Leveraging Your Nonprofit’s Major Milestones for Fundraising
Most small and midsized nonprofit organizations run on shoestring budgets. Their primary fuel comes from the passion, care, and a sense of community service that seems innate in the people who start and work in nonprofit organizations. On a day-to-day basis, nonprofit leaders often wear so many hats that they sometimes forget to slow down and celebrate their successes. But friends, today I want to remind you of two important things: Yep. Here I go again with the fundraising. You know I can’t help myself. Nonprofits can’t operate, sustain, or thrive on passion alone. And anyone who has worked in this industry for any amount of time knows that funding doesn’t simply fall from the sky. Thus, fundraising should always be front of mind for nonprofit leaders and board members. And, I can think of few better fundraising opportunities than those that are associated with celebrating your organization’s successes! Did your nonprofit just hit a major programmatic milestone? For example, one organization I work with just reached the “1,000 clients served” goal that its board envisioned several years ago when they created a new community-based program. Is your organization looking ahead to a major “years in operation” milestone? For example, I’m currently assisting a nonprofit as they plan for their 10-year anniversary milestone later this year. Organizational milestones are subjective and can only be defined by your leadership team. Sure, time and/or program-based milestones are the most obvious, but a major achievement for your nonprofit could be something as ordinary as unveiling a new brand identity. Or celebrating the success of your 5-year strategic plan goals and/or the launch of your new 5-year strategic plan. You get my point, friends. If you can identify the milestone, you’ve got a reason to celebrate it! And what better way to celebrate than with a fundraising campaign?! Seriously! Please keep in mind, a fundraising campaign is so much more (and, trust me, way more impactful) than a fundraising event. You will rarely see me write about fundraising events because, well….they have proven time and time again to be the least efficient and effective fundraising method. But, executed well, a fundraising campaign to celebrate an organizational milestone can energize existing donors, attract new donors, and give your nonprofit a boost of funding and momentum to move towards its next milestone. A few tips to keep in mind as you consider celebrating your nonprofit’s next milestone with a fundraising campaign: Start planning and publicizing early. Obviously, this is easier to do when you’re planning for a time-based milestone. If you know that your organization is hitting its 20-year mark next year, you should start planning right away. It takes at least 6 months to plan and implement a successful milestone campaign. Planning a campaign for a service-based milestone should also start early. While it can be tricky, proper data tracking and forecasting can give the nonprofit leader a sense of when that 1,000th client will be served, for example, and planning can still begin with confidence. Create a goal and stay laser focused. The very first thing to consider when sitting down to plan a milestone celebration campaign is how much you want to raise. I know this seems like an obvious statement, but I’ve seen nonprofit leaders start out with a fuzzy goal or with no numeric goal at all. That is not a good look, friends. If you don’t have a firm goal in place from the beginning, everything else in terms of your planning and execution will struggle. Starting with the end goal in mind will inform everything from who you approach for sponsorships, to how much you ask individual donors to contribute, and how much you spend on getting the word out. You absolutely must begin with a firm goal. Brand your campaign and publicize, publicize, publicize! Is your organization turning 10 years old next year? How about a “$10,000 for Ten Years” campaign? Whatever the milestone, figure out a catchy theme to brand it with. Then, talk about it all the time, to everyone, everywhere. Social media, website, newsletters, public presentations, etc. Lead-up publicity is super important because you need people to know your campaign is coming before it ever begins. You also need to build a publicity plan to highlight the campaign’s progress and additional organizational success stories once you launch and throughout the duration of your campaign. Create your campaign messaging. Once you have a goal in mind and your catchy branding theme, it’s messaging time! Campaign messaging should include your case statement, success stories you’ve gathered along the way to your milestone, and most importantly, stories about where you’re heading in the future. Always remember to look forward more than you look back…people care much less about where you’ve been and will typically give more when you articulate where your organization is going in the future and why it matters. Target, launch, and ask. It’s always smart to spend some time identifying the key donor prospects you want to target during your campaign. Also consider creating a gift range table to give yourself a better picture of the various combinations of gifts and gift amounts that help you meet your goal. Failure to spend this sort of planning time for your campaign will surely result in willy-nilly fundraising and less than optimal results. Once you have all your target data in place, plan your launch and then get out there and start asking! In terms of the asking during your milestone campaign, please try to be as intentional and strategic as possible. Refer to your list of targets and utilize your gift range table to prioritize and solicit your highest level donor prospects. Be clear about who should be asked personally (in person or by phone) and who can be asked more indirectly (via email or mail, for example), and always remember to utilize your website and social media platforms to capture the many small gifts that will help reach your goal (and acquire new supporters in the process). Friends, this
Donors Behaving Badly?
