Future Fundraising Now

Fix your fundraising for success and growth: 10 must-do things

Fundraising might seem like a mass of “techniques” that you do.

That’s not quite correct. There are a lot of techniques, and knowing them matters.

But what really makes the most difference for a fundraising program is a lot more basic than that. Here’s a great post from Get Fully Funded that can help you get the fundraising fundamentals in place for success: 10 Keys to Help You Declare Your Independence From Mediocre Fundraising:

1. Self-centeredness must be replaced by donor-centeredness. Your donors don’t give to fund your excellent organization. They give to make things happen. Talking about yourself is irrelevant. Talk about the action they can take -- and why they want to.
   
2. The relationship is worth more than the money. It may seem like your job is to generate revenue from donors. Your real job is to build relationships with donors. Then the revenue will really start to flow.
   
3. Program goals must be set before fundraising can begin. You owe it to your cause and your donors to know what’s the right things to do and the right ways to do it. Fundraising is putting specific action in the hands of donors. Not just asking for money.
   
4. Status quo in fundraising restricts growth. Nothing stays the same, even fundraising that works well. Keep your eye on results and be ready to change strategy if revenue starts to drop.
   
5. Working without a plan will never fully fund your mission. Plan your fundraising a year in advance. Then work that plan. You can adjust if you need to. Having no plan guarantees you’ll drop the ball in various ways. And you’ll make yourself miserable, always behind, always running to get things done last minute.
   
6. Sole-source funding is not a secure way to fund your budget. As with almost everything else, diversify your portfolio!
   
7. Power must be balanced between the Board and Executive Director to provide optimal leadership to the nonprofit.
   
8. It takes a team to reach big goals with fully funded budgets. Small organizations often have one-person fundraising departments. That’s okay if you don’t plan to grow. At some point, one person will be a choke point. Hire team members as you grow. That will keep you growing. Remember, every fundraising person is a revenue center, not just a personnel cost.
   
9. Growth depends on systems. Know how everything should be done, put it in writing, fanatically follow your systems, and keep optimizing your systems. Without that, you will make growth impossible. And keeping people even more impossible.
   
10. When donors feel good about giving, they’ll usually do it again. Do your donors know their giving makes a difference? Do they know their giving is appreciated? Do they get good service? If you focus on these things, you will always have a source of sustainable revenue.
    

5 secrets to fundraising happiness

Personally, I think working in fundraising is a pretty sweet life. Better than the other careers I've explored.

If you're not getting the most personal fulfillment out of fundraising, here are some things that might help:

1. Respect your craft

If you're embarrassed to ask for money ... if you think direct mail is tacky and awful ... if you think fundraising is a necessary evil that besmirches your reputation and annoys donors ... well, you aren't going to be happy in fundraising. Get right with the profession. That's the only way to do great work, and it's the best path to personal fulfillment in the job.

2. Concentrate on lifting revenue, not lowering cost.]

Sure, you can increase net revenue by lowering costs. But the rewards of that approach are limited; you can only lower costs so far. A much better way to improve your bottom line is to seek opportunity ... be willing to take risks ... think like an entrepreneur. It's more fun than shaving pennies off of your direct mail packages. And it works better.

3. Embrace your right brain

You can raise a lot of money using statistic and logic. That bothers many people in the profession. They spend their entire careers fighting basic human brain structure and try to motivate donors' left brains into giving. That's just slamming your head against the wall. It hurts. If you can cultivate a love for the emotional, you'll raise more money and have a lot more joy in your life.

4. Say thank you

Your mom isn't the only one who thinks this is a good idea. Donors who are told their gifts are appreciated and their gifts make a difference are stronger donors. Put some energy into thanking donors and reporting back to them the impact of their giving. You'll feel better about asking when you know you're going to close the circle by thanking donors.

5. Escape group-think

Imagine a life without ponderous, long meetings. Where great ideas take wing. Where everyone operates in their strength. That's what you can have if you have decisions and thinking done by individuals and tiny, nimble teams ... instead of committees.

(This post first appeared on April 18, 2018.)

