I don't like meetings. Unless...

If you know me personally, you know that I do not care for meetings.

This reaction to meetings hasn't always thrilled my bosses.

I have worked some places where I spent way too much time in meetings.

What I have realized in the past several years is that I sincerely do not have a problem with meetings, as long as the meeting is productive and a good use of my (and my teams) time.

These are the things I think are crucial to a meeting:

First and foremost, an agenda. I want to know what we'll be talking about so I know in advance what might be expected of me and what I need to be thinking of before the meeting. Walking into a meeting without an agenda definitely takes the meeting down a few notches in regards to how strongly I can participate.

Please start the meeting on time. If the meeting is a weekly or monthly meeting and there are folks who consistently arrive late, please address them (privately of course) and let them know how important it is that we begin on time as a group.

Please don't have a meeting just because you always have a meeting on that day at that time. If you as the person charged with the meeting believe that all is well that week or month and that meeting isn't necessary, make the leadership decision and cancel the meeting. Brilliant!

Please make your meeting a safe place for expression. If the meeting is about asking those attending for an opinion, pleas ensure that the meeting is a safe place to express such an opinion. I have been fortunate in my career that this has always been the case and it certainly adds to the honest productivity of a meeting.

If you have a meeting over the lunch hour, please serve lunch.

If you are planning to go over something that those attending needed to read, please make sure you have given them ample time for the reading. I personally would like one week. There is nothing worse (except not having an agenda) than being in a meeting where more than half of the attendees have not read what you are discussing, especially when you took the time to read it. It's important to give folks ample time.

Please keep the meeting on topic. Believe me, I know how difficult that can be. I love the words "let's discuss that outside of this meeting"! That's a great way to honor the point but continue with a focused discussion. I also think it's fine to create another meeting from the current meeting so folks present can talk further about something that has come up.

Please honor people's time. So important. And in my view just plain courtesy. People plan their days around meetings and in many cases go from your meeting right to something else of equal importance.

Thinking of all of this can make your meeting more productive, and create an environment where staff actually want to attend!

I would love your thoughts of what makes a meeting better.

Thanks for reading!

Have you seen a development plan lately?

Every job posting titled Director of Development I looked at while on my job search included one item that puzzled me: Must be able to create a development plan for the agency. As I read this my mind would wander off with questions like:

What happened to your development plan?

Why do you need another development plan?

Why do you want a new development plan?

And finally, and most importantly...

Why do you want the newest person on you non-profit team to write the development plan?

Of course there are answers for all of these questions and  I'm sure that in many of the postings the agency was just making sure that when the time came, their new fundraising professional could blow their minds with a development plan.

I am currently working on a new development plan at work. First and foremost, I am not working on it alone. I am working on it with the co-chairs of our board development committee, with my ED (our agency's CEO as well as some of my staff. It's going to be a development plan that rocks and the title of it is "We will rock you!".

NOTE: Development plans do not need a name or title, it's just my personal preference.

Our development plan is going to focus on this fiscal year and the next fiscal year. Being that our fiscal year begins October 1st, this plan will have goals and ideas to support development through September 30th of 2014.

First and foremost, our plan is about building lifelong relationships, not about fundraising.

"We want to be in a lifelong relationship with you" as opposed to "We want you to give us money".

Our development plan includes challenges/opportunities to reaching our goals for the budget as well as specific goals around areas like lapsed giving. One can use a development plan as a support piece while working on the next budget and can also plug in numbers from a current budget as overall goals.

Our development plan also includes major events, corporate partnerships, foundation giving and examples of how simple ideas support some of the goals listed. I always love including a page of what increased giving looks like on certain levels and how the overall reach of that adds so much to the giving totals. An example of this is if 50 donors who currently give $100 increase their gift this year to $200 then that is a $5,000 increase towards individual giving. And that is just one example at one giving level.

Do you have a current development plan? What is your favorite thing about it?

