Blueprint Fundraising

The AFP Vancouver Professional Development Roundtable is coming up on September 29, 7 am to 11:30 am. This is for AFP members only and includes sessions on:

• The Fundraiser’s Leadership Challenge – And How to Meet It
• Career Development: Planning ahead for your career in fundraising
• Why and How to get your CFRE
• What Multi-Million Dollar Gifts Are Made Of: The Process Behind the Gift
• How to Engage your Staff, Board and all Volunteers in Supporting your Organization
• Direct Marketing: Achieving the best results possible
• Online Giving: A great idea, so how do you make it work?

Not a member of AFP? Here are a some reasons to join.

Volunteer Vancouver has an excellent line-up of fundraising sessions this fall:

• October 12 - Making the Ask – Asking for Money, Who Me?
• October 19 - Writing Grant Proposals that get Funded
• October 25 - The Dating Game: Developing Relationships with Corporate Sponsors
• November 22 - How to Create a Fund Development Plan - Your Path to Sustainable Success (I’m facilitating this one)
• November 16 - The Basics of Building a Social Enterprise

Today is Car Free Day and if think you can’t possibly live without your own personal vehicle, think again. With gas prices on warp speed (not to mention climate change, traffic, smog, obesity, and many stinky results of too many cars on the road), this is a good time to consider whether car sharing could work for you.

I’ve been a member of Vancouver’s Co-operative Auto Network (CAN) since 2001. When Andrew and I moved here we discovered that car insurance was outrageous, the parking expensive, and the alternatives (such as public transit, walking, and CAN) pretty good. Andrew takes the bus and a skateboard to work at the University of British Columbia. I walk, take the bus, and use a CAN car whenever I need to (several times a week for work and errands).

How does it work? It’s a co-op, so members jointly own all the cars. There are vehicles parked all over the Lower Mainland — more than 100 cars in the fleet with new ones being added all the time. Scroll down this page to find cars near you and read the FAQs for details on how it works. Once you join, you pay a monthly fee to cover some of the fixed costs of the car and when you use a car, you pay low fees by the hour and by the kilometre. The fees include gas, insurance, maintenance, and BCAA. You have access to a car (or truck, van, stationwagon, Mini, VW Bug, Prius… yes there are some cool cars available!) when you want it. You don’t pay for more car than you need.

Email CAN if you want to know more. It’s not 100% car free — but it’s a step in the right direction!

If you work with a British Columbian health or social service organization, time to sharpen your pencil and go for a POD (Partners in Organizational Development) grant. The grant allows you to hire a consultant to help you address challenges in fundraising, marketing, board development, and other organizational issues. The deadline is October 28 and you can find applications and more information here.

How many times have I said this to a client: “Your donor newsletter is so long, boring, and poorly written that I can’t stand to read it! Even though I love your work! And you’re paying me!”

You probably put great effort into donor communications and your newsletter might be a cornerstone of that program. Creating something that truly adds value to your fundraising and builds a meaningful connection with your donors requires more than just dryly reporting on your work. No one wants to feel that pang of guilt as they toss your unread newsletter into the bin.

Communications expert Tom Ahern has a new book coming out at the end of this month called The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide To Raising More Money With Newsletters Than You Ever Thought Possible. I’m sure it will be excellent. Here’s one of the chapters (they really are brief!):

These Seven Flaws Are Killing You

• Flaw #1: Your newsletter fails the “you test.” I’ll explain that simple (but critical) test later. For now just keep in mind that a good donor newsletter is friendly, even intimate, in tone. If you insist instead on an institutional voice, you distance yourself from your readers.
• Flaw #2: Your newsletter skimps on emotional triggers. You already know that charity starts when you move a heart. In a donor newsletter, tugging the heartstrings is a full-time job.
• Flaw #3: You claim it’s a newsletter (i.e., a bearer of news), but it’s really just an excuse to say hi. Here’s a clue: You devote your front page to a ponderous letter “from the desk ofâ€? an ED or board chair. Beware: a newsletter with no news value is a waste of time and money. And donors are quite demanding: they want very specific kinds of news. Their interest in your organization can quickly wane if you fail to deliver.
• Flaw #4: Your newsletter is not “donor-centered.” It does not make the donor feel needed or wanted. Remember: donors don’t give to your organization. They give through your organization, in an effort to change the world. You have to give the donor credit as well as thanks.
• Flaw #5: The newsletter is not set up for rapid skimming and browsing. On the contrary, you assume people will read long articles. Here’s the harsh truth: most of your audience won’t have time to give your newsletter more than a glance. If you bury important information in long articles, most people will miss it.
• Flaw #6: Your newsletter has weak or dysfunctional headlines. If any of the fatal flaws deserves the title of “Most Deadly,” this is it. Headlines have a function: to summarize the key points of the story. Most donor newsletters I’ve seen fail at that simple task.
• Flaw #7: It depends far too much on statistics (and far too little on anecdotes) to make your case.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals has entered the world of blogging by starting no less than seven new blogs! It’s a little cumbersome to visit them all (don’t ask me why they didn’t just make one blog with multiple categories) but go check them out anyhow. Even as I write this, they’ve announced one more: a blog dedicated to Hurricane Katrina-related fundraising issues.