Breaking It Down

We get asked a lot to help groups figure out how to make more money from what they’ve been doing for years.

Of course there are a lot of reasons why appeals and events and other types of fundraising efforts stagnate (or slip) – but there’s a common strategy to looking at how to shake it up and invest new energy in it profitably.

And that starts with breaking down the big number. Someone came in last week with a Spring auction that nets $43,000.

More or less, every year. Now this is a group in a low-income neighborhood, so that’s not too bad. But they have parents sending their kids from all over the city to their programs, so I had a feeling there might be more there there.

I started by asking how much came from ticket sales, how much from the live auction, and how much from the silent auction. Then I went further – how many items went for over $500, for over $1,000, how many had multiple bidders, and so on? And I delved into ticket prices – were they asking everyone to give at the same level, were some people giving more, were those the same people bidding higher on auction items, were parents bringing other parents, how much were there “cliques” of attendees that could egg each other on? Etc.

I was looking for capacity, and for motivation – and for which leads seemed promising if we put more staff resources into pushing them. In other words, if there were three sets of parents who brought grandparents who were high bidders: what were they bidding on; could we feature those items in emails to parents with a “FORWARD ME” button; and could we build in a “3rd Generation” component to spur others to come forward like these folks had?

But just knowing that the event brought in $43,000 wouldn’t have revealed the data that allowed me to suggest this component. It took – breaking it down.

Moving Raw Ideas Around – or Editing as Fundraising

Spent a day editing various documents and realized, for each of them, that the ideas were all there – just jumbled together. 

Some of my work was inventing an outline system that separated big ideas from means.  That ordered recommendations so that a followed b.  That made sure, to get down to a level of detail, that the break on the first page happened at a point that the reader had been given enough intriguing “meat” to make the effort to turn the page.

Presentation details, sure.  But essential to content perception – yep.

And why is this relevant for fundraising?

Because when you’re asking someone else to invest in your ideas, you’d better be clear on what’s first and what follows.  The higher the stakes, the more your vision and clarity about what it’d take to get there, matters.

There’s lots of great vision out there.  We see nonprofits all the time with fantastic visions.  Hey – there are 30,000 nonprofits in New York City, and hundreds of thousands more in the rest of the country – and many have fabulous visions…especially those led by fresh founders!

The real separator is those that have the drive to adapt to the real world and figure out what it takes to move that vision the first steps into fruition.

Moving raw ideas into background and foreground.  Editing as the process of opening up vision into a real plan to move forward.

The red pencil as a primary tool of fundraising.

Get your sharpeners out…

The People Who Surround You

“Make a list,” I said.

Not a list of donors, or potential donors, or even potential board members, which was the subject at hand.

A list of people who know people (not to quote Barbra Streisand or anything) – and who think your work is great.

It was amazing how the names, and descriptions of relationships, began to flow, once the imperative/constraint of naming people who could be asked for something now, was off the table.

And so affirming to discover how many people surrounded this organization, and the people who worked for it, and cared.

When a group is facing financial difficulties (and who isn’t, now-a-days), we tend to get hunkered down. No matter the latest economic trends in the news, we feel that somehow, the situation is our fault. If we’d been smarter, better managers, more connected, made wiser choices, our nonprofits could have been nimbler, had more options, been more resourceful.

But reaching out is, in fact, resourceful.

And while the instructions had been to create a list of people who cared, the idea was not that we’d never ask them for help – just that we’d “give” them something first. The magic of witnessing work that changes lives. The breathtaking opportunity to be part of that change moment (we asked them to take part in a youth outing). The camaraderie of doing this alongside someone they respected and liked.

A moment of meaning.

The strategy will get played out over the Fall, so we’ll see where we are when it comes time to actually ask some of these individuals to serve on the board. “Now that you’ve seen our work firsthand, and been part of making it happen, might you step up to a greater place of responsibility for it?” is the planned pitch.

But even before that “consummation” close, the very listing of those who care, and the realization that we are surrounded by those who are – has started this group on the road to revival.

We get so scrunched over, scrutinizing the numbers, that we forget we’re surrounded by a universe that wants us to succeed. And is just waiting for us to ask them to help us.

Mission and Means

I’ve been thinking about where money and mission coincide.  Or don’t.