Thanks for reading!

Cover letter example

 I am in day 12 of being unemployed and hoping to get in front of more possible job options this week. I have written many cover letters to date and have gotten some great feedback. With this post I would like to share one that I have used in the hopes that I can make my cover letters stronger. I would be thrilled to get your feedback, either in a comment or emailed to me at fundraisingdan@gmail.com

This cover letter has a generic Employer and I took out the name of the agency.

 

Dear Employer:

I am ecstatic to apply for the position of Executive Director.

My experience from several non-profit Director of Development positions, hotel sales positions as well as time in the US Navy and work with many diverse communities have brought me to a place in which I thrive in building relationships throughout many communities and believe that I excel in relationship building and partnership building.

I read position details and qualifications and have experience in all of the categories. I have worked with several Boards of Directors and have had great success in working with specific board members in becoming more active within the mission. I have managed staff and teams from three to seventeen people and have always succeeded in helping create a work environment that is positive and productive. I excel in the entire fundraising category and am in bliss when building relationships that become the core of a fundraising plan. I have written budgets, cut spending and can work closely with a team to look at a five-year or more budget plan. I also thrive in community relations and have worked in several diverse communities. I believe that collaboration is one of the keys to successful relationship building and fundraising.

I am a proven fundraiser and have many good relationships in the Boulder area. I have had success in creating and supporting a more positive and productive workplace. This would be my first Executive Director position and I feel I could bring a lot to____ from all of my past experiences. My personality is one that allows me to be just as comfortable speaking with clients as I am at a Chamber event, with a major donor or at the state capitol.

I bring a history of non-profit successes, community building, engagement with diverse communities and a personality and attitude that remains positive and energetic in any situation. I have spent most of my life working in human rights and trying to make the world a better place for all living beings. Working with ____ would be the perfect match.

Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

Dan Hanley

fundraisingdan@gmail.com

Thank you for reading!

Actively seeking employment

For those who are reading my blog for the first time: Having been recently laid off, I decided to stop writing about fundraising and to write about the process of being unemployed. It's a new experience for me and my hope is to help others who might have to go through this process some day.

Day 10. It's a beautiful in Lakewood, Colorado and being that it is a Sunday I am only going to spend a little time on the job search today.

I have realized that it is important to create boundaries around the job search. It's sort of like working from home. At 5pm, your day is done and it's family time. In the past ten days since I was laid off I have not done well with boundaries. I have worked on my job search anywhere from 4:30am through 11pm at night. In the past couple of days I have gotten better at the search and with boundaries and this is how:

During the week I get up early just as I would if I were going to work. I respond to emails, look at all of the job posting sites I have bookmarked and tweak some cover letters.

If I work on the job search during the weekend I have specific goals and specific amounts of time.

If I am going out for coffee or lunch with a friend or a colleague, I dress as if I am going to meet a donor. Not a full suit and tie, but business casual for sure (which I might ad in the Denver area is probably a little more casual than on the east coast).

I have a more clear idea of what I want in my next job. Not necessarily who I want to work with/for rather what the benefit package, including salary, looks like. As I am looking in Denver and San Diego, I have different thoughts for each place, knowing that the cost of living is higher in San Diego. 

In our social life, I have decided not to make my being laid off the main story of what is talked about. With my inner circle it can be, especially when I feel I need more emotional support. Yet out and about I am trying to focus on everyday life and remembering how awesome of a life I have, employed or not.

More to come. I am very grateful that you are reading my blog posts. My email is fundraisingdan@gmail.com I would love your feedback, especially if you have been unemployed or are hiring!

From laid off to unemployed

Being that this is the first time I have been unemployed, I am still getting used to the idea. Today was one week since I was laid off. I have started to think about that. I'm not sure when I can start telling people that I am unemployed as opposed to telling them that I was laid off.

It's not easy telling someone you are unemployed. If they don't know you, there seems to be a little prejudice around the fact that you are not working. I got that today. The look was something like "well you look like you should be able to work". Buddy, you have no clue.

