The E-Card Deluge

I’ll admit it – I have mixed feelings.

No sooner did I post the last blog about the importance of personal communication (i.e. handwritten notes) then I got hit with a profusion of e-cards from nonprofits – at the rate of 5 or more per day. Now perhaps because of Cause Effective’s perch overlooking many nonprofits we’re getting more than the average Joe – but maybe not. And it’s a positively dizzying pace…

My feelings are mixed because it’s part of the Cause Effective doctrine to reach out and touch the members of your organizational “family” on more occasions than just when it’s time for a direct ask. And a holiday card reflecting on “where we’ve come to over the past year” is a nice touch. Kind of like an “annual report” but a little warmer.

But quite frankly (and maybe it’s me or maybe it’s my age – I’m on the other side of 40), I remember the actual cards we got – even those where the only individual touches were a handwritten “Dear Judy” and “Love Amy” – more than the deluge of e-cards (some of which are actually designed quite nicely).

But e-mail is fleeting. You read it, or not, and it’s gone. And it’s so easy to do e-newsletters that everyone’s caught on. Hence, the flood.

So mixed is where I remain. I literally got 30 messages titled “Happy Holidays” or something to that effect in the past two weeks. And about 5 cards through the mail.

But those cards are on display near our staff mailboxes and I smile every time I see them.  Which is not the expression on my face when I see my crowded in-box...

The Power of Handwritten

Fundraising is about relationship-building…that’s 101.

Most times this relationship-building doesn’t have to cost very much, just some extra effort…that’s 102.

So why are so many mass holiday e-cards coming across my transom…and so few hand-written notes?

Sure, there’s the idea of not wasting paper… but wasting is consumption with an inappropriately low level of return – resources being squandered. Wasting is different than using, investing, carefully calculating the footprint and the benefit – that’s the nonprofit manager’s stock in trade.

Investing in results? A hand-written note of appreciation for a donor, a board member, somebody who’s given you some free advice, a vendor who’s always cut a little extra cheese off the block (and given you some slack when you paid for it slowly)… those are resources well-spent for the lubrication in human relations gained.

Practicing outcomes management? For those of us who exist through “the kindness of strangers” the outcome is that little extra that those of us who can’t “buy” our way through the world need, in order to pull a rabbit out of the hat, again and again.

It’s not random. As any businessperson knows, kindness out = kindness back (or something like that).

And the handwritten message on that card?

You notice. You respect. You connect.

Hit By The Recession – And Asked To Give

Someone just asked me: “Why should we sink our resources into individual donor development…nobody’s got any money?”  She was asking the million dollar question: Is it still possible to raise money from individuals this year? 

Let me counter that with a case for giving that I’ve been using which is making money fly out of people’s pockets (feel free to borrow and use it).

It goes like this:

By this point, just about every single person in this room has been hit by the recession this year.  There’s nobody that hasn’t been touched, in some way.   But that makes it even more important that everyone steps up to the table and gives this year.  People aren’t going to be able to give as much as they have in past years – so it’s even more important for each of us to do our part. That’s why we’re reaching out even more broadly, and asking everyone, even people who haven’t given in the past, to step up.  If we all give, and we get a broader base, then we can all carry the weight forward together and get the job done. So I’m asking every one of us to dig into our pockets, and come up with what we can, knowing that it may not be as much as it was – but if we all do this together, it will be enough.

I have presented this case in group meetings, and literally had people come up to me and say: “I was one of those people and I wasn’t going to give, but now I see how important it is and I’m willing to do so.”

Of course, you have to have a good cause, and have targeted people who share your beliefs about its importance – but framing the conversation this way removes the barrier of “My income has downsized so I’m not going to give this year.”

The fact is, just about everyone’s income, or assets, has downsized through this financial maelstrom – making it even more important that we all step up to the plate however we can.

Try it – and let us know the results.

Born With The Urge

“Biologists see in humans a natural willingness to help,” The New York Times pronounced earlier this week. 

Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist and co-director of the German Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, writes in a recent book, Why We Cooperate, that “Children are altruistic by nature” – and naturally selfish.  Parents’ job, as those who’ve been there know, is to reinforce the cooperative behavior so as to tip the balance toward socially empathetic norms.

There’s something to this.

In Cause Effective’s 28 years of working on fundraising in the grassroots, we’ve been lucky to stand in support of hundreds of different cultures.  From immigrant money-lending circles…to childcare cooperatives…to African street vendors taking up a collection to send a deceased vendor’s body back to his country of origin…we have never come across a culture without a deep-seated norm of coming together to take care of its own.

The notion of a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation may be unique to the United States, but the urge to help others is embedded in basic human biology.

What lessons can we take from this?

The most important, for me, is to dig deep, past the rhetoric, the program descriptions and statistical statements of need, to connect with this fundamental human drive to lend a hand.  How does your organization help people?  And what is the tale you’re conveying to the donor that helps him/her fulfill this impulse toward altruism?

In other words – fundraising for mission, not for the scaffolding (program structure) that allows you to accomplish your mission.

The second lesson, interestingly enough, is connected to the idea that the innate human capacity for cooperation “seems to have evolved mainly for interactions within the local group,” as Dr. Tomasello writes.  It’s the notion of enlightened self-interest – that donors need to see the benefit to themselves, their peer group, their values, their social structures – before they’ll be moved to give. 

It’s why we place such an emphasis on story-telling in fundraising; we need to establish a foothold through which potential donors can find the comfort of “we’re all in the same clan.”  It’s the eternal search for the “we” of fundraising.

Altruism.  A term coined by Auguste Comte in 1851, to denote the benevolent, as contrasted with the selfish propensities.

Sounds like the basis of most nonprofits’ reason for being, doesn’t it?

Voting…For Face Time

Just about every nonprofit seems to be urging its friends to “Vote for Us” in the Chase Community Giving Program.

Is this some sort of lottery, a "Survivor"-related nonprofit sweepstakes?

$5 million distributed among 500,000 eligible nonprofits...with 100 winning in the first round (that’s 1 in every 5,000)...an additional 5 in the second round...(5% of those 100, so 1 in 100,000 of the total eligible nonprofits).  

That’s some long odds!

You see where this is headed… although, truthfully, everyone doesn’t have an equal chance out of the starting gate – the race will, indeed, go to those with the greatest reach.

Yet there’s nothing wrong with this – as long as charities don’t substitute energy getting e-votes for face-time.

It’s so easy, isn’t it, to spend time at our computers typing away, virtually making our case, networking virally, tagging and friending and fanning…I’m as guilty as the next party.

But real impact comes one on one, building long lasting relationships that commit to staying the course over time to achieve real social change.

Sure there’s nothing wrong with e-voting – but it’s not enough to ask for.

So let’s not stop there – let’s build real relationships that can evolve into paintbrushes and tutoring and donated legal services and other sweat equity that leverages human energy and commitment into a real movement towards social justice. 

§       Why not table at a “Winter Fair” to gain community awareness and build your “friends and fans” base?

§       Why not hold a “wrap-a-thon” at a book store to publicize the fact that the local schools need book donations? 

§       Why not host a member reach-out night, where every member brings their cell phone and calls 5 other members to get their impact on the issues facing your community and catches them up on what your organization is doing? 

Not an ask – just a connect.

It’s the old saw about volunteering – that being there, on the ground, is key.  And that people have to see/hear/feel/touch/taste your impact before they’re moved to give, to ask, to be a real part of the solution.  And that doesn’t just come from clicking here.

The End of Year Letter...A Call To Conscience

It’s end-of-year letter drafting time again, and people are adjusting their tone, calibrating their messages, trying to figure out how doom-and-gloom to make their letters.

Do we talk about how we had to cut back last year? How we had to put whole programs on hold, literally fight not to close our doors? Or how the families we assist, the kids we educate, the communities we serve, didn’t have the same options in their lives in 2009?

