by Lari Hatley | Jul 12, 2020 | Aquiring and Retaining Donors, Best Business Practices, Building Relationships, Communication, The Ask
- Board members are absolutely key. Many grants will ask for a list of your board members. A number of grantors will ask about what percentage of the board financially supports your mission. They want the answer to be 100%. I always tell my board members, “If we don’t care enough about what we are doing to support it financially, why should anyone else?” It is important that they like and respect you. It is equally important that they all give at leadership levels – whatever that means for each person. (We have materials to help board members learn about their proper role in governance and giving.) Board members will ideally be people of influence. They should be respected by your community. They should be people that others turn to say, “What do you think?”
- Recruit at least three – five additional people to serve on a Development Committee. They will be in training to see if they are a good fit for future board members. They will serve as your right hands in hosting small events that introduce people to your organization and writing thank you notes. (Yes, it takes time to recruit and train them, but it will save you time in the long run.)
- Use social media. Assemble a team of On-line Ambassadors – folks who agree to like, comment, and share your social media outreach and who will link back to your website from their social media. It seems so simple but it moves you up in SEO and keeps you in the news feeds longer so you can reach more people. You can ask them to watch for posts from others where they can draw attention to your organization in the comments – like, “I know an organization that helps with this. Check out their website.”
- Now, you have a core group that will help you share your stories. You want ways to share the stories of lives changed. You need stories, and you need people to share the stories with. You need contact information, so you are able to share the stories. You will need names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails and if possible the relationship to someone connected to the organization.)
- A sampling of ways to engage prospects:
a. Invite businesses that are interested in your mission or benefit from it to come for a tour or observe your organization in action Be sure to collect contact information from the attendees. Send emails or notes thanking them for coming. Add them to your newsletter and appeal lists.
b. Have Board members and Development Committee members host small coffees, where they invite 4-8 people they think may be interested in your mission. In addition to light refreshments, have a brief PowerPoint or video or talk outlining what is special about your program – include brief stories of lives changed. If you have collateral marketing material, hand it out. Be sure to collect contact information. Have committee members follow up with a phone call, asking attendees for feedback and if they would like to get involved in any way – such as volunteering or donating, and do they know anyone else, who might be interested.
You’ve collected contact information for prospective donors, now what?
a. Consider sending a newsletter two times per year. Share stories of lives changed with a focus on the role of donor support. Tell about a program expanded and the difference that made for a life. Include a donor profile in each newsletter. Telling the story of the donor and their words for why they give. Keep it personal. Lives saved. Understanding gained. Community improved.
b. Mail out an appeal with a response card and envelope to everyone in your data base in the spring and in the fall. Focus the appeal on the difference donors make in lives. You can do electronic appeals at the same time. Keep in mind that in-person asks get 64 times more gifts than either written or electronic asks. So make personal asks of potential larger donors.c.Enlist a well-respected board member to help you solicit the rest of the board.
c. Have your board members and development committee members divide up the names of donors and see that each donor is thanked in writing as quickly as possible – within 48 hours if possible. Call each donor who gives more than $250 the day the gift is received.
d. Once a year, have the Development Committee host a thank you gathering for all donors. Display pictures related to your mission. Have light refreshments. Consider having 3 very brief testimonials from people who understand the power of your work.
e. Have a Thank-a-thon where Board and Development Committee members use a script to call donors and thank them. Usually, they will leave a message.
f. Thank yous from people who benefitted or closely observed the benefit are particularly powerful.
by Lari Hatley | Jul 7, 2020 | The Ask
As Development Officers, we think a lot about money. There are goals to be met, programs to fund, salaries to pay. Even when everyone: staff, board, dedicated donors and volunteers help, that goal feels very personal. The stress can feel enormous and too often Development staff leaves. Fourteen months is the average stay for a Director of Development. Fourteen months and carefully built relationships must be rebuilt.
But what if we reframe Development’s job. Yes. We’re raising money, but that is the outcome of building a team of compassionate people with a shared concern for others’ well-being. That concern may be for starving kittens or hungry kids or homeless families or a dying species, but it is built on caring for someone or something other than self.
What if we are enormously grateful for our compassionate team and for the good we’re making possible – together, and what if we share our gratitude with the team: staff, board, donors, advocates and volunteers.
What if we rejoiced in the opportunity to be kind and generous, and in our ability to share the opportunity?
We might just meet our goal – together.
We might feel satisfaction rather than stress.
How do I know? Because, according to psychologist, Sonja Lyubomvisky there are:
Three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing happiness:
- Our ability to reframe our situation more positively.
- Our ability to experience gratitude.
- Our choice to be kind and generous.
Or as the Dalai Lama says, “A compassionate concern for others’ well-being is the source of happiness.” And isn’t that what Development is all about really – not dollars, but a compassionate concern for others.
So what if we did these three things and met out goals, helped others, and found happiness!
by Lari Hatley | Jul 7, 2020 | Best Business Practices
“What percentage of your organization’s income goes to administration?”
If you work for a nonprofit, you’ve heard this question. I’ve even helped a nonprofit that was 100% volunteer – NO salaries, and they were often asked that question. And it was often asked in an accusatory tone.