13 ways you kill your productivity

The hardest thing about writing is writing. Staying on task and productive.

Unfortunately, the enemy is most often within. We find ways to be unproductive. Here are some of the ways we do that, from the Publication Coach Blog, at How to kill your productivity:

1. Overestimate the amåount of time you have. You think you have eight+ hours a day for concentrated work? Think again. After email, meetings, interruptions, and all the other things that happen, you’re lucky if you have four hours. Studies show you likely have just over an hour of uninterrupted time each day. Things are going to take longer than they seem they should!
   
2. Underestimate the value of small actions. On the other hand, being consistent with the time you have to work with makes all the difference. Better to write for 15-30 minutes every day than to try to cram it all in in one big session. It really adds up.
   
3. Multitask. Multitasking really doesn’t work. Do one thing at a time if you want to be most productive.
   
4. Allow yourself to be distracted. Turn off email notifications. Shut down everything that might take you off task. Post a sternly worded sign on your door.
   
5. Perfectionism. Don’t try to be perfect in one go. It doesn’t work that way. Especially writing. Writing a messy, terrible first draft. Then fix it in subsequent drafts.
   
6. Not knowing how to say no. You know who they are. They’re good at getting you to say yes to things you shouldn’t do, or things you should have more time to do. You need to find a way to say no!
   
7. No work routine. It really helps to do similar tasks at the same times every day.
   
8. Not automating recurring tasks. Find ways to make those things you keep doing easier. Especially infrequent recurring tasks -- create checklists to minimize time spent getting up to speed.
   
9. Too many meetings. Avoid as many meetings as possible! Some meetings are necessary, but most are just productivity-killing time-wasters. Get out of as many meetings as you can!

10. Not tracking results. This may sound awkward and unnatural, but tracking your time -- the way they do in law and advertising -- can really make you more productive. You’ll be a lot more informed how long tasks really take after doing this for awhile.
    
11. Unrealistic goals. Project timelines are typically built on wishful thinking, not realistic knowledge. Be part of the solution by being as hard-nosed and realistic as possible.
    
12. Not enough downtime. You will take downtime, whether you intend to or not. Build it in, and your work will be better.
    
13. Not enough accountability. If you don’t have someone expecting you to hit your deadlines, you will miss more deadlines. Make accountability part of your process.
    

How to take photos that tell stories [Newsletter Tuesday]

Newsletter Tuesdays: A series about doing more with your donor newsletter.

Great newsletters usually have great photos. Because photos tell stories, and the big story every newsletter should tell is “Good things are happening, thanks to you!”

But not all photos do the job.

You’ve seen the “firing squad” photos: Some people are lined up against a wall and “shot.” The result boring -- no story, other than They made us stand here, and some of us are not comfortable with that!

Instead, make sure every photo tells the story you want to tell. The best way to do that is to...

• Focus on people, not things.
  
• Include context that adds to the story -- people in their own homes, or doing the things they do or interacting with others.
  
• Keep it simple and uncrowded. One person. Maybe two or three. Rarely more.
  
• Give the photos space. The best photo, if it’s the size of a postage stamp, isn’t much good.
  

And just don’t:

• Photo of someone behind a desk.
  
• Backs of people’s heads.
  
• Photos from your gala -- well-dressed people standing around with champagne.
  
• The giant check ceremony. It communicates to all other donors that their gift is small.
  

More Newsletter Tuesday posts

4 things you must do when you get a donor-advised fund gift

You can’t ignore donor-advised funds. They’re growing fast, so the chance you have donors who have funds is high. Here’s what to do when you get a DAF donation, from a very useful post at the Boomerang Blog, at How To Enter And Credit Donor Advised Fund Gifts In Your Database:

1. Hard credit the gift under the record of the fund. Not the donor. Their actual donation happened when they deposited the funds in the DAF in the first place.
   
2. Soft credit the gift on the record of the individual who made the grant recommendation. You got the money because the donor chose you. In that sense, it’s a donation, and it signals the possibility of future donations.
   
3. Send an acknowledgement to the individual donor. But don’t thank donors for their “tax-deductible gift.” They already took the tax deduction when they gave to their DAF. Just let them know they’re making an impact.
   