We’ve been working with a client that is wrestling with finance questions around its business model.

But, really, these are mission-based questions – who do they serve, what’s their core expertise, and what is the meaning of why they’re here on God’s green earth.

Or something like that.

It’s not just about who they charge for what.

And it’s been the board pushing the staff – to look beyond – that’s forced the issue.

To look beyond the budget numbers, this year’s and next.  To look beyond the profit and loss, the cash flow knot in the stomach, the accounting tricks that make them look stable.

And to look towards mission.

“It’s not about the market – it’s about the mission.”  I listened to the board chair say that to the executive director, and I was once again reminded of the power and necessity of the board’s point of view.

But how does this come up for “fundraising consultants”?

We’re often called in to help an organization fundraise around program assumptions.  But sometimes, a lack of financial support for a program is, in fact, a sign of larger mission drift.  Programs that might have been started because there was a ready financial market, are now orphaned without funding and without a strong enough tie to mission.

And it takes a board member – who’s not bound to the day-to-day grindstone – to point it out.

Is it mission?  Or is it means?

If it’s mission, a fundraiser can find a way to sell it.  But if it’s means, it may not have the significance, the weight, to be carried.  It may, paradoxically, be too “light-weight” – too far from the core – to be saleable from a fundraising point of view.

The power of numbers

I was reminded again this week of the power of numbers to speak…loud and clear.

I’m talking about the gift range chart – that “it-doesn’t-add-up-if-it-doesn’t-add-up” tool that makes the equation between prospects and total raised, pretty darned clear.

In a gift range chart, you list how many gifts at $10,000 you expect, and put names next to them. Then you look at how many gifts at $5,000 you expect, and put names next to them. And so on and so on, down to the small gifts, where the actual names aren’t listed but the vehicles (such as the annual appeal) are, and the expected totals make rational sense with what you really expect to raise.

What we’ve seen happen again and again, is that once you put names next to the numbers…there’s a real sobering moment. In other words, the group of co-conspirators has put together a list that doesn’t, once it’s broken down, add up to the goal.

But the chart, and the numbers, tell that tale. You, as executive director, development director, board fundraising chair, whatever, don’t have to be the naysayer, cause the numbers do it for you.

With the right board members, once they see the numbers don’t add up to the total hoped for, they add some more prospects to the list – and you’re off to the races.

With board members who don’t rise to the challenge – well, at least you know you’re not going to raise it, cause you’re not going to raise it anyway…by wishful thinking. So you can adjust expenses, or do whatever you need to do – instead of getting to the end of a campaign and discovering “Oops, we’re $60,000 short of our goal!”

Numbers don’t lie. Well, sometimes they do, but a gift range chart speaks the truth.

Selling Shoes

I’ve been thinking lately about the part of running a nonprofit that’s like running a business.

Well, actually, that is running a business.

With receivables, and getting the best price, and employee loyalty, and new lines of business – all that great stuff we thought we were getting away from when we went into social change instead of selling shoes.

I used to wonder, when I was a kid, how my cousins could go into selling shoes. Weren’t they concerned about making an impact on the world, doing something for people, I thought at the tender age of 10 and 12 and 14 (not knowing the term “social good”)?

And then at some point someone took me aside and took my self-righteousness down a notch by explaining that people needed something to put on their feet, and so even people who sell shoes are giving something back to the world.

Got it.

But there’s something very pure – tricky, but pure – about selling a product to people who pay if they like it. You hit the market right, you make money. Of course there’s advertising and capitalization and all that jazz, but how refreshing to have your popularity reflected by sales resulting in income!

(As opposed to the nonprofit economy where the product may be highly lauded by those it’s intended for – but they’re not the deep pockets that pay for the service. Welcome to two, even three or more, masters.)

How do you navigate all those imperatives, those drives and needs and social pulls – not least of which is the relentless mandate to make payroll, every two weeks?

Well, obviously (duh) – fundraising…

Welcome to our world – suppliers of social good and providers of a roof over our heads.

The Paper Bag Appeal

It's Appeal Time!

All over town, nay all over the country, people are folding and stuffing - and exhorting their board members to write inspiring, heartfelt notes at the top.

What an engine this is... well-oiled and rolling.

And Yet.