We understand.
Yes. There has been the occasional nonprofit that ruined it for everyone, where the Executive Director took a huge salary and the folks carrying out the mission had to pinch pennies.
It angers us all. It breaks trust, and trust is a key component to binding our volunteers, advocates and donors to our cause.
But for most nonprofits, staff is working for WAY less than they could make in the for-profit world. So I was delighted to see Jim Collins call for us to look as this question differently in his monograph, “Good to Great and the Social Sectors.” First Collins says each business and each nonprofit must have the right people in the right place to get the desired results – for business that is profit, in the social sector that is “doing good.” And he emphasizes that the right people deserve the right compensations.
Let me tell you about one person I met while working with an animal shelter. His name was Johnnie. He had walked several miles to come to the shelter, when he was just 16. He wanted to help. So they let him volunteer, and started to notice that he had a natural talent. Animals just trusted Johnnie. There was something about his calm, he genuine caring. As time passed, he was hired full time, and it turned out even animals, who had been rightly labeled vicious, calmed down with Johnny. I saw them. I remember one huge dog, who had just been brought in. I walked by and he lunged against his cage, snarling, spit flying. He would have torn me up given the chance. (No animal is born this way. I can’t imagine what this animal had been through.) When Johnnie came. The dog calmed. Johnnie was patient, kind, and without fear. Johnnie was never bitten. But think, what would we need to pay you to go into a cage with an animal with a history of viciousness? Believe me. We didn’t pay him what he deserved, but the outcomes were nothing short of miraculous. Wouldn’t your agree,it would be okay to pay Johnnie more!
Because its outcomes, Collins says nonprofits should focus on (and so should people evaluating nonprofits.)To be able to share outcomes, start with your baseline. Here’s what we accomplished on average over the last five years. Then document on-going outcomes. For business that would be profit margins.
For nonprofits, it’s more challenging to quantify. So, Collins says define exactly “the good” you are trying to accomplish. Describe how you know when you’ve accomplished it. Gather evidence to show your outcomes, such as the number of additional people fed, the amount of nutritious food eaten, the health benefits seen. Gather numbers, but also gather stories. Stories move hearts. Now, you can show your outcome. Document value. Prove that salaries/admin costs were a good investment.
When your outcomes are admirable, people want to help. We all like to be part of a winning team. So, show your success. Then show how much MORE good you could do with more resources. More good. Bigger team. Even more good!
by Lari Hatley | Jul 6, 2020 | Aquiring and Retaining Donors, Building Relationships
For my first position as a Director of Development, I was hired by a wonderful organization that had a tradition of hosting multiple events, including a gala and auction. So my first year, that’s what we did. We planned. We decorated. We hired a caterer. We scoured the town for sponsors and auction items. We found a band. You know the drill: lots of work hours. Lots of volunteer hours. Lots of stress. Lots of expense and a great return – at least it looked great until we subtracted costs, staff time, and relationship building activities left undone.
But for me the real insight came when I received a call from my daughter. She and her husband had attended their first charity ball. She knew I’d be proud. I could hear her excitement as she shared, “It was a Masquerade Ball.” She detailed their costumes. She listed all they had spent: this much for tickets, this much at the auction, and this much as a donation. It was a hefty total for young salaries. I was proud. I had raised a generous daughter.
Then I asked that important question, “What did you support?” The line went quiet. After an awkward pause. There was a rush of words: “It was an illness. Or children. Or animals.”
I can tell you. I saw the light.
The Masquerade Ball raised money. It did NOT raise support. My daughter and her husband would not “be there” for the organization. They didn’t know what the organization was.
Needless to say, our organization’s next event was different.
Here’s what we did:
- We kept the event mission focused.
- We kept it simple. We didn’t want the event to outshine the mission.
- All visuals were mission focused. The images told heart-moving stories.
- We had an emcee, who was warm, friendly and passionate about our cause.
- We had three people give brief, heart-felt testimonials about how donors changed lives.
- We had a brief, heart-felt ask focusing on the good donors would do.
- We gave attendees a chance to give.
That was it. Simple. Mission focused. Story led. Did it make a difference? We septupled the income and cut costs by 70%. Also we grew our donor base with 65% of the donors continuing to give for at least two years
When we followed up after the event 97% of the guests mentioned the mission in a positive light and had enjoyed the event, and staff was nowhere near as tired. Win. Win. Win.
by Lari Hatley | Jul 2, 2020 | Board Development
Being homogenized may be good for milk, but is it good your board?
It is time to take a good look at our assumptions. We think our hearts are open, but in fact, we may be more tribal that we realize, and that is a detriment to our mission.
Let’s start with our boards. Are they diverse? Is there diversity in gender, age, experience, race, and ethnicity? If not, take a look at how you recruit new board members. Do your current board members suggest people from their circle of acquaintances? Are they all too often very similar in gender, age, race and experience?
Then be purposeful in expanding your horizons. Seek diversity. You may be surprised by the insight, wisdom, ideas, and influence your organization gains. You will find solutions you hadn’t imagined, problems you hadn’t recognized, and resources previously untapped.
We are coming to know better. Let us begin to do better. Our mission will benefit, and isn’t that why we’re here?
