Marc A. Pitman's Blog, page 17

Book review - 10 Simple Fundraising Lessons

One of the joys of being a speaker and executive coach is that people send me their books. I have such a long reading list, that I usually take a l-o-n-g time reading the ones that are sent to me.

I'm glad I didn't wait to read Jim Eskin's. (It definitely helped that he sent me the physical book. It's been sitting here on my desk, reminding me of its presence. There's a big fundraising lesson in there for any of you who think you can raise funds 100% online!)

The book "10 Simple Fundraising Lessons"

Jim's book distills a long experience of successful fundraising and a commitment to life-long learning. Not only has he done what he's talking about, nearly every chapter quotes someone he's learned from - but fundraisers and philanthropist.

This slim book is easy to skim because it is full of pithy comments like:

It's astounding how much a solicitation can be postponed while waiting for the so-called perfect moment and circumstances. There's never a perfect time. (p. 45)

Each chapter focuses on one aspect of fundraising. And each chapter ends with actions you can use to actually do what you've read about.

The chapters are brief enough to read one a week, one a day, at the beginning of each board meeting. If you're a quick reader, you could even read this in an hour.

But you'll want to keep it handy so you can keep coming back.

10 Simple Fundraising Lessons Chapters

The table of contents of Jim's book is:

Introduction
Fundraisers are Made, Not Born
Lesson #1: Nurture Relationships
Lesson #2: More Contact = More Money
Lesson #3: Listen Your Way to the Gift
Lesson #4: Tell a Good Story
Lesson #5: You Have to Ask
Lesson #6: Gifts from Individuals Rule
Lesson #7: Give a Number
Lesson #8: Thank 7X
Lesson #9: FUNdraising is Fun!
Lesson #10: The Giving Starts Here
Fundraising Occurs at the Speed of Trust
Going from Fear to Funded

Don't just read the outline and think you get the gist of the book. I've been asking for gifts and training people in fundraising for over 20 years and even I picked up something in the first chapter that I may use to tweak my own training materials!

You Need To Keep Learning

To be a successful leader, you need to keep learning. That goes for fundraising too. Whether you get paid to ask people for money or you're a volunteer asking, it's important to keep revisiting the basics.

And you'd be well served including "10 Simple Fundraising Lessons" in your ongoing education.

Disclosure note: I did receive a complimentary copy of the book but I receive no compensation - nor even a request - for a review.

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7 Donation Page Strategies That Actually Convert

Over the past few years, charitable giving has evolved with online donations rising as its new star.

If you’re not including a digital giving option by now, your organization is almost certainly missing out. According to Nonprofits Source, online giving has seen consistent year over year growth (up over $10 billion since 2012). Further, 54% of donors prefer giving online via card.

Simply incorporating an online donation form in your gift collection strategy, however, isn’t enough to benefit from the rise in popularity. This giving page needs to go above and beyond, satisfying two fundamental requirements for supporters to use it: It needs to be trustworthy, and it needs to be more convenient than other methods.

There are a few easy considerations your organization can check right now to ensure a successful donation page. Something as simple as creating a more attractive page, to more complex ideas like optimizing your payment processing procedures, can increase your page’s donor conversion rate.

This guide will explore the following tips to create a donation page that converts:

Don’t neglect page design.
Remember mobile-accessibility.
Make recurring giving easy.
Suggest gift amounts.
Nail down your payment processing.
Keep your gratitude personal.
Consider bringing on a consultant.

Let's dive in!

1. Don’t neglect page design.

When you’re out shopping with friends, what draws you to a store? Showstopping window displays and long-time favorite shops are common answers here.

Your giving page is the same way— if it’s not attractive and familiar, supporters won’t be as likely to be drawn to interact with it! The “meat and potatoes” of your page will be discussed later in this piece, but first and foremost, don’t neglect design when creating a giving page that converts.

There are a few best practices to keep in mind when designing your giving page:

Brand it to your organization’s main website. This builds trust in your supporters by creating a familiar experience.
Tell your story, but be concise. Remind supporters of why they should give, but do so in a way that’s conducive to the short internet attention span.
Make it visually attractive. A more attractive page makes for a more enjoyable giving experience overall.
Keep it simple. Don't make the mistake of trying to get the donor to fill in all the fields in your database. Only ask for the information you need to process the gift.

We know that custom-branded donation pages on a website can raise up to 6 times more money for an organization, so design updates are a valuable investment. If you’re preparing to overhaul your organization’s website and giving page, check out Morweb’s listing of the best nonprofit websites for design inspiration.

2. Remember mobile-accessibility.

Mobile web traffic is on the rise, accounting for 40% of all visitors to nonprofit websites in recent years. If these supporters can’t access your giving page because it’s not mobile-optimized, you’re going to miss out on those gift opportunities.

There are a few different considerations when it comes to making your giving page mobile-friendly.