I was at a meeting last week where a development director remarked "I could send out an appeal on a paper bag and as long as I got it out early, it would be effective."

Well, kinda sorta.

It does matter that there's white space, and a catchy opening, and that the organization's impact is personified. And that there's a note so the letter is from a person to a person.

But, yes, it could be a note from my board chair on a paper bag, and if she sent it to someone who mattered to her, the equation stops right there.

Should that discourage those wordsmiths among us from carefully crafting a compelling case? No, because that inspires the asker - those note writers - as much as it does the recipient.

But it does mean that inspiring the asker, all year long, needs to be as much of a focus as gathering the names and addresses come mid-November.

In Defense of the Board Fundraising Committee

It might seem strange that I have to write something with this title, but I was at a meeting yesterday where a board member proudly explained: “We don’t have a fundraising committee – we don’t want to relegate that function to a committee. Fundraising is every board member’s job.”

Well yes – but…

It’s the old saw…If everyone takes it home, no-one takes it home. Who thinks about it in the shower?

It is certainly important for every board member to participate in fundraising. To search honestly and deeply for how, in their own lives, they can bring their nonprofit board service to the fore. To be a 360° advocate, raising friends and uncovering hidden fans at every turn.

But there’s something special about a group that is specifically committed to steering the board’s willingness into action, making sure that each piece is more than the sum of its parts. Whose job is not just to do, but to shepherd. And which has the responsibility for driving the big picture forward.

There’s a theory floating around that board fundraising committees – nay, all “standing” board committees – are dinosaurs. That instead of a board fundraising committee per se, what is needed is ad hoc activity-related task forces, like an event steering committee, annual appeal working group, capital campaign committee, etc.

We at Cause Effective have a big problem with this theory. And that is – that this reduces fundraising to isolated strategies, and directs the agency’s attention towards the what, not the who. In other words, the primary driver of board fundraising deliberations becomes What activities should we do for fundraising? instead of Who might care about us and how can we reach them successfully?

The board fundraising committee should be looking at the totality of prospects (friends, fans, volunteers, donors) within the universe in which the organization and its advocates move. That universe, and its interests, connections and possibilities, determines the activities the board should take to raise funds and friends. It’s the old cart and horse.

You may end up at the same place – a series of cultivation activities punctured by a couple of direct asks – but you’re starting from an understanding of the why and the who – which will ultimately result in deeper connections to an ever-expanding donor pool.

This…is what the board fundraising committee should have on its mind, and be mulling over in the shower. The stability, the sustainability, and the grow-ability, of the organization’s circle of supporters.

Trust…And Watch The Money Jar

Last week I came across another case of starvation-by-withholding. Organizational starvation, that is, with the board of trustees as the withholding body.

We see these occasionally, especially in groups that are going through very hard financial times. “How can I be sure this group is going to make it?” wonder board members in their heart of hearts – with the corollary question popping up: “How can I ask my friends to invest in this group when I might have to turn around and tell them it’s gone belly-up…only a few months after I assured them they were putting their money into a going concern?”

So there you have it, in a nutshell – board member hesitation leads to holding back on personal outreach…which leads to less income coming in…which leads to further robbing Peter to pay Paul (grabbing any available cash to pay essential bills, like payroll or the electric bill, even if the monies were part of a restricted donation)…which then leads to even greater board member reluctance given that now they’re wondering if the programs they’re fundraising for, will actually happen in the way they’re assuring potential donor prospects they will.

Groups can start at any point in this cycle, it’s not just triggered by a moment of board hesitation – but you can see how it becomes a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy.

And down we go, with acrimony.

Well now I guess you’re wondering how to short-circuit this spiral.

And the answer is – trust and watch the money jar – in other words, trust the intent, with very very close monitoring, side-by-side, of execution.

In practical terms, this means a small board-staff committee that looks at weekly spending-and-forecasting – what’s coming in, what’s a realistic judgment of what’s going to come in, and what’s gone out and is going to go out when. There’s been loads written in the past 3 years about managing through financial crisis, so I’m not going to go into that.

But the meta picture – the re-positioning so that the senior staff and the board feel they’re on the same side of the table – is the essential, “soft” part of the equation…without that, it just won’t work.

For fundraising to take place successfully, there must be confidence in the future. Trust in the staff, trust in the organizational competence to carry out the plan, and trust that the scenarios being developed are implementable.

