Category Archives: General Fundraising

Maybe. I’ve been working on my taxes this week, and was noticing, as I scanned the list of donors, that each name elicited a different emotional reaction. They ran the gamut, such as:

• “Has it really been that long since I gave them anything?”
• “Grr, I think they used up my whole contribution sending me multi-page, glossy follow-up appeals.”
• “Why didn’t they list my donation amount in their thank-you letter?”
• “Who on earth are they?”
• “Aww, what a nice group.”

Most of those are not reactions you’d want people to have to your group. Rather than me trying to describe what’s behind my various reactions, I encourage you to try the same game as you do your taxes. (Alright, so you’re not such as a latenik as I — as you review your completed return, then.)

Think about what the various groups that you have given to did right — and wrong — and how your own nonprofit can mimic or depart from their model.

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.

Three cheers for Paul Shoemaker, executive director of Social Venture Partners Seattle, for so eloquently describing what is askew with much of the criticism of Invisible Children, the nonprofit behind the Kony 2012 video. The group has been getting flak for its “failure” to meet idealized ratios of spending on administrative versus other costs.

I have no independent knowledge of this group’s worthiness, but Shoemaker’s article, “Kony 2012: The Great Product Debate,” reminds us that faulting a group based solely on ratios can be a bit hasty. In this case, the criticism is for spending a “low” amount on direct aid — which, as Shoemaker points out, is nonsensical when the group doesn’t actually provide direct aid (or, for that matter, any other programs or services). Shoemaker says, “Invisible Children is an advocacy organization; that’s what they do. They spend money on media (i.e., “non-direct aid”) because that’s their strategy.”

I wish I’d been as lucid in discussing the issue with friends the other day at lunch. His point is so clear it sounds almost obvious — and yet it’s been largely overlooked.

But his larger point can be applied to any type of organization, even those serving clients, providing programmatic and other aid, and otherwise taking direct action on an issue: He says, “too many of us treat all nonprofits as if they operate in the same product category and use a one-size-fits-all set of metrics to measure their effectiveness – including often-misleading metrics like percentage of spending on program vs. overhead.”

I couldn’t  agree more. I’ve had other lunchtime discussions with friends about their suspicions regarding nonprofits whose work they appreciated in every other way, and would like to support — but they wondered if they were being “had,” because the group’s spending ratios didn’t fit the norm. Anyone who has ever created a budget (even a household one) should know that different types of service provisions have different costs. Meanwhile, paying staff salaries is nearly always expensive, and a big part of the “overhead,” whether you’re running a business or a nonprofit. (And that’s true even given that most nonprofits don’t pay too well.)

Let’s say, for example, that we’re talking about a trail maintenance group. The group monitors trail conditions and coordinates volunteers for cleanup activities. But its largest expenditures are for paying the executive director as well as a contract accountant and a part-time fundraiser. If trails are being maintained that wouldn’t have been otherwise, which is a result that people are willing to support; and  if no evidence has emerged that anyone is being overpaid or putting in less time than they’re paid for, what’s the problem?

Designing these metrics was a noble goal. But getting too attached to them just adds one more burden to that of the many nonprofits that are asked to be “efficient” using fewer resources than are realistically adequate for survival.

Nonprofit fundraising scams are always in the news, but I feel like there’s been an uptick in the last couple of months — the church in Oakland that makes its students spend evenings in local BART (subway) stations soliciting donations for questionable purposes; the woman in Canandaigua, New York who was charged with raising money on the false pretense of having cancer; and ABC reports about fraudulent charities trying to make money off recent tornado disasters.

It’s enough to scare off any donor.

Which raises the question, what is your nonprofit doing to make sure that any and all of its fundraisers and other representatives can prove that they’re legit? Here are some ideas:

• Be very clear about your group’s identity. Display its name and logo on your website, brochures, and any solicitation sheets that you might, for example, send out with people soliciting donations on the street or of friends. If you are the local chapter of a national group, say so, and indicate where they can find your group online or in the real world.
• Be transparent about your group’s use of money. Your website, for example, should contain clear explanations of where and how funds will be spent. Also include a link to your group’s IRS Form 990.
• Give official materials to staff or volunteers who will be doing public solicitations. The more they carry in the way of pamphlets, log0-bearing paraphernalia, and so on, the more convincing they’ll be. Of course, these can be faked; but at least you won’t have to compete with the low-quality fakes.
• Be aware of local scammers. It’s not uncommon for scam charities to use names that sound generic, or very close to the name of a real group. Watch the news and neighborhood events for such fake groups, and be ready to assure people that they aren’t you.
• Advise solicitors to welcome questions. Having a stranger question whether you’re a fraud can be unsettling. But your fundraising team should be trained for this, and be happy at the opportunity to distinguish your group from the scammers.
• Don’t incentivize immediate donations. Some groups reportedly pay their street solicitors based on a percentage of contributions brought in. Unfortunately, that means that potential donors are discouraged from double-checking on the group and deciding later whether to make a donation. This arrangement leads to uncomfortable donors who may just say “no” if pulling out their credit card on the spot and handing it to a stranger seems too risky.

