. (Don’t the choices of volunteer activities seem pretty limited.)
But when activities are matched against the top places where volunteers serve — overwhelmingly education and religious groups — the numbers made much more sense.
If you think about the legions of parents who raise money for their kids’ schools, or run events and raise money for their religious congregations, it’s not too surprising that fundraising might come out on top.
Unfortunately, what the study doesn’t tell us is the relationship of the volunteering to the amount of funds raised. Now that would be a number worth gathering.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on December 21, 2009 in Fundraising
I’m always curious about donor thinking and like to explore the why’s of giving. As there is one donor I know pretty well, I thought I’d dissect her giving. 
Taking stock
Before the year draws to an end, I review my all my charitable contributions to see how I’m doing and to be sure I’ve haven’t forgotten any of my favorite causes.
I can do this pretty quickly because throughout the year as I make gifts I’ve been recording them on my “Contributions” spreadsheet. That way, I can see at a glance who I remembered and who I forgot. I find this a lot easier than my old system of searching through my canceled checks and credit card statements. The spreadsheet also helps me remember when I receive a new appeal if I’ve already reached my giving target for that organization. And it has really helped speed up my tax preparation.
Giving schedules
The end of year is a real cash crunch for me as our house insurance, car insurance, life insurance are all due. There are also holiday gifts and plane tickets to get my sons back from college. So it’s not a great time for me to be making donations.
I’ve been trying to spread my giving out throughout the year. Larger gifts I’ve been doing in installments or at times that I’m feeling more cash flush. I really don’t love putting gifts on credit cards as I’d rather all my giving went to the organizations I support.
But at the end of the year, if I’ve missed an important cause, out comes the credit card.
Giving Benchmarks
One of my speculations about giving is that people would be more generous if they had better benchmarks.
A few days ago my daughter shared that she was going to set a person tithing formula for her giving. Many faiths have a “tithing requirement” that sets a benchmark for personal support. States that have high percentages of their population in faiths that tithe seem to report higher overall giving. Yet most of us don’t view our charitable giving in this way.
In 1987 Independent Sector launched a campaign to Give Five, encouraging individuals to give 5% of their income and five hours a week to the causes they cared about.
Today, the average US donor gives to charity in these amounts:
- Low income households give about 4.5% of their income
- Middle class households give about 2.5%
- Higher income households give about 3%
So how does our household compare? Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on December 4, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Communicating, Fundraising
Last week I received a very lovely recognition from an organization for which I have been a very active member for just over 20 years.
I was named a Partner in Philanthropy during our state National Philanthropy Day celebration. I was invited to the luncheon, had my photo and bio in the program, received a lovely pin, and was invited on stage with the other Partners who were being recognized that day by nonprofits they had served.
As I arrived at the check-in table, I received a name tag, pretty recognition pin, my table assignment and a recognition certificate in a folder.
When I opened the folder to view the certificate, my heart sank.
My name was misspelled.
While I tried to resist it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the gift I was being given had been selected for someone else. Like the time I opened a present anticipating something very romantic and found a rice cooker instead.
And this organization — I even served as its board president not that long ago.
I admit it. I’ve got a thing about my first name. I’ve never been particularly fond of it. The only thing that has redeemed my name for me is its spelling. So when I see Gayle mistakenly spelled Gail, I feel particularly rebuked. I can’t help it.
I also use my middle initial L. Routinely. And given the organization that was honoring me, an extra special touch would have been to include the ACFRE credential after my name.
But I’ll shake it off. (I did bring it to the organization’s attention that day. They promised to send me a new certificate. I’ll let you know when it arrives.)
Unfortunately, mine was not the only misspelled name that day. My co-honoree for the organization, who was also a table sponsor, saw her name misspelled as it was projected on the screen with other sponsors. And a dear departed colleague would be rolling his eyes to have seen his name misspelled on screen for the scholarship award given in his memory.
Accidents do happen. I’ve made them myself (it’s a plague to locate all the typos in these columns).
As a fledgling development director, I misspelled the last name of a board member in my first annual report (which had been proofed by others). The misspelling was also a pet peeve of this board member. Like me, he frequently saw his name misspelled. It was tiresome and maddening to him to have to re-educate each new staff member who might have occasion to spell his name.
I’ve worked hard to get names spelled correctly ever since.
So please take the extra time to spell it right. It really does matter to your supporters. We’re not always so forgiving.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on November 23, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Fundraising
How often have you heard excuses for why a potential donor couldn’t possibly give to your organization or project … before they’ve even been approached!
A typical conversation might sound like this:
Volunteer 1: What about Mr. Potential Donor? I think he might be capable of a larger gift than he’s been giving.
Volunteer 2: Oh no. He’s got a son in college (or substitute another reason such as “just remodeled their house,” or “bought a new boat”) and couldn’t possibly do more right now.