Choose a mobile-responsive design so your page will adapt to fit the screen on which it’s viewed, desktop or mobile. You can also work with an adaptive design, which will change how your content is laid out for optimal viewing on both mobile and desktop.

From there, simplify your content by prioritizing the information you want users to see first and arranging it in a single column. Finally, clean up your giving form so that it only asks for the basic information you need to accept a gift from supporters.

3. Make recurring giving easy.

Did you know that 45% of donors are enrolled in a monthly giving program, with the average monthly gift set at $52/month? This comes out to $624/year, significantly higher than the average one-time gift of $128, according to the Nonprofits Source piece referenced earlier.

It’s clear that recurring gifts are a powerful tool in amplifying the impact of your supporters and extending that impact through regular gifts throughout the year. There are two easy ways to encourage recurring gifts using your donation page:

Include a recurring gift button. As suggested in Donately’s guide to donation page best practices, simply include a button where supporters can begin the recurring gift process directly through your form. Ensure the option is clearly displayed and easy to access.
Host a donor-managed portal. Allow donors to log in and make changes to their recurring giving processes at their own convenience. This includes changing payment method, schedule, and amount.

Allow your supporters to enroll in a recurring giving program with the click of a button, and to manage their own giving, to reap the long-term benefits of regular support.

4. Suggest gift amounts.

The benefit of suggested gift amounts is simple: humans are inherently drawn to social norms. Supporters want to give amounts similar to those of their peers, so if they’re greeted with a suggested gift amount higher than what they originally intended to give, they’re more likely to increase their contribution to match it.

Asking for donations can be stressful for some, especially when it comes to asking for specific gift amounts. Your digital giving form provides the perfect conduit for asking for specific amounts of money, politely.

Include a few suggested gift amount buttons on your giving page to get the most benefit from this phenomenon. Make sure the amounts you suggest are actually reflective of the average gifts coming into your organization so no supporter is deterred by inordinately high suggestions.

5. Nail down your payment processing.

Nonprofit donation processing is the behind-the-scenes process that allows your organization to accept gifts through digital methods. Not only can it be a confusing process, but it’s also one you’re unlikely to have much control over once you choose your online donation tool— so it’s important to understand before you invest.

There are a few payment processing features to investigate before choosing an online giving tool to create your donation page:

Does the tool accept multiple payment types? This includes credit/debit cards and ACH direct deposits.
Does the tool integrate with any popular payment processors? Integrations with popular tools like PayPal create a familiar, comfortable, and often faster giving process for supporters.
Is the payment processor secure? Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is necessary for any tool that handles sensitive credit card data.
What is the processing fee? Each payment processor will charge for their services differently, most often through some sort of per-transaction processing fee.

Choosing a payment processor that both your organization, and its supporters, can trust is crucial in hosting an online donation page at all, and it’s worth spending extra time exploring before investing. There are some processors on the market that specialize in offering features and options designed just for nonprofits, so do your research!

6. Keep your gratitude personal.

Just because online giving forms lack the personal touch of say, writing a check and delivering it by hand to your nonprofit’s headquarters, that doesn’t mean your gratitude can be any less personal.

Effectively thanking donors post-gift is especially important in building relationships for the long term, something that every nonprofit can improve and benefit from. If you want supporters to continue giving through your online giving page, they need to know their gift is impactful and appreciated.

Even if your online donation form triggers an automatic thank-you response, make sure these communications are personalized. Including simple customizations such as the supporter’s name, donation amount, and initiative supported can go a long way in improving your donor retention.

Then, consider going a step further than automated communications in thanking supporters, from hand-written thank-you notes to donor gratitude events.

7. Consider bringing on a consultant.

Few, if any, nonprofits are operating with a full-time IT expert on staff. Meanwhile, managing the back-end of a website and giving page can be an overwhelming process for those that have little prior experience with that type of technology.

If that sounds like your organization, consider bringing on a nonprofit technology consultant to create a plan for efficient digital fundraising. These consultants can help your nonprofit when:

You’re implementing a new tech tool.
You’re integrating multiple software.
Your software isn’t functioning how it should.
You’re struggling to maximize your technology.
You don’t know how to analyze the success of the tools you’re using.

If any of the previous six donation page strategies confused you, or you felt unsure regarding how to implement them, a nonprofit tech consultant can help guide the way. Learn more about nonprofit strategy consulting through this guide.

Drawing back to the Nonprofits Source piece referenced in the introduction one more time, we can see that revenue from online fundraising grew by 23% in recent years and is still on the rise.

To capitalize on this increase, your organization has to provide a digital giving option to your donors. However, simply hosting an online donation page isn’t enough to motivate supporters to actually give.

You need to create a page that’s trustworthy and easier to use than other methods. Use these seven strategies to create a donation page that’s a helpful resource for your organization and its supporters alike.

The post 7 Donation Page Strategies That Actually Convert appeared first on FundraisingCoach.com.

A surprising way to better fundraising

Improving fundraising is a never-ending quest for nonprofit leaders. But recent research shows a startling discovery on how to make your fundraising better.

