Blueprint Fundraising

AFP is presenting its annual diversity luncheon on Thursday July 28. This is always one of the highlights of the AFP year — a rare opportunity to learn about fundraising within the Lower Mainland’s many ethnic communities.

By 2017, more than half the people of Vancouver will be from a visible minority with ethnic Chinese representing the largest group. However, the Chinese community in Vancouver is made up of different groups of people. Learn about the dynamic makeup of this community from prominent individuals leading organizations that both provide services to people of ethnic Chinese background and have been successful in building strong donor relationships within this community. The presentation will feature:

• Albert Fok, Chairman, Vancouver Chinatown Merchants’ Association
• Candice Tsang, Director of Development, BC Children’s Hospital Foundation

Details:
Thursday July 28, 2005 from 11:30am – 1:30pm
Floata Seafood Restaurant, 400 – 180 Keefer Street, Vancouver
$35 members / $45 non-members

To register, call AFP’s 24 hour RSVP line at 604-515-6699 or visit the website.

You invite your supporters to a special event. It’s a part of your stewardship plan — to spend some time with your donors and get to know them on a personal level. As you look around the room, you have no idea who is there. People come and go. You don’t know if your top donor even showed — you’ve never met them. Ack! This wasted opportunity could have been avoided by adding a few elements to the event:

An RSVP process. Ask people to let you know if they plan to come to the event. You can better plan the event and if you notice that some people are not coming, you can phone to invite them personally or say you hope to see them next time.

A registration table. Even for informal events, having people register lets you know who came. It also allows you to personally welcome everyone.

Name tags with stickers. Name tags help everyone network and they help you identify your supporters if you have never met them. (Be mindful of what style will work best for the type of dress at the event. No pins or stickers on fancy dresses — use lanyards instead.) If you want to make further use of the tags, use stickers to identify types of people. For example, a red dot indicates a donor, green dot for a sponsor, blue dot for someone who is not a member or donor.

Assignments. Ensure that staff and board members know that their job is to network and be ambassadors for the organization You could even assign them to specific people or types of people. For example — you welcome all the red dots and encourage them to join our group, I’ll talk to all the green dots and ask them if they have been happy with their sponsorships.

Follow up calls. If you didn’t get a chance to speak with everyone who came to your event, use the registration list to make a few calls the next day. Ask people what they thought of the event and thank them for coming.

Do visitors to your web page find immediate and compelling information about your fundraising needs? Does your site answer donor questions such as “How are donations used?” and “What have they accomplished recently?” and “How can I give online?” New research from tech company Kintera finds that whether giving online or offline, 65% of donors report going online to research charities before they give. This is much higher than many people would have thought, me included! In addition, they found that 40% always go online before giving. The report says that 2004 was the year that online giving became mainstream and I have to agree. It’s no longer an option for charities to have poor quality websites, buried financial information, or unsecured and/or confusing donation forms.

I have great admiration for nonprofit board members! I spend a lot of time working with boards and see the constant challenge of finding the time, energy, and people to keep boards strong. BoardSource has a very succinct and intelligent list of “Twelve Principles of Governance That Power Execptional Boards.”

I like this list and think the two-page PDF that you can download from BoardSource could be a great way to start off a board planning meeting…

1. Constructive partnerhsip with the CEO
2. Mission driven
3. Strategic thinking
4. Culture of inquiry
5. Independent-mindedness (putting the organizaiton ahead of individual interests)
6. Ethos of transparency
7. Compliance with integrity
8. Sustaining resources
9. Results oriented
10. Intentional board practices
11. Continuous learning
12. Revitalization

Surely no one would raffle a Hummer to fundraise for an ecology project? The absurdity is just too much, no? Well, members of the Rotary Club of Chatam NB don’t see the irony (or they aren’t admitting it anyhow).

