Over There - items of interest from the USA

We are very grateful to our colleagues at The Philanthropy Journal for the following articles      

Fundraising: It's all in the details

Dave Sternberg of The Fund Raising School at Indiana University highlights the not-so-obvious fundamentals of effective fundraising: understanding the landscape, putting your board in its place, and recruiting the right leaders for the job.

Question:
What are three often-overlooked ingredients in conducting successful fundraising?

Answers: 

1. Understanding the landscape.
The most-overlooked thing in many fundraising campaigns is a good understanding of philanthropy in the U.S. Philanthropic giving grows every year, yet when most nonprofits sit at a board meeting, they think they can't reach their budget goals due to a tight economy, which must necessarily have produced a decline in giving. Not true.

You can probably argue that there are legitimate moments in time where you might see some short-term economic impact, for example when a factory closes in a small town, shutting off the main income valve in an area. But in the macro picture, the statistics invariably say that giving is growing. Giving USA is a great resource for finding these numbers.

2. The right balance: board and staff
Most nonprofit organizations, outside the context of higher education, don't recognize that fundraising is a board-driven activity supported by staff, and not the other way around. They only end up with a staff that's unhappy and the organization's office becomes a revolving door.

Fundraising is a top-down activity not a bottom-up one.

Board members should be asked to take the leading role, to go to the people in their sphere of influence and involve them in the organization's fundraising goals through cultivation, solicitation and stewardship.
Staff plays a solid supporting role; staff members physically support board members with their presence at cultivation activities, provide expert answers to questions, and essentially provide any services the board needs to be successful in fundraising.

But some nonprofits are so small that they have a staff of only one or two. In that case, fundraising responsibilities should go to the person who can handle it best. Ideally, it's the chief staff person. 

3.  Recruit the right board.
One of the most consistently overlooked things in staging a successful fundraising campaign is how board members are recruited.

Many nonprofits think they have to take anything that comes along and end up feeling a little apologetic towards anyone who's on their board. If you have a board recruited for the right reasons, there's virtually nothing they can't do – and vice versa. A board recruited without careful attention to skill sets and resources will accomplish very little.

When fundraising becomes a priority for your organization, you need to realize that it may be time to shift the makeup of your board to one that has fundraising as its chief skill.

--Compiled by Elizabeth Floyd 


Major gift etiquette

Susan Orr, founder of Telosa Software, looks at the most common mistakes she has encountered among major-gifts seekers through her experiences as a donor and fundraising volunteer.

Question:
From a donor's perspective, what are three of the most common mistakes in asking for major gifts?

Answers
 
1. The "ask" without the relationship.
It seems like an obvious mistake but many make it: Asking for a major gift without first building a good relationship with the potential donor, and without a solid understanding of their interests.

Presumably this donor has already made some kind of gift to your organization, and it is important to understand what motivated that gift. A relationship comes from uncovering those values that are shared between the organization and the donor.

You should nurture that relationship over time, building up to a major gift request.

For example, one donor to an art museum could be a student of modern art and thus consider a gift to help the museum build its collection. Another donor could instead be interested in community outreach and not the museum's collection at all.

If you don't understand this, you're going to ask for the wrong thing and fail. 

2.  Not asking for an amount.
In the case of an annual gift, not asking for a particular amount could be understandable but, for a major gift, specifying an amount is absolutely imperative.
For example, I recently received a solicitation from an organization I have supported in the past asking me to help finish its current fundraising campaign. But there was no indication of how much money they want from me or how many other people they have solicited.
How should an organization decide on the appropriate amount to request?
Do your research. Of course, you don't want to ask for an amount that someone doesn't have the capacity to give.
But it isn't just about capacity. Your request should reflect an understanding of the donor's interests as well. What has a donor already done for similar projects in the community? Pay attention to lists of gifts published by other organizations.
I think personally that it's much better to ask for too much than not to ask for a specific amount. 

3.  Setting your sights too low.

This has to do with understanding what a donor cares about at a deep level. In asking for a big gift, you must have a big idea that goes along with it.

You should have a plan, some piece of which is in line with what the donor cares about. And this plan also should advance your mission or your organization in an exciting way.

Our first solicitation in a $500 million campaign for Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital was a request for $8 million from a donor who had never made that large a gift before. Yet the fundraising professional I worked with had done his homework and knew what that particular donor cared about.

And don't assume that once a donor has made a major gift, they've done all they can for you and you shouldn't ask them again. Actually the opposite is true. Once you've made a big gift to an organization, you as a donor feel much more connected and willing to make a repeat investment.

When we went back to this $8 million donor only three years later, he made another very large gift.
So big gifts follow big ideas, but stewardship is fundamental. Not only must you continue to cultivate a relationship with a major benefactor, you'd better make sure that big idea you had gets implemented in a way you can be proud of.

So fundraisers must be well aware of their organization's capacities for following through on promises they make.

--Compiled by Elizabeth Floyd

(c) 2007 The Philanthropy Journal.  For more information, please go to www.philanthropyjournal.org