I’ve written before about the importance of avoiding mission creep and other alignment issues when seeking funding for your nonprofit. I know, it is certainly easy to fall into the “any funding is good funding” trap, especially in small and often under-resourced nonprofit organizations. But, as I’ve noted, the pursuit of grant funding can definitely prove problematic if it is misaligned with the overall mission and direction of your organization. Mission alignment is key to ensuring that the funding your organization receives helps you accomplish what is in your strategic plan instead of taking you away from your actual goals. But there’s another type of funding related issue that can be even more detrimental than a misaligned grant award. So detrimental, in fact, that it can cause serious damage to an organization’s reputation or even land it in the headlines. And in the world of nonprofits, the marketing idiom there’s no such thing as bad publicity absolutely does not apply. So, what type of funding can be this problematic? The type that comes from donors who behave badly. I think you know what I mean…we have all seen the headlines: “XYZ Charity Under Immense Pressure to Return Tainted Millions” “ABC Nonprofit Accepted Donations from Criminals” “Corporation Attempts to Clear Bad Reputation through Charity” This issue can manifest itself in many different ways. It might be an individual who has been philanthropic for years but is later found to have engaged in criminal activity. It could also be a major corporate donor who finds itself the subject of a class action discrimination lawsuit. The potential problems are endless. But, it is up to you, the nonprofit leader, to ensure that your funding needs don’t overshadow the due diligence process that should always happen before accepting a major donation. Failing to do so can be costly, both in terms of financial and reputational damage. So, how do nonprofits find themselves in these predicaments? Through a combination of factors, really. It usually starts with leadership that gets a little too excited about a prospective major gift. It is hard not to get excited about an individual or corporate donor offering thousands or even millions to help your organization. And, when leadership is excited everyone gets excited, and it’s easy to miss issues if everyone is blinded by dollar signs. Along the way, there might be a red flag or two that get ignored or minimized. Someone fails to pause, reflect, and ask more questions about the donor. Perhaps no one thinks to take a closer look at the finances and/or history of the corporation, or maybe this donor has been throwing money around all over the place and folks are just pleased to finally be on their giving radar. So, the gift is negotiated, received, and celebrated. And everyone is happy, until a triggering event occurs — like a prominent philanthropist being charged and later convicted of criminal activity — and every organization that ever received charitable donations from this individual, including yours, is immediately under scrutiny. Ugh. It is always a smart practice for nonprofit leaders to conduct their own due diligence in advance of accepting major contributions. This is relevant for any major donor, not just the ones whose questionable reputations precede them. As a nonprofit leader, you want to have as full a picture as possible about the donor, the source of the funds being donated, and any legal or ethical issues that the donor may have dealt with in the past. One of the trickiest parts of the due diligence process is that there is a lot of gray area. What one nonprofit leader views as unethical another may view as capitalism at its finest. And, absent a criminal conviction, so much in these decisions is subjective, and every nonprofit leader has their own comfort level with risk. But the point of due diligence is to have as much information as possible to inform your decision about whether and how your organization should be engaged with the donor in question. I promise I’m not trying to freak you out, nonprofit leaders. My point is simply to remind you to slow down and do your homework before entering into agreements with major individual or corporate donors. Just as you should expect major donors to scrutinize your nonprofit before handing you a giant check, it is your duty to investigate the people and companies who show up with giant checks to give. If your nonprofit doesn’t already have a gift acceptance policy, I strongly encourage you to make it a priority to create one. This policy specifies the types of contributions your organization will accept, the grounds under which it will decline a gift, and can even spell out a process for handling ethical issues after a gift has already been accepted. I also recommend investing in one of the many prospect research software tools that can help with the due diligence process, in addition to identifying new prospective donors. Some organizations even go as far as creating standing ethics committees on their boards of directors that meet regularly to discuss and vet major donors who have been or may be approached for funding. Whatever path you take for your organization, just make sure you’ve got a plan and process in place to deal with donor ethics issues if they ever arise. A little bit of homework now can help your nonprofit avoid major ethical, reputational, and financial issues later.
On Gardens & Donors: Great Relationships Take Work!
