Corporate giving

As a non-profit that receives a lot of support from local businesses and national companies I have always been grateful for business people who truly care about supporting our mission in serving youth experiencing homelessness. There are a lot of non-profits out there doing amazing work, and when a company chooses us as the recipient of a financial donation, I celebrate them.

As every individual has their own, personal reason for giving, so too do corporations. Some give because it is their community, some give because someone on their staff is on the board, some give because they are having a public relations problem and some give because they have a desire to make positive change. I could add dozens of reasons to this list.

My approach to asking for support from the business community is one of pure relationship. I don't like simply asking for a donation. As I do with individual donors, I want to be in a life-long relationship with the business. That of course looks different for each business.

Aside from an annual donation, what can the relationship look like? For me it starts with a tour of our space and introducing them to our mission. It continues with letting them know the variety of ways they can support us aside from a financial donation.

Then the fun really begins. How can we, as the non-profit, benefit them?

This is a question only the business can answer. I like to get creative. Would their presence at our annual dinner benefit them? Would having our staff speak to their employees be something of interest to them? What about social media? Remember that every business is different and their partnership with you is going to be different than the next business supporter based on why they are supporting you and what they want from a partnership.

For me it's important to be clear and for me to understand exactly what the business would like from us. I recently had a conversation with a potential corporate supporter who has been using the term "strategic partnership" for some time. I still, after many conversations, do not have a clear picture of what that is.

It's also important to know when there is just not a fit. Every business is not going to want to partner with you, regardless of how amazing your mission is. That's OK. Remember that just because there might not be a fit now doesn't mean that there can't be a fit in the future. And remember that a partnership is not only about a donation. We have dozens of businesses that have employees who volunteer with us all of the time. We couldn't be as successful with our mission without these folks. Each one of them is equally important as a financial donation.

I work for this agency because I firmly believe that we completely rock in our mission to serve youth experiencing homelessness. I take that belief and make sure that comes across in every dialogue I have with a potential supporter. That can help. After all, who wants to give to someone who doesn't come across as 100% enthusiastically supportive of the mission they are representing. When I am meeting with potential corporate donors I must remember that I am the voice for those who have had their voice taken away from them.

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!

Loving persistence pays off

Don't give up! That's what I really wanted to call this blog post. I went for the current title because it tells a better story.

Persistence definitely does pay off! I added the word loving because angry, inpatient or hurried persistence does not pay off!

This thought will not be a surprise to those of you who have been fundraising for a while. Yet it is always a great reminder for me! As one whose focus is always on the ongoing relationship and never on a one-time gift, relationship building can take time.

One area of fundraising where I really have to keep this in mind is in corporate. My great example is this:

A couple months after starting at Opera Colorado I found a potential corporate partner on LinkedIn. I connected with him and sent a message simply introducing myself. A couple of months later I had a one on one with him and it went amazingly well. I kept checking in with him once a month (not too much!) and when I planned a corporate partner event I invited him. He couldn't make it but a few folks from his office came. A couple of months after that I found myself sitting for lunch with one of his associates talking about a partnership.

They bought a package to our Gala. This was their first gift to us and it took over a full year. This is an example of when loving persistence paid off. I knew all along that a partnership between them and us would totally benefit both organizations. Now we are meeting to discuss a multi-year partnership plan.

This is my experience with corporate giving and corporate partners. I try to use the same wisdom with major gifts. I try to never rush, and to always keep my eyes on the prize: a long term, true partnership.

How does each organization benefit from the partnership? What does my agency have to offer within the realm of a corporate partnership? These are great things to discuss when working with a potential new corporate partner (and also potential major donors!).

I hope this is of some benefit to you. Thank you very much for reading!