Author Simone Joyaux asks these questions: “How many times have you sat in a boardroom and wished you were someplace else? How many times did your wish relate to others in the room? Maybe some particular person?”

Joyaux acknowledges we’ve all been there. Perhaps the feeling occurs only in passing but what do we do when our feeling about a board member arises more frequently in response to a pattern of legitimately bad behavior?

Unfortunately, the author explains that too often we do nothing about it for a variety of reasons:

1. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

2. We’re afraid of conflict or confrontation.

3. Volunteer work is supposed to be fun.

4. We’re all just volunteers so let’s avoid the challenging issues.

No matter the reason, Joyaux asserts we cannot compromise the organization’s quality due to a little discomfort or the loss of a bad board member’s donation. In short, it’s unacceptable.

Why? Because of the great costs to your cause in the areas of organizational integrity, delivery on mission impact, and ability to retain good board members, to name only a few.

There are no quick fixes or silver bullets for turning around bad board member performance. The good news is there are answers.

Board vs. Board Members

One of the strategies that I particularly liked in Joyaux’s Firing Lousy Board Members and Helping Others Succeed was her focus on the distinction between the individual and the group.

Joyaux emphasizes the critical importance of every board distinguishing between a collective board and its individual members. Each has a distinct role. The collective board makes the decisions, not necessarily unanimously, and presents a united front in supporting those decisions. It treats all board members equally, including the board chair, as no one board member is more important than another.

Joyaux provides a list of board responsibilities. A sampling of the list follows:

• Establish charitable contributions goals.
• Define board member performance expectations regarding fund development.
• Define values, mission, vision, and strategic direction.
• Ensure financial sustainability by adopting a budget and fund development plan and monitoring performance.
• Hire, appraise and fire the chief executive.

In contrast, the individual board members have different responsibilities. Some of their main responsibilities include:

• Attend board meetings.
• Engage in board conversation. (Silence is consent and is not acceptable.)
• Give a financial contribution.
• Help nurture relationships with donors and people interested in the cause.
• Help carry out fundraising activities.
• Ask strategic questions.

Keep evaluation of the board and individuals separate

By separating the individual trustee from the collective effort, it’s not only easier to establish accountability and volunteer job descriptions, the chair, and executive director can fall back on each line that describes the discretionary effort of each person rather than dilute someone’s lack of effort in the overall board’s outcomes.

In Firing Lousy Board Members, Joyaux explains how it’s imperative that you move quickly with underperforming board members because your cause deserves better. While she acknowledges this task is not always easy, this guide will provide what Joyaux calls helpful “recipes.” What’s more, Joyaux has done everything she’s suggested in this book—not only as a staff member but also as a board member and chair.

The post What Should You do with Lousy Board Members? Simone Joyaux Gives Pointers. appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

TED Talks has been around since 1984, but found a resurgence with the rise of the Internet and social media sharing. The company encourages everyone around the world to spread their ideas—whether they’re large-scale and revolutionary, or small ideas that can change how someone goes about their every day.

Here are some of our picks for the best TED Talks to inspire those who work for nonprofits.

1. Dan Pallotta: “The way we think about charity is dead wrong”

This is one of our all-time favorite TED Talks and one that’s really stirred up the nonprofit world. It’s about a topic very near and dear to our heart: the “overhead myth.” In the presentation, Pallotta addresses an often overlooked double-standard that everyone involved with nonprofits should be aware of.

2. Audrey Choi: “How to make a profit while making a difference”

Choi’s TED Talk is a good one for those working with for-profit social impact companies. She answers many questions about how you can make changes in your community without letting it affect your bottom line, and poses that every for-profit company can invest in some social responsibility initiatives.

3. Katherine Fulton: “You are the future of philanthropy”

In this TED Talk, Fulton covers how all of us can achieve great things by coming together and working collectively. You don’t have to be rich or famous to make an impact in your community. Fulton believes that regular citizens should be working to do this every day.

4. Melinda Gates: “What nonprofits can learn from Coca-Cola”

In this famous TED Talk, Gates talks about the entrepreneurial spirit of Coca-Cola and how nonprofits can use similar marketing tactics to stretch their impact. The main point she makes is that nonprofits need to pay attention to who their audience is and what their values are. Once you know, you can change your messaging to directly appeal to them.