Otherwise donors will vote with their feet for the nonprofit down the block, even if it’s not as astute and its strategies aren’t as impactful. And so too with board members – their silence when you ask them who they know who could donate in this time of greatest need, will be an eloquent testament to their lack of faith.

Addressing this crisis of confidence head-on, by creating a “case for the future” with financial and programmatic scenarios that are realistic and achievable, that match, and that contain the fierce vision and urgency of mission, is a key first step towards survival.

And most fundamentally, board and staff leadership together must buy into this case, must believe…

Make Them Fundraise

“Here’s where you whip them into shape,” a voice next to me said. “Make them go out and fundraise.”

Ahh… would that I could just say the word, and the minions would follow.

Life’s not like that.

The situation was actually a board meeting where, as the board member in charge of fundraising, I was supposed to lead the charge into battle. In other words, get the board members revved up about raising $350,000 in the coming fiscal year.

The executive director, giving vent to her frustration, wanted me to berate them. Make them understand the gravity of the agency’s situation if they didn’t “do their jobs.”

I knew, as an imperfect board member, nay an imperfect human being, how I’d feel if berated. Sullen. Defensive. Kind of like a teenager who knows he could do better but just wants to get out of the room.

I didn’t want to be part of that – and I didn’t think that would work.

So I chose to go another route – with a praise-based, “catch ‘em with honey” approach.

I went around the room recognizing something that each board member had done that had contributed to our fundraising effort in the previous year. Even if it was marginally related to fundraising, but took some burden off of staff so that they could concentrate more on fundraising – I made the connection to each board member’s actions.

In other words, I made them feel like a valuable member of the fundraising team.

And then I paused.

“You all know how important this coming year is for this agency – it’s make or break time.” I said. “I know that just as you have all been part of our success in the past, that you will all double your efforts in this critical year – and I’m proud to be a member of your team.

Let’s go get ‘em.”

Success breeds success. Make it happen.

Time To Retool

So Newt Gingrich goes on a cruise to get time to think.

(Or so he says.)

But those of us in the nonprofit world don’t exactly have that luxury. So how do we get thinking time – that span of uninterrupted brain space to de-pack and put things together in a new way?

Some of us do it through a day of working-from-home. Some take a weekend day. Some come in early, or come in late and leave late – after everyone’s left the office.

Do you notice a theme of solitude in here? For those of us in the field of fundraising – which is all about relationships – there appears to be a yin-and-yang of needing to be alone as a balance to the equation…

Some use summer for this purpose – as a time to clear off your desk, front-load various writing assignments, get set up to sail into a busy Fall.

Whatever tricks you use, it’s essential to take that space, or the job of fundraising becomes simply putting one foot in front of the other…instead of making new connections and finding innovative reasons why as-yet-unknown sources might gain meaning from supporting your cause.

The task of development is adding apples and oranges – putting it together. For every cause there is a reason…and downtime is the space to figure it out.

Time for the Trees

I was at a one-topic board meeting last night.

And, natch, the topic was fundraising.

The board deftly dispatched some legal issues, financial trend-spotting, and new program development in a half-hour – and took 5 minutes to recognize and thank the executive director for an extraordinary leadership effort in opening a new afterschool center.

Then, with 1.5 hours to go, the board settled in to the question: “What are we going to do to raise money in the next 4 months?”

And without much sidetracking – except to look back at the benefit’s results, and to look forward to potential fundraising activities for the next year – board members rolled up their sleeves.

The result? Plans for a wine-tasting with a take-home fundraising packet…a summer Hamptons house party…a general appeal to parents led by board volunteers…one-to-one calls to select major donor prospects…and the formation of an advisory council to further the organization’s fundraising reach.

Pretty fruitful for one board meeting, yes?

Now there are two elements of note in this tale. One, is the use of a dashboard for pretty substantial areas – finance, legal, new program development – which allowed the board to quickly digest the issues, see where the organization stood, and ask particular questions without having to go through the whole story.

Which gave it more time for the details.  The proverbial trees, in the forest.

Because Two, is that the dance is in the details – and in the relationship between the fundraising committee and the board as a whole.

Sure, the fundraising committee could have come up with these or similar ideas on its own, but then the board wouldn’t have owned it.

