Nonprofit Expert Episode 23 – Transformative Fundraising

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Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect.

Robbe HealeyHost00:13

Thank you so Read More

DonorPerfectAd00:03

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect.

Robbe HealeyHost00:13

Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Robbe Healey and I’m so excited to be joining you today to kick off this new series Respect, Relationships and Resources, part of Nonprofit Expert, presented by DonorPerfect, and as you work in your development programs. I think you might agree that all three are carefully related to each other and we have to have all three in order to be successful. So in the early 80s, when a mentor said to me you need to be in fundraising and I had no idea that she was right but I believed her because I’d picked her as a mentor she sent me to the fundraising school, which at the time was the proprietary business of the late Henry Hank Ros Russell. And in my notebook that I still have from his two-week seminar, I wrote down something that he said, and I’m actually not sure I understood the breadth and depth of its meaning, but it did sound important to me at the time. And what Hank said was the degree to which fundraising will be successful in your organization is in direct proportion to the degree to which your organization sees fundraising as a program as important as every other program, and I’ve thought a lot about that over the course of my career and in the organizations with which I work and perhaps you can begin a lot about that over the course of my career and in the organizations with which I work, and perhaps you can begin to think about that in the organization where you work, do they really see fundraising as a program or do they see you as the person who’s tapping the ATM machines that they think of as donors? Because we might all agree that it’s called development for a reason. It’s development program for a reason. We need to develop dignified, effective, respectful relationships with people who care about our mission and want to help us deliver that mission through their financial investments, their philanthropic gifts to our work. So, when we think about who is involved in respecting our discipline, obviously the board that is willing to put it in their budget and fund it and make sure that the program can exist and thrive. It’s also our staff colleagues. Does our CEO, does our executive director, see fundraising as part of that role? Does he, she or they really believe that fundraising is a program and one that they need to be involved with? And then, of course, our staff colleagues. Do they see our work as integrated with theirs? And volunteers. Do we have volunteers we work with, perhaps even in our own program, who are expanding and advocating for the work that we do and inviting donors to know more about what we do.

03:33

We talk a lot in our sector about building a culture of philanthropy. I’d like to, and I agree with that, I think we do need to build a culture of philanthropy. But I’d like to, and I agree with that, I think we do need to build a culture of philanthropy, but I’d also like to add another layer to that. Do we really have a culture of generosity in our organization? And when we think about generosity from a personal perspective, do we believe in abundance or do we believe in scarcity? People who believe in abundance always believe there’s going to be enough, maybe more than enough. If we really operate from a personal philosophy of scarcity, it’s really hard to believe that people will give to us, it’s hard to believe that we ourselves will give and it’s hard to believe that there will be enough to go around. I truly believe that behavior change precedes culture change. So if we begin to talk the talk of respect and engage with each other in a way that demonstrates that we believe in this mission, we believe there are donors who will believe in this mission and we believe in developing high-quality relationships. That sets the stage for really good culture change. When we look at the respect piece within our organization structure, obviously going from transactional fundraising to relationship fundraising is a critical piece of that. It doesn’t mean that those transactional tactics will ever go away, because point of entry gifts are always part of the work that we need to do, but part of the work. So those mid-level gifts, those major gifts, those plan gifts, we need to make sure that we’re integrating those tactics into our integrated development plan.

05:40

In my life journey, I can tell you, I think there are lots and lots of wrong ways to raise money and if we really focus on best practice, not only will we be more successful but we will also use the dollars and the hours allocated for our development program in a way that is much more successful. So whether we’re doing annual giving, whether we’re working on those bridge gifts, those mid-level gifts between annual giving and major gifts, whether we’re working on major gifts or planned giving, looking at best practice, the highest, best use of the dollars and the hours we have for our program can make the difference between struggling and success when we think about relationships and if we really know that our organization is all in. If we think about the relationships that we want to build, they’re groups of key players our board members, our staff members, our volunteers. I don’t know about you, but one of the most profound books that I read in my professional journey was the AAA Way to Fundraising Success, written by Kay Sprinkle Grace and Kay talks about three roles for our fundraising success that we need to have ambassadors and we need to have advocates and we need to have askers. And, in particular, she overlays this on the stereotypes that we bring to the board, where every board member has to be an asker. Well, kay would say no. If you’re successful in working with board members, your experience might also confirm that 100% of our board members and I would say 100% of our staff colleagues need to be ambassadors and developing friendships for the organization. Every time we develop a new friend for our organization, we’re extending our mission. So even if we’re not asking, that doesn’t mean we haven’t done important work. So developing friends for our organization is the baseline.

08:01

The next level is advocates, and advocates are the people who make the case for us. They might be making the case with the United Way Community Impact Panel. They might be making the case with foundation executives or foundation trustees. They might be making the case within their service group or their faith community if they’re a person of faith, but they are advocating for the work we do. Of course, they’re also ambassadors at the same time. And that last group, that last one-third perhaps of our board, are going to be the people who are comfortable asking. Obviously, they will also be comfortable advocates as well as ambassadors.

