How Much Do You Tell?

We’re working with a nonprofit this summer whose fundraising has an edge of urgency – their cash reserve was small to non-existent at the start of the recession, and by now they’re running a little below empty.

As in – for the first time last month, they couldn’t make payroll.

While they were able to right themselves once a long-committed grant check was cut and deposited, we’re taking a two-pronged approach with them –

• cash flow, cash flow, cash flow and
• shaking the dollars out of the trees

It’s the leaf-dislodging part that I’m thinking about here.

In a case like this, how much do you tell long-time fans, even long-time donors, so there are “no surprises” – but also no alarm bells about the organization’s viability?

In other words, what’s the right balance between transparency and vision?

Between urgency and investment?

Between plugging an unpluggable hole, and giving a “good news” gift?

What’s the “spin”?

With each Cause Effective client we’ve worked on this problem with recently – and believe me, in the last couple of years we’ve become old hands at navigating this – we’ve taken the approach of creating a financial plan that shows how the nonprofit intends to survive…with a hole in the plan, of course, where you’re hoping the donor in front of you will fit in.

In other words, having the solution lined up so you can ask someone to become one of your key steps to solvency – instead of serving as a handhold standing in the way of your organization’s slide towards utter disaster.

You can then combine this financial plan with a compelling vision of programmatic impact, with the ultimate goal of winning the donor’s heart. But if their mind is telling them “this ship is going down…” – well, they’ll hesitate on the way to the bank.

Ya need to have a plan. A feasible plan. A plan the donor can believe in.