5. Ernesto Sirolli: “Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!”

In this cheeky TED Talk, Sirolli addresses a problem nonprofit professionals run into all the time: thinking you know all the solutions to a problem. Sirolli suggests it’s naive to assume that you can just go into a community and help them without talking to people in that community. Make sure that you’re asking the right questions before you decide to start a campaign, or an entirely new organization.

The post Five TED Talks for Nonprofit Professionals appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Without being too retrospective, we can learn a thing or two from the past when it comes to fundraising for nonprofits. When problems emerge, you have to think of new and creative ways to deal with them. But why spend hours trying to blaze your own trail when others have done it before you? Below, you’ll find some key turning points in the history of the nonprofit sector and what we can learn from them.

1900s

From the late 1800s up until 1920, the U.S. entered the Progressive Era. This was a time of increased social activism and political reform. During this time, we saw policies such as child labor laws, suffrage for women and prohibition.

This was also a decade of prosperity and success for many in the nation towards the turn of the century. With an increase in wealth came an increase in giving back. The release of Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth in 1889 promoted the idea of owing a duty to society, and encouraged donating to causes.

A cause many found to be worthwhile was the YMCA. Though the organization had been around for years, in the early 1900s we saw the U.S.’s first significant fundraising campaign come from the minds of Charles Sumner Ward and Frank L. Pierce, two of the YMCA’s most prominent leaders. The two developed a system of fundraising that had never been seen before: setting a time limit on their campaign for constructing a new building in Washington D.C., hiring a publicist to oversee the campaign and seeking paid advertisements from corporate sponsors and celebrities. Their effort became known as the “YMCA School” of fundraising. This took the organization from a private franchise focused on local chapters to one the entire nation—and big donors—could get behind.

Takeaway:

What can we learn from Ward and Pierce? Go big, or go home. Even if you’re a small nonprofit focused on a niche community or cause, expand your fundraising efforts to everyone. Set up a way to donate online, create a social media campaign and promote it on a national scale and give the campaign a little extra something: whether that be a fundraising goal by a certain date, a fun competition between donors or asking for a specific item on your wishlist.

1940s

With World War II happening across the pond, and the looming fear that it would come to the states, Americans took it upon themselves to help out with the effort from home. For the first time in the nation’s history, people came together to fundraise on a global scale.

They started to conserve resources, send supplies to troops overseas and develop both civilian and refugee relief programs. Many times, fundraising and volunteering took on the form of a collaborative effort. Service organizations like the YMCA, the Salvation Army and the National Jewish Welfare Board came together to create the United Service Organization for National Defense (USO). The American Red Cross also launched an unparalleled campaign where they were able to raise millions of dollars, recruit over 100,000 nurses and start the nation’s first-ever war-related blood donation program.

Takeaway:

The takeaway from this time period is looking at how your nonprofit organization can work with other entities to better a cause. Whatever that looks like for you—working with a corporate sponsor, another nonprofit in your community or a for-profit business with a social responsibility angle—your organization could make a lot of progress. By collaborating, you can save costs on things like shared infrastructure and administrative expenses, promote each other’s mission on different platforms and maximize efficiency on getting tasks done. Don’t count out other players when you’re thinking about your next fundraising effort.

1970s

Following the massive paradigm shift brought on by the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and the cultural resistance to entering Vietnam in 1965, we saw how Americans began to organize and work together to tackle specific issues with a narrow focus.

The government also became much more involved in social and cultural welfare programs. In 1969, the Tax Reform Act gave us Section 501(c)3 in the Internal Revenue Service Code, which said that every charity in the U.S. that fits certain requirements is a “private foundation,” meaning they have a principal fund managed by their own trustees or directors.

When organizations found that they could legally have status as a charitable organization and offer tax exemptions to their donors, there was a surge in applications for 501(c)3 status. With the development of an official “nonprofit sector” came the development of more rules, regulations and policies.

In 1976, Congress passed a bill, supported by the Coalition of Concerned Charities, that allowed nonprofits to legally spend up to $1 million per year on lobbying efforts. This gave them greater voice in the government. By 1980, the nonprofit sector was being referred to as the “third sector,” and it was influencing the business world.

Takeaway:

What did the government and nonprofit collaboration in the 1970s teach us? Don’t be afraid of Uncle Sam. Work with the government to apply for the legal status that best fits your organization. Then, use them to get the grants that could help take your nonprofit from just a great idea to a force in your community.