Or do we sweep all that under the rug because people are tired of bad news and it seems like it might be getting slightly better (here’s hoping that’s not just a mirage)?

It’s a dilemma, and I’ve seen people address it in every which way.  There’s no wrong call, as long as it’s done with dignity and respect for the intelligence of the reader – and from the viewpoint of the reader, not the nonprofit.

What do I mean by that? That end-of-year letters are not about how well you’ve performed your service (or the cuts you’ve had to make).

A well-written end-of-year letter targets what the reader cares about, and brings out that sense of the reader’s “best self” – that part of the reader that truly cares about others.

The end-of-year letter as call to conscience…making us a better, more committed community in the process.

Boards run amok…or the stress, the stress, the stress

I got another one of those calls today –

“I don’t know what my board thinks it’s doing but they’re hurting each other’s feelings and they’re not making it any easier for me to get my job done.”

And after my initial reaction:

“What the heck is going on with these otherwise reasonable people?”

I started thinking about the stress level of Board members today.

Red ink abounds.

Groups are facing very difficult programmatic scenarios – way beyond cutting just travel and staff development costs.

Boards are making tough calls about invading endowments, spending rainy day funds, projecting deficit budgets and white knuckling it through.

And while the stress on nonprofit staff is not to be diminished, the stress on board members hasn’t been talked about much. 

And add to that board members’ own job-related stress.  Or, worse, lack-of-a-job stress.

What I sometimes see coming out of that pressure is a brusqueness, a rush to get the hard decisions made and live with the consequences – and a lack of process and relational behavior. 

Now I’m all for plain talk about the key issues in the room (does this program really return mission-value? what would happen if we cut out or deferred this entire budget line?), but running rampant over each other doesn’t help anybody.

It’s a tough Fall.  Let’s be good to each other.

So here’s my personal example.  I’m a board chair and last week as part of a regular chat with my executive director, after we went over the current grim financials, she complained that the staff was working at 150% yet there was no praise from the board, only picking at errors and omissions.  After a wave of defensiveness, including, I’ll admit, feeling guilty that as board chair I can’t personally solve the organization’s difficult financial straits – I channeled my better self.

I took a little time out of the board meeting later that day, to thank her, and the staff.  I noted that while we were all under a lot of strain, and continuing to hone our vision and programs under excruciatingly tough financial circumstances, we, the board, could go home, whereas this situation was, in fact, the staff’s “home” – where they lived everyday.

The whole tenor of the room lifted.  The sniping stopped, and a climate of gratefulness and graciousness took hold.

How can we bring more of that to the nonprofit universe?

Special Events: Full Speed Ahead or Reverse Course?

I received this plaint in my inbox last week…

“When and how do you determine at what point you call off a fundraiser?  Our event is scheduled for a month from now, but our board hasn’t secured any sponsors yet and our main fundraiser on the board is caught up in a new venture at work and hasn’t done anything so far…

Can you give me some guidance that I could present to my board tomorrow night? “

Signed,

Miss Yes-I-Know-I-Need-New-Board-Members!

That’s a good question, and one that more nonprofits should be asking themselves these days, I fear.

The answer, quite frankly, comes down to a cost benefit analysis.

As with so many difficult decisions, a chart can  help to weigh a few options.

If you create a spreadsheet where the first column is the original goals for the event – whatever you hoped you would accomplish with the event when you first started out; the second column is likely results in each area; and the third column is minimum results in each area that would make it worth it – you’ve got your projected benefits.

Now, at the bottom of this spreadsheet (or you can do it on a separate tab if you like), list the costs – what it's costing your agency both in real dollars, in staff/board time and attention (don’t skip this critical component), and the opportunity costs of what you aren't able to go after because of focus on this event.

Then think about if there's any possible way to boost the LIKELY projected benefits, and to reduce the costs in these areas.

