Blueprint Fundraising

Enough about you, let’s talk about me

Quite a few people have emailed to ask me what I do when I’m not blogging on the fundit (thanks for asking!). So maybe you’re wondering too…

I’m principal of Blueprint Fundraising and Communications, a Vancouver fundraising consulting firm. Since starting Blueprint in 2000 I’ve  discovered that I love the challenge and variety of being a fundraising consultant. Details on who I’ve worked with and what I do can be found at my website. Here are a few of the projects I’ve been working on lately:

• Case development for The Banff Centre’s capital campaign
• Capital campaign consulting for Better Environmentally Sound Transportation and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre
• Fundraising plans for the Living Oceans Society, the Richmond Art Gallery (with Vivian Smith of Liberty Quest), and Centre A
• Fundraising coaching for CoDevelopment Canada, New Works, and Kids Around the World
• Direct mail writing for the BC Association for Community Living
• A new workshop on for Volunteer Vancouver (on how to develop a fundraising plan) and a capital campaign session for one of BCIT’s Fundraising Management program courses
• As a volunteer I’m on two boards: the Vancouver chapter of AFP and the Co-operative Auto Network (a very cool car-sharing organization)

That’s all been keeping me very busy. In December, Andrew and I are going on a holiday to Italy to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Can’t wait!

I would love to know more about you and your adventures in fundraising and life in general. Email me.

Feel, felt, found

Jerry Linzy of Jerold Panas, Linzy & Partners spoke at a recent AFP Vancouver breakfast workshop about “making the ask.” One of his tips really stood out for me, so here it is. When responding to a prospective donor’s objection in a solicitation, respond with “feel, felt, found.” In practice it might look something like this:

Solicitor: “Would you consider making a gift of $1,000?”
Prospective supporter: “That’s a lot of money. I don’t know if I can afford that.”
Solicitor: “Well, I know how you feel. I felt unsure about whether I could afford it when I was asked. But I found that I could pledge the gift over two years and that made it possible for me.”

Nice isn’t it? Feel felt found. Feel felt found. Easy to remember when you are feeling stressed in a solicitation and don’t know what to say next!

Register for Kim Klein’s “Raising Money” session

Kim Klein is an amazing storyteller, teacher, speaker, and all-round inspiring woman. She hasn’t done a training in Vancouver for a while, so it’s very exciting that she’ll be here in February!

Raising Money: Build Your Broad Base of Individual Donors
When: 02/06/2006 to 02/07/2006
Where: SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver
Cost: $195 CND
Phone: 604-699-4802 ext. 229

Do you want to build a broad base of donors and achieve financial stability in your organization? You can! Come discover how to develop your fundraising message, ask for large amounts of money in person; build a fundraising board; and make fundraising FUN! Leaders of community-based, grassroots organizations are especially urged to attend. Discounts available if two people from your organization attend, board members welcome and encouraged.

Interview: Trepel on the use of emotion in fundraising

In July I spoke to Chris Trepel about several concepts of behavioural decision theory and how they can help in fundraising. This entry continues the conversation with another useful concept: the “affect heuristic.�

What is the “affect heuristic�?

While we all like to think that we are hard-nosed when it comes to making important decisions, in fact, our emotions can cloud our judgments. The term “affect heuristic� refers to our tendencies to replace data and evidence with our emotional (or affective) reaction to a problem or situation.

Much fundraising attempts to invoke strong emotions. Is there evidence to show that this works? Is it always important to “tug on the heartstrings� and put the prospective donor in an emotional state?

To answer that, let me tell you about two interesting examples of this heuristic.

If you are willing to spend $1,000 to save 10 acres of forest, how much will you spend to save 40 acres? Even if four times as much seems like too much, it’s still probably more than $1,000, right? Well, maybe not. The answer depends on the way the question is asked and how you are feeling when you respond.

When you are in an emotional state you tend to focus attention on whether or not you can have an impact rather than on the absolute size of the impact. The mere presence or absence of impact becomes more important than the numbers that describe the scale of the impact.

The relevance of this notion to fundraising was recently revealed by an experiment that examined people’s willingness to donate to save panda bears. When dots were used to represent the pandas to be saved, people said that they would donate significantly more to save four pandas than one panda ($22.00 vs. $11.67). However, when the pandas were shown as cute panda photos, people said they would donate roughly the same amount to save one panda as they would to save four ($19.49 vs. $18.95). The explanation? When pandas are represented as dots we are inclined to count and, in this mode, it seems obvious to us that the welfare of four pandas is worth more than that of a single panda. When confronted by pictures of pandas, however, we react emotionally and are inclined to simply “help the pandas� independent of the number involved.

How donation options are presented can have a major impact on how people will respond. The data above suggest that the more emotionality you can invoke, the larger the donation you’ll receive, but that simultaneously trying to tie the donation to quantifiable goals may be a waste of time since people will be disinclined to “do the math�. More importantly, though, these data indicate that you should consider how emotional your topic is, and then design your request methodology to fit it.

If your cause is not emotionally charged, is it worthwhile to make your fundraising request in a more quantifiable or numeric manner?