In "The Wake Up Call," researchers Dr. Adrian Sargeant and Harriet Day researched leadership styles and their connection to successful fundraising. In the course of their research, they made a remarkable finding:

Organizations that

undertook higher quality strategic planning
undertook higher quality succession planning
were more completely meeting the development needs of their leaders

were significantly more likely to have a strong culture of philanthropy.

Strategic planning, succession planning, and meeting the development needs of their leaders.

If I had been asked, I would've said fundraising training or meeting with more donors or getting better at asking. No doubt all those are good. But those three internal, organizational systems in a nonprofit made it significantly more likely that nonprofit would have a strong culture of philanthropy.

Want to get better at fundraising? Commit to leadership development

Nonprofit work is hard. Rewarding, but hard. And it can feel odd taking time out to read books or work on your personal leadership abilities.

But not focusing on leadership is clearly not working:

In CompassPoint's UnderDeveloped and in a more recent study by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the Association of Fundraising Professionals, show that more than 50% of fundraisers want to leave their job in less than two years.
And in The Wake Up Call, 67% of nonprofit CEOs say they were planning on leaving their position in the next five years.

Worse, only 41% of people surveyed in The Wake Up Call reported having identified a potential future leader for their nonprofit. So high percentages of people are leaving with no one to fill their role.

And vacant positions aren't positions that are raising money.

Develop leaders - including yourself

While strategic planning and succession planning are important, they can be hard and costly to do well. So developing quality leadership development might be the best of the three to start.

There are so many resources for leadership development now. You can hire an executive coach for yourself or your team. You can get a membership in training group. Or you can commit to learning every day. Reading a book. Watching a training. Talking with a colleague.

The options are limitless. But you'll have the growing confidence that the consistent effort of investing in leadership growth will actively help your fundraising.

Additional Resources

To download a copy of The Wake Up Call, go to https://concordleadershipgroup.com/re...

If you want an introduction to the six areas I suggest you focus on, check out this clip on what I call "Quadrant 3 Leadership" from a recent keynote:

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Get over your discomfort and politely ask for money

I recently tweeted "your discomfort with asking is getting in the way of a donor's joy in giving. So get out of the way!" (Click here to tweet that.)

Since then, I've been getting a lot of questions about how to get over the discomfort!

How to politely ask for money

Too often, our own beliefs about money get in the way of our asking politely. We may have an unhealthy view of our personal "worth" tied to money. Or our faith tradition may lead us to see money as evil. Or we may simply be tied to thinking that if people give us money, we need to give them something back. As though it were a business transaction.

Our discomfort leads us to ask in really awful ways. We might come across as demanding money. Or being a constant nag about money. Or we might say things like "will you support us?", hoping donors will somehow read our minds and know that "support" means giving $100,000 this year.

Asking for money isn't a business transaction

But asking for money isn't a business transaction. Asking for donations isn't really about us at all. In the best way, asking is about the donor. It's about what they value. What they are interested in. And the impact their gift can make in an area they care about.

Yes, fundraising is about raising funds. But too often, we forget that when we're asking for money, we’re not asking donors to pay our bills. We're inviting donors to experience joy.

Instead, we get all hung up in what we are afraid of. And we let ourselves get in the way of their joy.

And that needs to stop.

A super simple way to get out of the way of the donor's joy

The best way I've found to help people get out of the way? Practice your asks.

Seriously.

Long before you're face-to-face with the donor try different ways of clearly stating the dollar amount.

As you go through your day, practice phrases like:

I’d like to ask you to consider a gift of $100,000
Would you consider a gift of $100,000 to this ____
Would you consider a gift of $25,000 a quarter to ____
I’d like to invite you to consider a gift of $100,000.
Would $100,000 toward ____ be in the ballpark?
I have no idea how much to ask you for. Would $100,000 be in the ballpark?
I have no idea how much you’re thinking of committing. But we’re looking for 4 people at the $100,000 level. Would you be one of them?
I have no idea how much you’re thinking of committing/. But we’re looking for 4 people at the $100,000 level. Would you consider being one of them?

Practice your ask over and over. You could even practice your ask by talking to your steering wheel. Try out variations. Put in your donor's name.

In Ask Without Fear!, I recommend asking for the total gift. But as you practice the phrasing, you may find you're more comfortable breaking the total into quarterly or monthly asks. Rather than asking for $1,000 for the year, you may find it easier to ask for $84/month.

The key is to find a phrase that you can say clearly, without hesitation.

Your discomfort in asking for money could be stopping donors from giving

You see, if you stumble during the ask, it's like you're putting up roadblocks to the donor saying "yes." Your anxiety may be misinterpreted by the donor. She may feel your stress but think it's her intuition warning her something's not right. Or your stumbling may cause them to focus on your, your speech patterns, and any number of things other than your actual ask.

So practice your ask lines. The more natural you make the actual ask, the easier you're making it for the donor to consider the ask.