They are in the process of raising $100,000 for the French Fort Cove Eco-Centre — a new tourist attraction to share the cultural and ecological history of the Miramichi. An important and wonderful project I am sure. Rotarians do so many great things around the world but this contest gives Rotary a bad name.

It’s ridiculous to promote the use of this environmentally disastrous vehicle anytime, anywhere. But doing it while trying to build an eco-centre is just too much. The chapter spokesperson claims not to see the problem. In fact, he says, many people have told him that this Hummer will get better gas mileage than their current vehicle. What on earth are they all driving?

Personally I think the Hummer is more than just a horrendous pollution machine and consumer of gas. It also symbolizes an anti-social attitude — I’ll do what I want even if it is bad for the planet — that doesn’t fit with many community projects.

FUH2
No Hummer Left Behind
What Would Jesus Drive

To be successful, fundraising has to be highly organized. If you need help in this area, I want to point you to an excellent book. It’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. A colleague recommended it to me a few years ago and I’ve been following its advice ever since. The concept is simple: you can get more done when your mind is clear. You can clear your mind and feel less stress by getting all your actions, ideas, random goals and anything else that keeps popping into year head, into a reliable system where you can get through tasks with focus and efficiency. It takes a little time to set up the system, but I don’t know how I would work without it now. Normally I’m not into self-help books and the following for this one is rather cultish, but it’s been very helpful to me!

Anyone who knows me is probably completely sick of hearing this! But here’s the easiest way to show gratitude for your donors and encourage their loyalty to your cause: phone them to say thank you the day you receive their donation. If you’ve tried this, you know how great it is! On a practical level, you let them know that their gift was received and that the tax receipt is on the way. On a personal level, you honour them with appreciation and get to know them better. The result: they will be impressed, flattered and know that their gift matters. You don’t have time for this? Well make time! Ask a board member to help. Recruit some volunteers. Set a limit and at least do it for all gifts over a certain amount. It’s important. If you want some stats on how important, email me or read Donor Centred Fundraising. OK people stop rolling your eyes at me now.

I read an inspiring article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. It was about how a US charity, the Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired (what a mouthful!), capitalized on a media story. They were featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. They had worked hard to get the paper interested in the story but when it appeared they didn’t consider their job done. They jumped into action — pulling staff from communications, fundraising and other areas together to capitalize on the attention for the day. Here’s what they did:

• Drank some champagne to celebrate the story (always have some champagne on hand)
• Contacted other media to interest them in the story/scheduled several interviews and follow-up stories
• Phoned board members to alert them to the story
• Phoned donors to tell them about it
• Purchased copies of the paper (enough for all major donors)
• Sent out copies of the paper with a note from the president or executive director

This is so smart. Don’t just hope that people hear you on the news or see you in the paper. Point it out to everyone who matters to you — and do it quickly because it will be old news in about 24 hours.

Applications are being accepted for the ambitiously-named BC Arts Renaissance Fund. The $25 million fund comes from the BC government and is being administered by the Vancouver Foundation. In a nutshell… The fund will match private sector donations (not pledges or bequests) to the endowments of BC arts organizations. You can apply annually for matches of $10,000 to $350,000.

If you are reading this, you probably have a long list of blogs you check regularly. It can take a lot of time to visit all your faves. When I found myself spending more than 30 minutes a day checking blogs, I decided it was time to get help. That’s when I made a new friend: the news aggregator.

A news aggregator is a software program that allows you to subscribe to your favorite blogs (using their XML or RSS feeds), check for new entries, and browse through recent content from within the aggregator. It saves so much time and is especially great for keeping track of blogs (like mine) where the posting is on an occasional schedule. I use NetNewsWire — an amazing aggregator for Mac users. For the rest of you I have heard that SharpReader, AmphetaDesk, and NewsGator are good (but I have never used them).

Here are a few blogs that I subscribe to:

The Tyee
CBC
Guardian Unlimited
Grist
Gift Hub
Nonprofit Online News
The Artful Manager
Dooce
Go Fug Yourself
Gizmodo