But in order not to get lost in each detail, when the discussion got too nit-picky the chair was able to relegate continuing the conversation to the committee to work out the particulars.

In other words, the board came up with an idea, took ownership over it, and then asked the committee to come up with a plan. And, board members got home in time to tuck their kids into bed.

Sounds like a win-win, yes?

Are Individuals Giving Again?

I was talking recently with a fundraiser from across the country who noted, in passing, that during the recession individual donors have held onto causes near and dear – but haven’t embraced new ones.

For us here in New York City, that was certainly true through the free-fall economy of 2008-2009.

But we’ve been finding that, starting last Spring, individuals are giving again – to causes both new and old.

Well maybe New Yorkers are more adventurous (aren’t they always?)…or maybe the economy here in New York hasn’t bottomed out as deep as the rest of the country…but Cause Effective’s clients have been gaining new donors recently in droves.

This doesn’t mean that the nonprofit economy in New York is in rosy shape – the recent State cuts and upcoming City ones are almost insurmountable for many nonprofits – but it does mean that in this neck of the woods, putting effort into reaching and attracting new individual donors is likely to pay off.

In fact, we’re working with a number of nonprofits who were reluctant to go down this road before…and didn’t have to. Now they have to, and while their boards are certainly nervous about fundraising, we’re seeing more and more board members willing to go over this cliff – because it’s clear to them that the old ways of doing business are not viable nor sustainable.

For organizations that have a lot of fans and have never asked them for support, the combination of a strong public presence and board members much more motivated, is pretty potent. Once we help them identify those folks, equip their askers with the right stuff, create structures for cultivation, etc. – they’ve got a lot of people ready to give.

Is It The Money?

It’s an old truism that development is more than just fundraising.

In other words, you’re only doing part of the job if you’re laser-focused on the funds you’re going after.

Not that bringing in funds isn’t important – we won’t be here (tomorrow) if we don’t bring in funds (today).

But there’s more to life in the fundraising lane than chasing after immediate dollars.

Because there’s more to raising funds than raising cash.

Anyone who’s been in fundraising for awhile knows the importance of tending to relationships, expanding organizational visibility, and building the backbone of a cadre of askers. Among other big-picture agenda items.

But the $64,000 question is: how do you allocate your time, in an era of dwindling resources, to make sure you’re tending the roots of the garden?

And even more profound: how do you allocate the time of your advocates – your board, volunteers, committee members – to make sure the garden’s going to flourish a Spring or two away?

Relevant questions, in the (hopefully) waning days of winter 2011…

The Observer Effect and the Glass Half Full

I’ve been thinking about how people modify their behavior, and how organizations can move towards a climate of higher board fundraising function.

In the sciences, when subjects alter their behavior because a researcher is watching, that’s called an observer effect. It means that if the subject knows you are there, you never know if what you are measuring is their true reaction, because people (and other sentient beings) try to please. The very act of watching changes the action. Hence the growth of double-blind studies, and other ways to obfuscate the focus of the observation.

But enough of physics and psychology; how does this work in fundraising?

People rise to the expectations we have of them (if they can). They want to please.

In fundraising, putting the behavioral sciences to work means taking tasks out of hidden space and into public space, where others can observe…and appreciate. Out of people’s bedrooms (“Please take a bunch of invites to send out”) and into the board rooms (“Let’s make a date together to meet with Joe”).

It’s one of the differences between giving board members five phone calls to make on their own…or having them participate in peer-based phone-a-thons. And it’s at the essence of why committee meetings are so effective – they provide a space for board members report on progress, and to know that others are watching as they do so.

Would they have done the same thing if no-one could see? Maybe yes, but often not.

This is why bringing in a consultant is often so effective – or one of the reasons why. People simply behave better when they’re watched – they grow into their doppelganger, their better-self alter ego.

But now, let’s combine this with the “glass half full” effect on human motivation: that when we think the glass is half full, we feel buoyed, readier to buckle down and go the final mile. “We’re half-way there!” we think – instead of “Look how far we still have to go.” The message is: “We can do this, we’ve already done it, it might be hard but we’re capable of it and look at the rewards.”

These concepts can work together to establish a climate where board members are successful at fundraising, and share their success, which motivates them (and others) to be even more successful, and so on.