Then you won't have to worry about how to politely ask for money. You'll be doing it. And you’ll find you’re actually enjoying watching them experience joy!

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7 Strategies to Power Your Year-End Fundraising

The final two months of the year are a vital time for nonprofits to reach their fundraising goals. 

Not only do these months hold the biggest fundraising day of the year for nonprofits (Giving Tuesday), but this trend of increased giving continues through December with one-third of all annual giving occurring in the month, according to Nonprofit's Source.

Needless to say, year-end fundraising is an opportunity every nonprofit wants to take advantage of. We’ve pulled together 7 powerful strategies to help nonprofits make the most of these crucial months:

Start planning early.
Create processes to accept a variety of gifts.
Optimize your donation processing procedures.
Center the donor in your appeal.
Use a variety of outreach methods.
Utilize matching gifts.
Emphasize recurring gifts.

If you’re ready to crush the upcoming year-end fundraising season, read on for a comprehensive look at the above strategies.

1. Start planning early.

Even though year-end fundraising only encompasses the last few months of the year, the best strategy to make the most of these months is to plan for them and to do so early. Year-end initiatives require extensive planning, and you want to have sufficient time to complete it— even as early as six months in advance.

This planning should involve a comprehensive examination of your donor base, which you can then use to inform your outreach as you go forward.

Begin the donor research process by segmenting your donors by common characteristics. Through this process, you want to discover two things: a donor’s capacity to give, or their financial ability to do so, and a donor’s affinity to give, or their perception of your organization (good/bad) that influences their likelihood to do so.

Consider segmenting your donors by capacity with the following characteristics:

Real estate ownership
SEC stock transactions
Other business affiliations

Consider segmenting your donors by affinity with the following characteristics:

Previous donations to your nonprofit
Previous donations to other nonprofit organizations
Other nonprofit involvement such as volunteer work and board membership

Use these segments to guide your year-end fundraising outreach. By reaching out to only those most likely to give to your organization, your efficiency will increase despite the busy season.

2. Create processes to accept a variety of gifts.

Just as you need a strategy for which donors to contact, you need a strategy for accepting donations when these optimal donors reply accordingly. The best way to do this is to provide a plethora of ways to engage with your organization through giving.

Technological innovations have made it easy for your organization to provide a variety of outlets for your supporters. Consider optimizing the following giving processes as you prepare for year-end giving:

Online donation forms. Allow donors to give to your cause at any time, and from any place, with this software.
Peer-to-peer-fundraising. Empower donors to fundraise on your behalf by raising funds through a personal donation page benefiting your organization.
Crowdfunding. Create a crowdfunding page and invite supporters to share it. This extended network gives to your organization and exposes you to donors you may not have reached otherwise.
Text-to-give. Enable donors to give to your cause with the ease of sending a single text message.
Volunteer opportunities. Provide opportunities for supporters to give that aren’t financial-based and cultivate supporters for life.

If you’re just getting started with digital fundraising, check out this list of the top nonprofit software to help guide your search before investing in a solution.

3. Optimize your donation processing procedures.

If you’re going to be advertising all of the aforementioned donation methods, you need to make sure your internal donation collection processes are optimized as well.

Pairing today’s digital age with the busy holiday fundraising season, you’re probably preparing for a major influx of digital donations. Just as you’re setting up your donor-facing processes, your payment processing procedures need to be ironclad as well.

Payment processing refers to how your digital donation software handles incoming payments. It’s not something you’re likely to have control over changing once you’ve chosen a software provider, so you want to choose a software provider that fits your organization’s needs. There are a few considerations to keep in mind when investing in an online donation tool:

The payment types accepted. Most payment processors accept credit/debit payments, but there are other payment options (such as direct deposit/ACH payments) that might be helpful for your organization.
The processor’s security. Pay attention to a processor’s PCI compliance and ensure that a donor’s financial information is safe within your software.
The fees. Some online donation tools charge a card processing fee and a general usage fee, so it’s important to pay attention to how much of each donation will be lost to fees.

These processes can be confusing, so if you’re looking for more information, check out Soapbox Engage’s comprehensive guide to nonprofit payment processing.

4. Center the donor in your appeal.

After discovering which donors are most likely to give to your organization, you can begin crafting your appeal.

In your appeal, focus on storytelling rather than data and metrics. Though these statistics may impress your board members and potential corporate sponsors, they’re unlikely to impress your donors. For donors, giving is often attached to emotions, which are affected by stories. During the year-end holiday fundraising season, this phenomenon is amplified. 

This doesn’t mean that you should broadcast every heart-wrenching story your nonprofit comes into contact with as a desperate appeal for gifts. Focus this storytelling on donors and their impact. Check it out:

Exhibit the work of past donations: Include stories of impactful actions taken by your organization, fueled by past donations, to inspire donors to give toward future impact.
Anticipate the impact of new donations: In your appeal, include information regarding what you plan to do with the donations brought in during your year-end fundraiser
Ask donors why they give: Ask donors why they’ve gotten involved with your organization and highlight those aspects of your nonprofit in your appeal. Inspire donors using the stories of their peers!