The last thing I wanted to be was unemployed. I loved my job. I was one of the most loyal, ethical, positive, productive and successful employees my past employer had ever seen. I brought 100% every day. And although that was not enough for my past employer, I am sure there is a company or non-profit out there that will think I will make a great addition to their team and they will embrace all of those attributes.

I realize I am not the only person unemployed. Based on recent numbers, I think about 8.8% of the able-to-work US population is unemployed. I am doing everything I can to not be in this category for too long. There are a lot of jobs out there. Fortunately for me, I have seen several that I think I would love. Also fortunately for me I have this incredible network of friends and colleagues who have been so wonderfully supportive of me. It is truly unbelievable.

I have tweaked my resume so many times. I try to not send the same resume to every place I am applying to. I am getting pretty good at writing a cover letter. One page, maybe two. I have the job posting in front of me while I write the cover letter and that seems to help my creative writing, which is a struggle at best.

Then I get an email or a call from someone who has received my application materials. They call me Daniel as I use my formal name with the resume. So far each one of them has been kind and respectful, and we both have laughed at some point of the conversation.

I also get many calls and emails from people I love and people I barely know telling me that they are there, that they will do anything for me and that I will land something quickly. I'm not sure how quickly I will find a new job. I don't want a rebound job. I want a job that I will love with a company or non-profit whose mission or product I can get behind. I want a job that will honor my ethics and loyalty, and one that will pay me well and honor my personal life with a good vacation package.Definitely not too much to hope for.

I know it's out there.

Thank you for reading. My personal email that I am using for my job search is fundraisingdan@gmail.com

Changed blog title

When I first started this blog I had created a set of ideas of how to help non-profits with very little money to fundraise. I loved the title "Fundraising for Free" and have even been able to do many workshops at conferences about fundraising for free, or close to free.

As I continue to grow as a fundraiser I have come to realize that I want to write about many more parts of fundraising than just the cost or "how to" do something. I find that my life as a fundraiser is filled with excitement, ups, downs, laughs, engagement, challenges and especially that incredible feeling of making the world a better place by raising money to support something bigger than yourself.

So I decided to change the name of my blog to "Adventures in Fundraising" and this is my first post!

I work for an opera company, Opera Colorado, and we are getting ready to put on our 30th Anniversary Gala. I am super excited. I wanted to share this with you as I know there are conversations in the fundraising community being had around whether or not it is helpful to have a major event like a Gala these days.

I believe that it is totally important to have this conversation, and if it is decided to pursue the event, to go at it at an energy and commitment level that has never been seen.  

More to come on this.

So welcome to Adventures in Fundraising! Thank you very much for reading!

My Yearend Campaign

It's only September!

I know, and by the time some people read this it will be October.

My goal is to have my yearend campaign begin the first or second week of October. November, to me, is far too late.

I have been thinking about the direct mail piece since summer. Taking notes. Adding ideas. What I came up with was an appeal that is part funny, part direct, and all ask! I am fortunate to have an ED (in the opera world we call it General Director) who came from Development and he took the one letter and created three letters, one each for a specific, targeted group. The letters will go to: donors who have already given once this year and we're asking for a second gift; donors who have not renewed their 2010 gift; and brand-new donors or donors who have not given in several years.

I love our appeal letter.

Our first of the letters will mail next week. Yep, the first week of October.

And that is just the start of a yearend campaign for me.

Just after the first appeal letter mails, I'll have the opportunity to speak with our board and invite each board member to participate in some way towards the success of the yearend campaign. Can you give me some personal contacts that I could mail the new donor letter to? Can you make some follow up phone calls from our office? Can you jot a short thank you note to someone who supports the yearend campaign?

One week after the first appeal letter goes out, we begin our social media campaign with an email similar to the appeal letter. We will support the email with Facebook and Twitter postings, and then a YouTube video.

