A collaborative capital campaign created an entire new arts and business district in Cleveland. Photo: Gordon Square Arts District

Collaborative fundraising takes time and trust. That’s what we heard over and again in our interviews with seven nonprofit executives in Rhode Island, Boston, Cleveland and Spokane, each of them successful collaborative fundraisers.

We looked into the topic at the prompting of our friends at New Roots Providence and presented our early findings at a New Roots workshop on January 19.

The short version of what we learned from our informants:

• Successful collaborations flow from a deep process of trust-building among the partners. The right partners may take years to self-select, discover their shared goals and commit to combined action.
• Detailed legal agreements help establish trust and smooth functioning by exploring and resolving the partners’ deepest worries in advance. (These also take time)
• At the same time, good partners must be ready to make commonsense adjustments to agreements when they create unfair or unproductive results for some partners.
• Long-term and permanent collaborations need to form an independent organization to fundraise and distribute revenues. (Another time-consuming process.)
• The collaborative case must promise more than the sum of its partners: new funders respond to a transformative vision.
• Truly successful collaborations can reach more and larger funders and generate more income at lower cost than the two partners could achieve separately.

Our cases covered five forms of joint fundraising: grants, workplace campaigns, events, capital campaigns, and, finally, our elusive ideal of truly integrated annual fundraising. We’ll tell you more about three very interesting cases in future posts:

• The YWCA and YMCA in Spokane, Washington created a fully integrated capital campaign to build new shared buildings in two locations.
• The Gordon Square Arts District in Cleveland, Ohio brought two theater companies together with a community development organization to build not just theaters, but a whole theater-oriented arts district with major economic benefits for the city.
• The Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts began by building new shared performance space for the the Nora Theater Company and the Underground Railway Theater. The partnership then went on to take on all fundraising, business and back office operations, leaving both groups free to focus on their artistic missions alone.

If you have had a good – or bad – experience with collaborative fundraising that you think could help others, please send me an email. We’d love to hear from you.

Did you know that the typical major gifts officer meets with 7-10 donors a month?

I’m just wondering how many donors or prospective donors your organization – whether that was your Executive Director, your fund development staff, or your leadership volunteers -  visited last month?

For many small organizations I know, they’d be lucky to visit that many donors in a year!!

No wonder most of us aren’t raising the money we’d like to raise.

Want to see the metrics that universities use? Take a look at this slide deck presented by Eduventures at a 2011 CASE Conference in Vancouver.

We can create giving pyramids all day. We know that we need 4 or 5 qualified prospects to realize one gift. What those gift pyramids keep telling us is that we have to find, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward a heck of a lot of people to reach our fundraising goals.

It’s really hard to do that from your office chair. Or during a committee meeting.

So, let’s finish up the plans, polish up the case, and then get down to the really important work — those one-on-one conversations that are essential to our fundraising success.

Wondering where to start? Start with the people who already love you… your donors, your volunteers and your board members. I’ll bet that list will keep you busy for a while.

“The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these.’ “

Since then, the gap between the rich and poor has only widened in the US.

The rich and poor rarely live in the same neighborhoods anymore.   Heck, the well-off don’t even need to mingle with the less fortunate or use public services if they don’t desire, with private schools, private beach clubs and swimming pools, private country clubs, gated communities and isolated vacation enclaves.

So, if you are an affluent individual who never sees the poor or has no need to associate with the less-well-off, and if you are relatively immune from the cutback in government services, how do you come to understand the desperate lives most people live each day?

I worry about the impact of this social isolation on philanthropy.

Yes, as the sheer numbers of the affluent continue to grow, charitable giving grows. But where does the money go? What institutions, serving what classes of people, benefit from this giving?

If we are most influenced by the people we hang out with, and the wealthy don’t know the poor, and the poor don’t have access to the wealthy, will we continue to see great stratification in resources among the nonprofits that serve the less-well-off and those that serve the poor?

At the AFP Massachusetts Chapter conference last November, I listed to a panel of development directors from prestigious private universities and medical institutes share details of their billion dollar growth campaigns. They noted they were aided by close to 200 fundraising staff.

As I listened, I couldn’t help thinking about the homeless outreach program and food pantry I consulted with, that, with just about 3 staff members, none in development , is serving the exploding food needs of individuals and families in my city. In just over a year, they went from serving 250 people a month to over 6,300, half of whom are children.  Their total income? According to their 2010 990 it was $176,848.

Obviously, not all of those with great wealth have turned a blind eye to the poor — the Gates come to mind. But as a profession, we need to be at the leading edge of a sector wide dialogue about how to help the isolated affluent discover and fund the other extraordinary and deserving nonprofit institutions — those that serve another segment of people who also deserve great education, great art, food on the table and a place to call home.

