Getting Sound Fundraising Advice
I been thinking about the Comments on my post last week, Who’s A Poor Fundraiser To Believe?
In it’s most simple reading, the post was taken as reducing sound fundraising to choosing one side or the other of the ‘mail more, mail less’ conundrum.
And looked at this way, the appropriate response was, in effect: This is dumb … it’s not either/or … it’s different strokes for different folks.
And I obviously agree … to a point.
The question I was really trying to get at is how do fundraisers (and for the sake of this post I define ‘fundraisers’ as those working in nonprofits, with budgets to meet, as opposed to you agencies, consultants and advisors) sort out what to believe about ‘best practices’? Or ‘first principles’? Or even where to begin?
The ‘feeds’ I get that illustrate the concerns of these fundraisers, as opposed to the blog chat of us ‘advisors’, display a huge lack of knowledge of real fundraising basics. Every day we see nonprofits sign up for The Agitator that can’t possibly have more than 10,000 or 25,000 donors … maybe 100,000 max.
[I’d estimate our readership is one-third this category, one-third giants who can afford ‘professional’ advice, and one-third those paid to advise.]
The fundraising being done in these numerous smaller nonprofits is undertaken without much access to ‘knowledgeable’ advice beyond the various blogging professionals and the business pitches of competing product/service vendors.
Given those sources, the ‘answer of the day’ to their questions might be better thank you’s, better newsletters, more online contacts, use premiums, better ‘Donate’ pages, don’t use premiums, introduce monthly giving, use social media, be mobile friendly, and yes … mail less or mail more.*
For these fundraisers, I think you might agree that the advice proffered can be bewildering, and at times even contradictory. Certainly tough to sort out priority-wise.
For these fundraisers, ‘different strokes for different folks’ or ‘be more donor-centric’ might not be particularly helpful … even though such advice is correct — conveniently for advisors — 100% of the time! And, dare I say, it makes being an ‘advisor’ rather fault-free.
For these fundraisers I still ask: Are there fundamental rules that should be followed religiously by each and every nonprofit raising money? What are they?
Here’s one: Thou shalt thank your donors, each and every one, each time they give. [Details to follow.]
This might sound super-simplistic — Duh! stuff –to the consultant/agency/blogger class, but I submit there are thousands of fundraisers out there who need really simple advice about fundamental do’s and don’ts.
Can we do more to help them, or not?*
Tom
*And I’m not letting The Agitator off the hook here. Roger and I write about every nook and cranny of fundraising, and perhaps too often with the unconscious presumption that we’re writing for the fundraising ‘intelligentsia’. Maybe that’s not helpful.
9 responses to “Getting Sound Fundraising Advice”
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Assuming that something is indeed a “best practice” then the two challenges for most nonprofits are frequency and scale.
My grandmother taught me that the key to making good pancakes is to not flip them until you see lots of bubbles forming on the surface. This tribal knowledge works well enough for the few times each year that I actually make pancakes and the kids gleefully eat them without comment about the consistently inconsistent shapes and sizes of the pancakes.
The cook at the local International House of Pancakes (IHOP) makes tens of thousands of pancakes with consistent precision that goes well beyond just waiting for bubbles to appear. There is both frequency of practice and enormous scale that make my own efforts look like child’s play.
If you’re a larger organization (e.g. larger donor base, $10m in revenue), then there are certain activities where greater frequency and scale lead to better results over time. If you send 2 million pieces of direct mail, then one would assume there’s plenty of segmentation, testing, and optimization work being done that pays for itself. But if you’re dealing with 200 supporters, then it’s nearly impossible — or impractical — to generate enough frequency or scale to do all that work. Look for the bubbles, flip, and serve.
The frequency and scale challenge of smaller nonprofits is directly proportional to the hats-to-people ratio. In larger organizations, there is a lower hats-to-people ratio. Staff have more specific roles, more time to focus, and more time to perform at scale. In a smaller nonprofit, everyone is wearing lots of hats and the ratio is higher. The executive director is also the major gift officer, the grant writer, the head of HR, the thank you letter signer, and a few more hats to go along with it.
The frenetic pace of wearing all these hats should not be mistaken for frequency — and it sure as hell doesn’t scale. This creates an environment where tribal knowledge thrives and “good enough” practices are the the norm. What these smaller orgs lack in sophistication they try to make up for in heroic efforts and high-touch engagement.
The irony in all of this is that mechanized fundraising can turn off donors in the same ways that the pancake industrial complex leads consumers to prefer the little cafe down the road that makes pancakes the way grandma did. And we know that given the choice, donors prefer the artisanal fundraising approach. Perhaps our focus should be on finding ways to scale that recipe.
Hurrah for this post! Yes, you can do more to help.
The vast majority of charities in the UK have few or no employees, let alone fundraising teams and many, many single handed fundraisers or people for whom fundraising is only part of their job. Finding the time or understanding the need to learn can be a huge challenge.
Yes. I think there should be some fundamental rules, including the primary ‘thank everyone’ commandment.
