The Season for Generosity November 30, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Below I've quoted an excerpt from a letter to the editor written last year by Ruthellen Rubin, CFRE, one of our GiftWorks Consultant Partners.

Her message was spot-on then, and is as relevant as ever today.  

"Our local human service, health, educational and cultural organizations need us now more than ever. We are their family, friends and neighbors. Of course it will be more difficult for everyone as we are all struggling to pay the bills. However, this is the year we must be creative and consider where our holiday dollars can have the greatest impact. It is the year to give a donation in the name of our family members or friends rather than giving a fruit basket. I cannot think of a better year than this, to have a party and ask our guests to make a donation to our favorite charity rather than bringing us a bottle of wine or a red pillar candle. It is the year to show our children that there is always an avenue to be charitable, no matter how small the amount."

Last year, my family and I (yes, I was inspired by Ruthellen) gave each other donations rather than large gifts and it was a wonderful experience.  For example, my mom is the Board President of Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services.  There was no greater gift she could have possibly received than to have her adult children make donations to GCBHS (in her honor) to support their mission.  We siblings, living throughout the US, now get regular newsletters and communications from GCBHS so we can see the amazing things mom is doing firsthand.  So, we will give again this year and hopefully, a new tradition is born. 

Please share your creative ideas for encouraging support of our charities this holiday season.  

The Return on a GiftWorks Investment: The Center for Arts in Natick November 17, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Have you seen the quote, photo and story from The Center for Arts in Natick  (TCAN) on our home page (www.missionresearch.com/giftworks)?  David Lavalley, Executive Director, wrote a great story about how GiftWorks has impacted their Natick, Massachusetts-based organization.  I interviewed David today and would like to share a bit more about how TCAN has fared this year and how their GiftWorks investment has made an important difference.

Let's start with the numbers.  Like many arts (and other) organizations, TCAN experienced a drop in corporate giving this year.  At this date in 2008, they had received $39,000 from corporations. As of today in 2009, they have received $35,000 in corporate donations, a 10% decrease.  Sound familiar?  But wait. While their corporate giving decreased, their individual giving has increased significantly.  Overall, they have raised $224,000 this year-to-date vs. $183,000 at this point in 2008.  This is a 22% increase despite the corporate giving decrease!

When 2009 started, David and his colleagues at TCAN made a very conscious decision to "hunker down" and watch expenses.  They also decided to focus intensely on their individual giving program.  They had invested about $1000 in GiftWorks in 2008 and were up and running with the software.  

The TCAN team employed two main tactics in growing individual gifts.  First, they made a concerted effort to reconnect with past supporters who had major donor potential.  David reported that since their GiftWorks conversion, they had accessible and accurate data, with donor relationships recorded in detail.  They were able to easily analyze and identify who might be potential major supporters in a difficult year and act upon it.  David's board was very supportive and very willing to make calls to these prospective major donors for TCAN, especially with such detailed and thorough information provided to them ahead of time.

Second, TCAN used GiftWorks to group supporters around their artistic genre preference and cultivate them appropriately.  Specifically, they had people who were interested in classical music.  They knew who they were and invited them to a special reception attended by other classical music lovers in the community (all easy with GiftWorks), as well as the classical music lovers on their board.  This was done for again for those who love community theatre and again for those who love folk music.  The result was that they were able to thank people for past support in a very meaningful, appropriate way, and then "rekindle relationships" that are so fundamental to fundraising.  These events proved phenomenally successful over the course of 2009.

GiftWorks did not increase fundraising for TCAN by 22%.  A strong, innovative, and motivated team did this amazing and impressive work.  But GiftWorks provided the tools that made it possible.  David said that there is no way he would have taken this effort on without the ability to understand and use their data as GiftWorks empowered him to do.  He also feels strongly that he would not have had such strong board support in his fundraising efforts without the professional, usable, and meaningful data GiftWorks put at their fingertips. 

David's decision to invest $1000 in GiftWorks in 2008 gave his organization the ability to buck every trend in 2009.  He was able to increase giving  by $41,000 or 22% in one of the most challenging years in our history.  He was able to grow his individual giving program to offset the losses from other fundraising sources that are going down or away entirely. 

I would say David and his colleagues are to be commended for their unbelievably positive year, and that David's GiftWorks investment was a wise one indeed, wouldn't you agree?

