Yours for the Asking: An Indispensable Guide to Fundraising and Management

by Reynold Levy

After all, the case for many nonprofits strengthens as the economy weakens and as all levels of government experience expense budget cutbacks. For the poor among us, for the victims of recession, the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, and Protestant Welfare Agencies and the local church and synagogue are an indispensable safety net. In rough economic patches, more Americans turn urgently for help to the vital services they provide. When jobs are cut, homes are foreclosed, and government assistance decreases, the need for compensatory charitable support is clear, present, and compelling.

Central to our identity, philanthropy comes naturally.

For the affluent, paying for charitable gifts tends to emanate from accumulated assets, not annual income. The rich don’t donate funds from paychecks. Their ability to be generous is much more a matter of stock and real property holdings, alternative investments, and old-fashioned dividends and interest. Blips on their economic radar screens should not be an impediment to the generosity of those most fortunate Americans.

It is estimated that there are at least 125,000 full-time professional fundraisers in America.

The Johns Hopkins University employs more people in its fundraising operation, 350 strong, than it has professors in its School of Arts and Sciences.

One of the principal obligations of trustees of nonprofit organizations is to donate charitable funds and to raise them, or more colloquially, to give and get.

The actual number of board members in the United States is reliably estimated at 4 million.

Indeed, on average, adult Americans devote five hours per week of their time volunteering for a nonprofit institution or cause.3 No small portion of those hours are given to raising funds or in kind support.

The staggering growth of net assets in America, and globally, spells opportunity for all those seeking to solve serious problems, to repair some part of our broken world.

Fundraising to realize such dreams should be the welcome responsibility not just of development staff, but of the president, executive director, or chief executive officer and the members of the board of directors at whose pleasure he or she serves.

The profound obligation to convince those with the wherewithal to give more of themselves to institutions and causes larger than themselves falls to you and your professional and lay colleagues. That is not a burden. It is a pleasure. That is not a job. It is a calling.

Oddly, not nearly enough attention is paid to the members of a nonprofit board of directors as a major, indispensable fundraising source. I argue that the cultivation of trustees for major gifts falls to the president as much as anyone else. How trustees are treated, how highly they are valued in the governance process, and how much focused time is spent on tapping their intellectual gifts and business and social connections is critical to successfully raising funds from them.

Institutional donors, foundation and corporate, are a special challenge. Unlike most individuals, they often come equipped with guidelines, rules, regulations, and eligibility criteria that, taken together, are high barriers to entry. Neither entities are models of transparency or clarity. They are difficult to figure out, hard to access, and, certainly by comparison with the individual donor, slow to move.

Fundraising doesn’t work unless it combines inspiration with perspiration. Motivating yourself, day in and day out, means being reminded that what we do in the vineyards of the Third Sector really matters and that donors provide the equity and the venture capital that make miracles happen—in the hospital, in the classroom, in the research laboratory, on the stage, and amid some of the most desperate conditions of failed states around the world, where dire poverty, instability, and refugees and displaced people abound.

I take the occasion to remind us that the first three letters in the word fundraising are fun. The whole endeavor is fun, actually. Lots of it. And I’ve been fortunate to enjoy a fair share.

Finally, the book ends with recommendations on further reading. Dig deeply into the literature. Doing so will not only help to improve your skills as a fundraiser; it will help make you into a more interesting, lively, informed professional. It will incent donors to spend time with you because they are likely to benefit from who you have become and what you have learned.

There’s something very intimidating about approaching a friend or a relative stranger and requesting a gift. It’s widely viewed as a bold and presumptuous act, one filled with the potential for awkwardness, embarrassment, disappointment, and rejection.

Put simply, fundraising is nothing more than salesmanship. It’s persuasiveness at work. It’s a performing art.

Let me begin, then, with a confession. I like raising money. I like everything about it. The science of solidly grounded research. The process of solving the mystery of human motivation. The skill of asking well, face to face. Formulating a persuasive written proposal to which the reader cannot reply negatively. Organizing the well-designed, well-executed, well-received special event. Helping a successful executive find new meaning and joy in life from a charitable gift. Assisting a corporate vice president to identify the perfect intersection, the sweet spot, where business interest and societal need intersect. Inspiring veteran trustees to do more to strengthen their institutions and recruit newcomers to the cause. Unleashing the energy that animates private acts for the public good. How could anyone not be moved by the challenge of these activities and by the nobility of the ends they seek to realize?

Using language and images evocatively to convince and enchant. Transforming ideas and dreams into realities by eliciting that magic word, yes, from an individual, a foundation staffer, or a company executive. Listening carefully to donors allows you to bring back invaluable observations to the line staff of your agency and assist in their quest for continuous improvement. Raising funds from donors helps to create and sustain environments in which gifted professionals can do their best work. What a thrill. What a high.

