Spotlight Your Valuable Resources

Welcome to Week 8. Since Week 7 had a two-hour assignment, there is no big task this week, just food for thought.

In your prospect identification work last week and this, you are discovering whom to solicit, and as part of that, you explore what people’s resources are likely to be: volunteers have time, donors have money, Board members and vendors have expertise, and staff, alumni, parents and other groups include people who have significant networks of communication that can be tapped to raise your profile. Now, take a look in the mirror, and for this week’s topic, consider that your organization has important resources of its own, elements that are valuable to your prospective donors. When you can clearly see your own resources, you can start to use them to create rewarding propositions for people to engage with you.

If you’ve been around a while, you may have an established brand that people know and trust. When you’re visible in your community and people know your name, that’s a resource for you to use. People can raise their own profiles by associating themselves with your good name. Distill your brand into two or three words or phrases and stay focused on the value that brings you.

Most agencies have staff members who interact with people who benefit from your services. When your organization has folks in roles like counselors, teachers, coaches, nurses, tour guides, social workers, etc., look to these folks for compelling stories of the impact of the work you do. That’s a huge resource for you to capture and leverage.

Here are a few more examples from sectors where I’ve worked. You can help your colleagues who are on this journey with us by adding your own examples in the comments. Together we can help one another to be creative about donor development and thanking.

Hospitals

Hospitals are a lifesaving resource for everyone in the community; many people pass through the facility as patients, family members, and visitors, so it’s an excellent setting for donor recognition displays; there’s a huge repository of medical knowledge and professionals who can interpret scientific health care developments for laypeople; and a significant physical plant for tours and gatherings.

Youth Development Programs

Kids! They have fresh faces, energy, their whole future in front of them, and in the right setting they can be absolutely charming when interacting with guests. Handmade giveaways and handwritten thank-you notes from kids to donors will go a long way in setting your program apart. Parents may be a resource, if not for support then to validate your impact. You likely have space for gathering prospective donors, whether it is your own facility or a partner organization, like a school,where your programs happen. The value proposition for donors is to invest now to create better lifelong opportunity for children.

Legal Aid

Legal services firms have a natural affinity with the legal community; validation of professional effectiveness from judges; and successful trial attorneys are tremendous public speakers. The value proposition for donors is to make justice accessible fairly, not just for people who can afford private bar representation.

Veterans’ Group

Stories of bravery and sacrifice; patriotism; the opportunity to support people who volunteered to protect freedom for all Americans.

Older Adult Continuing Care Community

Grateful family members and residents; physical plant with space and staff to coordinate indoor and outdoor gatherings; the opportunity to ensure that residents have a home forever.

Rowing Club

The image for this article is a panorama shot from the dock of the boathouse I joined long ago. In my experience, some rowing programs have a little space beyond equipment storage that they can use for gatherings; all have coaches with expertise, access to the water, regattas to watch, and may also have gorgeous views, a connection to nature, and historic buildings to enjoy. Masters rowers have some money; for youth rowing, see the Youth Development paragraph above, plus consider that many scholastic rowers seek to leverage their sport for college scholarships, so guidance counselors and college coaches will have success stories to share that validate your program’s impact. You may also have coaches and equipment you can use from time to time to provide a hands-on experience that connects parents and other prospects to the sport.

Come back to this exercise when it’s time to write your campaign material, create events that start and deepen relationships, and craft strategic approaches to individual donors. When you showcase the elements that enrich your organization, you are offering something to your supporters that they can’t get elsewhere.

Finding Prospects to Solicit

Welcome to Week 7! This weeks’ assignment takes *two* hours – 90 minutes for a meeting and 30 minutes for condensing your notes — so there will be no additional action posted next week. That way you can double up your time and execute this prospect identification exercise, which was developed by consultant Terry Axelrod. You can read more about it in her book, Raising More Money. Terry’s “Treasure Map” model throws out the old, high-pressure model that went something like, “Every Board member has identify five people you can ask for $5,000 this week.” Instead, you facilitate a fun session that makes everybody feel good and look at finding donors in a new way.