4. Send an acknowledgement letter to the DAF administrator. It’s not really their gift to you, but you do want to build a relationship with funds whenever you can.
   

Why are your donors interested in the wrong things?

In the early morning hours of a late-winter day in 1990, two men dressed as police officers got into an art museum. They tied up the two guards on duty in the basement and proceeded to grab 13 pieces of art, most notably two Rembrandts and a Vermeer. They left with their loot and were never caught.

The value of the stolen art was estimated at $200 million dollars. At the time it was the biggest art heist ever. Despite intense investigations, the case remains unsolved.

This isn't the plot of a movie. It's something that happened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. If you haven't been to this museum, there are two things you should know:

1. You should visit, any chance you get. It's one of the coolest places in Boston.
   
2. It's different from most museums. More crowded with art from everywhere and from across the centuries. It's almost chaotic, compared to most museums, and that's because Isabella Stewart Gardner, a wealthy art collector, made it that way. On her death she created a $1 million endowment and stipulated that the collection be permanently exhibited without any kind of change.
   

Gardner's stipulation means that when those pieces of art were stolen, museum officials couldn't just rearrange the collection to fill the empty spots.

They had to leave empty frames where the pieces had been.

Empty picture frames.

It's probably not surprising that those empty frames are the most popular and sought-out things exhibited in the entire amazing museum.

But come on! In a museum packed floor-to-ceiling with incredible and unique works of art -- people go looking for empty picture frames? I know I was especially looking forward to them.

That must drive the people who work at the museum up the wall. I don't know this; I just imagine it to be so. For all I know they might just love the empty picture frames.

There's a reason visitors to the museum love the empty picture frames:

They tell a story. A dramatic story that takes no background knowledge to understand and appreciate.

Of course, every piece in the museum also tells a story, many of them dramatic. That's true of most things in most museums, and those stories are what the museums want to share with their visitors...

...who may or may not be interested in them.

I'm telling you this for a reason that impacts fundraisers in a big way: People -- all people, including your donors -- love stories.

But they don't love all stories equally.

And that means they they may not care about the story you want them to love. They prefer to look at the empty picture frames.

You can scold and cajole them all you like, but that won't change what grabs their attention. Scolding is not interesting, so most won't even notice you're scolding them.

You can hide the stories they like, hoping that will channel them toward the stories you want them to like. But that won't work. They'll just stop paying attention.

Or you can work with the stories they want. Stop trying to force them into your world and your preferred stories. Enter their world and their stories -- and use those to motivate them to action.

This is not easy to do. Because the heroes of those stories won't be you. Or your brilliant staff and leadership. It sometimes won't even the people you exist to help -- though they will likely be in the stories you tell.

The story that will grab their attention like an empty frame on a museum wall will be about the amazing action they can be part of ... how they can change the world by putting their values into action ... how they can make a difference in a distressing world ...

Things that are not about your organization. You are a secondary character in those stories.

That might make you cringe, like a curator of an amazing museum watching people rush past important and unique things to gather in front of an empty picture frame.

But your best response is not to fight it. You'll never win, because people love the stories they choose to love. You have no vote in this matter.

So work with the stories your donors are drawn to. Grab their attention. Thrill them. Connect with them.

People who visit to see your empty picture frames are hundreds of times more likely to engage in the other stories you have to offer than those who don't show up at all.

The powerful 3-part structure for an effective newsletter story [Newsletter Tuesday]

Newsletter Tuesdays: A series about doing more with your donor newsletter.

The standard structure for a written news stories is the Inverted Pyramid: Start with the most important elements of the story, then work your way to less-important things.

It’s thought to be a service to readers, who can learn the basics about what’s going on, then go as deep into it as they want before moving on to the next story.

For donor newsletters, the inverted pyramid is not a good structure. Here’s why:

• A donor newsletter isn’t “news.” It’s storytelling.
  
• We don’t want to make it easy for readers to read only part of our stories -- we want to entice them to read the whole thing! (Alas, many will read only parts of the story no matter what we do.)
  