We owe this to our neighbors. And to the legacy of Dr. King.

“In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich.” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Notice those checks, stars and caution signs?

Clearly these are meant to serve as rating systems for viewers. Missing a check or star? The system implies that your organization may not be 100% up to snuff –or else it might be hiding something.

While I’ve done my ranting about rating systems (see my posts  below), I’m afraid that your organization is stuck  with this new configuration.

By now I’m sure you know that Guidestar is a go-to site for the media, funders, bloggers, benchmarkers like me or others individuals who are curious about your nonprofit. Online donation sites like Network for Good, Facebook Causes or Change.org link up and pull their data from Guidestar.

So, get thee to Guidestar.

Login (you’ll need to register if you haven’t, the basic edition is free), search for your organization’s name and pull up your Guidestar profile. You may be surprised at how many checks you are have or are missing. Try printing out a report and you’ll quickly see what is incomplete in your Guidestar profile.

Follow the button that says Update Nonprofit Report to review the instructions for updating your information.  Read about the options for earning the Guidestar Exchange seal, for posting reviews on GreatNonprofits and developing a self-assessment impact profile through the new Charting Impact (please share your experience with our readers if you have completed an impact profile. I noticed that only 104 organizations have).

You’ll need to decide just how much you want to commit to updating. The new check view system is clearly designed to get you deep into the world of Guidestar and its partner organizations.

And please come back and share your experiences. Happy 2012.

Related posts

Fundraisers, do you know what your 990 isn’t telling donors about your nonprofit?

My worst nightmare is now true, sloppy ratings of nonprofit effectiveness in Haiti

Thank you, Guidestar, for hearing our concerns

Warmest, Jon & Gayle

Too soon, you say. Mustn’t bother our donors but once a year, you protest.

I’m with you that it might be too soon for those donors who always send you a generous gift at the end of the year. (Though many direct marketers would dispute that).

But what about the donors who haven’t responded to your annual appeal?

In our work, we often encounter small nonprofits or new fundraisers who believe that the “annual” appeal is just that, a once-a-year request for a donation.

These small organizations often don’t analyze the giving patterns of their donors. They may have no useful donor database, or haven’t thought about what just how much work it might take to get donors to give again.

If an “annual” appeal raises the same amount of money or even just a bit more than it did the year before, it’s considered a success. But what isn’t known is how many of last year’s donors gave a gift again this year. Because that mailing list often contains donors and not-yet donors, new gifts from new donors will offset donors who failed to give again this year.

Keeping more of your current donors is one sure-fire way to raise more money.

According to fundraising researcher Adrian Sargeant, if nonprofits just increased donor retention by 10%, they’d see up to a 200% gain in revenues over donor lifetimes.

Yet Jon and I still bump into organizations of all sizes that can’t tell us what percentage of their donors renew from year to year.

While there are many ways of increasing donor retention by increasing donor loyalty, I’d like to put in a good word for just getting better at one of the technical aspects of raising money — don’t ask just once a year! Especially from your lapsed donors.

In my own experience, and that of my direct marketing colleagues, it might take anywhere from two to five renewal requests to get the vast majority of your donors to renew. I know of one grassroots organization that saw its membership returns increase by $40,000 in a year after they invested in a decent donor database, started tracking renewals, and increased the the number of times they asked not-yet-renewed members to renew their gift.

Think about your own response to fundraising appeals. Do you rush to the checkbook when you open a letter? (Thankfully, many donors still do.) Or do you put aside that appeal to respond at a later date and then forget to send a check, even if you had the best intentions?

Don’t you often need to be reminded that you haven’t renewed your membership, or made a charitable gift this year? (I wonder how many donors there like me who keep a running list of contributions they make throughout the year. I do it to speed up my tax filings, but it also helps me keep track of which of my favorite charities I haven’t given to yet this year.)

So before you think you’ve finished writing appeals for another twelve months, please reconsider.

There are probably a majority of your donors who haven’t make a gift yet who are waiting to be reminded.

Related post:

Give donors something worth reading

However,  it looks like our basic animal nature actually includes a generous dollop of do-goodism, judging from this NPR Morning Edition report. Lab rats at the University of Chicago have now proven to the satisfaction of scientists that they will sacrifice themselves to spend hours of persistent effort to free another rat trapped inside a small tube within the larger cages.

Not only do helper rats selflessly devote themselves to comforting their stuck buddy, they also work urgently to find the hidden button that springs the trap. They’ll do this even when the other rat gets released to a different cage, removing any social benefit. They’ll even help a pal when they could be working on liberating chocolate instead!

The scientists were thrilled to have discovered such pure altruism in another species. (I guess they never read Old Yeller.)

