Passionate or mediocre – which type of fundraiser are you?

May 14th, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, when discussing transferrable skills in fundraising, Lucy Gower and I were talking about the fundamental skills and attributes that all fundraisers (regardless of discipline) share. As well as story-telling and good stewardship, we came up with the following: deep down we’re fundraisers because we want to change the world. Yesterday evening, Paul de Gregorio shared the Rules of a Creator’s Life on his blog and  I was particularly taken by rule no 9: Love what you do or leave. And this instantly reminded me of the conversation I had with Lucy. Namely:

You can choose to be a passionate fundraiser or you can choose to be a mediocre one. Which do you think gets the best results? We all need to get by, pay the bills etc which may mean we often get tempted to take the easier, comfortable or safer route but tell me, how did that ever help change the world? If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s this: if ever I become a mediocre fundraiser, someone please remind me to pack my bags and leave.

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Have you got your house in order?

August 14th, 2011

Over the past couple of years, despite recession and the more recent storm in global markets, many of my associates and colleagues have reported a growth in major gift activity. In fact, the bulk of our assignments since 2008 have focused predominantly on major donors and/or major gifts.

But before even more charities small, medium and large jump onto the major gifts band waggon, it’s worth asking a simple yet vital question: have you really got your house in order to support major gift activity?

It’s easy to see how organisations can be tempted by the potential large gifts and healthier ROIs that major gifts can deliver but success does come at a price. Kirsten Bullock sets out the four basics for a major gifts campaign in this guest post on @PamelaGrow’s site. All four points and in particular, a compelling cause are key.

And I’d also add some others which we can often ignore because we assume (rightly or wrongly) that they’re in place and working effectively. I often use these questions as a litmus test to gauge how effective an organisation is likely to be in securing (and maintaining) major gifts:

  • Is there a clear vision and strategy for the organisation?
  • Is there a real culture of customer focus (both internal and external) within the organisation?
  • Is there a culture of cross-team working as opposed to working in silos?
  • Is information shared freely across teams and/or departments and are there systems and processes to enable this?

At the heart of it all is whether or not an organisation truly values both its internal and external customers.

After all, if it takes services weeks to answer fundraising’s queries about a particular project, or finance can’t tell policy and research whether a supplier’s invoice has been paid – if we can’t even do these internal bits right – how can we really meet the expectations and demands of our supporters and donors?

 

 

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Major Donor Fundraisers & Prospect Researchers – a Marriage Made in Heaven?

July 17th, 2011

I have a lot of respect for good prospect researchers. Let’s face it, when I’m working on a major donor campaign, they can certainly help make my life a lot easier.

Yet there can often be friction between researchers and fundraisers. A fundraiser who attended a prospect research seminar a while ago wondered why the researchers there were slightly disparaging of fundraisers. I can guess the comments being made: we (fundraisers) simply don’t understand what they do, we expect miracles and we set unrealistic deadlines to come up with x number of top line profiles and y number of new names.

Believe it or not, I tend to agree. Why? Because I’m still amazed at how many major donor fundraisers I come across who have limited experience of one of the key elements of a major donor campaign.

And no, I’m afraid that doing research into trusts and corporates in previous roles doesn’t quite equate to doing high net worth individual research. The differences are subtle but nevertheless important.

In a previous post I suggested that good major donor fundraisers need to grasp every aspect of their function. This certainly includes prospect research but I suspect many of us shy away from it because it’s not the sexiest part of the major donor process. Be that as it may, we still need to know what to do with raw data once it’s been wealth-screened, we still need to identify potential targets out of a list of wealth-screened names, we still need to determine who to include in any given prospect’s “contacts needed list” and we still need to make connections between individuals even when these may not be immediately obvious.

As fundraisers we can’t do this effectively unless a) we fully understand the job that a good prospect researcher does and b) we’re able to play to each other’s strengths.

If fundraisers took more time to truly immerse themselves in the prospect research process, imagine how many more prospecting breakthroughs could be achieved!

