Category Archives: Fundraising Kudos

Okay, let’s just all drop our collective jaws at the success of Strike Debt’s recent telethon, which raised money for a project it calls Rolling Jubilee. The group brought in a whopping $293,000 — enough, it figures, to buy $5.9 million in unpaid medical debt obligations off creditors, and thus save a lot of people from bankruptcy. (Around 62% of bankruptcies are caused by medical debts.) The group is calling it a “bailout for the 99 percent.”

Why did the fundraiser work so well? I’m sure much could be said about the organizing, skills, and determination of those running the telethon, but it also sounds like, in the words of the Village Voice, they “struck a nerve.” With the group’s origins in the Occupy movement, it tapped into Americans’ frustration at the crippling nature of debts that arose for reasons beyond their control.

Being able to point donors to the exact way in which their money would be used is an unusual feature of this fundraiser, as well.

Strike Debt is basically acting as the middleman to a person in need — which should be true of many nonprofits, but the link is often harder to demonstrate.

What’s more, donors are getting a “bargain” — their money doesn’t pay off another’s debt dollar for dollar, but is going to buy bad debts on the secondary market, where the creditors are typically willing to sell them off for pennies on the dollar. No wonder this one’s going viral!

I stopped by my local Foundation Center library the other day, and asked which recent books they were most excited about. (By the way, if there’s a Foundation Center near you, it’s a great resource — free access to nonprofit-related books, advice, software to help you research funding sources, and more.)

The first book the librarian mentioned to me was  Boards on Fire! Inspiring Leaders to Raise Money Joyfully, by Susan Howlett. Dutifully, in order to bring you the latest news, I sat down and read it cover to cover.

Okay, I confess, this took me about half an hour. This book is SHORT! No, let’s call it compact. Lots of substance, no fluff. That’s enough to make me joyful right there, in a world where most authors seem to think they have to get their books to one inch thick to be credible.

The book contains some excellent points about how to overcome your board’s resistance to fundraising. Even if you’ve heard some of them before, it’s a fine refresher, or something to give to a friend who has become an E.D. or development director and feeling frustrated with the board.

Some of the points that stood out were:

• The usual reason that board members are unhappy fundraising is that they weren’t told ahead of time that this would be part of their responsibilities. But even the ones who feel this way can be brought into fundraising step by step, through development of genuine relationships with donors.
• Howlett discourages standard board member contributions upon entry, as well as “give or get” plans, on grounds that you don’t want the board members with greatest capacity to stop fundraising or giving at their “goal.”
• You can’t expect board members to ask others for money until they’ve learned about the organization in depth — its mission (beyond the tag line), its stories, where it fits into the community (including differences from the “competition”), what it actually achieves, and so forth.
• Board meetings can always be made more interesting! Put fundraising early on the agenda, have one board member per meeting share a “mission moment,” and serve food.
• The organization can model donor relations in its own relations with the board, by joyfully asking them for support, and thanking them well.

That’s not all; as I said, the book is already boiled down to the essentials, so I can’t do any further boiling. In any case, I’ve got to start working on shortening a book of my own.

Nonprofits try all manner of modes of explaining their financial need and how donations can move them from desperation to success.

But perhaps no financial appeal I’ve seen lately is so direct as the San Fransisco Mime Troupe’s “Adopt a Bill” appeal. It’s sort of a wish list on steroids. The troupe (which, BTW, does political theater in Bay Area parks, not mime) simply listed some of the debts it has coming due — with humorous explanations, so that any reader can see that bad luck, rather than bad planning, was the cause of some of its need for cash infusions.

There were, for example, the “surprise truck repairs,” and “GENERATOR RENTAL, because ours got sick and had to see the doc.”

Better yet, the group updates the page as donations come in, and thanks each bill’s adopters.

The only catch seems to be that nobody, so far, seems inspired by the idea of paying for portapotties or Parks & Rec permits. (But imagine the  complaints if the portapotties weren’t there!)

Sometimes you learn the most about grassroots fundraising efforts from the local — and I mean really local, as in neighborhood — paper. The April, 2012 Rockridge News, for example, is where I came across an interesting story by Don Kinkead, about St. Augustine’s Church’s efforts to raise money for the Tonga Parish Mission.

Apparently Father Mark Wiesner was moved, after visits to Kenya, to raise money to help orphaned children there. The area has been hard-hit by HIV-AIDS. He could have just passed the collection plate and asked that parishioners add a little extra for this cause, but . . .

He chose to do something a little different. And different, in fundraising, is often a great way to get people’s attention. Fr. Mark did pass the collection plate alright, but instead of asking for people to put money in, he asked them to take envelopes out. Each of those envelopes contained some seed money, in varying amounts. The total withdrawn from the church’s coffers for starters was $12,100.

Then he challenged the recipients to go forth and raise some real money. “The excitement has been phenomenal,” he is quoted as saying. As of the article’s publication, results included one man using the money to buy $25 worth of candy to sell at his workplace, which raised $150; a ten-year old girl using her $25 to set up a lemonade stand, raising $184; and 20 parishioners banding together to plan an artisan fair to be held on church grounds, profits yet to be determined.

Sometimes all it takes is a little twist on an old fundraising theme to capture people’s attention. With its “Shortest Triathlon Ever,” the Bay Area Orthopaedic Sports and Spine Foundation has done just that, in a benefit for the Emery Unified School District’s Health & Wellness Initiative.

