8 responses to “Who Will Get The Money?”

1. Hardy Smith says:

   February 22, 2017 at 9:03 am

   Powerful challenge to local nonprofits on what their donor retention rates SHOULD be! Great customer service is one of the strategies small retail businesses can use to compete successfully with the big box stores. Same approach could be difference maker for local nonprofits.

2. Michael Hoffman says:

   February 22, 2017 at 11:15 am

   I sympathize with this comment and I see and work with organizations that just can’t keep up, particularly as it comes to data/CRM, which is key to the user-experience we have on sites like Amazon. This kind of customer service and personalization is certainly part of the donor service mindset that results in increased retention. BUT…

   I also think orgs could do much better with a change in thinking — as much as a change in tools. You don’t need special technology to call and thank donors. You don’t need special technology to make sure people get thank you’s promptly. You don’t need special technology to make your messaging about your donor and not your org brand. So in this sense, keep giving them a hard time!

3. Jono Smith says:

   February 22, 2017 at 2:59 pm

   I wonder how much of the “disadvantage under which they operate” is self inflicted? Perhaps if more of these small nonprofits operated like small businesses they would be able to better keep up. For example, my former employer Network for Good has grown from a scrappy startup in 2001 to having raised over $1 billion in less than 15 years. If more nonprofits explored innovative business models like NFG did, perhaps they would be better equipped to compete for staff and cutting edge technology.

4. Gayle Gifford says:

   February 22, 2017 at 4:03 pm

   Should, coulda, woulda. But the reality is … they aren’t. So are we saying that those who are most deserving clearly have proved they are deserving because they have risen to the top in their ability to raise money? Or that the elite private universities are more deserving of their new state of the art gym or gazillionth business schools with their staff intensive development departments are more deserving than the adult literacy program which is starving for dollars … because it is so much closer to its donors? Closeness is in the eye of the beholder .

   It doesn’t bother you that the state of this sector has come to the situation that the top 0 .6% of all public charities receive 36% of contributed income? Or that the top 4% get 62%?

   I’ve worked at both national and local levels. Believe me, making gains on any social justice issue demands work at all levels. You can have the best national wetland environmental regulations in the world, but if no one locally is watchdogging how those are enforced, down to every river, stream, creek and vernal pool, those national regulations don’t mean much of anything. You can have the greatest national food recovery system, but if there is no one at the local level who is there to stock the shelves, distribute the food, run the nutrition classes, help folks apply for food stamps, run those summer lunch programs, so what?

5. Gayle Gifford says:

   February 22, 2017 at 4:07 pm

   The other reason I get crazy about this the impact of expecting grossly under-resourced development departments to perform as if they had the same capacity as the top organizations. Despite what the data shows.

   Kind of like saying to poor folks could do just as well as rich folks if they just did what the rich folks did.

6. Tom Ahern says:

   February 22, 2017 at 4:27 pm

   Gayle correctly observes, “The overwhelming majority of US public charities, those small and medium sized organizations, simply don’t have the funds to compete for talented fund development staff or new technology to keep up…”

   Tom believes, “…a local organization supporting the arts, the environment, or the homeless should and could have retention rates that make the big guys weep … copiously.”

   I know these things to be true, too.

   But I also suspect the problem with keeping talented fund development staff AND retaining local donors will not be solved by changing methods or technology, the amazing advantages that only the deep-pocketed can afford.

   Having heard the pain in SO many fundraisers’ voices as they describe trying to work in an unsupportive, unrealistic, second-guessing, bad-board-dominated organization, I would say that internal culture at smaller nonprofits is as big a problem as anything else cited … in fact, likely bigger.

   At larger nonprofits, there may be fights and politics (the clash between fundraisers and marketing is a classic).

   BUT (one assumes) the final arbiter at most biggies is the bottom-line. “Fundraising is about making money. Do what it takes.”

   Whereas in smaller organizations, the poorly paid, desperately self-training DD not only has to deal with limited budgets but too often also with ignorance and interference from boss and board.

   The long discussion currently spooling out on the Rogare Facebook feed about what makes fundraising a “profession” mentions how important PASSION is in fundraising.

   A low-salaried position where I can explore a passion for the mission and vision, where I am encouraged to experiment, where my annual goals aren’t made of gossamer, delusional wishes, where I can grow while trying to help my nonprofit grow as well … that would be a fair trade for many. But is the reality for few.

   The metric that worries me most is the average tenure of a fundraiser at smaller organizations. In the 2014 Underdeveloped report, more than half of the DDs expected to leave their current organizations within 2 years. You can’t build a successful fundraising program in a couple of years. Five years, yes. Two years, no.

   I’m unpleasantly Darwinian. I’m glad the weakly motivated are leaving. But what about the well-motivated? They’re leaving, too. And I suspect that’s often because the internal culture they face every working day just bites.

7. Mary Cahalane says:

   February 22, 2017 at 4:38 pm

   Oh so much to say here!

   First, I think Gayle makes excellent points. I also think, often, those with experience in large shops tend to forget how small small is. I’ve worked with organizations with no fundraising staff. The ED is supposed to handle that plus run the organization. Why do they have no staff? Because they raise no money. It’s a catch-22.

   Then Tom rightly points out the other issues layered on top – trust, autonomy, plus I’d add boards that aren’t fans of fundraising… it all makes it extra hard to stay put when you’re fighting all that and getting paid 20k a year to do so.

   I have also long agreed that the ability (if they realize it) to take really good care of their donors – to know them, see them in the community… behave like neighbors – is a real opportunity for strong retention. I’ve seen it, I’ve done it, it works. But it takes staff who stick around. And an organization that values donors, not just their dollars.

   I think changes in technology may help small shops. CRM systems are much less expensive and much easier to use right out of the box. And there is a wealth of great knowledge out there – free, even – online for an ambitious development staffer to use. Then she has to be allowed to experiment with that knowledge!

   I’ve gone on long enough. But I do think this is a critically important conversation we should continue to have. Thank you all!

8. Rebekah Basinger says:

   February 27, 2017 at 10:59 am

   Thank you for the encouraging word to “my people” — the courageous, passionate folks who labor without a lot of hoopla or recognition in small to mid-size grassroots charities. They are doing what they can and in the process, making a tremendous difference in lives — granted just a few lives, but for those who are touched by the work, the services matter big time.