Vote

I am slowly getting back to writing blog posts and thought today I would jump right into it.

Please vote.

It's so important.

I personally believe it's important for everyone, yet I also believe that it is even more important for those of us in the non-profit world.

Who will be the voice for those we serve if we don't vote?

If those of us who have a good pulse of difficulties and challenges of the people we serve don't vote, how can things ever get better?

I could list quite a few other examples of why I think you should vote, but I will stop here.

Please take a moment and vote. In Colorado, it's super easy to either send in the mail ballot or vote early.

Thanks for reading!

Donor relationships

I have said many times that I love the "R" word, meaning that I love the word "relationship".

It is a word that too often is overlooked by fundraisers and professionals in philanthropy.

And that really needs to stop.

If you are passionate about your organization's mission, get into solid relationship with your donors.

If you want to rock your budget, build relationships with your donors.

If you want to build a source of revenue that that your organization can count on, make sure your donors know that you care about them.

How does one go about this?

Call them. That's right. Next time you get an email from a donor asking a question, call them with the response.

Invite them on a tour of your facilities.

Email them a video thank you note.

Send a personal note.

Send them an impact report, or annual report. When we send these out we add a big "Thank you" on the back with signatures of our team.

These are just a few ideas of many. Start here and I assure you your relationships with donors will change.

Thanks for reading!

Human touch

I have been re-posting some of my most read blog posts lately mainly because of life being so crazy. I am back to having time to write.

And I want to write about something so very important.

That is treating your donors and supporters as human beings.

Thank them.

Call them.

Ask them how they are doing.

Ask them for their opinion on something.

Ask them to pre-read a direct mail piece that you want to send, getting their opinion.

Call them. Yes, I am writing this again.

Invite them for a tour of your facilities.

I could go on and on.

There is a reason why people donate to our causes. We need to know why. And we need to ensure that our donors know how grateful we are and that we don't just see them as a human ATM.

Short but sweet. What will you do today to treat your donor as a human being?

Thanks for reading!

A new fundraising effort

We recently began a new fundraising effort and in the first month it has been very successful, so I wanted to share some of the strategies with you.

We want to raise $300,000 in six months for a specific project. We want to raise $50,000 per month.

It's important to have a clear goal right from the start of the campaign. It's also important to be able to express how exactly funds raised will be used. We covered these two items before we event started with the planning of the fundraising effort.

Similar to a capital campaign, I believe it's important, regardless of how much money you decide you want to raise, to have several people in mind to help support the campaign. As we were deciding when we would kick off this effort we created lists of who we would make personal asks to and who would be on the list for a direct mail piece. After going over ideas of how to present to major donors, we decided that one third of the revenue would come from major gifts. That would be our goal. That meant that in six months, $200,000 would need to come from all of our other donors and those who are donating for the first time. Every organization will be different in how this breaks down. The important thing is to have the conversations with your team and form a strategy.

We decided to begin on April 1st which as you know is also April Fools Day. It also would be the half-way mark of our fiscal year and give us exactly six months to fundraise.

"No joke - we need to raise $50,000 this month".

You get the idea. On April 1st we rocked it with social media and ensured our direct mail piece landed. We also did an email blast.

Everything we did connected back to the fact that we need to raise $300,000 in the next six months, that we wanted to raise $50,000 each month, and exactly what we were using the money for.

Everything was planned out before we began. We met several times as a team and even brought in some long-term donors. Our strategy was clear. We tried asks out on different people, including ones who knew very little about our organization or our mission.

It's working.

I'd like to add that this is one experience. Every non-profit has their own stories and strategies around fundraising campaigns and efforts. This is just ours.

I hope this benefits some of you!

Thanks for reading!

The special event is not dead

Our organizations largest financial fundraiser of the year was last week.

It was a dinner.

I hope I didn't already lose you.

It was also a time when we honored an individual, a business and a civic/faith group for all they have done for us as an agency and the youth experiencing homelessness we serve.

I can imagine what you might be thinking: another fundraising chicken dinner.

I know.

This my first time planning this event. With a little over a year here and the experience of being at the dinner last year, I wanted to make some changes and take some risks.

