What Should Fundraising Look like Now?

Eight or nine weeks ago, the peahen began making her presence known in the neighborhood.  For a while, you’d see family groups, usually on bicycles, riding up and down the streets of my area, looking for the peahen.  Without a bike (both with and without my other family members), I found myself joining them, looking for her and feeling inexplicably happy when I had a sighting.

Until my dogs chased her away, she began spending days on my driveway (as she is in this photo) or nesting up on my second story balcony.  My husband and I would spend crazy amounts of time, just watching her even though she didn’t do anything really interesting. 

But she is regal, and unexpected. And it is that, more than anything, that makes her so important.

In today’s Covid-19 world, you would think that unexpected is...well, the norm.  Nothing is what we planned for, and nothing seems to be going in directions we want them to go.  While I am still obsessed with what the lack of leadership has wrought, I find myself thinking about it less on a national, state, or city level and more on very local levels.  I watch nonprofits who have creative, committed leaders look to see not what they’ve been but what they need to be now.  

It’s heartening.  Except, for the most part, when it comes to fundraising.

Those who are working at the frontlines of what is needed to immediately combat the effects of the pandemic are doing well, much as relief organizations like the Red Cross do well when there is a catastrophe where people require the basic needs of life:  Housing, food, electricity, running water. But many organizations on the peripheries—arts organizations, social service agencies, educational organization—are not doing well enough to ensure not just their survival but their ability to thrive.

Much of it is that at least as far as fundraising goes, they are thinking not what they need to do now but what they have done in the past—whether or not that was successful enough to allow the organization to generously fund operations and build a solid reserve or, as with most nonprofits, closed most years in or very close to the red, cutting programs, staff, salaries, benefits along the way.

Just as I think this is the perfect time to think about who your organization is and who it should be, now is when organizations should consider not how they have raised funds in the past, but how they should be raising funds moving forward.  In other words, re-envision your fundraising so it fits your organizational culture, resources, and needs.  Don’t just think how to put your gala online this year but think if a time-consuming special event is the way you should be raising funds at all.  The answer may be a resounding yes!  But think about it—and about all the ways you are (or aren’t) raising funds.

Imagine you have a clean slate—what would be the best ways for you and your organization to fill it?  Start with a goal.  Not the gap between what it takes to run your organization and how much money you can count on this year, but taste stock of what would be the best-case scenario for your organization.  If your operating budget has been $750,000 don’t start thinking about what you could accomplish with a $2M budget, but do consider what would it look like if you had 10 or 15 % more?  And then think about how you would get there.

I’m big on saying that fundraising starts with gratitude.  I believe that with every fiber of my being.  How are you doing with retaining donors and dollars?

In the latest Fundraising Effectiveness Project report, overall, for every $100 new dollars raised by an organization, $96 was lost in attrition.  For 100 new donors, 106 donors left.  The smaller the organization, the greater the attrition.  

What if you could change those numbers?  If you could keep 10 or 15% more dollars and donors, what would that look like for your organization?
To do that, you have to up your stewardship game.  

Don’t just send one thank you, send several, over time, signed by different people.  Don’t just say thanks for your generosity but be clear how important their generosity is.  Tell them how their gift and their support matters.  

If you have their phone number, give them a call.  If they don’t answer, leave a message that clearly says, “I am calling because your support matters so very much.  I wanted to be able to tell that personally.”

Think of that as your baseline, then consider what else you could do to keep your donors close.

We call that stewardship, but it also cultivation.  The things we do to ensure that our donors and prospects see the value in supporting you.  Those things should include transparency about money and where it goes and what it does.  I am not one who thinks that the more that goes directly into programs the better.  I think that good programs require infrastructure that cannot directly be attached to a program.  I think more people would understand that a superior finance department, for example, can be just as important as putting money directly into programs if we explained why our finance department is so critical to the work we do. It is our job to explain that it is well worth the money we spend in salaries and benefits to ensure we have the best financial staff.

Beyond transparency, cultivation is about involving people into your organization.  That means that every donor and every prospect should be connected to more than one person and in more than one way.  When someone donates, reach out and ask them about their interest in volunteering.  Find out what they might be interested in doing.  What more do they want to know about the organization and the programs and people who are so critical to your mission?  

Yes, it would be lovely if you could meet for coffee, but that’s not about to happen soon.  Indeed, over the past several years, it has been harder and harder to get in front of donors and prospects—we are all too busy; too far away; too involved in our own lives.  Very personal emails, short, homemade videos, phone calls and yes, zoom or other video platforms, can help you to make those connections.

Telling your donors what you are doing differently during this crisis is also important.  But don’t just tell them what you think—ask your clients and find out how they feel you are meeting their needs, and then share their stories.  Create affinity groups where donors who share specific interests or geography can gather (virtually for now) and share with them how your organization makes a difference, not just for your clients or your cause but for them also.  Ask them to share with you why your organization matters to them and tell you how they perceive your good, your bad, your ugly.

In short, make your donors and prospects your partners rather than simply your supporters.  Help them to get more involved in ways that work for their lives now.  Show them how your organization is truly theirs and how they are not giving to you but giving through you to make a difference about something that matters to them.