Time to stop reading fundraising advice

by Niels on June 5, 2009

neutronenbomkleinI was thinking about myself this morning. I know. I usually don’t do that, but this morning must have been special.

Anyway, I was thinking about myself when I was fifteen years old. It was 1981 and Holland, where I was born, was the front runner in the anti-nuclear armament movement in Europe. I was part of that movement and organized a neighborhood committee. I found the letter that I wrote and distributed to all the neighbors. My mother had kept it, bless her heart, and given it to me a few years ago.

It was a short letter, written on a typewriter of course, with a hand drawn map of the neighborhood to let people know where the first meeting would be. It had my home address and phone number. Again, all before cell phones. There was only one phone in the house, which brings to mind the support my parents gave me.

We formed a group and went door to door to talk to people about cruise missiles and neutron bombs. I told the people why I would refuse to join the army in a few years. Holland still had compulsory conscription in those days. I saw no point in joining an army only to be blown to pieces by an atomic bomb in the first 15 seconds of combat. Those were the projected statistics and I knew them and they frightened me.

As we spoke with our neighbors, we also asked them for donations.

When I attended the next meeting where all the city organizers came together, and I brought the money we had raised, the city treasurer told me that we had raised half the money of the entire city.

I can’t prove that. In Holland, they don’t do plaques and awards like they do here. We thought that calling someone worker of the month was too Soviet. But that is an aside.

What I thought about this morning is that at fifteen, I had never read a blog post about fundraising, or a book. Nobody trained me and we certainly didn’t receive a script. Nothing is worse than a fundraising pitch that sounds scripted.

Recently two people came to my door asking for money for the Human Rights Campaign. I am a donor to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force myself, and even though I see the differences between these two organizations, I still think it is absurd that there are two national organizations. So I listened to these two.

Their speech was so clearly scripted, it was almost laughable. Nobody talks like they did, not when they really believe in their cause and their organization anyway. And when I mentioned that I support the NGLTF, they had to tell me that the HRC was the nation’s largest organization, as if I didn’t know that, and if I cared about that. “Oh, they are the largest, well, then let me give you more money.” Somebody told them to say those words at that moment.

You can just picture the trainer: “When somebody brings up the other guys, you know, the Task Force, you should remind them that we are the largest national organization.” I wonder if he put that slight tone of disdain in their minds too, but it was there. Advertisers talk about “overcoming objections” and here was a page from the playbook.

Needless to say, I didn’t give any money.

A couple of weeks ago I heard a much better way to pitch a cause.

I am part of the Rainbow Toastmasters in San Francisco. A great group and most likely the most fun of all the toastmaster groups in the area if not the country. Speaking is of top notch quality too.

One of our members gave the best speech I had heard during one of these meetings. He spoke about his motivation to run the San Francisco Marathon. His reasons were mostly personal, expressing a desire to improve his overall health. He had run marathons before and figured he could do so again.

Running the San Francisco Marathon also happens to be a fundraiser for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. In this speech, that benefit clearly came second to the personal motivation.

And that was so refreshing. He could have given a speech about the good cause, about the AIDS Foundation, about the levels of HIV infection, about the need for a national AIDS policy. And all of those things would have been relevant, but none of it would have been true.

Not for him that is. He is in training for his personal reasons and happy that he can support the cause in the process. His personal reasons are compelling enough. He didn’t need to wow me with stories about the campaign.

I am now thinking about running that marathon myself, not this year, but perhaps next year. It sounds like the perfect challenge.

The other part of this speech is that he decided to give it that afternoon (the meeting is at 6). In other words, he hardly had anytime to compose the speech, other than in his head and that can only work if you are telling a true story. He did. Of course, he has technique of story telling under his belt. He has been a member of Toastmasters for several years.

But he could not have composed a more compelling story. And no fundraising professional would have scripted this for him.

I was the best fundraiser in Utrecht (the fourth largest city of Holland) because I wasn’t out to raise money. I asked for money after I had spoken about my reasons for joining this cause, and after asking someone to become part of the movement too. My reasons were personal. I saw a bleak future before me with an absurd level of threat hanging over my head. And I believed that a grassroots movement could create a different future.

Perhaps we should have a moratorium on fundraising advise, stop reading the blogs and the numbers and the pitches and the scripts.

Go out and talk to someone, talk personally and be honest about your motivations. Your motivation is personal and not about the cause.

Then ask them to join you. And if they join you, they may be able to support the cause financially as well. Ask them. I am sure you can be the best fundraiser in the city too.

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Do you have Activists or Donors

by Niels on May 11, 2009

Seth Godin asks the question today if you have customers or members.

