Blueprint Fundraising

A preview of the annual AFP Compensation and Benefits Study was released today.

The average salary for a Canadian fundraiser increased by 9.2 percent from 2005 to 2006, to $71,827. There’s a significant gender gap: male fundraisers reported an average salary of $85,362 in 2006 while women earned $67,286, in spite of the fact that fundraising is a female-dominated profession.

Detailed survey results will be available to AFP members in May.

How do you communicate with your supporters? One of the very best ways is by adding RSS to your website.

If you’re reading this, you know at least a little something about blogs. You might even be viewing this through an RSS reader such as Google Reader (which is what I use). I follow hundreds of blogs and websites through the magic of RSS feeds.

Here’s an explanation of RSS.With RSS, a visitor can “subscribe” to your website or blog. They will then be automatically alerted to new content on your site. Their RSS reader shows them your new information, so that they don’t have to visit your website to see what’s new.

I see RSS as very useful in fundraising. It is so important to engage and involve supporters — and it isn’t easy. By offering an RSS feed, you can stay in touch with supporters by sharing frequent and interesting news about your organization’s work.

Although fundraising costs are just one way (and not always a good one) of measuring the effectiveness of a nonprofit, it is nonetheless interesting to see stats on the issue. Intelligent Giving, a UK site devoted to helping donors make best use of their philanthropic dollars, has done a comparison. The numbers come from the 1,300 charities in the Intelligent Giving database.

I’m surprised that they have found fundraising costs to be so low. My experience and gut tells me that costs for Canadian organizations would be higher.

I really really wanted to blog about something positive and uplifting for Earth Day.

After all, I know that many environmental nonprofits were doing great things yesterday. Probably raising money and supporting all kinds of positive (albeit small) changes. But I just can’t seem to muster optimism when it comes to the state of the environment. Even if being green is cool and Knut the polar bear and Leonardo are on the cover of Vanity Fair (click for very cute but sort of sad video of Knut), it really doesn’t seem that the influential people of the world care enough to make a difference.

Here’s an artist whose work evokes my feelings on Earth Day. Chris Jordan is a photographer and his show Running the Numbers explores the statistics of American life. It’s an illuminating look at the pace and scale of consumption.

Paper Bags, 2007, depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour. (Thanks to Bonnie Fenton for pointing me to the show.)

There was one thing that made me happy: Tides Canada is donating An Inconvenient Truth DVD to every high school and school board in British Columbia. Yay Tides!

This comes to you via Donor Power Blog… Fantastic, creative advertising for multiple sclerosis research in Australia. Aside from making the connection between donations and finding a cure abundantly obvious, the display has proven to be a good fundraiser and is going to be used at MS events all over Australia. The dude in this booth is a volunteer and his wife suffers with MS. (Click to see a larger image.)

Some people are visual learners. If that’s you and you are wondering just how fundraising works, check this out. ONE/Northwest has created three detailed diagrams mapping out all the steps to:

• Soliciting a new major donor
• Renewing donors and following up on pledges
• Processing donations

I love flow charts and these are cool. They clarify some processes that can seem arcane to those who are new to fundraising. Depending on your exact role in a development effort, I could see posting the diagram on your bulletin board as a reminder of the right steps along the way to getting things done.

I became familiar with ONE/Northwest when I worked in the environmental sector (fundraising for Sierra Legal Defence Fund). They also have tons of other great technology and networking-related resources on their site, for nonprofits from all sectors.

If you are looking for inspiration on creating a good video to sell your organization’s work, have a look at this one.

The Vancouver-Burnaby branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association has built a very successful social enterprise called “The Cleaning Solution.” It’s a janitorial service run by and employing people with mental illness. It provides a supportive environment, where people can work and be proud of their contribution to society.