The guiding concept of this exercise is that people enjoy giving of the resources they feel that they have in abundance. If you have an elderly volunteer on a fixed income, that person is likely to have time, pride of association, and personal networks in abundance, but not a lot of money. This is the person you ask for assistance writing thank-you notes, getting you in the door with connections, and interpreting the mission in person for guests – this is *not* the person you ask for a $10,000 check. Conversely, the corporate CFO who travels for work and can’t always make Board meetings is likely to have more money than time, so that’s not the person you ask to come to a two-hour lunch meeting or even attend your daylong signature event. Be respectful, build that relationship in a time-sensitive way, and ask for the check!

Whether you’re under the gun to raise money right now or you’re positioning your organization for broader solicitation later, your task this week is to set a meeting for the purpose of prospect identification. Send out a Doodle poll with three dates and times when you can run a 90-minute meeting in the next few weeks, and invite enough people so that you have at least three around the table. More is better but three you will get you started. In my experience, getting people together in real time generates a more productive outcome than a conference call or asking for individual responses via email. In the long run, chasing people for email responses will eat up more of your time than a well-run meeting.

What you need for the meeting:

· Flip chart or a white board – the bigger the better, because this is messy, in a fun way.

· Broad point markers in 4 different easy-to-read colors.

· A sheet of paper and a pen for each participant.

· Snacks or a meal, whatever it takes to lure people to participate. If you can do this late in the day and offer adult beverages, that could help people relax and get into the exercise.

The bare bones of the exercise are as follows:

Introduction: Frame the exercise and start to shift people’s perspective by talking about how people are more inclined to give out of the resources they feel that they have in abundance. You want to help people to let go of the old model, which is usually a nonstarter because people think they don’t have any rich friends so they can’t participate in fundraising.

Choose your first marker color and begin. In the middle of the board, draw a bubble and put the name of your organization in it.

Question 1 for participants: What groups interact with our organization? Write those names scattered around the board with plenty of room around them. You will likely start with common categories like Staff, Board Members, Volunteers, Donors, and Vendors, then add categories specific to your type of organization, e.g. alumni, clients, grateful patients, chapters, associations, elected officials, etc. This should go on for a while, until no one has more to add.

Question 2 (new marker color) for participants: What resources does each group tend to have, in the aggregate? Jot them down in a column under each group’s header, leaving room to the right of each list. Here are just a few examples to get you started. Remember that the resources named may not apply to everyone in the group, but you should be able to find a good number of people who have them. In exercises I’ve facilitated, common responses include:

Board members — commitment to the mission and often have some money (I use the restaurant pricing guide of $ to $$$$ to indicate how much money people in that group might have)

Staff and volunteers – operational expertise; stories that illustrate the mission

Former staff — expertise in their professional roles; relationships with people now at the organization

Vendors — professional expertise, access to goods and services, plus networks of communication and channels they use for marketing

Question 3 (another new color here) for participants: In what way do the groups benefit when your organization does well? What’s their stake in your success? If you raised more money and did more of your mission work, who else’s boat would rise with that tide? Write those reasons under the group name, to the right of the Resources list.

· Responses past participants have offered include:

· Board, staff, and volunteers feel energized and inspired by your success;

· Donors feel that their personal values are fulfilled;

· Board members’ profiles are enhanced in the community;

· Senior staff finds it easier to attract and retain quality employees;

· Staff enjoy better job security when there’s more work;

· Volunteers feel reinforced that their time and effort is worthwhile;

· Vendors get more business/make more money; and,

· Increased impact may lighten the workload of overextended public resources (e.g. if your work keeps people in their homes, that relieves stress on local shelters).