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Sometimes not asking does the trick

March 28th, 2011

This weekend I decided to increase my regular gift to an organisation I’ve been supporting for a good few years. And believe it or not, I didn’t do this as a result of being asked directly, nor in response to a specific appeal or upgrade pack.

I’m doing it because I’ve not been asked. Yes, you read that right. I’ve supported this organisation for a while now and I can honestly say I can’t recall a single time when they’ve asked me for more money other than my regular gift. Some people may call this lazy fundraising or missing a trick. I call it supporter focused and inspired.

You see, what I do recall receiving on a regular but non-obtrusive basis are timely email updates on their work and a regular, relevant newsletter that I actually do bother to read. By sending me these communications without pushing for money each time, this organisation has built a good relationship with me. I’ve grown to trust that they will keep me updated, I feel adequately acknowledged and, most importantly, I know I’m not just another donor number in their database that’s being put through the conveyor belt of thanking, communicating, upgrading.

I found their latest supporter letter particularly inspiring and I’ll be keeping it to remind me how to communicate well with donors. It has all the ingredients of a great piece of fundraising communication. It tells the story of a volunteer who is working as a water and sanitation engineer in Chad and DRC. It tells his story as well as the story of the people he’s trying to help and it also does a great thing – it draws the supporter in, acknowledging that you too play a key part in this story: “We – which means you and us – built latrines, supplied plenty of potable water, sprayed their tents to prevent mosquitoes, and gave them nets to sleep under…” and it finishes with an analogy which out of context may appear clichéd but which really did make me smile: “If MSF volunteers and workers are the front row in the MSF scrum, then you supporters are the back row.”

In short how did that make me feel as a supporter? Acknowledged, informed, part of a wider team and certainly happy to be supporting. Need I explain further why I chose to increase my gift without a single upgrade or donation form in sight?

And yes, the organisation is MSF who in my mind deserve a big bravo not only for the amazing work they do but also for developing great supporter relationships.

 

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Why Are Good Major Donor Fundraisers Hard To Come By?

March 14th, 2011

Ask any recruitment agency or recruiter these days which roles are the most difficult to fill and the majority are bound to say: major donor fundraisers. And this at a time when organisations big and small are still keen to start up or develop their major donor functions. Why is this?

A client and I were recently musing about this as we both agreed that major donor fundraising isn’t exactly rocket science but still it seems to have acquired that same mystique bestowed on corporate fundraising in the late nineties and early noughties.

Yes, major donor fundraising appears to be the “new corporate fundraising” of the new decade. And funnily enough, my client and I agreed, they’re both not that dissimilar in process from one another.

Like corporate fundraising though, major donor fundraising relies both on an intuitive and a process driven, factual approach and perhaps that’s where the challenge lies. In my mind, good major donor fundraisers need:

  • The instinct, attention to detail and perseverance of a detective – critical elements for prospect research
  • An eye for the bigger picture as well as specific detail – essential when formulating the case for support, overall targets, prospect research strategy and table of gifts
  • The ability to build instant rapport and gradually, trust
  • Influencing and negotiating skills – can you get your point/agenda across both subtly and effectively?
  • A good BS detector – is the person you’re talking to really a good prospect?
  • An ability to close – when it comes to it, are you able to ask the killer question directly and without hesitation?
  • A natural instinct and flair for donor care coupled with a process driven approach – key for good stewardship

So we’re not asking for much really! Often individual fundraisers tend to drift towards and stay within the areas they feel more comfortable with. Hence the split in corporate fundraising between new business development and account management teams. But with major donor fundraising there seems to be more of an expectation that one individual will embody all of the above especially in the more senior roles.

So how do we develop these good, well-rounded major donor fundraisers?

It’s good to see the IoF Academy including (within the Diploma) a unit on Major Gift Fundraising and also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s essential to look at practical application. The Masterclass may indeed address this and coaching could certainly come in useful too.