And sometimes it’s up to the staff to find and name that success; it doesn’t always come naturally when board members are in the middle of it. People tend to focus on how far they have to go…instead of celebrating their progress to date. Recognizing board members for little steps taken, in front of their peers – helps them, and their peers, up the mountain.

I think that’s our job in managing our boards – in fundraising and in other areas as well. To remind them of their successes, indeed to name that success, in order to build the confidence – and the courage – to reproduce and build on it.

Watch the success, name the success, encourage the success…

The Value of Snow Days

There was a lot of groaning in my household this morning, at the decision to keep the NYC public schools open.  And while I pushed my kids through their disappointment and out the door, I realized that I, too, was a little chagrinned.  I was looking forward to having a day to catch up, reassess, and think strategically.

Maybe, I thought in the shower, this is a sign that I need to build in some reflection time.

I know one nonprofit that does Thank You Thursdays.  And another that does Friendraising Fridays.  Without carrying the alliteration too far, maybe, to be successful fundraisers, we need to build in a Strategic Snow Day – oh, about once a quarter. 

What might we do on a Strategic Snow Day?

Reconsider friendraising lists and think about who’s grown closer who could now be asked to become an asker…examine key written materials and decide which ones need freshening up…analyze appeal returns to pinpoint minor shifts which could portend potential major donor interest…et al. 

There are so many ways in which we get into the rut of “the usual,” as we try to carry out a development function in which the tasks – and the need – are overwhelming and never-ending.  Assumptions that we made a year ago – or several years ago – may no longer hold, and not just in a negative sense:  it may be that someone’s exhibiting increased interest and we’re not picking up on it because we’re not paying attention.

Strategic Snow Days.  A chance to pay attention out of the ordinary – to pick up a piece of the puzzle and turn it over to see if it might now fit in a different way.

In late 2008, at the onset of the recession, Dr. Paul Light, Professor at New York University's Robert Wagner School of Public Service, and a nationally prominent commentator on the public sector, made a dire prediction.

“More than 100,000 nonprofits will fail within the next two years,” Dr. Light pronounced.

One hundred thousand was a nice round number, and it got picked up by the media everywhere. Funders and nonprofits alike reacted in hushed and horrified tones.

Soon it didn’t just sound like a prediction – it sounded like fact.

Did this statement move the nonprofit sector towards resiliency?

To me, that’s the central question.

The number, Dr. Light now explains, was actually picked out of thin air at his frustration that nonprofits were whistling past the graveyard, in denial at how bad conditions for the sector were going to get.

And while it certainly got bad (and looking at the New York State cuts, we’re not nearly out of the woods yet), 100,000 nonprofits haven’t gone under – not by any stretch of the imagination.

Nonprofits have struggled and cut (and hemorrhaged) and affiliated…and retreated into semi-dormancy…but there hasn’t been a mass extinction.

In fact, the evidence is that the number of real nonprofits folding/merging is nowhere near Professor Light’s number.

[I say real nonprofits because the IRS’s recent requirement that all nonprofits – not just those with annual financial activity over $25,000 – file tax returns, will result in the demise of a number of dormant nonprofits…but the vast majority of those exist only on paper, not in the flesh.]

So the question, looking back at Dr. Light’s statement, is not truth – but impact.

Did Dr. Light’s prediction spur nonprofits to take the deepening crisis more seriously?

For some, yes.

Did Dr. Light’s prediction help engulf our sector in a quicksand of gloom that took nonprofit leaders some time to climb out from?

For some, sure.

And did it lead certain politicians, and funders, and even nonprofit leaders, to write off the nonprofit sector, assuming it was too fragile and too marginal to respond to the forces marshaled against it?

We’ll never know.

Dr. Light was attempting to help nonprofits adapt, and some times we need a gun to our head to change.

But is the stick (or loaded gun) the most effective way to generate a response from beleaguered nonprofits?

At Cause Effective we’ve seen both ends of the spectrum:

1. We’ve witnessed nonprofits exhibiting exhilarating resiliency in the face of extraordinary adversity;
2. And we’ve come in after nonprofits have grabbed hold of any available dollar, no matter how devastating the potential consequences (I’m thinking in particular of a nonprofit I just counseled that spent its restricted funds once its reserves were gone…)

As fundraising strategists, we’ve certainly been in the eye of the storm. And what we’ve seen is that creative responses to adversity grow more easily from a sense of possibilities, not a terror at inevitabilities.