So much of the health of the institution you represent resides in how effectively you embrace its mission, harness the energy of advocates, and rally the fortunate to its cause.

Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist who is leading an effort to eliminate poverty and vastly reduce mortality and morbidity in the Third World, dreams grandly: According to Forbes magazine, there are some 950 billionaires in the world, with an estimated combined wealth of $3.5 trillion. Even after all the yachts, mansions and luxury living that money can buy many times over, these billionaires will still have nearly $3.5 trillion to save the world. Suppose they pooled their wealth, as [Warren] Buffett has done with Bill and Melinda Gates. By standard principles of foundation management, a $3.5 trillion endowment would have a 5% payout of about $175 billion a year, an amount sufficient to extend basic health care to all in the poorest world; end massive pandemics of AIDS, TB and malaria; jump-start an African Green Revolution; end the digital divide; and address the crying need for safe drinking water for 1 billion people. In short, this billionaire’s foundation would be enough to end extreme poverty itself.

I urge you to go about your business with energy, determination, and pride. Much that matters depends on your performance. Many in need know not how much they rely on your skill, professionalism, and attitude.

Prospective donors who turn us down never mean no. They mean “now is not the time,” or “less,” or “have someone else ask me,” or “craft your case more effectively.” But our cause is too important, our clients too needy, our world in too much disrepair to take no for an answer. For all of us, the word “no” must be the beginning of a conversation.

I cite our family’s own proclivity to give for three reasons. First, it is virtually impossible to ask others to behave in a way contrary to your own conduct. Asking well works when the solicitor is a true believer, a missionary of sorts. The test of that conviction is more than moving prose or spirited rhetoric. You can open the mind of the prospect wider if you have opened your own wallet or pocketbook before your visit. Giving is infectious. The virus of philanthropy starts with the solicitor.

Too often, professionals and volunteers are constrained by history (we’ve always done it this way), by labels (that individual or institution will not be interested in supporting our organization because . . . ), by inertia (what is true of physics is true of fundraising; solicitors at rest tend to stay at rest, those in motion tend to remain in motion), and by risk aversion (don’t go there, he or she may say no or, don’t go down that alley, it may be blind).

When unemployment is low and wages and capital gains are healthy, giving to charity tends to be robust. Private foundation payouts rise with buoyant stock market returns. As corporate earnings improve, so does corporate philanthropy. Government support is almost always healthy when tax collections are steady or increasing. By attending to all categories of individual and institutional funding, a nonprofit benefits fully from an upbeat economy. It also cushions itself against an adverse trend affecting one or more of these sources of giving.

The processes of accessing individual donors; researching their backgrounds; identifying common ground between them and your cause; and delivering an effective presentation, face to face and in writing, differ only in degree and not in kind from succeeding with institutional sources of funds.

Putting surplus wealth to work is not only financially possible, it can offer a greater sense of self-esteem, a source of family purpose and solidarity, a view of money as a means to achieving ends beyond self, and a reduction of the sense of isolation from society at large that the affluent often experience. Philanthropy is an exhilarating form of self-realization. If they are properly approached, growing numbers of the wealthy will choose to move from the pursuit of private success to social consequence.

Very few nonprofits can realize fundraising success without a driven, determined group of true believers, otherwise known as trustees.

finance, audit, program, development, public relations, nominating, and executive committees

Gathering trustees with expertise to help solve specific problems or tackle detailed challenges in task forces or commissions rather than in standing committees releases energy often untapped by formal organizational structures.

Such proliferating volunteer teams not only tap the imagination of trustee members, but often serve as constructive channels through which cash and in-kind resources of their colleagues and associates can flow.

Because the board of directors can be a powerful source of networking, of civic and political influence, of problem solving, and of generosity, I have always favored developing and working with large groups of trustees. At the 92nd Street Y, there were 65. At the International Rescue Committee, 80. At Lincoln Center, 44 when I arrived, 68 today.

This size permits one to seek diversity geographically, ethnically, occupationally, and in terms of age, gender, and point of view. It permits one to raise the financial expectations for trustees, how much each is expected to give financially or to raise each year without offending board veterans who signed up with a different understanding in mind. Resources permitting, the rising tide of generosity, of classes of well-selected newcomers filled with energy, purposefulness, and charitable funds to spare tends to lift the giving patterns of others. In philanthr...