A yearend appeal letter will go to every person who purchases tickets for our 2012 season between now and the end of the year.

And we'll have a yearend appeal packet for all events we have through the end of year. The packet will include the letter and remit, along with our 2012 Season brochure.

Add more follow up calls and BOOM, we are in the midst of an incredibly successful yearend campaign!

Thanks for reading! As always, I would love your feedback!

10 things I do everyday as a fundraiser

This photo is not where I work. It's a photo taken near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, the site of a one-week condo stay we are auctioning off at our live auction for Opera Colorado's 2011 Gala.

Yet working in fundraising many times makes me feel like I'm on the beach. Living the dream. Fundraising to me is such an important part of a compassionate, caring, cultural world and I am so grateful that I get the opportunity to do it.

So what does a Development Director do every day? If you have read previous blog posts or follow me on Twitter, you most likely know that I am not a typical fundraiser. I have been only doing this for the past few years, and I have found success in fundraising going down roads that are not common in your average fundraising plan. So here is a list of 10 things I do, if not daily, frequently. Another list will come shortly, but this is a good start.

One last thing. I totally understand that what I do may not work for everyone. A great example will be number 1.

1. Have Pandora or my IPOD on. Music inspires me and gets me ready to rock-n-roll. Especially before an important call.

2. Maintain a sense of gratitude. The truth is that I have so much. My life is amazing.

3. Thank you co-workers/team. Together you can rock it.

4. Let your friends on Facebook and Twitter know what you're doing.

5. Connect with a donor. This should happen every day. No matter your position, no matter how "busy" you are, no matter that the grant application is due at 5pm. Do it. Make the call.

6. Connect with a second donor. I know, but seriously, these connections are the life-blood of your organization.

7. Respond to, delete, or folder your email. I try to have no more than 20 emails in my inbox at any given time.

8. Investigate a potential corporate sponsor. Yes, this is a daily activity. If you can do more that is awesome. The more you can reach out to or check into the better.

9. Read. A blog. The newest fundraising book. A book about the cause you fundraise for. Take some time and read. I am currently reading "Flash Foresight" and "Opera 101".

10. Have dinner with your spouse. For sure. Or your significant other. Or a good friend. If you are married, dinner every night is an amazing thing.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope each of you has a wonderful day. Thank you so much for reading!

Is your big event worth it?

In the past year I have read about several different non-profit groups making changes to their annual event. Some groups have a huge Gala annually, others a breakfast, luncheon, or sports event. Across the board, it seems like groups are making changes from completely cancelling their event to reducing costs, changing the date, or changing the event itself (eg: from a full-out Gala to a luncheon). Meanwhile, others wonder if it's all worth it.

My first thought is YES! My immediate second thought is that is also depends.

For me, like any event, the BIG event of the year and it's success depends on the overall relevance of the event, your expectations around the event, and what the main purpose of the event is.

For me, our annual event is about building donor relations and introducing potential new donors (friends of current donors) to an amazing show of who we are and what we do.

It's not about raising money, although that is an incredible side-benefit if done well. When I look across the room at a Gala and see all of the happy people, not only engaged with the mission but with their friends and other donors, I can help to think how much of a success that is. How many of these guests are at the Gala for the first time? And for the first-timers, will they be more likely to financially support the mission after the Gala?

Our Gala is coming up in September and we are very much focused on creating an amazing event for our donors and potential donors. We have pressed the message to the committee and board that we want people to bring friends that have never been to one of our events. We want guests to look around the room and NOT know every person they see! This is another of the huge benefits of your annual event as you get long-time supporters with people considering support and magic can happen!

Consider all of this before making a decision to cancel your annual event. In some cases it might be best to cancel it and move on, yet if donor cultivation is important to your overall mission you may want to look at how you can make the event better on all levels before getting rid of it.

As always, I would love your feedback. I continue to be so grateful for all of your support!