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.

Who Speaks

It matters, a lot.

Whether board members present the latest financials at the board meeting, or the CFO carries that portion of the meeting.

Whether board members discuss amongst themselves what they’re going to do to build up attendance at the annual benefit.

Whether board members feel the “message” is one they can carry to their friends – and if they don’t get it, do they speak up and say so?

We all want to avoid the “nod-and-avoid” syndrome – where you have board members who genially agree with whatever’s on the table…and simultaneously check out.

One shortcut around this is a classic middle-school technique – a presentation from a classmate. It’s the same principle, really – you listen to your peers, you snooze to the teacher.

Another middle school staple to borrow? The working group. (A committee by another name.)

And when you combine the two – the working group stands up at the lectern to lead a discussion on the agency’s new messaging – well then the room comes alive.

It’s peer-to-peer, middle school style.

Is it that we haven’t progressed?

Or is it that these techniques call upon the verities of human nature, which surface in middle school (if not before) and stick around for life…?

Development = Sales?

“You wouldn’t try to sell a product without an adequate sales team, would you?”

That’s the analogy a board member put out, as he tried to convince his organization to hire an additional development staffer.

It was an interesting thought – that posited the development department as the organization’s advance team, and the group’s real-world impact as an item to be sold to people just waiting to buy something they hadn’t known they needed.

Well, sure. Sorta.

And yet – it made me uneasy.

Not the aspect that posited that it takes staff to position and support an organization’s fund-seeking visibility/viability.

But the part that implied that staff itself were the “sales team” masterminding a pitch to an unsuspecting public.

Maybe I’m naïve in thinking of fundraising as a higher calling, but I see it as partnering with people of good will to help the world rise to a better place. There’s an element of sales, sure, because that’s the tools you need to get the job done. But at the core is a fierce dedication to mission, by all means necessary. At the core, it’s not about finding people who need/will purchase your wares – it’s about saving the world and bringing us all along with you.

But in any case, your development department is not your sales team. Your board is. The development department supplies the tools, but the board – and committee members, volunteers, other donors – are the ones doing the listening that allows the organization to close the sale.

OK, I said it. I guess there is more than a little element of sales here. But it’s a means, not the end.

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…