• In a donor newsletter, the 5 Ws (who, what, where, why, when) matter, but even more important is the one big Y: you.
  

Donor newsletters should use the structure of storytelling. There are many ways to tell a story. Here’s a loose structure I usually use:

• The headline and lead should focus on the most amazing element of the story. Not the resolution, but the most exciting part. It should also hint to the reader that they played a part in the story.
  
• Then it should tell the story in order: beginning, middle, end.
  
• The end should directly address the reader and make it clear how their giving mattered.
  

More Newsletter Tuesday posts

Here’s something that will inspire and strengthen you and your colleagues [Book review]

Book review: The Healthy Nonprofit: Inspirational Thoughts on Leadership, Purpose and Success by Harvey McKinnon

This is not the typical nonprofit book. It’s not going to help you run a monthly giving program, recruit bequest donors, or raise more money this month.

But it just might help with all those things -- and many others -- in a deeper way.

“Action is the antidote to despair.” -Joan Baez

It’s a compendium of great quotations -- more than a thousand of them -- that might help you get through a rough day. Or inspire you to pursue a new idea. Or remember why you’re doing this work in the first place.

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” -Booker T. Washington

It’s not all about fundraising. Or nonprofit topics. In fact, it’s mostly about other things. But the quotes are aimed at people like you, facing the issues you face.

“To please the board member who donates $50,000 per years, we will move forward with his bad idea that will cost us $300,000 per year.” Anonymous

Don’t put it on the bookshelf. It’s the kind of book you want to leave lying out where people will pick it up and leaf through it.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. -Maya Angelou

Or promise yourself you’ll read at least one quotation a day. (You’ll probably read a few more, but that’s okay.)

“The single biggest problem in communications I the illusion that it has taken place.” -George Bernard Shaw

I highly recommend this book.

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” -Albert Einstein

You can order it direct from the publisher, or find it wherever you buy books.

10 things to make your fundraising email stronger

From the Hubspot Marketing Blog, How to Write a Marketing Email: 10 Tips for Writing Strong Email Copy:

1. Subject Line: Use actionable language. Make it about doing something.
   
2. Subject Line: Personalize when possible. This increases open rates, click-throughs, and response.
   
3. Subject Line: Prioritize clarity, and only then think about "catchiness." If it’s clever but unclear, it’s a loser.
   
4. Align your subject line copy and email copyWhatever your email subject line promises, the email message should deliver.
   
5. Establish relevancy. Make it completely clear throughout what this message has to do with the recipient.
   
6. Write in the second-person. Or rather, talk to the recipient, about what the recipient wants and what they’ll do.
   
7. Talk about benefits, not features. Donors don’t give to the details about your work. They give to make the promised outcome happen. Focus on the outcome and its meaning.
   
8. Be brief. Though some very long emails can work well too.
   
9. Be lovable. Easy to read, relevant, and a good experience.
   
10. Use actionable language in your call-to-action. The whole reason for sending the email is to get people to do something. Make it clear, actionable, and don’t be afraid to repeat that key point.
    

4 ways to boost mid-level giving

Are you handling your mid-level donors in the best possible way? When you do, you can dramatically improve revenue, and you’ll also find “hidden” major donors. Here are some ways to get there, from the Veritus Group Blog, at Will the Real Mid-Level Program Please Stand Up?:

1. A manageable caseload size. While major gifts programs are one-to-one (and a high-functioning major gift officer can handle a caseload of around 150 donors), mid-level programs are one-to-some: not up-close personal relationships, but relationships nonetheless. A mid-level gift officer should limit their caseloads to 500-700 donors.
   
2. A communication plan based on key interest areas and reporting back. Find out what each mid-level donor cares about. Two ways: Ask them (try to reach them by phone, email, or mail) and send then appeals and see what they respond to.
   
3. Meaningful and relevant touch points. Don’t exclude mid-level donors from your direct response program (unless they specifically ask you to), but also add relevant pieces about the impact they have.
   
4. Relationship-based Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Don’t just track the money! Watch the relationship by tracking retention, upgrading their giving amounts, and how many move into major donor status.