For organizations who want to use the internet to raise money, the parallel question is this:

Do you have Activists or Donors?

The difference is crucial. Activists will go out and recruit others for you, they want to be active in changing the world. Donors can do only one thing, activists do many things, including giving money.

The web likes businesses that have members,

Seth Godin obeserves.

The web likes organizations that have activists.

Godin gave a talk recently about building movements to change the world. You can watch it here. Let me start you of with these three questions:

  1. Who are you upsetting?
  2. Who are you connecting?
  3. Who are you leading?

I think you can do a lot worse than listening to what he has to say.

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Topnotch Advice on Internet Fundraising

by Niels on May 5, 2009

Irish Fundraiser Conor Byrne conducted a very insightful interview with Vinay Bhagat, the founder of Convio. There are many gems in the interview but let me highlight two.

Q. Would it be fair to say that a lot of fundraisers wouldn’t think Online = Major Gifts?

A. Absolutely.  Mainly because they think of online, as online donations and email solicitation, versus strategic engagement and communications. (emphasis mine)

Strategic Engagement and Communications

And this one

Q. If you had 3 top tips to give to a charity what would they be?

a)      Upgrade your Web presence.  Eighty-six percent of Wired Wealthy donors will visit a nonprofit to donate prior to making a gift to a new organization.  Make sure your Website adequately reflects your organization – clarity around your mission, your impact/ return on donor dollars invested.  Make sure it is easy to find key information in particular financials; to donate; to manage email subscriptions.

b)      Focus on quality vs. quantity for email communications.  Don’t communicate for the sake of schedule.  Make sure what you send out is compelling, inspirational.

c)       Provide more control to donors.  For example, let them manage the frequency and type of content they receive via email.

I would add one thing.

Include a call to action.

Only by taking a specific action can someone express their engagement with your organization. If you don’t invite that expression, people will not feel part of your movement.

So again, please read this interview.

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Online Fundraising Continues to Grow

by Niels on May 4, 2009

amylissYes, it’s true, online fundraising continues to grow, according to the latest survey conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The growth in donations was not as high as the year before. In 2008 nonprofits raised 28% more than in 2007 through online fundraising, compared to 42% the year before.

What strikes me about the findings is that each success story is different. In other words, each success story is based on a different strategy. No two organizations have used similar strategies, it seems, to show results.

Online fundraising remains an unpredictable business, where creativity reigns. Nevertheless, the Chronicle reaches some conclusions about what works:

ONLINE GIVING: WHAT’S WORKING

  • Including deadlines in e-mail appeals
  • Seeking small sums
  • Combining text messages and e-mail appeals
  • Asking corporate sponsors or like-minded charities to send e-mail messages on an organization’s behalf
  • Using multiple approaches, such as social networks, video, e-mail, and text messages

One critical point, whenever possible, create to possibility to sign up for small recurring gifts. Emory University asks for $8.34 a month instead of $100 a year. It amounts to the same thing, but works much better in tight budgets of donors who want to give. Recurring gifts are a matter of course in fundraising, but online, most asks are for one time donations. Why?

Yes, I read the article to see if there is anything that supports my position that online fundraising should move beyond thinking about donors and think in terms of movement building instead. To be honest, not much.

Nevertheless, the Easter Seals experimented with giving supporters personal web pages. The results went beyond giving, they connected the Easter Seals with supporters they didn’t know they had.

Altogether, Easter Seals raised $175,000 through personal Web pages since March 2008. And in many cases, says Ms. Smith, the new function has tapped into pockets of dedicated supporters that local affiliates didn’t know existed. “It has brought people out of the sidelines who have been really passionate about Easter Seals,”

I am not relenting. This is where the growth is. The key ingredient to online fundraising, anything online, is trust, and what better way to build trust than by letting people participate, share in your success.

(If it is genuine and not a gimmick)

(Photograph by Roark Johnson, for The Chronicle of Philanthropy)

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Internet Fundraising the Obama Way

by Niels on April 30, 2009

internet fundraising Obama The Obama campaign stands as the most successful online fundraising campaign is the history of the world. I think that the people who ran that campaign know a thing or two about fundraising on the internet and have something to teach the rest of us.

So, even though I think that disagreements can be constructive, I fail to see why Laurie Pringle would write:

I think people need to stop looking at Obama’s online campaign and holding it up as the standard by which charities should base their own online efforts.

The first argument she gives is that this was a political campaign. Well … but how much money do political campaigns raise? Even Obama’s record braking campaign raised only $670,775,019. Only I say, because the total amount of money available for nonprofits stood at 306 billion in 2007.

