Blueprint Fundraising

Here is a fundraising project that I absolutely love.

The Urban Forest Project in New York is displaying 185 banners in Times Square, created by a wide range of celebrated artists. The banners all use the tree for inspiration and the result is an amazing array of beauty, though-provoking social commentary, humour and gorgeous art. At the end of the two-month exhibition the banners will be made into tote bags that will be sold at an auction. You can also order t-shirts of the images. Proceeds are going towards mentoring and scholarships for visual arts students.

On their website you can look through each banner and read the artist’s statement, plus comments from viewers. The image I’ve posted here is by Rob Alexander and shows the national birds of every country currently at war or in an ongoing conflict. Each bird is illustrated in the colors of its national flag.

I would love to see something like this in Vancouver! I can see it being so much more interesting that other types of fundraising through public art (think bears and orcas). The chance for so many artists to be involved and the ease with which people can see all the messages together in one place is powerful. The tree is such an evocative subject, especially within the city.

I’ll keep you posted on how they do with the auction!

Thanks to Isabelle for mentioning this to me.

Hi everyone! I hope you are having a good summer. Sorry the postings have been so infrequent lately! I’m back from holidays and ready to talk fundraising.

Nonprofit Quarterly has a very interesting free article this summer: “Phoenix In Calgary: How the Calgary Philharmonic Survived Bankruptcy and Flourished.” It’s a case study on how the CPO came back from bankruptcy, layoffs and near death.

You can apply the lessons (there were many!) to your own organization, even if your organization is healthy. For example: focus and build on your strengths, involve many people in defining your future (in a meaningful way), listen to stakeholders, be transparent and share information, stay relevant to the community, recognize when you need external expertise… The article gives hope that even the most messed up organizations can be transformed and renewed.

“Premiums” are the little gifts and trinkets that charities give donors before or after they make a donation. Think address labels, pens, notepads and stickers. People often ask me: Do they work? Answer: yes, depending. Are they a waste of money and an annoyance donors? Answer: yes, depending… Here’s at least one person who likes premiums, via PostSecret. I’ll talk more about premiums and when they are are a good idea in another posting later this week.

I’ve just discovered another useful resource on the AFP website, especially for people who are new to fundraising. It’s a Fundraising Dictionary (download it as a PDF at the bottom of the page) covering absolutely every term, acronym and expression even remotely related to fundraising. Here are a few of the words that were new to me. What can I say, I’m a dictionary-reading nerd.

• Ademption – noun – the invalidation of a bequest in a will because the testator, before death, had already disposed of the property bequeathed.
• Eleemosynary – adjective – 1a of, for, or pertaining to charity, charitable. 1b provided by charity; free. 1c supported by or dependent upon charity.
• Hanger – noun informal – an additional appeal or personalized note enclosed in a direct-mail package. A hanger is usually smaller in format than the original, main letter and usually signed by someone other than the signer of the main letter. Also lift note.
• Reason code – the vehicle or technique that elicits a donation, such as a personal solicitation memorial, acquisition mailing, newsletter, annual appeal, or membership dues. Also campaign code.
• Soft credit – 1 the action of crediting a donor, who has a matching gift given by the donor’s employer, with the same amount as the matching gift, for determining the donor’s standing in a giving club.
• Syndicated gift – a gift composed of as few as two (although usually more) individual gifts bound by some shared attribute, such as members of the same family or a group of corporations.

By the way, the Z for zombie is from the very cute Politically Incorrect Alphabet.

Want to show your favorite corporate partner how much you appreciate them?

Consider nominating them for an Imagine Canada Business & Community Partnership Award. The deadline is July 7. Even if you don’t win, your corporate partner will appreciate the nomination.

The spring 2006 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review had a great case study on a unique fundraising approach taken by the United Way of Central New Mexico. By giving donors more control, they were able to fundraise for administrative costs, raise more overall, and make their donors happy.

Here’s what they did. They created a “Corporate Cornerstones” program which asks corporations to fund their administrative costs. The companies receive excellent recognition and the opportunity to give the United Way advice on management and business issues. The agency is then able to say that 100% of an individual’s donation goes toward program delivery.

The results of this approach have been impressive! Corporate giving is up by 132% since the program started (compared to being down for the United Way nationwide) and individual gifts are up by 112%.

The program resulted from some research the agency had done, which found that donors were concerned with admin costs and their lack of control over how donations are spent. United Way managers assumed it would be possible that business leaders would understand the importance of well-run administration. They were right. Donations through Corporate Cornerstones now exceeds what the agency needs for administration!