Treat your nonprofit organization like a business in order to get the full scale of results you want. Look at fundraising the same way you would a sales campaign, and think about how you can benefit from earned income opportunities, too. Taking risks often pays off for for-profit organizations, why wouldn’t you want to try it for your nonprofit?

2000s

Right before the world transitioned into a new millennium, the Internet happened. In 1991, the World Wide Web became available for public use. This would forever change the world, and forced many to adapt to technology they’d never even had to think about before. For the nonprofit world, it became yet another avenue to utilize.

Online giving generated $2.1 billion in donations for nonprofits in 2012 and has only been growing since. Make sure that your nonprofit organization is fully equipped for online giving, and make it easy for donors to know where their money is going.

With social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook gaining large followings in 2006 came another new technology available for promotional use. By utilizing social media, you can get the word out about your nonprofit’s mission. Just look at campaigns like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge or the #BlackLivesMatter tag, both of which started online and transformed into giant social movements.

Takeaway:

The ultimate takeaway from the day and age we’re living in is to seize the opportunities offered to you. The Internet can serve so many purposes for the nonprofit sector, so it’s on you to utilize them for your benefit.

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Whether you’re just starting out or you’re an established voice in your community, you’re bound to run into a situation where you feel lost. Luckily, the trailblazers and thought leaders of their time have prepared you with decades of troubleshooting. So let history be a roadmap for your organization so you can navigate the nonprofit waters with ease.

The post A Brief History of Nonprofit Organizations (And What We Can Learn) appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

According to Ken Burnett, “Our nonprofit sector is bleeding to death. We’re hemorrhaging donors, losing support as fast as we find it, seemingly condemned forever to pay a fortune just to stand still. It’s time we stemmed the flow.”

It’s understandable why Retention Fundraising author Roger Craver chose Burnett to write the forward for this book. Burnett brings the right amount of warning to the issue. Burnett is right. Our social sector is in dire need of determined action to diminish donor attrition.

Why?

A few of the many reasons we must diminish donor attrition include:

• Attrition costs our organizations billions of dollars and effort.
• It suffocates the other mission-related work we’re trying to do.
• It undermines the sector as a whole.

Unfortunately, many fundraisers accept low donor retention as a fact of life. Roger Craver says it doesn’t have to be that way. Craver has unpacked the answers to many of the challenges nonprofits face with attrition such as shifting the fundraiser’s focus to what matters most to donors, overthrowing retention barriers, responding efficiently and more.

Thanks to a study of more than 250 organizations, Craver and his collaborators have introduced a framework for boosting retention and the lifetime value of donors. This framework is the foundation to improve each of the retention issues he presents, from redefining loyalty to understanding authentic engagement.

We asked Craver about how to make a case for retention activities if you need to enlist your colleagues and leadership in the process. We also had him share insights on the metrics you should measure.

CausePlanet: How do you convince nonprofit organizations that focusing on donor retention is worth the extra time, effort and expense?

Craver: Year after year for the past decade, donor retention rates have been sinking. Today, they’re at an all-time low.  According to studies by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, every $100 raised from new donors was offset by $100 in losses because of attrition. All of this is despite the facts that organizations have

– a 60-70 percent chance of obtaining additional gifts from an existing donor.

– a 20 to 40 percent chance of obtaining an additional gift from a recently lapsed donor.

– but less than a 2 percent chance of obtaining a gift from a prospective donor (actuation).

So one thing should be glaringly obvious. The bulk of an organization’s fundraising spending should be aimed at holding onto and building relationships with existing donors; not in acquiring new ones. It’s called “retention.” Unless an organization’s goal is to never grow and eventually decline, the failure to focus on retention is ultimately ruinous as the organization’s support shrinks like a raisin in the sun.

CausePlanet: Would you talk about how the metrics you have developed (lifetime value, etc.) help a nonprofit track its fundraising and justify its time and effort?

Craver: There are some fundamental metrics that serve as a sort of fundraiser’s GPS—retention rates and lifetime value. They quickly and easily indicate whether an organization is relevant to its donors.

Number of new donors making a second gift: A harbinger if not dead-on predictor of the retention rates and lifetime value an organization is likely to enjoy in the future.