And then, in a cold, hard calculation, you need to determine whether the benefits are worth the cost.

And finally, if they're not, how you can reverse course with minimum damage – if that's even possible.

So whether you should (cancel) is not always synonymous with whether you could, or whether you'd lose more from canceling than going ahead.

This is a complex conversation, and a difficult process to take your board through.  It helps a lot to have an ally on the board going in to a meeting like this – because special events are so totemic.

Canceling feels like failing, in a very public way – and it’s hard to have the courage to do so.

Fundraising Projections: A Sleep-At-Night Primer

Once again, the gap between “thought it would happen” and “here are the numbers” is looming large. 

Some organizations are finding, with sighs of relief, that fall fundraising income isn’t coming in as badly as they’d feared.

Others are finding that huge sums they’d been assuming were theirs, are not.

In volatile times, those with strong stomachs start discounting.  It’s not for the faint of heart.

I went back to the Cause Effective archives for an old chestnut we wrote in 2005 to help a client understand how to create fundraising projections, called “The Sleep-At-Night Short Primer on Financial/Fundraising Planning.” 

Sleep at night?  Doesn’t that sound good?  But I digress…

The idea is to create a LIKELY scenario – and a probable scenario. These days, one can slide between the likely, the probable, and even the worst case, on a week-by-week basis. 

But isn’t it better to have these scenarios, and understand how they run together, than to simply react as your organization is acted upon?

Donor Relations in a Moving Economy

I’ve been reflecting on all the uncertainty nowadays surrounding asking people for money in an economy that’s moving under our feet. 

For 6 months, we literally told people not to ask for a big gift.  Now, it’s not quite so clear cut.  But even short of a large ask, there are many ways to connect more deeply to those people who are likely to be your big supporters when the economy improves.

An article we wrote last fall about 2008 holiday giving – things to ask for when you can’t ask for gobs of cash – seems even more relevant now.

Some of that advice:

·      Offer the option of giving less right now, but giving over time

·      Make lists of items you need and ask supporters to donate (or purchase) them for your agency

·      Ask for time, for both general volunteering and for specific services

·      Turn donors into fundraisers on your behalf

Just the common tenets of fundraising, in uncommon times…

Don’t Be A Fair Weather Friend

We now know we’re facing what may be the tightest economy of our lifetimes.  (At least I hope so…)

We also know that donors, whether affluent or just getting by, feel less able to give during uncertain economic times, and that all go through more soul-searching before contributing.. 

This is a time of reflection and a time to return to the basic principles of fundraising, first and foremost of which is:

Fundraising is about values and about relationships, not about money.  Money is simply the currency through which moral and social priorities are expressed.

In that vein, some thoughts…

Don’t be a fair-weather friend.  Reach out to your supporters and talk about what is happening, to them and to your organization.  Express your understanding and sympathy for what may be a very difficult time.  Let them know your relationship to them extends beyond their moments of generosity, which will surely return, in time.

For those who continue to give, let them know how much you appreciate that continued support, particularly at this moment.

For those who can’t, express your intention to maintain the relationship and to ask at a more opportune time.

Your board members can help with this outreach – reinforcing the teachable moment that fundraising is about relationships, not just asking for money.

Accept help in all forms.  Offer opportunities for people to donate their time as volunteers or to provide in-kind goods and services.  Be creative in providing supporters ways to stay involved, even if cash is tight.

As donors align their giving with their financial capacity, you want to make sure that those who share your values are able to continue to travel along with you, whatever shape that takes.

Repeat after me: Fundraising is Friendraising. While aggressive approaches to attract new donations may not be timely, this is still an opportune time to cultivate new friends and get existing friends to learn more about your work, particularly if you can link your mission to meeting needs which arise from economic hardship.

Donors ‘R Us.  Establishing some common bonds around our anxieties – and some constructive responses – can emphasize to supporters that we are all in this together, as peers.  The bottom line is: we’re going to make it through, and we’re only going to make it through, if we stand together with our supporters as partners.