08:48

So if you think about 100% of the board as ambassadors, two-thirds of the board as ambassadors and advocates and one-third of the board as all three, we got the right frame of reference, the right frame of mind when we’re deciding who do we want to invite in as board members and who perhaps isn’t quite ready yet. So when you break it down and we think about the people who will be engaging with our donors and our prospects, who’s on our prospect list? Who are the people who already give? Are there people who could be doing more if we gave them the right kind of information, the right kind of attention? Are there people known to us or people within our circle of influence who could be prospects? And who’s the best relationship builder to grow our prospect list Once we know who the people are. Who, within our internal circle, are they most likely to respond to? And are they an advocate? Are they an ambassador? Do they need a partner in order to advance the relationship? And once we know that, once we’ve got that structured, who’s going to be responsible for initiating and sustaining and maintaining those relationships and finding out what part of our case for support appeals to them?

10:30

The day of taking our request to our prospect, I hope, is long gone. We need to do the due diligence of asking them what in our work is in their heart and how can they see themselves getting involved in a deeper and more significant way, themselves getting involved in a deeper and more significant way. How much are we thinking about asking them for and when? And always remembering we don’t ask for anything without permission. We know what the donor’s interests are, we know that they’re interested in working with us and we ask them point blank can you help us understand what? Are you ready to think about going to a deeper level of involvement with us? And unless and until they give us permission, we’re going to continue stewardship and cultivation. We also have to have the courage to ask that question so that we have permission to talk with them about supporting us.

11:43

None of this is possible unless our development program, our advancement program, our fundraising program, has the proper resources to be successful. I think that old saying it takes money to make money is true, but we also need to use it in the best way possible, and the scrutiny about overhead is not going away. I do think we need to defend our responsibility to properly fund infrastructure but at the same time, be aware that donors are always prospects, are always scrutinizing what our investment in our infrastructure is, and we need to defend that as an investment. So when we think about properly structuring a development office, do we have the right staff structure? Staff structure depends upon the life stage of your organization. A more mature program may not have a mature development office. Just because an organization could be 50 or 100 years old doesn’t mean it’s been doing fundraising well, and some young organizations have much more robust development programs. So it’s life stage of the fundraising program, the development program, not necessarily age of the agency.

13:06

Once we know what the right staff structure is, do we have the right back office infrastructure? Do we have a good CRM, such as DonorPerfects? That will leverage the capacity that the staff has. Without that, we’re really not giving them the tools they need to be successful. Giving them the tools they need to be successful. So good technology, good software systems that will allow us to be successful.

13:39

Are we looking at the calendar correctly? Are we making sure that the events, the tactics we want to implement, fit in with the other events that the agency is doing? Are we dovetailing with some of the community engagement opportunities that the agency is already sponsoring and having the calendar well balanced? Are we putting our fundraising tactics at times of year when we know donors are more likely to be generous the fourth quarter of a calendar year, typically or is there something in our agency philosophy that says we can’t do it? Then understand, if we want to give us the best possible opportunity to be successful, we need to do it when we know donors are going to be open and perhaps more predisposed to be generous. Everybody wants metrics, everybody wants KPIs, everybody wants to know what it is that we’re doing and how successful we are.

14:51

I think the last piece of resources is obviously data gathering, but also, are we gathering and measuring the right data? Cost per dollar raised is important. It’s not necessarily the most important, but looking at what’s the broad range of outcomes? How many prospects have we identified? How many appointments have we been able to secure? How many prospects have let us bring a proposal to them? How many gifts have we closed? That gives us an opportunity to look at the entire continuum of engagement, not just how much did we raise and what did it cost. Are we taking advantage of all of the opportunities we can? Are we leveraging giving tuesday? Do we have enough bandwidth, do we have enough contacts, information to really do well with something like giving tuesday? So just because it exists doesn’t mean we should try it immediately. We need to make sure we’re ready.

15:58

When we look at metrics, one of my favorites is always comparing our own program year over year to see whether we’re growing and growing in the right areas. So if we’re consistent over time, measure our own inputs and outputs, we can begin to get a real, clear picture of whether our efforts are aimed in the right way and whether they’re being successful. Doesn’t mean we keep something for 10 years just to have depth of data. If we know something is struggling after two or three, we may want to do a refresh or sunset something, but at the same time bouncing something around different seasons of the year, different themes, we are not able to really measure well. So when we think about the resources we need, do we have the proper staffing structure? Do we have the proper back office operation? Have we really looked at what we’re doing in a way that reflects best practice and are we measuring things in such a way that we know whether what we’re doing is working?

17:13

As we go through the next series of conversations, we’re going to talk to some industry experts about building relationships, building high-quality relationships that work. We’re going to talk about resources and what it takes to really build a good program and, perhaps most importantly, we’re going to talk about relationships. They may start in a transactional way, but we’re not going to grow and evolve them to be the kind of agency changing donors unless we really focus on the high-quality work of cultivating and stewarding relationships with people whose heart for philanthropy is aligned with our mission. And I hope, as you enjoy the next series of conversations, you will take some very significant takeaways that you’re able to use in your own personal professional practice. So thank you again for joining in this conversation. Part of Nonprofit Expert presented by DonorPerfect in this series Relationships, resources and Respect.

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