At the end of the day, practical experience comes precisely via practice, or even by shadowing more experienced fundraisers. I certainly learnt a lot (and still do) simply by observing good (and bad) practice.

Major donor fundraisers also need to grasp every aspect of their function – don’t think, for example that prospect research should just be left to the researchers. Put together some full and top-line profiles yourself. That way you’ll begin to understand prospect research better and in future be better able to manage it or even undertake it yourself (if a lone fundraiser).

Last but not least – if presented with the opportunity, dare to take risks. I certainly learnt a lot more by undertaking start-up major donor functions (where I had to do everything myself) than by slotting into an already established function or appeal.

It would be great to hear other’s thoughts on this and indeed to hear from major donor fundraisers – how did you develop your knowledge and skills?

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There’s Interim & There’s Interim – Part One

February 6th, 2011

It suddenly struck me that although this blog shares an interim manager’s thoughts on all things fundraising, I haven’t as yet focused on the interim bit. And yet, with so much change potentially afoot for fundraisers and their departments, this would certainly be a good time to focus on that “novelty” that is interim management.

I’ve been an interim on and off for four years now and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t want it any other way. Someone once joked and asked me a couple of years ago if I’m a permanent interim and I’m now very proud to say that I am.

As a number of fundraising departments begin to down-size, more fundraisers may fall into interim assignments by default so it’s worth bearing in mind the skills and mindset you’ll need to ensure that you (and your clients) have a good interim experience as opposed to a mediocre or bad one.

Good interims always need to hit the ground running and to do this it pays to be selective. Starting an interim assignment is and isn’t like starting a new job. If you were starting a new job, you’d need (ideally) to embark on a full induction period. With interim, you need induction light – you’re only there for a short-ish period of time so what’s relevant for a “permanent” member of staff won’t be so relevant for you. I always start off with my own list of what I really need to know, what I’d like to know but isn’t so urgent and what I really, really don’t need to know because, let’s face it, I’m on limited time.

The same applies to the things I get immersed in. Again, as an interim you’re only there for a specific period of time so only get involved in the things you really need to get involved in. You can always spot the new interims because they’re the ones who treat an assignment as if it were their new “permanent” job. So they get involved and preoccupied with the minutiae of the day-to-day and, God forbid, the politics. The beauty of interim is that you can focus on the job at hand yet not get too bogged down with the politics of an organisation. I’d even go as far as saying that good interims deliver good results precisely because they don’t get too involved in the politics or the superfluous detail. A good interim is someone who can maintain an overview of the assignment’s big picture as well as hone in on the necessary detail to deliver.

Successful interims maintain an objective detachment and learn not to sweat the small things – it’s precisely that objective detachment that can bring fresh vision and perspective into an organisation or function whether it’s a care-taking or trouble-shooting role you’re fulfilling.

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It’s the Practice Not the Theory that Counts

December 10th, 2010

This week’s launch of the Funding Commission’s report Funding the Future has generated a lot of debate on Twitter and the blogosphere. And rightly so.

I will hold my hand up and say that I was one of the people interviewed for the Individual Giving section. And yes, my experience as a major donor fundraiser certainly prompted me to say that we do need to be better at asking. But by “we” I mean all those individuals, not just fundraisers, who are often called upon to ask certainly in face-to-face major donor meetings – that is CEOs, other senior staff, trustees and volunteer development board members.

Still, however frustrated I may get at having to “butt in” at the crucial moment with the ask that we’d agreed should’ve come from one of my colleagues, I agree with Beautiful World that it’s wrong to tar the whole sector with the “bad at asking” brush for there are many of us out there who do do it well.

I remember saying in my interview that training and development does play an important part and Craig Linton certainly makes a good case for this in his great post. What I’d like to add to that is that it has to be the right training.

To me, where fundraising’s concerned, it’s the practice not the theory that counts. And in the past I’ve certainly come across a number of fundraisers who were very good at the theory but alas not so good at the day to day and the asking.