Once you’ve put together an appeal, it’s time to begin outreach.

5. Use a variety of outreach methods.

We know there isn’t  “one perfect channel” for hosting your fundraising ask and that the best method is a multi-channel strategy. When reaching out to donors with your year-end ask, use a plethora of contact methods to ensure no donor is left in the dark. 

Innovations in technology means there are several options for digital communication with donors. Whether the various social media networks, email, or a combination of both, there are a few best practices for using digital methods to reach your donors:

Keep your copy concise. The digital attention span is significantly lower than other communication methods, so you want to communicate all the needed information efficiently.
Choose the right outlet for you. Not every social network will be well suited for every nonprofit. Choose one or two that best serve your needs and focus your attention accordingly.
Remain genuine in all communications. Work to maintain the genuine nature of your organization’s ask, despite the quick-and-concise nature of these communications.

However, don’t neglect other tried-and-true, non-digital methods of reaching donors. Direct mail fundraising is a powerful tool to reach those donors less interested in digital methods, and you should use it as well. 

Ultimately, you want to reach every potential donor with your year-end appeal, regardless of which outlets they use for communication. For more information on successfully incorporating both digital and physical methods, check out Salsa’s guide to direct mail fundraising and how you can use it in conjunction with digital mediums.

6. Utilize matching gifts.

Corporate philanthropy programs are a powerful force for year-end giving. Specifically, you should focus on matching gift programs in your holiday appeal.

Matching gift programs involve an employer matching the donations made by their employee to an approved nonprofit. These programs are woefully underused, especially considering they allow your nonprofit to receive twice the donation for the effort of soliciting one!

In addition to receiving two donations, however, there are other benefits to marketing matching gifts to your donors. For example, when a donor is aware that their employer will match their gift, they’re more likely to donate and give a higher amount at that.

In your appeal, include educational information about matching gift programs and how your donors can search their eligibility. If you want to take this outreach a step further, consider providing donors with a searchable matching gift database along with your online donation form.

7. Emphasize recurring gifts.

Did you know that 45% of donors around the world are enrolled in a monthly giving program?

During year-end fundraising, it’s easy to focus on prioritizing those one-time, major gifts that so many donors engage in during the holiday season. 

However, with almost half of all donors participating in recurring giving, it’s clear that this is a major opportunity that nonprofits should be capitalizing on.

The year-end giving season brings in the majority of a nonprofit’s total donations for the entire year, so most nonprofits end up budgeting these gifts to sustain them throughout the next year. Recurring gifts help combat this intensive budgeting.

These gifts have benefits for both the donors and your nonprofit. The donors are able to extend their impact through the year and do so without much further thought, as these recurring processes are often automatic. Meanwhile, your nonprofit gains a regular resource that you can count on throughout the next year.

Add a recurring giving option to your year-end appeal and secure regular fundraising beyond the major fundraising season. 

The end of the year is the biggest fundraising opportunity for nonprofits, and often provides the majority of an organization’s funding for the next year.

With the above 7 strategies, you’ll craft year-end fundraising practices that will carry you through the following year. Happy planning!

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Impact Storytelling - translating data to action

Today I was honored to give a webinar with CiviCore on data and impactful stories.

I shared one researcher's experience with stumbling on to a form of a story. Then look at studies about using statistics in fundraising versus not using any statistics. We saw images that viscerally illustrated the studies' findings. Then using classic story telling formula, we explore ways we can make our stories the most impactful they can be.

Then there was a brief look at CiviCore followed by live questions and answers with the attendees.

You can watch a replay here.

 

TL;DR

Data is crucial. But analytical thinking suppresses giving. So use the data to focus your search for great stories. But if you want to generate action - giving, advocacy, volunteering - tell the story of one person.

If you're not seeing the YouTube video above, you can find it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX0NiW58ZAA

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[Guest Post] The Recipe for Nonprofit Committee Failure

Today's guest post is from Kim Donahue. Kim is the resident governance expert at Boardable. In a fun tongue-in-cheek tone, she shares a perfect formula for making sure your board committees don't work! And she knows. With over 30 years of nonprofit experience, Kim was named one of the "100 Community Heroes" by the United Way of Central Indiana on their 100th anniversary. Boardable is an online board management portal that organizes everything that goes into running a board of directors in a way that leads to increased board engagement.

The Recipe for Nonprofit Committee Failure
By: Kim Donahue, Nonprofit Governance Coach at Boardable

Nonprofit boards are made up of individuals with different expertise and interests. How can you harness a board member’s experience without overloading them? Committees offer the perfect way to leverage individual knowledge to get even more done.

Committees can be highly beneficial to a nonprofit board, but only if they are healthy and well-run. Let’s go over what NOT to do when structuring or managing nonprofit committees.