Number of new donors retained into the second year: If you ask and answer the question as to why so many donors leave the first year and what your organization is doing to lose them and hold them, you’ll be on a true track to growth. Fail to answer them, and it’s more of the same.

Multiple Year Retention Rate: Same as above, but by tracking these year-by-year you can spot trends, problems and opportunities. Why? Because year-over-year comparisons of this metric will trigger additional questions and answers for improving your program.

Lifetime Value of a Donor (LTV): At the end of the day all the actions you take to improve retention, average gift and donor commitment will be reflected in the Lifetime Value of each donor and all donors collectively. This is the key metric on which you can benchmark, guide and then track the success–or failure–of your intermediate and long-term strategies.

There’s never been a better time for Roger Craver’s book. Why let one more hard-won donor leak through the bucket when instead, they could be a lifetime supporter of your organization. Simply put, calculate the cost of repeated acquisitions versus the renewal of a donor who is predisposed to support you.

Craver provides countless data-based methods for retaining donors including Cliff Notes to his own advice at the end. From what drives donors to stay to what prompts them to leave, Craver makes it impossible to look the other way on retention–and your nonprofit will be better for it.

The post How to Stop Donor Attrition and Track Relevance appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Jeff Brooks’ How to Turn Your Words Into Money is a book about what fundraising writing should be and also what it’s not.

Brooks tells you exactly what to avoid and what to try in your next attempt to sway your audience. A fair amount is appropriately dedicated to the many ways you can create a compelling story even when you’re stumped.

As Brooks explains in his post, you’ll get a lot of specific fundraising advice and writing tips like:

• Specifically how to ask.
• How to use rhyme to make your message more memorable and persuasive.
• How to tell stories that motivate donors to give.
• How to tell a great story even when you don’t have a story.
• How to meet donors’ emotional needs.
• Whether you should use guilt as a motivator.
• The most common traps for fundraising writers—and how to avoid them.

We asked Brooks about the fundraising profession and how it ties into his advice:

CausePlanet: Jeff, do you think the nonprofit world is shifting to honor your fundraising advice?

Brooks: I’d say a qualified yes. The idea that you’ve got to focus on donors and their needs if you really want to raise funds is widespread. There are few experts left who don’t focus on donors these days, and there’s a ton of great help for being donor focused.

I think there are two dark clouds in our bright, donor-focused sky:

There are still a lot of organizations that are using crappy old techniques. They seem to be caught in a time warp. They’re still eking some kind of success out of it, but in most cases, they’re living on strong legacy brands. They don’t have to reach out to donors because so many donors already believe they’re worth giving to. This can’t go on forever, so these organizations are either going to change or go into financial death spirals in the coming years.

For too many fundraisers, “donor-centered” means “fundraising I like.” Which by definition is not donor-centered. Every day I see examples of modern, slick, intellectual, clever fundraising that’s terribly ineffective–but self-labeled as “donor-centered.”

Those of us who believe in really meeting donors and making them the heroes in our fundraising need to push against both of these shortcomings!

In spite of all the attention new fundraising strategies attract, raising money via the written word is still one of the most effective strategies you wield as a nonprofit. In fact, your messages are now played out in more ways than we ever dreamed.

It’s never been more pressing to get a handle on your writing style and how it triggers a donor to give via mail or online. Brooks has a superior track record in this realm and his book shares a bounty of insider knowledge.

The post [Essential Read] How to Turn Your Words into Money appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

The term “donor cultivation” has the unique distinction of being universally accepted and appreciated but poorly understood and abysmally applied.

Donor Cultivation and the Donor Lifecycle Map by Deborah Kaplan Polivy challenges you to put a thoughtful focus on donor cultivation and deliberately embed ongoing practices by using her framework—a map designed to orient your donor interactions toward the long view rather than simple year-to-year terms. Polivy introduces personal and non-personal tools to apply when in acquisition, renewal and growth activities. She also dedicates an entire chapter to demonstrating how these tools work with an in-depth case study I highlight below.

Donor Lifecycle Map

The Donor Lifecycle Map, created by Sarah Clifton, 101 fundraising blogger, inspired Polivy to combine her ideas about long-term cultivation with this map in order to write her book. In the Map, the organization is constantly building relationships and moving donors across stages.

Every donor matters and is cultivated through his or her first gift, second gift and active giving over the years. The organization tries to move the active givers to stretch gifts and finally to ultimate gifts such as legacy gifts. Not every donor will follow this path but it provides “a framework for thinking about donors and how to shift them from one segment to the next.”