Let’s take this as a reminder to give our  left brains a break as we compose our year-end and other funding appeals. Before you start to pile up facts and arguments, seek out your organization’s deeper appeal to our basic natures as creatures on earth: ”Here’s another person in pain. Here’s how you can make it better.”

And then there’s this: Even though I really do brake for others, I am still an animal.

Cleaning out my files the other day, I stumbled on those tips and realized just how influential they have been to my work in  strategic planning.

Here’s what Mason shared in the article:

1. Know exactly what you want to solve
2. Research deeply
3. Call in help
4. Practice problem-solving
5. Sketch it out
6. Churn
7. Go see a movie
8. Keep your space clear
9. Know when to walk away

In an interview for the book Diamond Power: Gems of Wisdom from America’s Greatest Marketers, Mason says

“It’s really not that complicated.  The creative process is trying really hard to solve a problem.”

Isn’t that the essence of strategic planning?

While our missions aren’t necessarily problems, the goal of getting from where we are today to realizing our mission can be seen as a big puzzle that we are trying to solve. (Puzzle = problem).  Whether we’re ending homelessness, or ensuring our kids graduate from school ready for success in life, or challenging and inspiring others through art – we are all seeking the best path to achieve our mission.

Finding the best path is what strategic planning is all about.

Start strategic planning by getting all of those big questions out in the open. What’s holding you back from reaching your vision?

Research is essential in any strategic planning process, and one that I find is too often neglected. How can you really understand the community need and your role in it without data? How do you know what might work if you don’t know what’s been tried before?

But don’t stop with “book learning” (or Google). Go ask others for their advice. Think of 25 people to talk to who know or should know something relevant to your mission. Go talk with them. You’ll learn a lot by listening (and they’ll learn something about you as well.)

Write down everything you are learning as you go. What might start as disconnected conversations begins to make sense when you articulate your theory of change and your logic model;  that is, the why and how of the path from the problem to the vision. (Mason says: “Invention is logic.”)

Make sure you brainstorm.  Keep thinking about what will actually create the breakthrough you are looking for –even if it seems like the most impossible idea. Then imagine how to get there.

I advise never trying to craft an entire strategic plan in a one day retreat. Like Mason, I’m convinced there has to be time for ideas to gel and reflection between planning sessions. And opening the door to inspiration from unexpected places.

As Mason suggests in Tip 9, sometimes there are too many other issues that need to be addressed first before you jump into strategic planning (like lack of commitment to really being strategic among staff or board leadership). So know when the time is right.

P.S. Apparently Stan Mason was locked in the principal’s office because he colored outside the lines in third grade. I remember practically falling off my chair when one of my son’s elementary school teachers told me that “following directions was the most important lesson for job success” after he used colored markers rather than crayons in a school assignment.  “What lost world are you preparing him for” I remember thinking at the time?

So that’s my approach to strategic planning.  What’s yours?

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Related readings:

Discovering great ideas in new places

Questions to jump start your SWOT

Increase innovation: mandate three day workweeks

• Use your “heart and instincts.” Think about what would move you to give money, and write accordingly.
• Make your case succinctly right up front. Be very “crisp” right from the start by defining the problem and how you are planning to address it. Show why your organization has the credibility to address this problem. Don’t lead with a boilerplate mission and history.
• “Use bullet points.” Explain the need, why the need is important and how it is not being met, whether anyone else is addressing this, and why the money should go to you.
• In writing about your mission, explain why it is important. Would some other group have to come along to address this if you went away? Would anyone care?
• Show your passion.
• Explain your expertise, the commitment you’ve already demonstrated to this issue, and how it fits in with what you do.
• Explain how many lives will be affected and the impact you seek to have, not just how many people you plan to “touch.”

Good advice for making your case to any donor, don’t you think?

Have any success stories of corporate grant seeking you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them.

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P.S. Of course, if the funder has a specific format they want you to use, remember to follow that.

P.P.S. Formerly the President of Lesley University, Ms. McKenna talked about the lack of understanding about nonprofits she encountered when she moved into the corporate sector. She noted that of the foundation heads of the Fortune 100 companies, only 3% had nonprofit experience. And, that most had spent a good portion of their working lives within the corporation whose foundation they were now leading.

Overall, she felt our sector had a lot of work to do teaching the corporate sector about the nonprofit sector. (I agree. And government too.). Joking, she mentioned that PowerPoint presentations with lots of graphs and charts were very influential tools in corporate culture.

But never just assume lack of knowledge about your issues or the sector… make sure that you know who you are talking to. Remember to do your research on the background of your grants officer.

Related posts:

How we got the grant Part 1

How we got the grant Part 2

You can hear a lot by listening