Question 4 is “Who talks to whom?” Take your final marker color and connect the bubbles. The reason to do this in a larger group, and with a big messy chart, is the visual impact of seeing the hubs of communication emerge. Often Board members in the session aren’t surprised to see how important they are as a group, but wow! The staff are way more connected than they thought! This is an important moment, when the Board realizes how valuable the staff members are to the process of finding and connecting with prospects.

With your wild, wonderful mess of bubbles and phrases and connector lines just finished, lead the group through the final step: “Everyone, take your sheet of paper and see if you can list two people you’re close to in as many of the categories as possible.” This exercise is about where the strongest relationships lie, not “Who do you think has the most money in each group.” Use the last few minutes of the session for people to jot down their notes, then let them go home. This process takes a lot of energy and everyone will be tired.

Should you find that you can spend several hours over the next week to follow up one-on-one, ask people to take their sheets with them, add to them as more connections occur to them, and tell them you’ll call them to talk about who they think are the strongest possibilities on their lists.

If you’re reading this series because you have to fit everything into an hour (as promised), collect the sheets and send everybody home with a huge THANK YOU for their work. Week 9 on the blog will review how to follow up about people’s suggested connections.

You’ve just run a 90-minute meeting. Here’s what you need for the rest of your second hour in this two-week period. Take a photograph of the whiteboard or take the flip chart with you. Within the next day or so, make yourself an orderly spreadsheet chart with five columns. This will be your guide in how to talk to your various audiences, and where to put your energy.

Column headers:

Group – Board, Staff, Vendors, etc.

Resources in Abundance – Passion for mission, professional expertise, money, time, etc.

Stake in Your Success – Pride of association, fulfills personal values, enhances community profile, etc.

Talks To – List the other groups that have substantial interaction with each type of person

Connections – Use the individual lists of names submitted by participants. It’s messy but it will grab everything from the meeting in one document and you will use this to organize your fundraising going forward.

Keep the lists that you collected so you can follow up individually with the people who made them to develop solicitation plans with top priority prospects.

When you are planning to execute this model, or if you have questions before you begin, you are welcome to get in touch with me by phone or email. I’d be happy to share more details with you since this article is a bare-bones outline of the process. I’ve been using this for many years and I’m a believer!

Speed, Price, Quality: Pick Two

Today’s post is for the folks who have to raise cash quickly, as inexpensively as possible.

If you’re not under the gun for maximum revenue now, use your One Hour this week to connect with two individuals you put on your Top Prospects list last week. Get together for coffee or something similar that is comfortable for a half-hour conversation and ask them how they got involved with your organization and what they think about how it’s doing. This is strictly a cultivation activity to build your relationships.

If you’re the person with a pressing fundraising deadline, join me in this conversation about no-frills gift-getting. When you don’t have time for finesse, this is the plan for you. Use your One Hour this week to complete these six steps, a combination of tasks and mindset refinements:

1. Be kind but firm about avoiding low-yield, high-volume distractions.

You don’t have the time or energy for gimmicks, so practice saying “No” graciously to the people who want to reach the money goal via sales-related tactics. These include arrangements that yield a percentage of the total sales for a product like candles or wrapping paper, or a percentage of sales made on a certain day at a store; also for flat-dollar premiums on merchant discount cards, coupon books, or event tickets. One of my mantras is, “Shopping is not giving.” Your donors deserve to connect directly to your mission.

No bake sales, car washes, etc. – if people have the energy to put on an event, you’ll get a lot farther using it for personal contacts like asking for appointments, solicitation, and thank-you notes.

And also “no” to raffles and auctions that suck up an incredible amount of energy and relationship points so people can hunt for bargains. You don’t need fun, you need cash. Gaming is not giving, either. Focus.

2. Decide on your dollar goal.

Short-turnaround fundraising demands high-yield, low-volume solicitation, i.e. larger gifts from fewer people. Be clear about the goal and communicate your progress toward it frequently to keep up the energy of the effort. Invite the people who come through for your organization to celebrate along with you when you cross the finish line.