I spent last weekend outside in my back yard, toiling in my garden and getting it ready for spring and summer planting. The front of my home is completely xeriscaped and filled with beautiful yet intimidating agave, cacti and succulents. From this vantage point you’d never know that there’s a small but productive vegetable and herb garden out back that helps nourish my family year-round. Nothing brings me more joy than the seasonal cycle of cultivating and harvesting the fruits of my own labor. Unlike many home gardeners I know, I plant from seed instead of transplants because I want to be part of every stage of the growing process. I love the way the soil feels in my hands which is why I stubbornly refuse to wear gloves despite owning more pair than I can count. I prefer hand watering because it allows me to conserve by giving the thirstier plants what they need without overwatering the rest. It also gives me time to think, which is the other part of gardening that brings me so much pleasure. I consider my garden an important part of my personal ecosystem, one that I must work to nurture in order to be rewarded with the food that graces my table. Just because I put seeds in the ground and water them doesn’t mean that the vegetables will magically appear. If I haven’t done my part to prepare the soil and make sure I’m planting my seeds at the appropriate time of year, my results will be spotty at best. If I fail to be attentive to pests and other issues that can arise during the growing process, I could end up with an aphid or beetle infestation that could ruin the whole plot. But when I amend my soil between seasons, rotate crops, and stay attentive to pests, the results amaze me each and every year. When I think of all the work that goes into keeping my garden healthy and productive, it’s an easy comparison to the fundraising and donor relations work I’ve done for the past twenty years. Those of us who focus on the philanthropy part of nonprofit businesses understand that more than anything, we are in the relationship business. And, just like the relationship I have with my garden, donor relationships are only as good as the time and effort we put into them. If we don’t do the work to build relationships of care, trust and accountability with our donors, we cannot expect them to reward our organizations with their generosity. If we do a poor job nurturing and managing these relationships, the fundamental missions of our organizations and the client bases we serve will suffer. But when we do our jobs well, the results and impacts are fantastic. Cultivating strong donor relationships takes creativity and flexibility. There is no exact formula for doing it right, but a general rule of thumb is that good donor cultivation arises naturally from good nonprofit management. Here are a few fundamentals to illustrate what I mean: Engagement. Engaging donors can take a variety of forms, including but not limited to regular communication, special events, face-to-face meetings, etc. Telling your organization’s story is important for its overall brand recognition and visibility, so regular and consistent communication to your surrounding community is just one component of good nonprofit management. This outward-facing communication can take the form of digital newsletters, social media outreach, email campaigns and even special events. Broad community engagement, along with strategic communication and outreach focused on current and potential donors not only builds overall awareness but also helps establish reputation and trust with existing and potential donors. And as I’ve written before, trust is key to creating lasting donor relationships. So, find creative ways to communicate and engage your donors. I know you’re busy with other things, but trust me…this is worth your time. Transparency. Another important way to build awareness and trust in your organization is through openness and transparency. Most nonprofit leaders already understand that the IRS mandates at least some level of fiscal transparency to the public. What often gets neglected, however, is the personal touch that nonprofits can offer donors through deeper transparency and focused reporting. Donors give to nonprofits because they believe in the mission and want to make an impact. But if we don’t show and tell our donors how their gifts were used and the impact they have made with their philanthropy, we can’t expect them to continue giving. Transparency is really an offshoot of engagement, as it’s a deeper method for nonprofits to share their stories. Some nonprofits choose to take a formal approach to transparency through the creation of glossy annual reports or impact reports. Other nonprofit leaders take a more informal approach by carving time out each month to call donors and share information with them. I advocate for a solid hybrid of these two approaches, because I’ve found that most donors appreciate both formal and informal communications about their impact. Flexibility. Always remember that every donor is different and should be treated as such. Building strong relationships is impossible with a cookie-cutter approach. Not all donors are interested in attending your events. Not every donor wants to read your monthly newsletter. Some donors only want to see your annual audited financial statements. Other donors only want to hear about how their funding helped the organization. I have closed some of the largest gifts of my career by taking the time to truly get to know the donors I work with. By paying attention and getting to know my constituents as human beings, I can be agile in my approach and develop more impactful cultivation plans. And, impactful cultivation leads to impactful gifts. The moral of the story…. Don’t get me wrong. Donors are not plants. But just like the relationship I’ve cultivated over the years with my veggie garden, good donor relationships can be so fulfilling and rewarding, year after year. And, like the vegetables that I so
On Trust…
I recently read an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy entitled “To Keep People Giving in the Pandemic, Trust in Nonprofits is Essential” (Segar, B., 2020). I won’t go into detail about the article’s arguments because the title sums up my thoughts perfectly: a nonprofit’s fundraising success is built upon a foundation of trust, and without that trust, the organization’s long-term financial sustainability will suffer. Each day, nonprofit leaders work hard to attract and retain funding. If they’re savvy fundraisers, these leaders seek a broad range of support — from individual donors, from corporate partners, and from private foundations as well. They tell heartfelt stories about their missions, the people they serve and the differences they make in their communities. With a good mix of skill and luck, the funding arrives and the organization is able to sustain its work for another year. But, regardless of a nonprofit leader’s story telling abilities, and regardless of a donors’ affinity, wealth, or interest, donors must have a measure of trust in the organization and the people leading it in order for gifts to become reality. Trust is the reason a nonprofit board delegates authority to its executive director to oversee the organization’s daily operations. It is the reason that I’m always preaching about the importance of nonprofits being open and transparent in communicating with their donors. And trust is the reason nonprofits should value every gift they receive, as the people or entities making these gifts do so because they trust our organizations to be good stewards of their contributions. It is a responsibility that I have taken very seriously in each role I’ve held in my twenty year nonprofit career. In the coming year, my greatest wish for my friends in the nonprofit sector is that we continue nurturing relationships of trust with our existing donor bases and make positive strides to establish relationships with new donors. I use the word “relationship” intentionally, as good philanthropy is not a transactional business. Transactions are fickle; we should aim to sustain. Be open, be honest, build trust, and the gifts will come.