CPB Major Gifts Initiative

In her book, Polivy shares a case story that demonstrates how Robert Altman, while at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Major Gifts Initiative, made some changes relevant to actions connected with the Donor Lifecycle Map.

The Challenge

The Initiative determined that CPB was suffering financially because it had mainly been raising money through widespread, smaller donations of less than $100. Several stations signed on to experiment with raising larger gifts to some success.

Corrective Measures

After taking over in Albany, Altman shared some of his changes with Polivy, which relate to building relationships, tools and the Donor Lifecycle Map. A few examples include the following actions the station took. The team:

• focused on building relationships with donors and outwardly connecting with the community more,
• rearranged the organizational chart so the major giving and planned giving staff reported to him,
• sustained donors through automatic renewal deductions from donors’ bank accounts and requests for increases sent through the mail,
• researched the best fundraising practices (e.g., thank-you calls with no requests produced more results if continued at three months and six months after a donation),
• researched patterns of interests among donors so it could send invitations to special events in these areas,
• applied different pitches to minor and major donors,
• created societies for different giving levels,
• developed information regarding ultimate gifts and scheduled events around legacy giving,
• enlisted board members to make thank-you calls to donors,
• instituted tours several mornings a month, and used its 50^th anniversary as a cultivation tool by holding celebratory events.

Why the Map Works

The corrective measures Altman applied to his sleepy fundraising initiative underscore many of the cultivation principles Polivy recommends in conjunction with her Map. When I asked Polivy what readers appreciate most about applying the Donor Lifecycle Map, she said, “How logical and strategic the model is. The question that needs to be asked at each interval is, ‘How can I move my donors forward through the sectors on the map?’ In particular, if they ‘map’ their data, they will see where they are not moving people ahead and where they are ‘losing’ people along the way, i.e. lapsed donors.”

See also:

Fundraising the SMART Way™: Predictable, Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity + Website

Influential Fundraiser: Using the Psychology of Persuasion to Achieve Outstanding Results

It’s Not Just Who You Know: Transform Your Life (and Your Organization) by Turning Colleagues and Contacts Into Lasting, Genuine Relationships

The post How to Chart Donor Cultivation to Reach Fundraising Success appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

The donor relationship equity built over the lifetime of an organization should not be taken lightly. Author Jeff Brooks encourages you to apply his proven strategies for raising more money and to avoid jarring tactics that jeopardize donor relationships.

One of the passages we liked best in Brooks’ latest book, A Fundraiser’s Guide to Irresistible Communications, was titled “Self-centric fundraising.”

Simply put, if you like your message, your donor won’t. Read on to find out why.

Self-Centric Fundraising

If you like your fundraising message, asserts Brooks, it will not appeal to your donors. Even if your donors say they like it, it will not compel them to give in real life.

“Everyone’s conscious opinions about fundraising are automatically wrong… Everyone hates the stuff that works best,” he writes.

This happens because when you practice self-centric fundraising, or what appeals to you as the fundraiser, you lose the emotion. That’s because your initial emotional connection to the cause has become more sophisticated and educated as you have worked more and more for the nonprofit.

For example, you may want to talk about global hunger as “food insecurity” after working in the field. A donor would not understand this term. In addition, you don’t focus on the donors because you are proud of your organization’s work and want to detail its merits.

Donors, however, want to be part of the equation. Finally, “your copy reads like inter-office memos.” Formal, professional and cold communication does not motivate donors to act. In this kind of copy, you focus on facts: “Please consider supporting the 124 children in our hospital,” instead of a compelling, emotional story about a 6-year-old girl talking about her good-luck bear in her fight against cancer.

In order to avoid these self-centric messages, turn off your personal likes and dislikes in favor of what has worked with donors before, either in your organization or at others. Ask if it is emotional, clear and simple, rather than if you like it or not.

In our interview with Brooks, we asked more about what donors want to hear:

CausePlanet: What do you think is the best training fundraisers can receive? They need to be fluent, smooth writers but also need simplicity and an intuition about what donors want to hear.