  

The Return on a GiftWorks Investment November 13, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Here's a little story for both our current and future customers.  For our current GiftWorks clients: If you haven't moved to GiftWorks 2010 yet, I would like to share how just one small feature can make a huge difference for your organization.  For our potential GiftWorks clients:  This is one small example of how a modest investment in GiftWorks fundraising software can be one of the best things you can do for your organization.

So here goes:

One of my volunteer projects (yes, I am a completely overextended volunteer!) is to run the annual fundraising event for the Lancaster inner city public high school's music department. The event is called Tag Day and every music student, accompanied by adult chaperones, goes door-to-door asking for donations.  They also play in small groups downtown with buckets for donations.  I was skeptical when I first took on the event, but now have seen how effective it can be and the potential for it to be even better.

What is good about it is that the students all dress in their music uniforms (marching band, choir, vocal ensemble, etc.) and basically blanket our small city.  It is very visible and very good public relations for the school. Diverse, earnest, and really nice teenagers ask people to give whatever they can to support their music programs. Some people give a dollar or two and some write $500 checks on the spot (really!). We leave "tags" on doors when people aren't home and then more checks roll in.  The Friends of Music have consistently raised about $15,000 from this one-day effort.

Unfortunately, when I took over last year, there was no recorded giving history.  The checks were deposited and thank you notes were handwritten and gone.  Every year the event started from scratch. 

So, I started maintaining a giving history by recording every check received in GiftWorks. It took several hours but was easy and I was able to generate the thank you letters in minutes (my poor predecessor must have spent days and days handwriting those!). 

This year - wow! I used our new GiftWorks 2010 SmartEntry pages and hundreds of donations were completely entered in an hour.  Thank yous still took just minutes.  I kept refining my self-designed SmartEntry page until I was literally flying through the data entry.  I hope all of our clients realize that the modest cost of the GiftWorks 2010 upgrade would be saved in time spent entering data after just one campaign appeal.

In addition, now that I have the donations recorded from last year and from this year, I am able to create a quick list in GiftWorks to see who gave last year but who missed giving this year.  I am doing a letter to each of them to ask for their support, and I expect a decent response.  This is how Tag Day can grow from it's previously flat level of donations.  By using GiftWorks to build a known community of supporters, I can leverage this community by ensuring that they aren't missed in our door-to-door effort, by inviting them to musical events at the high school, and by keeping up with them when they move out of the city. 

I am planning to increase donations by about $1000 this year and then more next year by truly creating a community of people who support music education for our young people. By using GiftWorks to empower my tracking, thanking, analyzing, inviting and cultivating, we can turn a successful, but "random" fundraiser into something so much richer in all ways. 

When I look at that $499 invested in a GiftWorks license, and the returns it will generate for this music department both this year and over time - well, it's certainly one of the wisest and most prudent decision an organization could possibly make during these challenging times.  

Below: The mayor of Lancaster, Rick Gray, joins members of the marching band in a drum circle during the 2009 Tag Day. 

 

One More About the Board's Role in Fundraising November 12, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Before I change the subject, here's one more article from the Center for Nonprofit Excellence about the board's role in fundraising during these difficult times:  http://bit.ly/4jGCgf.

I participated this week in the New School of Lancaster's annual campaign phone-a-thon, and was impressed at the number of board members who, in addition to their strategic level contributions, were willingly and quite capably smilin' and dialin' for the school. 

Effective Board Support - What Is It? November 9, 2009 By Mary Pat Donnellon

Based on the number of visits to my last post, I strongly suspect that the relationship between board and staff in regards to fundraising is a hot topic!

Here is the whole article by Pete Nixon that appeared in the GiftWorks October eNewsletter.  I think Pete does a good job of describing the role of the board and the role of the staff that makes alot of sense but is too rarely realized!

-Mary Pat 

Effective Board Support--What is it?
Pete Nixon, Apogee Consultants (Park City, UT)

Does your 501c3 organization have enough money? If so, you can stop reading now. If not, it's time to evaluate how well your board is doing its job of connecting with the community. Community support comes in many forms: providing the community leaders who sit on the board, providing the cadre of volunteers who provide essential services without cost, and cash donations from the community. This last area is where many boards shirk their duty, placing the burden unfairly on the Executive Director or a Development Director.

The Evolution of a Nonprofit
A nonprofit organization might also be called a 'community-supporting and -supported organization'; it's typically started by a group of people who perceive there is a social need not being met by existing organizations, including government, business or other nonprofits.