Because fundraising is about relationships, a lot of the elements of success lie in the soft skills. They mimic the way our donors tend to make decisions – with their hearts as well as or even more than their heads. So it’s inevitably the soft skills that will engage and inspire donors, not the theory, not the A to B of major donor or any other type of fundraising. To illustrate some of what I mean take a look at this post from Jeff Brooks.

I for one will be very interested to see how the Institute of Fundraising’s Academy will address the soft skills and practical issues – how do you, for example convince a fundraiser that it’s much better to pick up the phone, strike up a conversation (and dare I say it, start developing a relationship) than resort to a “safer” letter or email? And yes, I’ve come across quite a few of those in my time as well.

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Are we communicating with donors intuitively or by default?

September 20th, 2010

There’s been a lot in the blogosphere lately about communicating with donors and supporters.

A couple of weeks ago Jeff Brooks posted a hilarious but poignant video from the Proper Discord blog under the title: The self-centred nonprofit website. Watch it if you haven’t already. After laughing my way through it, I couldn’t help but think of numerous charity websites that would easily fall under this category.

Even worse, how many of us have not received a proper thank you for a donation? Stephen George warns of the implications of not thanking properly or even at all here. And Mark Phillips has often reminded us of the importance of tailoring and personalising our communications to donors here.

Of course, none of this is necessarily new. A re-read, or even first read, of Ken Burnett’s Relationship Fundraising or George Smith’s Asking Properly will reveal that even back in the “good old days” fundraisers were being encouraged to think about how they communicated and engaged with donors not just to lump them into a discrete and manageable, one size fits all, process.

As austerity measures continue to hit and fundraising becomes more and more challenging, we ignore all this advice and stick to our safe but uninspiring processes at our peril. Let’s not put too fine a point on it: we’re all competing with each other to acquire new donors and retain existing ones so can we really afford not to put a little bit more thought and care into how we communicate with them?

And by “communicating” I certainly don’t mean bombarding donors with asks which seems to be the default position many of us fall into together with the “organisation speak” of Jeff’s post above. A thoughtful thank you or update on what my donation has helped achieve would be nice from time to time and would probably stop me from chucking every mailing from you straight in the bin or the read later/never pile.

It’s at this point that I’d like to share with you the great relationship I have with one of the charities I regularly support. I seriously can’t remember how long I’ve supported them for. But I love my relationship with them because I’ve never felt part of a predictable process. In actual fact, I can’t even remember the last time they sent me an upgrade mailing. OK, I can see some of you shaking your heads and thinking “lazy fundraising” and “missed opportunities” but I think they’ve got it just right. Because when I compare them with another charity I support who’ve done nothing but send me regular appeals and upgrade mailings, I am now very much inclined to increase my regular donation to them simply for getting their relationship with me right. And yes, not only do they not pester me with regular asks, but they’re good at saying thank you and at informing me what my donation is helping them achieve.

We seriously need to ask ourselves constantly whether we’re really communicating intuitively with donors or whether we’re just falling into our comfortable but generally harmful default positions. As George Smith pointed out in Asking Properly way back in 1996: …”fundraisers need to concentrate more on what donors want and less on what we want to tell them.”

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Engagement & Connection

September 6th, 2010

Whenever I receive a donor communication that’s clearly driven by process and lacking any personal touch, I hanker after a different type of fundraising. Fundraising that is removed from the traditional and predictable, fundraising that makes me smile and want to give.

If fundraising is about relationships, then fundraising should engage and connect. More often than not it leaves me feeling there’s no real interest in building that relationship. All most charities really want is a) my money followed by b) more of it.

Thank goodness for innovators though. Recently I was truly wowed by a great website and new concept in support: lendwithcare.org. OK, so the concept isn’t exactly new because lendwithcare.org is a microfinance site (with a difference) and kiva.org was the trend-setter back in 2005.