I noticed the event because it’s garnering local press coverage, such as in the March edition of the East Bay Monthly.

“[S]o short, anyone can do it!” is the foundation’s catch phrase for this event. It combines a 10o-yard swim, 2.5 mile bike race (on flat ground), and a 2.1 mile run — on a window-shopping course that includes a mall, no less. Kids and people of varying fitness levels are encouraged. (Hey, I think I could even do it!)

By having a shorter race, they no doubt cut down on the hours which they must ask of volunteers, or for which they must get permits or rent facilities. Of course, this doesn’t mean plenty of planning won’t still be required. For in-depth guidance on what’s required to plan this type of fundraising event, see The Volunteers’ Guide to Fundraising.

Remember that flood of emails that ended just a few days ago, from every nonprofit you’d ever had contact with, containing urgent subject lines like: “Only a few days left to donate!” “Last chance!” “24 hours left!” and so forth?

You’d think that donors were motivated only by tax deductions, or that the nonprofits were going to stop accepting donations the minute the ball dropped and 2012 began. (As if.)

So it was refreshing to receive a simple “Thank You” email from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, containing a video reminder of the work that they do. (I don’t usually even click to watch videos, but they’ve got the advantage that bird and wildlife footage is fun to watch.) They didn’t even ask for money, which was just fine by me. It brought them to the top of the stack in terms of charities I’ll pay attention to in the coming here.

And here’s the video itself: Holiday Thank You and Video Dec 24, 2011

I recently received an email from my college, with the subject line, “View Our New Online Honor Roll of Donors.” It allows all alums, with a password, to view the name of everyone (class by class) who made a donation in the last fiscal year.

Of course, I clicked through, just to see my name. I felt silly as I did so, but hey, it’s a matter of human (or at least donor) nature. Which is just what the college was counting on. And as I viewed the list of other classmates who’ve also given, many of whom I remember well, I got that warm feeling of belonging to a special group. The college was no doubt counting on that, too.

There are no new lessons here, but a new-ish application of some old truths about donor recognition and sense of belonging. It shouldn’t be too hard to create such an online list for your own organization.

You know how I love fundraising that makes money by selling something that costs the nonprofit nothing, and the Montclair Veterinary Hospital’s Pet and Wildlife Fund’s “Pet Mayor Contest” is one of the best examples I’ve seen lately.

Here’s how it works:

• People pay a $25 registration fee to enter their pets in the annual “Pet Mayor” race, fill out a simple nomination form, and send digital photos.
• Local businesses sponsor pet candidates and provide polling places , where people can vote for their favorite, on their premises.
• The winning pet gets a $100 gift certificate for veterinary care along with pet food, treats, and services donated by local vendors. The pet mayor’s responsibilities don’t sound too onerous: According to the Fund, the winner “serves as an ambassador of goodwill to all creatures in the community: two-legged, four-legged, furred, feathered and scaled,” enjoying “media attention and the chance to appear in public on behalf of the Pet & Wildlife Fund.”

This is apparently the Fund’s most popular fundraising event of the year. And it’s a proven publicity-generator — I read about it in the local neighborhood paper.

These are tough times for libraries, businesses, and donors, but the Rockridge DVD Project has come up with some creative solutions that unite all three.

The library was offered a chance to buy, at low cost, the inventory of a DVD rental store that was closing. With a loan from the library, the newly formed DVD Project did so — but then needed to pay the loan back, by an October deadline. The group started soliciting neighborhood donations, through means such as publicity in local publications and setting up an information table in the library.

I confess, I was initially skeptical about the importance of this project. After all, I like books, and questioned whether the library should turn into a DVD rental outfit.

But after talking to a volunteer at their table, I understood the brilliance of their strategy: DVDs bring people into the library — people who then tend to check out books, as well. When library circulation goes up, city funding goes up, and it becomes easier to advocate against, say, library closures (which Oakland has been threatening a lot lately).

It’s more than a fundraising effort, it’s a strategy for library advocacy. The urgency of the upcoming deadline is also a fine way to raise the library’s profile. And if the effort raises questions (like mine) about the ultimate purpose of libraries, all the better — the end conclusion can only be that they’re incredibly important community resources.

I’m an art museum addict, so while at a recent conference in San Antonio, Texas, I managed, in the few hours before my return flight, to fit in a trip to the McNay Art Museum. (Maybe I should mention how graciously they fit all of my luggage into the coatroom and called a cab in time to get me to the airport, too.)

But aside from the pleasures of the collection, I was struck by something I’d never seen before: Wall postings next to selected paintings containing patrons’ recollections of what that particular work has meant to them over the years.

The accounts included everything from adults describing their childhood favorite paintings — or in one case, a man describing how a Modigliani became his ideal when searching for a wife — to a child saying of Monet’s Water Lilies, “My favorite picture was of the pond and lepads.” (I think I’ve got that right — I know I remember her spelling of lily pads correctly!)

What a great way to get people to reflect on what the museum means to them, using the power of storytelling. It’s a subtle strategy to build loyalty and a sense of affinity with fellow patrons, which of course leads to donations.

Also, the tendency for people to consider what the art has meant to them over a lifetime also inspires the sort of reflection that translates into legacy gifts.

My one criticism is that I couldn’t find any of these patron accounts on the McNay’s website. (Or maybe they’re there somewhere, but too well buried to be useful.) They’d be perfect additions to the donor pages, which are otherwise rather dry.