I was reminded of the lost opportunity when we make assumptions of what our donors will or won’t do when browsing through my Sunday newspaper a few weeks ago.
A photo caption caught my eye:
“Home Sweet Home Gala raises $400,000”
Whoa! I had to look again. Yes. It said $400,000. I figured the newspaper must have added an extra zero.
If you live in New York City, raising $400,000 probably sounds like no big deal for a charitable event. But the paper I was reading was the Providence Sunday Journal. The organization was Crossroads Rhode Island, formerly Travelers Aid of Rhode Island, the largest nonprofit provider of homeless services organization in our state.
To put this fundraising total into perspective for you, you’ll need a bit more data about Rhode Island.
- The total state population is just over 1 million, making up just over 400,000 households.
- The largest city, Providence, has a population of just 174,000.
- There are only two Fortune 500 companies in the whole state. And one community foundation.
- The unemployment rate, at 13% in September 2009, is one of the highest in the nation.
Even in a booming economy, $400,000 is a huge fundraising gross for an event in Rhode Island. If I had to guess, it’s probably in the 10 top events in total funds raised.
Very impressed, I had to learn more. So I went straight to the top and called Karen Santilli, the Vice President for Marketing and Development at Crossroads.
“Yes, our September gala raised just over $400,000.” Karen informed me.
No, they didn’t have a Hollywood celebrity or famous speaker, which the other events that raise the biggest money often have.
Seven Years and a Winning Formula
This event started seven years ago when Travelers Aid of Rhode Island changed its name to Crossroads Rhode Island. “The event chair at the time felt strongly we had to do something unique to celebrate the name change and help people remember who we were,” said Karen.
So they put their heads together to create a truly WOW event that would keep people talking and eager to see what they’d do the next year.
Read More >>
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Posted by Jon Howard on November 16, 2009 in Fundraising
What nonprofit strategy could make frequent, regular gifts from core donors as automatic as paying a cell phone or gas bill? Can nonprofits use the same powerful “set it and forget it” payment model used by online data backup service and car leasing agencies (see “Make Donate the Default) to set a reliable pattern of frequent and recurring gifts from core donors?
It’s already been done – for more than 70 years!
In 1937, the child sponsorship organization Plan International (formerly Foster Parents Plan International) created a philanthropic subscription model that transformed overseas philanthropy. Today, many more organizations use the same model to generate billions in relatively small individual gifts for international development projects benefiting children around the world.
The core offer is this: for a regular monthly contribution of a specified amount (typically between $20 and $30 per month), the donor will help a child in a less-developed country meet basic needs and grow up to be a healthy, well-educated and independent adult. Sponsors can develop a personal connection with a sponsored child through letters, reports and, in some cases, visits to the child’s community.
(For the record, I worked at Plan from 1987 to 1994. I wrote a short history of the organization in 1998 for its 60th anniversary and did a range of consulting work for Plan International or its affiliates until 2003.)
Child sponsorship organizations do three key things to support the sponsorship offer. Read More >>
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Posted by Jon Howard on October 28, 2009 in Big ideas, Fundraising
The genius of the subscription marketing model lies in flipping the vast power of personal inertia from “don’t buy” to “buy.” How can we in the nonprofit world convert many separate donation decisions into the one long-term commitment of subscription? How can we help our most loyal supporters make “donate” their default setting?
That’s what “Looking at Life as One Big Subscription” by Damon Darlin of the New York Times got us thinking about recently.
Magazines, gym memberships, cell phone plans, online computer backup services and cable TV all rely on variations of the subscription business model. Netflix has used this old model to transform the movie rental business. The details vary but the basic subscription model has the consumer pay (or at least commit to pay) up front for access to a product or service over a period of time.
Consumers get reliable and often privileged access to the offering, usually at a compelling discount. Providers get an assured revenue stream and reduced marketing costs. Even better, they get paid whether or not customers actually use their cell phones or gym memberships.
As Isaac Newton taught us, bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. Subscribers must get off the couch and take an action to cancel the agreement. As long as providers don’t anger them with bad service, most subscribers will sit back and let the revenues flow.
Does this powerful business model work for philanthropy? Well, symphony orchestras and museums already use the subscription model with season tickets or admission-based memberships. However, they actually provide goods and services over time directly to the consumer, more or less like a for-profit business.
What about the usual three-cornered nonprofit proposition where A gives money to B to deliver a service to C? Direct self-interest doesn’t operate here. Still, one category of non-profits have used the subscription model to support service to third parties since the 1930s with great success. Can you name that nonprofit sector? Have you adapted the subscription model to fundraising?
I’ll provide the answer and look at what that example could mean for other nonprofit fundraisers in a future post.
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