Same goal, different means.

The Courage to Ask

Many nonprofits I know are sending out e-appeals this year along with their postal missives.

The question is – how much is too much, and how much is not enough?

There’s a fine line between making giving opportunities accessible; and being “in your face” in an aggressive way.

Many groups I know are erring on the cautious side. “We don’t want to annoy people,” they reason. But then they’re missing out on the implications of this remarkable phenomenon:

“22% of giving happens on the last two days of the year between the hours of 10am and 6pm.”

That startling fact comes from Allyson Kaplan’s December 14 compendium of year-end hints titled Best Practices for Year-End Fundraising.

There’s a stereotype of the overbearing huckster that often horrifies the kind of person who enters the nonprofit sector. “We’re here to change lives, not to be salesmen,” goes the thinking.

And, somehow, even for people who can get past that in 1-1 asks, appearing in someone’s in-box feels like having one’s hat out right on the steps to the subway – like you’re in their face…in the way of someone’s real business.

This is no time to be shy.

The world is a mess. Let’s not pussyfoot around that.

Unless we, as nonprofits, have as much impact as we can, it’s only going to continue to get worse.

And money is one part – an important part – of what enables us to get our work done.

So I say – within the bounds of taste (it doesn’t help if your donors-to-be turn away from your return address line, saying “Oh man, not again!”) – we need to be out there making our constituencies’ needs known.

It’s our moral imperative to get our job(s) done. And year-end fundraising is too important a component of that to let false decorum stand in our way.

Taking Baby Steps

I was sitting with an organization last week that was attempting to look systematically – for the first time – at what constituencies they needed on their board.

They got a little overwhelmed – there were so many important groups and so few of them were already represented in their board make-up! Neighborhood merchants, local manufacturers, real estate developers, academics – the list went on and on.

I could see people’s faces dropping as they weighed the difference between who was currently at their table, and the vibrant body that their board could become.

Time to prioritize.

Change happens one step at a time. Board growth often happens organically, as like recruits like. Once an organization takes a long hard look at a functions-oriented board profile (as in: who can do what and who can access whom), it often seems like a steep mountain to climb to get from here to there.

And the answer is: take baby steps.

Pick two constituencies or bodies of expertise (i.e. finance, or marketing/communications), and create profiles. Like a Chief Operating Officer of a small manufacturing company (giving you budgeting, HR and general management expertise along with local business contacts). Or a Director of New Media for a chain store (giving you social media, communications, and probably a few corporate connections). You get the drift – pick some high-priority logical combinations, then start going out to lunch with people who can lead you to people who can lead you to the right prospects.

One step at a time.

Year-End: Intention Into Action

It’s year-end time, for all good nonprofits…

Just about every group I know (including Cause Effective) is readying its year-end appeal. Many letters are already in the mail, sent off on a wing and a prayer…

But is that the end?

Better not be.

Last year at this time, it felt like the economy was still sinking (and indeed it still was). But this year the struggle is time. Attention. Intention vs. action.

How can we get people to pay attention long enough to write that check or click that link?

One way is to be in their face (nicely, of course). Groups that never emailed are emailing. Groups that never phoned are phoning. Or both.

What’s the key to fundraising success?

Follow-Up, Follow-Up, Follow-Up.

The idea is that letters hit. They get saved. They get lost. They get covered in a pile of good intentions, climbing out in February when it seems too late to act.

So we want to provide a nudge, a push over the cliff to commitment, to folks who were thinking about it anyways. That’s what follow-up phone calls are all about, and those ubiquitous e-appeals. It’s not that that many people are convinced to give by an email alone; they’re reminded of their intention to give (arrived at previously), at a moment when they’re a mouse click away from action.

People are busy. There’s a lot going on in the world at large that bares watching, let alone what’s happening with their families, their friends and their jobs.

People want to change the world, feed children, save neighborhoods, prevent elder abuse. But there’s a lot of dreck, a lot of forest, in the way.

We have to help make it easy for them to be the best person they can be.

Follow-Up, Follow-Up, Follow-Up.