Yep, risks.

Taking risks with an event, especially your biggest event, is not always a feel-good task.

All of the risks we took were focused on making the event more about our agency and the youth we serve as well as trying to reduce the expense budget.

Instead of hiring one of those amazing companies that does check-in and check-out and gets all of your guest information, we asked staff to do that.

Big, famous emcee? We asked staff to do that.

Expensive video company? You guessed it. We asked staff to do that.

During our live ask we had staff and volunteers greet each guest as they committed to a donation. The guest was handed an envelope with the amount they had just raised their number for. Over 90% of those who made donations filled out the enclosed information for the donation and handed it back to us.

Our check-in and check-out processes worked. No lines. Just amazing staff greeting those who allow us to do our vital work.

In the end we beat budget while cutting our expenses by 43%. We can now tell our supporters and future sponsors of this event that for every dollar that we spend on this event we raise five.

Take risks. Make your special event about you and your mission. Every single detail goes back to your mission. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Thanks for reading!

Does passion help success?

I often go back and forth in my head on whether or not passion for the cause helps to make a fundraiser successful. Can you totally rock and roll in fundraising and relationship building if you do not have a passion for the mission of your non-profit?

I imagine the answer to this question is yes.

But not for me. I believe many of the successes I have in fundraising and relationship building come directly from the huge amount of passion I have for the mission of the non-profit I represent.

I often think about this when I meet or hang out with other fundraisers. Or when I meet someone for the first time who tells me they work in development and then tells me how unhappy they are at their current position.

First time meeting them.

I realize these are two different topics. I'm sure someone can be unhappy at a job that is at an agency whose mission the individual loves but for some other reason they are unhappy.

Then there is the non-profit fundraising employee who is only focused on their career and always moving up. I get it. I was once 25.

But back to passion. Does it help you in your fundraising and relationship building efforts? Do you believe it is critical to hire people for your development team that are passionate about your mission?

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for reading!

Where is non-profit leadership?

As someone who has been in the non-profit world for some time, and who loves it, there is something that is clearly missing from our community.

Leadership.

Not management. Or micro management.

Just good, inspiring leadership.

And before someone in a leadership role gets a little angry with me, I am writing about all levels of leadership, including my area, fundraising.

I am writing as a fundraiser and as a donor.

Recently one of our donors was sharing with me their experience with another non-profits Executive Director as well as their Vice President of Development. The words she used to describe them were arrogant, not mission embracing and not interested in their donors.

Whew.

I'm not surprised. I have been asked several times by peers a question that makes me ponder: How do you have time to call your donors? They had not called a donor in months. The number one reason why? Time. As a donor, I don't like hearing that. As a fundraiser, my time is best spent building relationships with donors, including calls.

What I love seeing in ED's, non-profit CEO's and Development executives is what I love seeing in anyone who cares about the mission of a non-profit: Prefers to spend more time leading than managing; understands how vital it is for them to fundraise and build the brand; allows their staff to rock it with what they were hired to do; and is a huge, vocal supporter of staff. They do not fear a staff that is incredible at their jobs, they embrace them.

They spend their time meeting with leaders in the community, heads of local business, potential funders as well as other leaders in the non-profit world. They encourage and engage their staff, and most importantly, they trust their staff. They do not get bogged down in managing the non-profit or their executive leaders nor do they allow those same folks (or themselves) to get bogged down in the ever ending amount of meetings that tend to engulf some non-profit teams. They support the relationship-building that is crucial to any non-profit and they are good listeners.

A lot of this can be addressed when board members are interviewing candidates. Regardless of how much time someone has already been a CEO or ED, how comfortable are they sitting down with a funder and making an ask? What does leadership look like to them? Board members can be inspiring to non-profit leaders. Their direction, love of the mission, and knowledge of the non-profit can be a huge benefit. On the other hand, there are board members who sit on half a dozen boards. How much time and energy is your non-profit actually getting?

This type of Executive Director is out there, believe me. The reason I am writing this post is because I don't think  there are enough of them out there.

Our amazing missions and those we serve depend on incredible leadership.

Thank you for reading!