Nonprofit Committee Failure Formula

Be sure to have a vague purpose for the committee. If you want a committee to implode, invite various members to be on it, but with no clear objective or reason for existing. For success, be sure each committee has a specific area of focus. Common examples are a governance committee, fundraising, and a marketing / communications committee.
Don’t specify roles for individuals. In the worst committees, no one is providing direction to the group, and no one knows who to report to. For optimal failure, have a few people who think they are in charge, with no guidance from the board! A healthy committee should have a leader who can help guide the group, report to the board at large, and communicate needs and requests to the organization and staff.
“Silo” the committee with no interaction with staff or other committees. Render a committee completely ineffective by restricting their ability to find out how their operations impact anyone else. On the other hand, help a committee do their best by having easy access to key staff members that closely align with their responsibilities and subject area. This ensures that your nonprofit committees can build relationships with staff and know who to reach out to if information or assistance is needed.
Start a new committee for every new challenge that arises. Each fundraising event, every volunteer day, and every revision of bylaws should have its own standing committee that meets regularly all year long, even if they have nothing to work on. This is a crucial ingredient for committee failure! If you’d like to avoid everyone dropping out of your committees though, consider ad hoc groups. These are perfect for short-term projects that need focused attention, but not a permanent committee.

By safeguarding your committees from this recipe for failure, you ensure a healthy and productive environment. Keep goals and expectations clear, communication open, and keep committee service simple. Your organization will be all the better for it.

If you like this, you'll love the replay of the "Ask Coach Kim" webinar at https://boardable.com/blog/webinar-replay-ask-coach-kim/

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Be strategic and curious - not a jerk

Did you read the "Outspoken Donor" article in a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy?

I didn't like it very much. But some of the donor's experiences with fundraisers are chilling. For example, she says:

"Development officers sometimes think that because you gave money to one particular cause, you’re expected to give to something else, too, and at that same exact amount. That makes donors nuts. One time I gave $1 million to an organization, and after that a similar organization that I was giving $15,000 to $20,000 each year asked me to give them $1 million because they found out about the other donation. That really became a problem because I became a $1 million prospect even though I wasn’t going to give that every time. So I understand donors who don’t want their gifts to be public."

There was apparently no work to match her values with a jump from being a $15,000 annual donor to a $1 million donor. No apparent work at learning more about her as a person.

Another time she was ready to make a large gift to an organization she'd spent a lot of time with. But they wouldn't let her make the gift until they spoke with her husband first!

Read it...but with a grain of salt

I'd encourage you to read this article. But read it with a grain of salt. She's been approached by some pretty disrespectful fundraisers. She even says she's heard that some fundraisers are trained to try to convince donors to stop giving to another organization so they can give to the fundraisers.

I wish this weren't the case but I just last month, I spoke with a colleague at a very well regarded national nonprofit. She told me fundraisers from organizations similar to hers were targeting her top donors and trying to get them to stop giving to her organization! That's messed up.

Be curious and polite.

After reading the article, think about how you come off to donors. Don't let it stop you from following up with donors. But think about your tone. Are you demanding they give? Are you guilt tripping them? If so, stop.

Instead:

Continue to stay focused and strategic. I call it being "pleasantly persistent" with donors.

And stay curious. Rather than asking a donor to match a gift she made to another organization, ask her about that gift. Perhaps something like, "I see you gave generously over there - thank you. Generous people like you are such a blessing. What motivated you/inspired you to do that?" You may find there are reasons to ask her if she'd consider a gift of the same size to your organization. But not because you're demanding it. And not because you assume she's now a $1 million donor. Simply asking.

And remember the four steps of Ask Without Fear!® - Research (your project & your donor), Engage them, Ask them, and show them the Love you have for their generosity.

If you need a refresher, read the summary of the Ask Without Fear!® process in the free "Do It Yourself Fundraising" article at: https://fundraisingcoach.com/free-articles/do-it-yourself-fundraising/

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Fundraising with an eye to the future

In nonprofit fundraising, the constant pressure to raise more with fewer resources can be so all consuming that we forget to step back and look at future trends. To help us break out of that, we recently had fundraising futurist Trista Harris in The Nonprofit Academy.

Having run an endowment through the toughest economic time since the Great Depression, she knows what it is like to lead and fundraise under incredible pressure. In the midst of that, she realized that corporations and governments were using future trends in their regular planning.

But nonprofits weren't. They were looking at the past and present. But not at the future.

So she committed to fixing that. And I believe our sector is better because of her work.

5 Trends to Watch in 2019 - Updated

Check out her list of "5 Future Trends for Fundraisers to Watch." This is a mid-year update of her trends to watch in 2019. All five are helpful. For existence, look at #4.

4) New Expectations- Donors will be more likely to ask if your internal actions meet your mission. If you are working on ending global poverty for women, do you have wage disparities by sex in your organization? If you are working on economic empowerment in communities of color, do the vendors you select for office supplies and construction projects match your mission? Make sure the inside realities of your organization, match the external mission.