For illustration purposes, let’s say your goal is $10,000. This is scalable, so apply the proportions of this model to your goal.

3. Make a gift chart: how many gifts, at what amount, do you need?

Giving patterns tend to form a pyramid, with your biggest donor at the top, a couple of people making big gifts, several more giving a level down from there, and so on. If your organization doesn’t have much donor history, it’s tempting to adopt a totally flat model for reaching your goal, like “We have a goal of $10,000, so we need 20 people to give $500.”

While it sounds like a reasonable amount to give, and an egalitarian approach, my professional opinion is that this model results in under- and over-asking a bunch of people. To maximize your opportunity to reach your goal, use a pyramid model.

A note about how many qualified prospects you need to reach your goal: be prepared to ask four people in order to come away with *one* gift. More on that in a moment.

Sample gift pyramid for a $10,000 goal that you need to meet quickly:

With this model, you close 17 gifts to achieve your goal. The chart shows a solicitations-to-gifts ratio of 4:1 but – good news! You will likely not need to ask 68 different people to confirm the 17 commitments you need. Ask four people for $2,500; it’s likely that one or two of your very top prospects will make a gift under that amount, and the same will happen at the lower levels.

Look at the contacts you have pulled together this year, talk with a trusted advisor if you’re fortunate enough to have one, and sort out who gets asked for what amount. Start at the top and get moving. Later in this yearlong conversation we’ll dig into the details of how to do this with finesse, but if you’re reading this today it’s because you have to make your moves with the tools you have today, and I’m here for you. PM me with questions or ask in the comments below.

4. Identify the official voice of this campaign and stick to it.

You might be doing all the work to set up this campaign and make it happen, but it’s possible there is someone harder to say “no” to than you, so find that voice and engage that person to send emails (maybe you draft them), meet in person (maybe you arrange the appointments), etc.

You might be the founder, the Board president, or the most dedicated volunteer, and so you very well may be the best person to make the Call To Action. If not, your humility is crucial here: most of my career has been as a member of the development staff, and I can assure you that it is much more influential for a Board member, founder, or program beneficiary (e.g. alumnus, past parent, grateful patient) to secure appointments and complete solicitations.

The Voice of the Campaign also sends progress notes like “We’re halfway to our goal, thanks to you!” and sends personal thank-yous.

5. Seek a matching challenge to boost response.

When you’re talking to the highest-level prospects, consider asking one to make their gift as a challenge to others. This might be especially effective with people whose names are well-known, in particular if they are in a business where getting their name out for a good cause might bring more business their way.

You can also consider asking for a match if your prospect counters your request with a lower amount. If you asked for $2,500 and the person says, “That’s too much, but I could maybe do $1,000.” Expect negotiation in any significant solicitation discussion, but if you’re confident that the person has more capacity *and* might appreciate more visibility, come back with something like, “That’s wonderful! We really do appreciate your support. Would you consider a larger amount but only as a match to others? Would you offer another $1,000 to match two gifts of $500, if we can raise them?”

Use the match as leverage, especially with first-time donors or people you are asking to stretch.

6. Ask your vendors for support

Lastly, look at your organization’s vendors, and other businesses selling to people close to your organization. Who makes money when you do well? In my experience, vendors who like cultivating nonprofit clients give a discount of 10-15% and note that on invoices, so ask key vendors who don’t do that for you to consider a gift around 15% of their last big sale, or of what you paid them over the last year. Then get ready to make a fuss – which is free marketing for them.

Can you offer earned media to a business in return for them writing you a check to get you to your goal? Can you spotlight a leader from that business on your social media, at an event, or elsewhere in your communications? Feel free to use or update the old-school giant-check-presentation photo and caption released to your local new outlets.

Setting appointments and getting people asked will take up your hours in the coming weeks. In this blog, the second quarter will be all about building out your network of relationships. I promised you One Hour A Week and if you’re facing an urgent need, use your time for that, and catch up with the blog when you can.

