Blueprint Fundraising

Workshop early bird deadline August 15

I’m offering several workshops in Vancouver this fall: Making the Ask and Fundraising Basics. I wanted to let you know that the early bird deadline for Making the Ask is coming up this Friday, August 15th.

This workshop will help you understand and get comfortable with the asking process – from preparation to a face-to-face solicitation. Choose from September 30 from 1-4 pm or October 8 from 9 to noon. The early bird fee is $175 and you can register online or call me at 604-682-6582 for more information.

Website changes… bye bye birdy!

If you are reading this through an RSS feed, you may not have noticed but there have been some changes to this ‘lil website. I would love your feedback!

The Fundit in its old stand-alone blog form has been retired and I’m now going to share thoughts, news and ideas through the News part of the site.

Thanks very much to Christine Rondeau of Bluelime Media for smoothly upgrading us to the latest version of WordPress and for the many many tweaks and improvements along the way.

Charity wristbands are back

You thought they were gone… but they live on in a new form. Now you can add a Lance Armstrong Live Strong charity wristband to your Twitter avatar! Cool.

New fundraising policy from the Canada Revenue Agency

Canada Revenue Agency has finally released a policy on Fundraising by Registered Charities. The document outlines policies and practices that the CRA uses when it reviews annual information returns filed by registered charities and explains the CRA’s views on issues relevant to fundraising expenditures.

Some of the highlights:

Ratio of fundraising costs to fundraising revenue

• Under 35% – Unlikely to generate questions or concerns.
• 35% and above – The CRA will examine the average ratio over recent years to determine if there is a trend of high fundraising costs. The higher the ratio, the more likely it is that there will be concerns and a need for a more detailed assessment of expenditures.
• Above 70% – This level will raise concerns with the CRA. The charity must be able to provide an explanation and rationale for this level of expenditure to show that it is in compliance; otherwise, it will not be acceptable.

Best practices

1. Prudent planning processes.
2. Appropriate procurement processes.
3. Good staffing processes.
4. Ongoing management and supervision of fundraising practice.
5. Adequate evaluation processes.
6. Use made of volunteer time and volunteered services or resources.
7. Disclosure of fundraising costs, revenues, and practice (including cause-related or social marketing arrangements).

Areas of concern that could lead to further review

1. Sole-source fundraising contracts without proof of fair market value.
2. Non-arm’s length fundraising contracts without proof of fair market value.
3. Fundraising initiatives or arrangements that are not well-documented.
4. Fundraising merchandise purchases that are not at arm’s length, not at fair market value, or not purchased to increase fundraising revenue.
5. Activities where most of the gross revenues go to contracted non-charitable parties.
6. Commission-based fundraiser remuneration or payment of fundraisers based on amount or number of donations.
7. Total resources devoted to fundraising exceeding total resources devoted to program activities.
8. Misrepresentations in fundraising solicitations or in disclosures about fundraising or financial performance.

If you work in fundraising, this is a must-read! The whole policy is here.

Attention Little Give applicants

The Little Give recently had technical troubles with their server and sadly, some applications have been sucked into the vacuum of cyberspace. They are advising everyone to re-submit their applications by email or by calling Kera McArthur at 604-623-3007. They have also extended the application deadline to June 5th. You have until Friday to apply to this cool program!

The Little Give is back!

The nice people at Karyo Edelman are doing The Little Give again.

Last year their staff spent a frenzied weekend helping four nonprofits in a variety of ways… renovating a playroom, creating a communications plan, and generally using their ingenuity to turn a small amount of money into a big impact for kids.

This year they will be selecting three groups. Go to their website and nominate your organization by June 1, 2009 if you are:

• - a registered non-profit organization;
• - based in Vancouver;
• - secular; and
• - make a difference in the lives of children and youth (under 24 years old).

This year’s Little Give takes place from 4 pm on June 18th to 4 pm on June 20th. You’ll also be able to follow the fun on Twitter and Facebook.

A thought for Earth Day

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.”

-– Marshall McLuhan

Hugh Jackman’s $100K Twitter challenge

That elevator speech you’ve sweated over is really going to come in handy here!

Actor Hugh Jackman is giving away $100,000 to someone’s favourite organization. Tweet your case to him here.

Insights from the AFP International Conference

The annual Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference is on now in New Orleans. If you aren’t there (I’m not), you can still access some of the ideas being talked about in the sessions.

AFP has some coverage on their own website and the Chronicle of Philanthropy is posting highlights in their Conference Notebook. They have  audio interviews with presenters that you can hear without being a subscriber, such as this interview about attracting younger donors.

I found this interesting — its from a survey of organizations in the midst of capital campaigns:

- When asked whether and how they would do things differently in budgeting for a big campaign, 31 percent of respondents said they would engage in more formal campaign planning. Twenty-three percent said they would monitor campaign costs more closely, and 13 percent said they would fold the campaign budget into the overall financial goal of the drive.

- The average campaign budget included 39 percent for staff members, 22 percent for consultants, 19 percent for marketing, and 20 percent for other costs such as events, travel, and office expenses.

Help your board succeed in friend-raising

On April 15th Volunteer Vancouver is offering a workshop on a perennially important topic… “Increasing the Board’s Involvement in Friend-Raising.”

You’ll notice that says friend-raising not fundraising. It’s a good approach that many organizations could benefit from — you must walk before you can run and give board members the support, tools and environment to succeed in building relationships on behalf of your organization. Those relationships will naturally lead to all sorts of benefits for your cause, including donations. You can find out more and register here.