Blueprint Fundraising

I’m leading a workshop on “Fundraising Fundamentals” for the Alliance for Arts + Culture on December 4. If you are relatively new to fundraising, come check it out. The main focus of the session will be how to take the first steps into the world of private sector fundraising (such as individual donor appeals, special events, foundation grants and major donor work). Most of the people in attendance will be from arts organizations, but the principles will apply to any nonprofit organization. Here are the details:

Fundraising fundamentals:
Going beyond government grants
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
10 am to 1 pm
The Alliance for Arts and Culture
Suite 100- 938 Howe Street Vancouver BC

Workshop cost: $75 (+ GST) for Alliance members and $100 (+ GST) for non-members. Pre-registration and payment is required. Please phone 604-681-3535 or email info@allianceforarts.com to register. See you there!

When I teach the “Capital Campaigns” class in FUND 1215 of BCIT’s Fundraising Management program, I always ask students how they feel about naming rights. There are usually a few who have no problem with them, seeing it as a way to encourage or honour donors. But a greater number wrinkle their noses and say they don’t really like naming — especially corporate naming.

The Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison seems to have tapped into that sentiment, with great success. They recently announced a commitment of $85 million from a group of 13 alumni who want to keep a name OFF the business school for the next 20 years. They call themselves the Wisconsin Naming Partnership. You can watch a video of the no-naming ceremony. The unusual gift is getting lots of coverage.

From the announcement:

The Wisconsin naming gift is the first of its kind received by a U.S. business school. Conventional business school naming gifts adopt the name of a single donor in perpetuity. By preserving the Wisconsin name for 20 years, this gift leaves open the option of future naming gifts.

UW-Madison Chancellor John D. Wiley calls the gift “a creative act of philanthropy and a major milestone for our university.”

“These partners have stepped forward to ensure that their deep pride in this school, this university and this state is passed along to the next generation of business students,” Wiley adds.

Before you think that this is all about altruism and high ideals… members of the naming partnership are going to provide advice to the business school on issue of naming rights in the future. From a CityNews interview:

Micheal Knetter, Dean of the School, has noticed that the price of naming rights has been skyrocketing in recent years. He suspects that by 2027, when the agreement is up, he could reap a major fortune by offering up the rights to the school’s name again, a figure he estimates could be worth an astounding $300 million or more by then.

I’m pretty sure this will be the one and only time you will see what is almost a complete butt cheek here on the fundit. So enjoy.

You might have seen this already but it’s so ridiculous that I’m compelled to repeat it. Mario Lopez (from the TV shows Saved by the Bell and Dancing With the Stars) is SUCH a do-gooder. When he isn’t working out or tanning, he’s doing good deeds. Like on October 27, when he was booked as the headlining special guest at a benefit to raise money for a shelter for domestic violence victims. But he was a no-show. Why? More urgent good deeds, he said: helping relatives who were displaced by the San Diego fires.

So imagine everyone’s surprise when photos were snapped of Mario at the Playboy Mansion Halloween Party! Or maybe that’s his firefighting outfit?

Reported by PerezHilton.com and spotted on Don’tTelltheDonor.

Those are the trends according to Statistics Canada’s newly released numbers on the state of charitable giving.

Canadian taxfilers reported making charitable donations totaling $8.5 billion in 2006, up 8.3% from 2005. But sadly the number of donors decreased 1.4% to 5.8 million. For the fourth year in a row, donors in Abbotsford had by far the highest median donation of any metropolitan area at $620. For a little bit of speculation on why the number of donors is decreasing, check out this article from the Globe and Mail.

In case you haven’t heard, CanadaHelps.org recently added the ability for donors to make gifts of stocks through their website, to any charitable organization in the country. You don’t need to have your own broker to handle stock donations.

There is a great advantage for donors to give this way and it is well worth promoting the option to your prospective supporters. Since legislation changed in 2006, donors do not have to pay capital gains tax on publicly traded stocks when they donate them to charitable organizations. The donor saves more by giving stocks than they would by selling the stocks and donating the proceeds.

Here’s a little illustration on how much a donor could save by giving stocks instead of selling the stocks and giving cash.

(Disclaimer: the details will depend upon the donor’s specific situation. This is just an example. Graphic from CanadaHelps.)

This website combines so many great things that I don’t know where to start.
I am Emily X is a blog that chronicles 40 days in the lives of Planned Parenthood workers and asks readers to pledge donations based on the number of protesters they encounter.

They are on day 36 and have encountered 426 protesters — from the polite and pious, to the obscene and violent. They are raising money ($40K+ to date) and using video interviews with volunteers and workers to delve the many reasons why Planned Parenthood (and reproductive choice) is so important. The campaign and blog is a response to anti-choice groups’ “40 days for life” campaign.

Here’s a snippet from the first post:

Hello, world.

We’re in the middle of something here at Planned Parenthood (where I work). The anti-choice people call it “40 days for life.” I call it another day at the office.

Basically, the anti-choice groups have decided to picket more than 80 Planned Parenthood clinics across the country for 40 days. September 26-November 4.

I’m used to picketers. Planned Parenthood is used to picketers. It bothers me very much that the picketers aren’t just picketing our clinics — that they’re really about making it impossible for women to get health care. But…we don’t let them faze us. As for me, the more picketers there are, the harder I want to work.

So, I’ve decided to do something a little different. I’m inviting you come to work with me. Seriously. Every day, I’m posting to this blog — some notes about my day, some photos, some video. I want you to know what it’s like to work for Planned Parenthood.

That’s not all. Since the 40 days thing began, various friends and supporters have emailed us saying they’d like to donate money for every protester that shows up. So we set up a thing over there on the right, at the top of the column — please pledge 5 or 10 cents, too! You have no idea how far we can make donations go at Planned Parenthood.