The principal reason for that relationship is our clarity of expectation for trustees of Lincoln Center, in terms both of financial contribution and of service. Regarding the latter, we aspire to have every trustee attend as many meetings as possible, serve on at least one committee, and share responsibility for a project that is at the intersection of his or her knowledge and interest and Lincoln Center’s needs.

Properly informed, inquisitive, and engaged board members pose questions and offer ideas that keep management alert to new needs, challenges, and possibilities. They combat intellectual laziness and institutional inertia.

In addition, our chairman has created a kitchen cabinet of five vice-chairs who offer him advice on request. Many regard these people as potential successors to the chairman.

Not only does the financial contribution of trustees rise with greater investment of time and energy, but the intellectual and social capital created by volunteer effort strengthens Lincoln Center in many ways. For every trustee, we aspire to have Lincoln Center be one of the three most important connections in their lives, after family and profession. I am not satisfied with anything less.

As to financial support, starting with my first board meeting, it was agreed that, with rare exceptions, we would ask new trustees to contribute personally, or acquire from their firms or elsewhere, $250,000 annually. In addition, we alerted new recruits that within a year or so, they would be approached for a seven-figure gift to our capital campaign, payable over three to five years.

Many nonprofit boards shy away from being clear about the financial expectation for trustees or keep the price tag low to accommodate incumbent trustees who cannot or will not meet it. This is a terrible mistake. It works an injustice to those served by the nonprofit. When a board sets a higher standard and raises the sights for new trustees even without imposing the same requirement retroactively on others, its giving standards begin to change and the definition of generosity is adjusted upward. And if such a change is combined with significant board expansion, the alteration in the culture of the board and the financial results for the institution improve markedly and very swiftly.

Civic service at the board level is not a natural right. It is a privilege. And those who can afford to donate at far higher levels should be asked to do so.

In the harshest of terms, this point of view is sometimes known as “Give. Get. Or get off.” A board that is clear about its financial and service expectation, but flexible in how it applies a new standard, recognizing that there are many ways to contribute, is a leadership group properly discharging its fiduciary and governance responsibilities.

Another form of the use of volunteers emanates from Lincoln Center’s relationship with the Harvard Business School (HBS). Annually we recruit three or four students between their first and second year of school. They form an in-house summer consulting team whose leader is an HBS fellow, a graduate selected and hired by Lincoln Center from a pool of highly qualified applicants. The first-year salary of the fellow is split 50/50 with Lincoln Center and HBS each paying a half share. The summer interns are paid a modest honorarium. The intellectual output of their summer term of service is very impressive. The interns have worked in areas that encompass marketing, sales, finance, development, new ventures, capital campaigns, and construction planning. Because the projects are well defined in advance of their arrival, because their internal senior staff clients look forward to these engagements, because we carefully select whom we offer intern assignments in a highly competitive process, and because I am actively involved in reviewing their work, all concerned judge this arrangement a success.

Engaging the energy of a large board of directors demands a willingness to provide its members with vital information, to seek and listen to their points of view, and to endeavor to form an active, forward-looking consensus.

Inviting the opinions of trustees and employees, seeking to learn from those around you is untidy. It takes time and patience. If one is not careful, doing so runs the risk of slow decision making, of lowest-common-denominator groupthink, even of paralysis. This I would not permit. But the benefits of acknowledging that a place like Lincoln Center is a public trust that needs to respect the views of trustees and staff, donors and journalists, ticket buyers and passersby are simply incalculable.

In the board resides the intelligent memory of the institution. It is the affluence and far-reaching influence of its members that can allow Lincoln Center to bridge the gap between its enormous promise and its gratifying performance. And it is the board that sets the strategic course of the institution and determines whether the president is the best professional to lead its members and its professional staff.

I spend a great deal of time with trustees, not only in committee meetings, but one on one. I take it as a personal responsibility to have new members of the board feel welcome and longer-term trustees not feel taken for granted. This means lots of correspondence, of phone calls, of sharing favorite books, ideas, and tips as to what’s worth seeing in the performing arts, not just around New York City but around the country and around the world.

I try to see every trustee alone for breakfast, lunch, or dinner each year or, alternatively, to entertain directors, their spouses, and other guests before and during concerts, operas, ballets, chamber music performances, solo recitals, modern dance, film, theater, and the like.

Whatever the motivation, most trustees have certain characteristics in common. They enjoy learning. They treasure meaningful involvement in the vital activities of Lincoln Center. They believe that engagement with it should be fun. Everyone has enough tension and pressure at their own workplaces or in their own families. They do not volunteer to be gluttons for any such punishment in civic life. More than anything else, trustees wish to be respected for who they are and for what they can offer. It is my job to figure that out and take the lead in wish fulfillment.