Like all of her five, this is important for nonprofits to consider. Not only are donors expecting us to walk our talk, but our staffs are too. A recent study by Deliotte found that almost half of Millenials were thinking of leaving their job in the next 2 years. The reason? Not money but values. They weren't seeing the equity and social justice they believe in being modeled in the places where they worked.

So if we want to retain both donors and staff members, we really will have to "Make sure the inside realities of your organization, match the external mission."

Read all 5 Trends

You can read all "5 Future Trends for Fundraisers to Watch" on her blog at https://trista-harris.squarespace.com/new-voices-of-philanthropy/Tristaharrisorg/five-future-trends-for-fundraisers-to-watch". She cites changing giving habits of donors and corporations, donor expectations of personalization, and how you use your invested assets.

If you want to learn how to incorporate a "futurist" framework into your fundraising planning, watch Trista's "Becoming a Future Focused Fundraiser" training in The Nonprofit Academy at: https://thenonprofitacademy.com/trainings/future-focused-fundraiser/

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#GivingTuesday 2019: How to Build A Successful Fundraising Campaign

The holiday season inspires a certain sense of altruism. Around the world, it’s a season of giving thanks ⁠— and often a time for paying this thankfulness forward, too.

No day embodies this more than #GivingTuesday, held on the first Tuesday following Thanksgiving. Inspired by the good done unto them⁠— whether due to a particularly tasty holiday feast or maybe even a productive Black Friday⁠— donors are ready to contribute to positive change in their communities. 

#GivingTuesday is one of the most impactful days of the year for nonprofit fundraising, and the numbers are certainly there to back up these claims. Just last year, #GivingTuesday impacted over 150 countries. Through 3.6 million online gifts, the movement was able to generate over $400 million in donations!

As the holiday season approaches, you’ll need to make sure your nonprofit is primed to host a successful #GivingTuesday campaign. There are a few strategies sure to help you in the process:

Assess your nonprofit’s current fundraising abilities. 
Consider upgrading your donor management tools.
Offer effective donation options in both the digital and physical realms. 
Research your donors in advance. 
Focus on relationship-building in addition to soliciting donations.

#GivingTuesday is a massive opportunity to reach your nonprofit’s fundraising goals, and it’s vital that you’re prepared with an effective fundraising strategy. Read on for a breakdown of the tips listed above.

1. Assess your nonprofit’s current fundraising abilities.

Because #GivingTuesday is the single most impactful day during the busiest fundraising season of the calendar year, preparation is not to be approached lightly. In order to successfully capitalize on this event, it’s essential that you prepare thoroughly.

This starts with an assessment of your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy. You should look at previous processes used (considering what worked and what could use improvement) as well as any structural limitations your nonprofit may have with fundraising going forward. Here are a few questions for you to consider in your assessment:

Do you have a clearly outlined mission statement for donors to support? Have you been successful with this statement in the past?
Is your existing donor-facing content, such as your website, error-free and easy to navigate? Is it easy for your team to make necessary edits and upgrades as needed?
Have your campaigns stayed within budget in the past? Have you set a realistic budget for future fundraising, or does it need adjustment? 
Which fundraising channels have worked best for you in the past, in terms of both total donations and donor acquisition? Which didn’t?
Do you have software in place capable of handling a large influx of donations and the accompanying data? If not, do you have a plan in place to handle it?

While conducting a full assessment of your nonprofit’s fundraising abilities may seem like a massive undertaking, the above list should give you a good starting point. 

Once completed, you’ll see that the benefits of a pre-assessment are endless. Allowing you to identify any existing issues in your fundraising strategy, which you can then fix before they become bigger issues⁠— an evaluation of your nonprofit’s current capabilities allows you to head into the holiday fundraising season (relatively) stress-free!

2. Consider upgrading your donor management tools.

#GivingTuesday means a large influx of donations in a really short⁠— and busy⁠— period of time. The generosity of donors during the holiday season is unmatched, and you want to be well-equipped for handling it!

With millions of gifts coming through online methods, you should make sure your toolkit is up to par. While there’s nothing wrong with manual records (besides all the hard work and risk of human error!), it may be time to consider employing software to handle it for you. There are two types of software that could be particularly helpful:

An internet-based donation platform: An online fundraising platform including benefits such as customized online donation forms, easy facilitation of P2P fundraising, automated thank-you emails, and centralized dashboards for handling all of this information can drastically improve your handling of digital donations. 
A robust constituent management system: A more comprehensive CRM platform allows you to automatically create profiles for your donors, keep track of their previous donations, and view real-time data and analysis. These features make it easier than ever to make informed decisions about your fundraising strategy. 

By automating some of your fundraising processes and data management, you can both gain new insights on your donor base and re-allocate the saved time toward other important functions, such as relationship-building!