Choose Your Adventure: What’s Your Fundraising Focus This Year?”

Last week you pulled your data together – great job! Feel free to post below or message me about any barriers you ran into that made the process challenging.

With the data you have, what do you see?

• positive trends to encourage
• negative trends to turn around
• inconsistent results
• not much history at all

Use the trend findings to set your direction for the year. Your resources are limited, so pick one direction to go – are you in a cash crisis, or can you put your efforts toward long-term growth? The goal for this week is to make your choice and stick with it. Don’t pressure yourself to try to develop big gifts and grow your prospect/donor pool. Once you get your fundraising moving forward you will be able to emphasize increasing donors through one cycle, then increasing average gift amount. Start to get comfortable thinking about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to stay focused on your #1 priority for the year.

Option A: Focus on Revenue

If your budget is in crisis and the only option is to raise more money quickly, this year will be all about relationships. Put your attention into cultivating the donors closest to you, and the prospects most likely to give. Your KPIs will be the number of touches as you cultivate the people on your short list, and the difference between what you ask them to give and what they do give when you finally ask for their support.

Identify the Top 10 to Top 25 people who are in a position to direct significant resources your way. This starts with your Board and other stakeholders. It’s a short-term strategy because you aren’t adding to your base of qualified prospects, but if you’re under the gun for cash, do what you have to do.

If this is your scenario, use your time this week to ensure that you have current contact information on those people, and make notes of who might be the person most likely to get them to say “yes” to a request for support. Aim to make seven touches before asking for a gift; these can be phone calls, handwritten notes, personal emails, lunch or coffee, in-person education about your mission — mix it up, and delegate where you can because you may not have to do all of these yourself.

Next week’s post will be just for you, with proven techniques you can put to work this spring. Be sure to put your One Hour onto your calendar now, whether it’s all at once or in chunks, so that by this time next week you have your short list ready for action.

Option B: Focus on Growth

If you have some time to position your organization for long-term growth, this year I encourage you to focus on making your database of prospects as large as you can by adding people who have a direct connection with your organization, as well as those who are one degree away by having a strong connection to the people in your organization’s inner circle.

One hears the term “prospects” used broadly to mean anyone who hasn’t given yet, but I want you to draw a distinction between qualified prospects, people you know have both interest in your mission and capacity to give, and “suspects” – names from a data dump without indication that those individuals care about your work, have the capacity to give, or are even charitably inclined.

Here’s a real-life example to illustrate the difference: an organization held an annual run event for several years. The purpose was to connect new people to the organization and convert them into donors. Data analysis showed that the people who registered fell into two categories: donors, and local runners. The first group already knew and loved the organization; they liked the event because they could see one another in a fun setting, and were happy to give a little additional support beyond their annual giving; the runners, it turned out, just liked the date and the course. Registration information boosted the number of people in the database, but over time, despite sending newsletters, invitations, and solicitations to the runners, they just didn’t convert into donors. It was not an effective way to secure true prospects, and it was an expensive method of cultivating and stewarding the faithful. The organization redirected its resources into cost-effective efforts to bring donors together for fellowship, and dropped the expenses of both staging a timed road race and the postage, printing, and effort spent in seeking to convert run registrants into donors.

Your One Hour for this week is to look at your current roster of people who *might* give and separate your prospects from your suspects. Place an indicator on the records of your true prospects, people who meet all three criteria:

– they have a connection to the work you do; they know you or support a similar cause

– they have the capacity to become a donor

– they are inclined to be charitable. Plenty of people with tremendous capacity just don’t give, and you’re not going to change that. Look for evidence of other giving.

For the rest of the people on your list, your suspects, consider sending them as personal a message as you can, and asking them to opt in to further communication from your organization. Warmly welcome anyone who responds, and let the others go. Week #7’s post will be all about finding new prospects, not just suspects.

As you refine your list this way, you can be confident that you are laying a strong foundation for future giving. Have a great week!