What is most interesting is that only one other United Way affiliate has copied the program (in Boise, Idaho). Why not try it?? I would love to see someone outside the United Way world try this and see what happens.

You can download the full article here.

Looking through the McCord Museum collection reminded me about this list (found in Ken Wyman’s book Face to Face Fundraising). I love that there was a need to teach people how to fundraise in 1891. The tone is rather predatory. But the concepts still resonate today.

Ten Principles of Soliciting
By John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
First published in 1891

1. When making a solicitation, dress well with costly clothes, immaculate linen, and well brushed shoes. See also that your hands are clean.
2. Hunt in pairs. A call by two persons makes more impact than one, but only one should talk. This has greater dignity.
3. Both people should have an elegant personal card to present at the door.
4. At the outset, ask only for a few minutes of the person’s time, and by plunging into the subject, create the impression that the call will be short.
5. Enter the room in genial and radiant good nature. Allow no provocation to disturb this good humour. Keep your victim also good natured, and this throughout!
6. If you find him big with gift, do not rush too eagerly to the birth.
7. Let him feel he is giving it, not that it is being taken from him with violence.
8. Appeal only to the nobler motives. His own mind will suggest to him the lower and selfish ones. He would not wish you to think that he has thought of them.
9. Let the victim talk freely, especially in the early part of the interview, while you take the opportunity to study his peculiarities.
10. Never argue or contradict him. Let him talk, talk, talk. Give the fish the reel and listen with deep interest.

Charity Village has a cover story this week on the “Nonprofit Balancing Act: How to project the right image and fulfil donor expectations.”

Communicating effectively without being (or appearing) wasteful is a concern for many of the nonprofits I work with. Check out the article for a few ideas on how some groups are doing it well.

This fall I seem to be doing a lot of coaching and training… and when talking with people about what it takes to be successful in fundraising, persistence and determination top the list. Here’s someone showing a lot of persistence… He started in July with one red paperclip. He traded that for a funny pen. He has been trading up and up now he has a snowmobile. He’s going to keep going until he gets a house! What a nut.

For all you arts managers and artists who think that you do more fundraising than art-making… here’s a gift you’ll like (and confirmation that you aren’t alone). It’s the Artful Manager Wall Clock. The Artful Manager has a very interesting blog too.

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!

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!

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.

“He who dies rich dies disgraced,” said the famous philanthropist and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. A new book about his life (Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America) makes me think of the complex morality of mega-philanthropy.

Charities sometimes experience a combination of feelings towards the wealthy: desperate longing to befriend them, and contempt for the ways they make their money or choose to spend it. Many of the greatest philanthropists past and present have become rich from the exploitation of one of two things: the earth’s resources
or their workers. And yet giving to charity is voluntary and there are so many wealthy people who give nothing back. (Sad fact: Canadians with the lowest household incomes give a greater percentage of their incomes to charity than those with the highest household incomes.)

Carnegie’s life embodied a paradox — giving away millions to help the needy, while exploiting his workers in brutal ways. From 1881 to 1917, Carnegie funded more than 2,500 libraries around the world including Vancouver’s first public library in the building we now know as the Carnegie Community Centre. His contribution education, literacy and the arts is profound.

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

Business in Vancouver is one of my favourite publications and the best part is always Peter Ladner’s column. I agree with just about everything he says and love that he comments on so many important community issues in a business forum. This week’s “Profitable ventures are rare in the non-profit world” presents an issue that many nonprofits toy with — running a for-profit business to provide perpetual funding for their work.

His column refers to a February 2005 Harvard Business Review article. The authors studied for-profit businesses run by nonprofits. Pressure to raise money and be entrepreneurial leads a (relatively small) number of charities into this arena. Once there, they underestimate the complexities and expenses of the businesses, fail to make a profit, and often undermine their charitable work.

For example, a youth services organization that had received funding
to launch a food products enterprise hired young people and began
making salad dressing. The nonprofit believed it spent $3.15 to produce
each bottle of dressing that was sold for $3.50. But when expenses such
as unused ingredients and managers’ salaries were factored in, the cost
per bottle reached a staggering $90.

The authors discovered a “pattern of unwarranted optimism.” Luckily I don’t suffer this terrible affliction myself, but I know many who do.

The most common manifestations that I see… believing that your Board of Directors will raise all the money and believing that your fundraising event is truly a net money-maker.