I would not give up on learning lessons from the Obama campaign so quickly.

Recently, I attended an event hosted by the Association for Fundraising Professionals about internet fundraising. The cracks in the field were there. Even though everybody in the room was highly optimistic about the future of online fundraising, there is still one question that is unanswered:

How to maintain donor loyalty?

The answer is still out there, but one thing I am pretty sure of.

We should stop looking at donors as donors. Instead, focus on building a movement and make people part of it. Let them contribute in many ways, not just by giving money, and give them a voice in the process. Yes, that is a HUGE lesson from the Obama campaign, and one that we ignore at our peril.

Incidentally, remember that book Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits? One of six ways that nonprofits are successful is by inspiring evangelists. Don’t just use supporters as cheap volunteer workers and pocket books. Make them part of a movement, your movement.

Of course, you better have a very good story, a story that tells how you are going to change the world and how I can be part of that movement, how I need to be part of that movement.

And one last thing, for today. The Obama campaign used their website to listen to people, to learn what was important to them.

I am not ready to forget about this major accomplishment (and I am happy that Obama is now our president).

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Nonprofits have a hard time communicating

by Niels on April 28, 2009

Fundraising on the internet is brand new and there is more that we don’t know about it than we do know.

And because we are in unchartered waters, we will hear contradictory statements about the effectiveness of raising money on the internet. That is terrible news for those who are used to raise funds in a way that is proven to be effective. The Agitator writes about contradictory reports regarding the effectiveness of raising money on the internet.

Since these waters are untested, the Agitator’s approach is this:

The Agitator has posted plenty on social nets and fundraising (just search our “social netwoking” category). Our view has been essentially … Get Ready, Aim, small arms only, Fire!
The priorities we suggest:

1. Make your website really donation friendly.
2. Capture plenty of email addresses from your donors and learn the ropes of online fundraising and cultivation via email.
When you’re confidently on top of #1 & #2, then …

3. Make a very modest mind share and resource commitment to understanding the social net platforms and experimenting with fundraising applications. But don’t open a separate bank account yet for social net contributions. Today, expect your youngest donors and your existing “missionaries”  (that’s 20% of your donors if you’re lucky) to be the most likely users of social nets, and maybe 5-10% of them to donate via this channel.

Today, however, Katya Andresen reports from the NTC conference that the main problem of nonprofits websites is that they fail to communicate.

It can be me, but that cannot be an isolated problem. I don’t believe that a driven communicator at the helm of an organization will stand for a website that does such a poor job at communicating the vision and the ask that visitors don’t know how to donate to the organization?

And one in five visitors come to a nonprofit website to donate!

The website is not the first place to start making a change. The first thing an organization needs to figure out is,

  • What is our story?
  • How are we changing the world and how are our constituents, followers, donors, involved in that?
  • How do we communicate this story on an ongoing basis?

Then, look at your website and emails, and printed materials, and powerpoint presentations, and see if the story is clear and well delivered.

Not small arms, though, full blast.

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Playing for Change – One Love

by Niels on April 14, 2009

I am looking forward to this film. Here is a preview. Others will follow.


Playing For Change | Song Around The World “One Love” from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

I have pre-ordered the CD+DVD. You should too.

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The Hope of Sharing Secrets

by Niels on April 14, 2009

I love this presentation by Frank Warren. I am so moved by it and wanted to share it with you today. There are many deep meanings that are revealed by his work. Meanings about sharing, telling stories, the burden of secrets and healing.

Four years ago, Frank Warren walked the streets of DC at night, handing out self-addressed postcards to strangers, soliciting their secrets. Watch as the creator of the wildly popular blog PostSecret reveals some of the hundreds of thousands of secrets shared by people from around the world in those four years…including a few of his own.

You can watch his presentation here:

He has created several books too that are beautiful, like this A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book.

You can read more about secrets every day at Frank Warren’s Post Secret Blog.

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It Is All About You

April 10, 2009 Leadership

The golden rule of fundraising and community building, the consensus statement, is always that it is not about you. When you write your email, send your letter, make your request, it is not about you.
You know, it is about you.
You need to feed the flames, ignite the passion, inspire the hope. If you don’t, who [...]

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Personalize Email Fundraising

April 9, 2009 Email Fundraising

It is true, I hardly ever get personal mail anymore. I get checks in the mail, which is still a reason for me to anticipate the mailman. But it isn’t only for checks that I look for the mailman to arrive. It is an old habit and the anticipation of something good never quite dies.
It [...]

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