3. Offer effective donation options in both the digital and physical realms.

As people head home for the holidays, it’s important that you offer secure donation options wherever that home may be. Whether a donor is in your town or across the world, you want to make sure they have easy access to giving tools!

This can be accomplished by creating a trustworthy online donation tool for donors far and wide to access. Look for a platform that allows you to seamlessly embed your custom branded donation form right on your website. This will help to ensure that donors feel secure as they complete their donation. 

For further information online donation methods, check out these top picks from DonorSearch.

That being said, while it might be tempting to go fully digital in your donation methods⁠— it’s still important to offer off-the-web options for donors as well. 

While online giving is certainly growing and becoming a substantial “piece of the pie” of total giving, it’s still just a piece. Therefore, it’s important that you not only include physical solicitation methods such as direct mail giving, but that you be able to easily accept cash and check gifts as well. 

The main idea here is that you make options available for those that prefer to give digitally and those that prefer to give through paper methods, and that you optimize those options to be as easy-to-navigate as possible. 

4. Research your donors in advance. 

Those in the nonprofit sector are well aware of the power of #GivingTuesday, and that means there will be many groups introducing campaigns right around the same time as you. How do you stand out in a sea of good causes?

One way is to make sure you are effectively maximizing your resources by targeting prospective donors that are most likely to donate to your organization. That means it’s time to research! There are three types of fundraising analytics to consider:

Descriptive fundraising analytics: describes the behavior of your donors, classifying them into groups based on their interactions with your organization, like their history of giving or volunteering.
Predictive fundraising analytics: uses past data on your donors and predicts their future behavior. If a donor consistently gives more each time, that’s a trend worth focusing on. 
Prescriptive fundraising analytics: looks at your predictive fundraising data to determine what plan of action you should pursue in order to take advantage of new opportunities.

You must begin by segmenting your donor base using characteristics such as frequency of giving, gift size, and preferred method of donation, to name a few. Further, and especially for your mid-range or larger donors, you should look at both wealth and philanthropic indicators, noting both the ability of a donor to give and their desire to do so. 

You can then use this information to make predictions about your donor base using any patterns you see emerge. Is there a certain demographic that is more likely to donate than others?

Using these predictions, you can create a game plan for targeting donors most likely to contribute to your organization. By researching your donors in advance, you’ve optimized your entire fundraising strategy. Now, you’re saving time contacting prospects and enjoying a higher success rate when doing so!

For more examples and context around translating those data insights into campaign strategies, check out this guide. 

5. Focus on relationship-building in addition to soliciting donations.

Fundraising isn’t an act of blunt-force solicitation but rather of building lifelong relationships with donors. This is particularly important to remember during the holiday season!

The holidays are all about gathering with loved ones and giving thanks for those relationships. In contacting donors with your #GivingTuesday pitch, it’s important to emphasize the connection a donor will be making with your organization and the lifelong benefits this relationship will have for your cause. Check out a few best practices below:

Begin planning the event a few months in advance and start promotion in early November. 

#GivingTuesday is the most important fundraising day for nonprofits, so promotion should be taken seriously! You should aim to begin planning a few months in advance to give your team plenty of time to create a strong campaign.

Because it’s not uncommon for people to power down technology during the holidays, and there’s no denying that advertising increases across the board during the gift-giving season, you should start promoting your campaign early as well! Starting to heavily market your initiative in early November ensures you don’t get lost in the commotion.

Use positive messaging.

End-of-year giving has a major positive effect on nonprofits through funding their work throughout the entire next year. Make sure that the communications you’re sending to donors reflect the positive effect their contributions will have on the mission they are investing in! This is especially important if your campaign will be for your annual fund rather than a specific project.

Focus on the impact of donations, being as specific as possible.

The best way to show donors that their contribution matters is by showing them exactly what their funds benefit! If your campaign is centered around a core project, include plenty of  specific details on what exactly those donations will be accomplishing in the coming year.

Consider extending #GivingTuesday to have year-round benefits.

Many nonprofits are fueled by the funds raised through year-end fundraising campaigns. Consider approaching donors with sustaining gift options⁠— such as recurring monthly donations⁠— to keep the fundraising momentum going throughout the next year. Offering special incentives for new recurring donors can be an effective way to bolster your budget all year.

Don’t forget the “after.”

Just as it’s important to approach donors with a positive, future-reaching attitude when you first solicit a donation, it’s equally⁠—if not more-important to follow up with a grateful acknowledgement afterward! Doing so ensures you build a relationship with the donor beyond that first single donation, with lasting potential for years to come.

For more best practices on soliciting funds, check out Double the Donation’s tips for asking for donations. 

#GivingTuesday is one of  the largest days for nonprofit online fundraising, and if your nonprofit is participating, you need to make sure you’re well-prepared for this year’s event!

Through completing a bit of pre-research and optimizing your fundraising methods, you’re sure to build a successful fundraising campaign in time for the holiday season. Happy fundraising!

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