To put my thoughts in context, we have a database of around 12,000 and a team of 1 FT and 3 PT fundraising staff + 2 PT comms staff. Training is an issue. It typically comes down to delivering sessions at team meetings or securing places at low/no cost workshops, often run by consultants who’d like to sell us more of their specialist services that we can’t afford. So, back to the fundamentals. For example;
It would be great to have a universal basics, step by step guide to selecting people to email (we can’t afford post more than once a year, so mailing more or less isn’t even an issue….). We have a list, not many lists and have no real idea where to begin segmenting. Is there a non negotiable list of questions we must ask before pressing send? Finding simple guidance on this is a surprisingly complex task.
On donor-centricity, I think we small orgs do rather better than the big players. The complicated definitions and endless head scratching by the world of fundraising commentators isn’t really relevant when we can simply pick up the phone or send a hand written thank you to most people who support us. We know we wouldn’t exist without these people, so we treat our donors as friends and partners in our success.
The greatest sources of information and support we have are Fundraising Chat, the ever growing Facebook community and the Institute of Fundraising’s Special Interest Groups. We can afford them and learn from our peers. I subscribe to Agitator to continue learn about those disciplines that are my weakest. Sadly, often I can only read, agree and think ‘I wish’ before moving on to do the best we can with what we have.
We currently exist in a world of bewildering technicalities (think GDPR, the FPS and so on), complex language from academics and commentators, and an ever increasing work load. My reading pile grows daily and my colleagues roll their eyes when I send yet another thing for them to digest, which goes way above their professional experience but is a necessary evil.
I know my team would benefit from some basic, plain English, easy follow rules. What’s the direct fundraising equivalent of Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre?
Other disciplines are less mysterious….
Yes, you can help.
Tom, you’re so right, it’s often the small charity with slender resources that needs help the most but can’t access it. That’s why SOFII was created. Sole fundraisers and people working with reduced budgets can gain from the expertise of the writers who contribute to us and share ideas that work for them and their organisations. Here’s a great example: http://sofii.org/news/see-sofiis-all-time-fundraising-greats.
Thank you for this blog post, Tom, it’s a really timely message for the sector, and it’s always a pleasure to read your and Roger’s ideas. Keep up the good work guys!
Virginia, thank you for posting as well. We really appreciated your contribution to SOFII in 2012.
I should have mentioned SOFII….we all subscribe for exactly that reason. I still use the Better Thank You Letter Checklist!
Hi Virginia,
Good to see you still agitating. For those days when even the most enthusiastic fundraisers are looking for inspiration, they could benefit from your wise advice here.
http://sofii.org/article/how-i-use-sofii-i-turn-to-the-better-thank-you-checklist-that-helps-us-value-our-donors
Best, Ken
Thank you for this post! Though I am now one of those consultants, for most of my professional life, I worked in smaller shops. A list of 10,000 would have been a dream!
And Steve, I LOVE what you said. It’s true: if they understand how important it is, smaller organizations can really shine with donor care. The big guys could learn a lot from them.
I think I’d separate technique from attitude. A proper attitude toward donors and fundraising is something everyone can develop (and insist on). What techniques are useful really does depend on many variables. But perhaps approaching the question about “how to” in each organization would be better if done through the lens of great donor care?
Thanks for continuing this important discussion. I love Steve’s remarks (great analogy). And agree with Mary that attitude counts for a lot. Small organizations can build cultures of philanthropy probably more easily than larger ones, which can give them a competitive advantage. Donors only see what you give to them. They don’t care how large, sophisticated or research-based you are.
As to offering up some universal norms or “best practices,” I agree it’s very difficult to do this on a tactical level. The list of fundamentals Joe shared from SOFII is a great start. A sort of “Fundraising 101.” And there are, of course, numerous fundraising primers that expound on these principles (Hank Rosso has always been my go-to).
But let’s say a kind word about the consultants who many say too few nonprofits can afford. I’m now a consultant, but six years ago I was in the trenches. I was there for 30 years. And I hired consultants from the very beginning to teach me what I didn’t know. They were worth their weight in gold. Frankly, I think small and medium-sized nonprofits can’t afford not to access good coaches and trainers and mentors. No one is born knowing how to do this stuff. And simply reading stuff isn’t always sufficient when it comes to getting down to the tactical level. This is where experience counts. If you can’t buy it from a consultant, maybe consider borrowing it from a colleague. This is why organizations like AFP are so important. I developed my own network of fundraising friends upon whom I could call whenever I was entering into uncharted territory. I’d ask what worked/ what didn’t / and who helped them set everything up. Why not?
Just my two cents.
Thank you, Mary Cahalane!
Large or small, greater donor care is key. As opposed to one sales pitch I received recently which said in essence — “fall fundraising time is just around the corner – here’s how to get the most money out of your donors…”
In my shop, we feel strongly that best practices is not a destination, it’s a practice. We’re constantly reinventing what best practices are.
With that in mind, here’s what guides us:
Always evaluate what you’re doing and improve it.
Stop doing what you don’t need to do any more.
Evaluate your donor experience and make it what it should be.
Don’t do stuff that doesn’t matter.
Know where your new donors are coming from and work to acquire a better donor.
Put a lot of attention on retention.
Put a lot of effort into retention.
Put a lot of resources into retention.
Did I mention retention?
And finally, see what you can do to improve retention.