Send this to your CEO and every member of your board. Right now!

Frankly, I’m exhausted from preparing this, but I really hope you’ll invest the  time to read the whole post. Believe me, it’s worth it if you care about the future of your organization.

Here’s why.

Blackbaud has just delivered a “must read” report on Growing Philanthropy in the U.S. Read and heed.

The report, a view of the future we all face, is a distillation of a ‘brainiacs’ session hosted by Blackbaud and moderated and summarized by Adrian Sargeant. They’ve addressed the fact that giving is flat and what to do about it.

You really have to read the whole thing, written by Adrian, a bright light in our universe. But, for the slothful who won’t take the time to read it all, here are the key takeaways:

• Redefine Relationships. Stop being selfish. Focus on giving for giving’s sake.

• Re-orient toward longer term measures of fundraising performance. Immediate measure of ‘success’ (response rates, immediate ROI, giving totals for the year) doom us. Look at long-term values.
  

• Enhance focus on retention and building supporter loyalty.  Listen up! With retention rates in the dumper too few nonprofits really understand that a 10% improvement in retention results in a 200% improvement in lifetime value.  Time to get real.

• Develop a more integrated approach to fundraising. It’s not the method, Stupid, it’s  the message. And the message must focus on the donor’s concerns, not yours.

• Break down organizational silos and encourage greater collaboration between teams. The authors are too kind to say it, but you should be ashamed of your territoriality.

• Give supporters greater control over the relationship. Ken Burnett, The Agitator, DonorVoice and scores more have been preaching this for years. This is the arena where you can quickly add the most value.

• Promote the development of shared back office facilities. Small organizations need to stop whining and get together and share in the development of good stuff in the back room.

• Tackle high turnover rates in the fundraising profession. Face it. It’s not the pay it’s the lack of respect from CEOs and board members that drives folks out of this trade. We have an identity crisis and have to deal with it.

• Educate all stakeholders about the necessity of a longer term and integrated approach. I know, I know, it’s like playing Mozart to a cow, but we have to do it. It’s a real challenge, but we must not allow Boards to be stupid about fundraising, stewardship and philanthropy.

• Empower the regulators to enforce 100 percent filing of Forms 990 to increase their utility. Hey, I know this seems picky, but the fact is that some organizations don’t file, some lie, some don’t.  Transparency is key to the future of philanthropy. Get with it.

• Blow the whistle on organizations claiming to have zero costs of fundraising. As long as watchdog organizations reward ‘zero’ costs, organizations will lie. It’s time to call out the phonies in the watchdog groups and blast the nonprofits that play this game. There simply ain’t no thing as ‘zero’ fundraising costs.

• Fund the development of a website in the U.S. to educate the public, boards, and other stakeholders. Philanthropy is a big business, a significant part of our GNP. Let’s make it as transparent as possible.

• Encourage nonprofits to develop complaints schemes. Anyone who knows anything about donor retention and commitment is familiar with the importance of feedback. (See http://thedonorvoice.com)  This report reminds us of the absolute necessity to provide multiple methods for donor feedback.

• Develop new and more appropriate measures of performance.  Efficiency and cost of fundraising sucks as a measurement of anything.  There are far more appropriate measures.

• Develop the self-regulation of fundraising. Ethics be damned.  There’s a whole host of scum bags out there. But, we can do something about them.

• Encourage the adoption of monthly giving. No shit! Serious Monthly Giving or Sustainer programs produce 600% – 800% more revenue. Get to it. Now!

• Improve the sector’s engagement with young people. This is a loser, from a fundraiser’s perspective. But the report does have some good suggestions. Check ‘em out.

• Encourage and promote best practices in social media.  Importance of social media isn’t $, it goes to building loyalty and commitment.

• Encourage asset-based giving. The Report claims that 93% of a person’s giving potential is realized with a bequest or other planned gift.  Get  at it!

• Develop expertise in broadening participation in giving. Pretty weak tea. Don’t spend much time on this unless you need a kumbaya moment.

• Improve the quality of bequest fundraising practice. Death is our friend. But, with at least 8% of our donors willing to make a bequest, this just has to be taken out of the incompetent (marketing-wise) hands of planned giving officers and placed in the hands of those capable of selling.

• Challenge the wealthy to plan their own philanthropy. Stop bitching. The rich are rich and they’re gonna do pretty much what they want. This section of the report seems to think that enlightened advisors to the rich will help. Not!

• Create a nonprofit mutual fund. Nothing new here given the prevalence of donor advised funds at virtually every fund manager like Fidelity or Vanguard. Not sure what new is recommended. Fuzzy at best.

• Leveraging companies to promote philanthropy. Not sure that this adds much to the body of knowledge re employer matching, cause related marketing, etc, but well to keep in mind for that afternoon you have nothing better to think about.

• Invest in fundraising research institute. Seems  a bit self-serving to me, but because we’re also in the donor research biz. I guess it can’t hurt.

• Redesign the system of professional development and certification for fundraisers. Important stuff here. Knowledge and understanding of donor behavior is key for the future, not the number of AFP merit badges.

• Encourage the development of academic qualifications in fundraising. Jesus! They want to put in a curriculum for fundraising. I couldn’t disagree more, but you may have other ideas. I would simply settle for the fact that more than 50% of all fundraisers understood math or even simple arithmetic..

• Appoint a “sales force’ for the fundraising body of knowledge.  Ignorance is bliss (as is the case for too many CEOs and fundraisers), but this recommendation to gather best practices and the knowledge within the trade is spot on.

• Call out institutions offering certificates purporting to be qualifications. “Hey Mom, I’m  now a certified fundraiser.” An interesting discussion on stopping faux degree or course offerings by some colleges and universities.

• Educate board members about the intricacies of fundraising.  Among all the barriers to successful fundraising and philanthropy, the ‘board’ is the mightiest barrier and pain in the ass. This report rightly targets the boards for education and improvement.

Thanks for reading all this.  And it’s just the summary. Do yourself, you CEO and Board, a big favor and download (and read) the full report.

Roger

P.S. By the way, Adrian Sargeant and Blackbaud, you both deserve a raise.