Brooks: The best possible training is an experienced mentor—someone who knows fundraising inside and out and will go over your work in detail and show you what needs to be done. Read quality books about fundraising. There are a lot of them, and the folks at CausePlanet can help you find the right ones. Also, read a few of the blogs.  There are a lot of them, many of them superb sources of information. Find a blog you like, then add a few more from that blog’s blogroll. Finally, get to know other professionals and talk about stuff. Get involved in your local AFP, and/or go to one of the national conventions. Knowing and talking with other professionals really makes a positive difference.

CausePlanet: What in your research makes fundraisers lose money more than anything?

Brooks: Failing to engage with donors. Asking donors to “stand with us” rather than give them specific actions they can take. Writing in the language and about things that organizational insiders care about, rather than what motivates the donors. Using images that make insiders feel good instead of those that reach donors. Using abstractions and wordplay instead of clear, plain, powerful emotional messaging. Bragging about the organization and its programs instead of making it about the donors.

The Fundraiser’s Guide to Irresistible Communications: Real-World Field-Tested Strategies for Raising More Money

The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand: Motivating Donors to Give, Give Happily, and Keep on Giving

Seeing Through A Donor’s Eyes

How to Write Fundraising Materials That Raise More Money

The post The Reason You Shouldn’t Like Your Donor Message appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Your nonprofit board could be incredibly warm or all-too cold toward fundraising. Which is it?

“Your fundraising program reflects the effectiveness of your overall organization. It’s a litmus test of your viability,” explains author Laurence Pagnoni.

He laments that too often fundraising programs exist in a silo, meaning the fundraiser works in isolation and the fundraising programs are not embedded into the fabric of other organizational operations and initiatives.

Over-Reliance on Rudimentary Fundraising and Lack of Teamwork Among Board, Staff and CEO

Most nonprofits that are envious of high-performing organizations with robust fundraising programs are usually reliant on one dominant funding source for too many years, renew rudimentary or sleepy grant programs, operate planned giving on a “self-serve” basis and have a board that doesn’t work efficiently as a team with the CEO and staff.

What To Do When Your Board is Hot or Cold with Fundraising

While a chief concern is a cohesive board, CEO and staff, another primary focus Pagnoni emphasizes is, of course, fundraising. In his book, The Nonprofit Fundraising Solution, Pagnoni discusses what to do when your board’s core strength is fundraising and what to do when the core strength is not fundraising.

First, Do a Little Detective Work

To take an organization to the next level, a board and CEO must align themselves around the strategic plan, where both parties have a deep understanding of the vision. Then, Pagnoni emphasizes finding your board’s core strength (e.g., fundraising, compliance, etc.) through conversations, a perusal of board minutes, attendance at meetings and possibly a self-assessment.

The Cold Shoulder

If a board’s core strength is not fundraising, Pagnoni suggests these steps “in their ideal order of execution”:

1. Recruit a fundraising professional for the board.
2. Implement a development or fundraising plan.
3. Establish gift acceptance policies and use them (i.e., which kind of gifts you’ll accept).
4. Develop the necessary committee structure (at least a development committee and possibly an events committee or planned giving committee).
5. Prepare an annual ROI report.
6. Direct volunteers to fundraising activities they feel lie within their strengths (e.g., good writers write appeal letters; good talkers solicit donations verbally).

A Warm Reception

If your board’s core strength is fundraising, follow these methods:

1. Campaign more.
2. Explore comprehensive giving with top donors (e.g., annual, stretch and planned gifts).
3. Review your development plan and address a longer period of growth over 10 to 25 years.
4. Execute more detailed business planning.
5. Go deeper into one dominant and minor source of revenue, instead of diversifying, since going deeper may prove more lucrative with a good fundraising board.
6. Develop subcommittees to report to the development committee.
7. Ensure that strong connections are created between all your various fundraising tactics (e.g., events program connects with the individualized giving program).
8. Make routine use of external consultants to infuse talent.

Let Your Relaxed Confidence Emerge, Be Nimble and Keep an Eye on Ethics

When it comes to fundraising in harmony with your board whether they embrace or sidestep fundraising, Pagnoni emphasizes identifying solutions that fit your own challenges. He says, “Each person must find his own fundraising path and use his own experience, infused with best practices. What I’ve offered [in my book] are my own experiences based on best practices. Many people ‘want to do it right,’ and I’d rather see a more relaxed confidence emerge where you try a few things, evaluate, change course as may be required. So the challenge here is to be nimble with applying the strategies that I outline and always head toward the most ethical ways to raise the most revenue.”