In the beginning, the founders serve as both the board and the (unpaid) staff. They struggle to raise funds so they can develop and administer the programs to meet the need. If there is a broad enough interest by the greater community, the funding base grows and the organization is then able to hire paid staff. What happens next varies, depending on whether or not the leadership recognizes the distinction between staff and board functions.

"What happens when a nonprofit hires its first staff depends on whether or not the leadership recognizes the distinction between staff and board functions."

My point is: nonprofits are usually started, governed, and managed by people in a community who are focused on the mission, not on raising money. Fundraising in the community is seen as a necessary evil. As soon as the organization can afford to hire an Executive Director, one of the first tasks they unload is that of fundraising. At that point, the personal connection to the community becomes strained--if not severed. You need a Board to bridge that gap.

A Better Board Model
The Board's role in connecting the nonprofit with the community includes:

1. Representing the organization in the community
2. Representing the community's interests in ensuring the organization is meeting the community's needs

If the Board takes this role seriously, the community is always aware of the importance of the nonprofit to the community and of the need to support it with volunteers and funds. This is not something a staff person can or should do, unless it is in support of board initiatives.

Board members should be chosen not only for their interest in the mission, but for their ability to engage the community in supporting the organization with their money, time and talents. All too often, organizations that are in trouble financially are 'led' by a board composed of well-meaning, concerned citizens who do not understand or accept their responsibility to ensure the financial well-being of the organization.

An effective board is one composed of people who are willing to use their stature and influence in the community to raise funds from the community. Ideally, these are people who are successful in their own right - 'pillars of the community'-- who are not the least bit reluctant to ask for money for a good cause. In fact, they enjoy the challenge of doing so.

The Nonprofit's Funding Conundrum
By its nature, a 501c3 nonprofit derives little or no funding from those it serves and must instead obtain funds from sources that only indirectly benefit from the services provided. Think about that for a minute because it is at the heart of the funding conundrum faced by just about every nonprofit.

"By its nature, a nonprofit derives little or no funding from those it serves; it must instead obtain funds from sources that only indirectly benefit from the services provided."

A community health clinic or homeless shelter provides critical life-saving services to those who cannot pay; it must somehow convince the community to provide the funding. Animal shelters, soup kitchens, adult literacy programs, inner-city and at-risk children's programs--the list is virtually endless and the dilemma the same; those served cannot pay for the services so the community must be convinced to do so.

Many of these programs qualify for government funding, but it is rarely enough to meet an organization's financial needs. This is particularly true in tough economic climates as we have seen recently, where demand for services soars while these funding sources dry up. Even those nonprofits previously successful in obtaining foundation grants are now seeing that source constricting.

So, unlike for-profit businesses, nonprofits must not only serve their 'customers' (the users of their services) well - they must also convince someone else to pay for services they are not themselves using. Now that is a marketing challenge!

The Fundraising Duties of Staff
The staff's role in all of this is to administer the programs at the center of the organization's mission which serve constituents. All too often, though, I see Executive Director job descriptions that make the ED responsible not only for running successful programs but also fundraising in the community. This is an abdication of duty by the Board and a formula for constant financial distress for the organization.

What is the staff's role in fundraising? I believe it is limited to:

1. Identifying and applying for relevant foundation and agency grants
2. Developing an effective marketing strategy to get the right message out to the community
3. Providing administrative and marketing support for fundraising and awareness events that the Board has initiated and promoted within their circle(s) of influence
4. Developing and grooming a database of financial supporters to which occasional appeals can be targeted

In Summary
The key to active, ongoing community support is a Board with the right attitude toward its responsibilities as the 'community connection'.

If your organization does not have a board that understands and accepts its responsibility as the 'community connection', you will likely always struggle with funding. On the other hand, if your board becomes actively engaged in a two-way conversation with the community, you will likely find a much more receptive audience for your marketing message and have an easier time obtaining community support.

Organizations that have mastered the art of soliciting community support can actually experience an increase in community support during economic downturns. Make sure your community knows why you exist and why they should support you - and the best way to do so is with a board that understands this as their 'job one'.

Pete Nixon, of Apogee Consultants (Park City, UT), helps corporate and nonprofit clients recognize and overcome patterns of behavior and thinking that don't serve them well, and to develop strategies for future success. Pete has been an active leader and volunteer with numerous civic and charitable groups in the Salt Lake City area.