But lendwithcare.org certainly made this cynical fundraiser sit up and ‘watch’ so much so that I quickly became a lender myself. Interestingly, I discovered Kiva a while ago but never took the plunge. So why is that?

The basics – OK, I admit it. Call me superficial, but aesthetics matter to me – that’s why, given a choice, I work on Macs and use an iPhone. The first thing I loved about lendwithcare was the vibrancy, accessibility and “people” focus of the site. In comparison, Kiva looks bland and almost retro.

The feel – lendwithcare engages with me on many levels – the vibrancy and accessibility satisfy my senses, the prominent pictures of real people (both entrepreneurs and lenders) satisfy my need to be engaged and to connect. Kiva is also about connecting people but somehow those people aren’t so prominent.

The interaction – because people feature so prominently, there’s an immediate sense of community on lendwithcare – a community of entrepreneurs, a community of fellow lenders. There’s also number of things I can choose to do: from giving a gift voucher to inviting a friend to join our community. Although Kiva has a specific tab for “Community”, the sense of real people and therefore interaction is lost.

With so much going for it, I’ll be very interested to see how Care International go about developing the relationship with me, a lender. But for the moment, lendwithcare.org gets my full support and, more importantly, ticks the wow factor box.

Another site that caught my eye recently (funny, or not, how the focus is on websites here) was the soon to be rolled out localgiving.com, a social enterprise owned by the Community Foundation Network and Ardbrack Foundation. Founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist, Marcelle Speller, localgiving.com satisfies my recently developed interest in supporting small, grassroots organisations where a donor can really see the difference his/her donation makes.

While different in feel to lendwithcare.org, it nevertheless allows me, the donor, to engage and connect with a charity or community group that best matches my interests, needs and location. It will also give me easily accessible updates on the projects I’ve supported and there’s a similar community feel with the chance of interaction between donors and charities. One of the things I love about it is that it puts me very much in control of the relationship.

Localgiving.com will be rolled out across the UK this year and I for one will look forward to seeing the range and choice of local charities and community groups grow. What’s more, Localgiving provides participating charities and community groups with web tools to improve their marketing and sustainability, a win-win for all.

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Why lumping me together with the rest of a database is a bad idea

September 5th, 2010

I’d be interested to know if all fundraisers make difficult, demanding donors or whether I’m just becoming more cynical with old age.

A year ago I blogged about a charity that had delighted me through their donor communications. A year later, the same charity seems to have undergone a personality change, or at least their donor development team has. While I appreciate there’s been an increase in need, I don’t particularly appreciate the increase in regular asks. Just because I’m no doubt classified as a “regular giver,” it doesn’t follow that I’ve agreed to regular asks.

The charity is making an assumption here that I don’t particularly agree with. I know it’s a lot easier to lump everyone into a donor communication and “development” process but that’s exactly what it feels like at this end – that I’ve been “lumped” together with a whole lot of other donors. If I feel “lumped together” with the rest of a database, how likely is it that I’m going to give more or extra? The phrase “lump it” comes to mind.

I know it costs more in time and resource to personalise relationships but in this day and age, I’m wondering whether we can afford not to even if we do work in an increasingly beleaguered voluntary sector.

Put it this way, this particularly difficult and demanding donor would have reacted differently if left to her own devices. Had I been engaged in a more personalised relationship, I could have let said charity know what issues concern me, accepted information from said charity on those issues because they interest me and yes, I would have made a donation in my own time.

Instead, I’m even considering whether to continue supporting said charity (which is a large one) and taking my support to a smaller one (or to a microfinance site) where I can see a real difference in the support I give.

Twenty odd years ago when I started as a marketing exec in the commercial sector, we said then that customers were becoming more sophisticated and demanding. Imagine what they are now twenty years on. Charities need to take heed of this if they want to stay ahead of the game and acquire and develop their donors.

I for one want more engagement and connection and will explore this further in posts to come.

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