See also:
The Ask: How to Ask for Support for Your Nonprofit Cause, Creative Project or Business Venture
The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand: Motivating Donors to Give, Give Happily, and Keep on Giving
Fundraising the SMART Way™: Predictable, Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity + Website

The post How to Fundraise with a Hot or Cold Board appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

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Asking Rights is a book about how to successfully fund your nonprofit and do so with a greater focus on and understanding of the funder’s interests and motivations.

“What really counts is what the people who actually write the checks think,” explains Tom Ralser, the author of Asking Rights. More specifically, how do donor motivations inform nonprofit fundraising behavior? Ralser would say, “It’s all about the outcomes.”

Ralser asserts the rational appeal or the pursuit of earning the right to ask a donor for his investment is at the root of every successful request.

Here we take a closer look at the investor’s perspective and how to adjust your appeal to meet your goals and donor motivations.

The Investor’s Perspective and How to Balance Your Approach

Ralser explains the difference between investors and donors in order to encourage nonprofits to not only appeal to the emotions of a donor, but also to the rational, outcomes-based side of an investor.

Donors

Rasler defines a donor as “an individual or organization that typically provides low-level, often sporadic financial support that is not necessarily connected to the mission of the nonprofit.” An investor, on the other hand, he defines as one who “typically makes larger financial commitments that span several years.”

Investors

“An investor is most concerned with the long-term success of the nonprofit,” Ralser says. He differentiates an investor’s thinking in the following way: “If you can’t demonstrate results (outcomes), then you do not have the right to ask for money. If you can’t make your outcomes meaningful to me, then you do not have the right to ask me for money.”

Because higher-end investors are more interested in your results, which involve improving the lives of your customers and effecting real change over the long run, they need you and any organization into which they invest to communicate the impacts clearly to them. Therefore, they do not want only emotional appeals, despite the research that donors respond more to emotion than statistics.

Where Emotional Appeals are a Fit

Emotional appeals serve a purpose in direct mail and other impersonal channels, but Ralser argues nonprofits that craft the most effective emotional appeals do not always raise the most money. Ultimately, higher-end investors want a return on their investment, instead of simply giving to a charity with no expectations. They don’t want the best ad campaign and have already been bombarded with marketing pitches. Investors are becoming wary of the emotional appeals that do not show any specific impact.

Ralser argues that many studies that seemingly prove the effectiveness of emotional appeals over factual ones are conducted in certain situations and do not necessarily apply to real-world giving situations, particularly not to long-term investors.

Rokia Study

Rasler references Save the Children’s Rokia study that found that providing donors with a photo of a 7-year-old hungry child with general information raised more money than giving the donors statistics. This study was conducted through impersonal channels and dealt with small amounts of money.

In contrast, in his real-world business helping organizations raise money, the rational appeal, focusing on ROI (social return) for higher-level investors, works when an organization is looking more toward sustainability, larger donations versus smaller donations, fundraising beyond direct mail or impersonal channels, and a focus on outcomes delivering value to investors.

Ralser’s overall point, then, is that organizations must adjust their appeals according to their goals and their audience’s motivations.

He provides a matrix with four quadrants to illustrate the options:

• Heart (appeals to donors): When an organization is appealing to a donor who is giving lower sums of money and is not highly committed, the emotional appeals work well, e.g., a countertop collection for an animal shelter.

• Acorn (appeals to donors): When a donor is going to give lower amounts of money but more of a rational appeal will work, the campaign can turn into more of a sustainable one. For example, “a membership drive for the operation of a local Chamber of Commerce, where membership dues are based on the size of the company and where membership carries with it certain privileges or benefits.”

• Shooting star (appeals to investors): Emotional appeals that require high financial involvement and commitment are classified as shooting stars. They are usually highly visible appeals, such as a “one-time campaign for a hospital emergency room that needs refurbishing and updating, made obvious by a tragedy in which lives were lost due to lack of modern equipment.”

• Blue chip (appeals to investors): This level requires more evidence of valuable results and a rational appeal to secure larger funding (higher financial involvement and commitment), such as “a capital campaign for an economic development program that will create jobs, increase capital investment and produce positive, long-term economic ripple effects.”

Therefore, if an organization is relying only on emotional appeals and raising smaller sums of money, it can strive to create more rational appeals in order to move toward sustainability.