Yes. Donation levels or tiers are probably better suited for less emotional topics, while requests for specific amounts are better suited to emotional topics. The hardest part of applying this lesson will likely be the need to see things through the eyes of your donors. For example, while you may be personally moved to tears over the plight of a building, people in general are more likely to react strongly to the plight of small, furry, woodland creatures.

Using these examples, if you solicit for a building restoration you may want to equate each square foot of “saved building� to a dollar amount and then ask how many square feet a potential donor would like to save (perhaps bricks could be used instead of dots). For rabbits and moose, however, it may be more appropriate to ask for a flat amount (and remember to use the cutest moose picture you can find).

Let’s talk about the next example. Many fundraising pieces use two common emotions – fear and anger – to try to motivate people to give. Some worry that being too negative ultimately turns prospective donors off. Can you comment on this?

Although it has been known for some time that being in a “good� or “bad� mood can greatly affect our perceptions, work in the last five years has demonstrated that fearful people tend to be pessimistic about the future, while angry and happy people both tend to be optimistic. Fear and anger will affect people’s behaviour in predictable ways.

Specifically, fearful people will generally make risk-averse choices while angry people tend to make risk-seeking choices. That is, angry people are more interested in the potential outcome than the expected outcome, and so are willing to gamble thinking that they can “hit the jackpot�. By contrast, fearful people are more likely to avoid gambles and will seek to minimize the risk of losses when making choices, even if it means forgoing the possibility of gains.

How can we take advantage of these optimistic and pessimistic outlooks?

Many non-profits, for example environmental charities, have established funding bases. When addressing your current donors it may be influential to encourage people to consider their fears – fear that the planet is being poisoned, that our kids won’t be able to see certain animals or visit certain places. Based on the research, this fear will tend to make people risk averse and will likely motivate them to continue to do what they’ve been doing, namely, donating to their favourite environmental charity.

By contrast, consider a prospective supporter. In this case you are seeking to change their behaviour, so consider using images and text that will invoke anger. Anger will inspire them to take risks and make changes and may be just the ticket to get someone to make their first gift to a new cause. Make sure you emphasize the additional benefits your organization will bring to bear, even if you have to acknowledge that these benefits are not guaranteed. Angry people are primed to gamble, after all.

That’s very helpful. Thanks Chris!

Tip of the Week: TechSoup’s yummy deals

TechSoup offers amazing deals on software, hardware and everything technology-related, just for Canadian registered charities and US 501(c)3 groups. Need a router? Need new anti-virus software? Need a fundraising database? They have it all. Quantities are sometimes limited and deals come a go, so visit often or sign up for their new product notification email. TechSoup also hosts very informative discussions of technology issues and provides other educational resources and tools for nonprofits.

Fundraising is a sales job

I’m thinking about sales skills today. I’m ashamed to tell you why. My head is hanging in shame. This week on The Apprentice (Martha Stewart version) Matchstick lost again because of their pathetic sales skills. They were selling wedding cakes at a wedding fair. The cake was pretty. There were lots of happy couples around. But they didn’t sell a thing, because they were appalling salespeople. It was a crushing defeat. Goodbye preppy Shawn.

Some fundraising professionals cringe at the notion that fundraisers are salespeople. But we are! We’re just selling good things (hopefully).

William Sturtevant, in his excellent book The Artful Journey: Cultivating and Soliciting the Major Gift, talks about sales skills for fundraisers. He says the best salespeople engage in “collaborative” rather than “manipulative” sales. Collaborative selling is about building a partnership, being respectful, facilitating a process beneficial to the other party, and seeing beyond the immediate deal. Sounds like fundraising, no? He writes that Harvard Business School identifies these top attributes for the accomplished salesperson:

1. You don’t take “no” personally. You may be disappointed with a “no,” but you are never devastated. You have high enough levels of self-esteem to compensate for disappointments.
2. You accept responsibility for results achieved. As a corollary to this, you make negatives work to your advantage.
3. You display above average ambition and desire to succeed.
4. You display a high level of empathy.
5. You are intensely goal-oriented.
6. You have above average determination and self-discipline.
7. You are impeccably honest.
8. You have the ability to approach strangers, even when uncomfortable.

I agree that if you have these things, you’ll do well in fundraising. I often meet people who are thinking about making a career change into this field. They wonder whether their skills are transferable. I tell
them that these things are most valuable:

• Being organized and goal-oriented.
• Excellent written and oral communications abilities.
• Sales skills.
• Being passionate about the cause.

If you don’t possess these things… pack your bags and leave the loft immediately!

Charity law changes from CRA

Canada Revenue Agency has announced several changes concerning all charities. The small publication Registered Charities: What’s New? provides information on changes to the Form T3010A, Registered Charity Information Return, including a new penalty for failure to file and the disbursement quota. It also contains sanctions and appeals process as well as the new requirements for official donation receipts.

New arts funding resource

Arts Now has added a useful resource to their website: a detailed list of funding programs suitable for British Columbia arts organizations. Check it out here.