Also, different audiences may require different appeals. In the author’s hospital example, appealing to a grandparent with an emotional appeal may work better, whereas appealing to a major employer may require more evidence of impact and a more rational appeal.

An organization’s goal, considering all this information, is to develop ways to quantify and value its outcomes to achieve better results so investors will want to be involved with the organization over time. It has to communicate this value clearly to the investor in his or her terms, not through internal jargon. Then, it has the right to ask him or her to invest.

The post Donors or Investors: How Do You Appeal to Them Differently? appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.

Writing fundraising communications is not merely a derivative of commercial marketing, academic writing or business prose. It’s a highly specialized and nuanced technique that requires experience, ongoing testing and specific knowledge about the reader.

Nonprofits that risk taking a casual approach to their fundraising communications or worse, allow someone without context or background change the branding and donor outreach methods entirely, will find themselves recovering lost ground for months, sometimes years.

The donor relationship equity built over the lifetime of an organization should not be taken lightly. Author Jeff Brooks encourages you to apply his proven strategies for raising more money and avoid jarring tactics that jeopardize donor relationships.

In Brooks’ latest book, The Fundraiser’s Guide to Irresistible Communications: Real-World Field-Tested Strategies for Raising More Money (www.EmersonandChurch.com, 2012), he skillfully and entertainingly instructs you in an easy and informative manner about everything you need to know about fundraising communications.

To Wax On or Not to Wax On

In this post, I want to highlight one of many elements he covers in the book under “Writing Style.” Brooks tackles the debate over the length of your content and that longer messaging allows for effective use of repetition and storytelling.

What Donors Really Want in Your Fundraising Messages

Even though it is counterintuitive, longer messages, when tested, work better than shorter ones. When donors are asked whether they want short or long messages, they assert they want shorter ones. But actual donor behavior favors the longer messages.

No one really knows why, but theories include the following: A longer appeal can contain multiple triggers or opportunities to relay a message, such as a visualization of a life-threatening need or emphasis on a problem, and a longer message holds more weight, among others.

The two essential characteristics in the best longer messages include:

Stories—you can flesh out your stories in longer messages to deliver more vivid images.

Repetition—this will help your readers get the message clearly. Here is an outline Brooks gives for your message:

Introduction: Why I’m writing to you.

Ask.

Why your gift is so important today.

Ask.

How much impact your gift will have.

Ask.

Story that demonstrates the need.

Ask.

Remind the donor of their values and connection with the cause.

Ask.

Another story.

Ask.

Help the donor visualize what will happen when they give.

Ask.

Conclusion: Thank the donor for caring.

Ask again.

If you haven’t picked up on Brooks’ theme here, let me spell it out for you. Longer messages let you repeat your ask and frame it in several ways, increasing your chances for triggering the response you’re looking for. Additionally, stories have greater potential when they can be expanded with more detail and emotion.

Why Do Fundraisers Get it Wrong When Writing Solicitations?

Content length is simply one of numerous techniques Brooks covers for fundraisers who find themselves in the communications role. Let’s pull back from this specific writing style example and introduce one of Brooks’ answers to our question about why so many fundraisers get it wrong when crafting an appeal. Here’s what he said:

CausePlanet: Jeff, thank you for writing this book that clearly emphasizes the best ways to write fundraising materials, contrary to many common beliefs. Why do you think so many fundraisers are so misguided and write unsuccessful solicitations?

Jeff Brooks: Almost everyone who enters the fundraising profession comes from somewhere else. Those who realize they’re in a new world and seek to understand it quickly learn how to do effective fundraising. Those who aren’t curious and open-minded, who insist on bringing the conventions of another discipline (such as commercial marketing), fail repeatedly and spectacularly.

The other source of unsuccessful fundraising is “Fundraising From Yourself”–the belief that if it’s persuasive to me, it’s good. That NEVER works. You have to aim at donors, and that always means you won’t find the message compelling.

See this book, Page to Practice summary and other relevant titles:

The Fundraiser’s Guide to Irresistible Communications: Real-World Field-Tested Strategies for Raising More Money

The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand: Motivating Donors to Give, Give Happily and Keep on Giving

Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes

How to Write Fundraising Materials That Raise More Money

The post Donor Behavior Shows Longer Fundraising Messages Actually Work Better appeared first on Nonprofit Hub.