This problem may have been worsened with the down economy, but it’s never going to go away. The best you can do, in the words of yet another nonprofit, is to “Be prepared.”

According to projections by Atlas of Giving, April of 2012 will be the weakest fundraising month for all types of charities except those working on arts and environmental issues. (See their 2011 U.S. Report.)

Why? The report authors don’t say, but I’d bet my tax deductions it has something to do with April 15th. People’s attention will be elsewhere, and many will be bemoaning having to write a certain large check.

The group’s advice is to reschedule your solicitations and events to March. Which, uh, starts tomorrow. Killing yourself to hurry up your solicitations and events probably isn’t such a good idea. For one thing, (as I discussed in The Volunteers’ Guide to Fundraising‘), planning for an event of any significance should start months in advance.

So, maybe you should just kick back, and push your major plans to September . . . which, according to Atlas of Giving, is supposed to be a banner month for U.S. fundraising.

You know how I’m always on the lookout for ways a nonprofit can boost the positive side of its balance sheet by turning existing assets into cash?

That’s why I was intrigued to read this article by well-known real estate writer Broderick Perkins, describing how the website ParkatMyHouse.com — already well-established in England — is coming to America.

The tag line on the website’s home page pretty much says it all:  “Have an empty spot in your driveway? You could be making money by renting it out.”

Perkins further explains that founder Anthony Eskinazi,  inspired by his own difficulty finding (or affording) a parking space when he visited AT&T Park in San Francisco to see a Giants game, went back to England and set up what the website calls a “match-making service for property owners and drivers.” The site continues to manage the relationship, having already helped over 40,000 property owners in England gain extra income from renting their unused parking space by the day, hour, or month.

The church I mentioned in the title is near the busy Kings Cross Station in London and has, according to Perkins’ article, earned some $180,000 from the website in the last three years, comprising more than half its annual income. (These are tough times for tithing.)

Of course, not every nonprofit owns its own property, or has space to let.  (And if you rent, or are part of a homeowners’ association, better check with them before you sign up.)  But hey, pass the word on to your most-likely-underpaid staffers. Maybe their driveway could put a few extra dollars into their pockets while they’re spending long hours at work!

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

If your nonprofit’s New Year’s resolutions include hiring a development director (DD) — or making sure that yours is earning enough to keep him or her around for a while — check out the latest, 2011 Nonprofit Compensation Report from Guidestar (a sample of which can be viewed online).

In terms of nationwide numbers, the report shows that:

• In organizations with the smallest-size budgets, of $250,000 or less, the average DD receives a salary of $43,294.
• In mid-size organizations, with budgets of between $250,000 and $500,000, the average DD receives a salary of $56,403.
• In the largest organizations, with budgets of $500,000 and up, the average DD receives a salary of . . . um, more than that, we hope. (I’m looking at the sample too, and that’s where it cut off.)

The numbers show hardly any change from the 2010 report, which I wrote about in this earlier blog.

Given how hard development directors work, and the varied professional skill sets they must bring to the job (writing and other communications, relationship-building, database oversight, budgeting, and more), it makes me sad that so many news stories about nonprofit compensation have to do with the outliers — the directors who receive excessive pay, or run off to a tropical island with a nonprofit’s funds.

On salaries like this, most nonprofit directors aren’t going to see a tropical island anytime soon.

We are mere weeks away from the end of 2011, and nonprofits are feeling the pressure to capture the last of donors’ charitable dollars. (The number of emails in my inbox alone attests to that.)

So let’s take a moment to remember that, despite financial hardship and mixed economic news from around the world, Americans remain committed to giving. For example:

• An October survey by Fidelity Charitable found that more than 70% of donors plan to maintain or boost their charitable giving this year.
• The 2011 Giving USA report found that total charitable giving rose by 3.8% in 2010 as compared to 2009, with higher donations by individuals, corporations, and from bequests (no change in giving amounts from foundations).

Donors will, as always, have to pick and choose among the most deserving charities. But the will to give is as strong as ever.

Today I received a fundraising email with the subject line “Bad Start to December Fundraiser.” I didn’t open it. (Would you?) It’s from an organization that I won’t name, but which I’ve come to think of as the perpetual purveyors of doom and gloom in my inbox.

With all the access to fundraising wisdom out there, explaining the need to make donors want to join your winning cause, rather than getting them worried about throwing good money after bad, shouldn’t they know better? Only a couple of weeks ago, Nancy Schwartz wrote a fine blog about how to write good email subject lines — and among her tips was “Inspire, don’t guilt” people. (I talked about her post in my November 2 blog entry.)

But maybe this strategy is actually working for this group . . . . nah, probably not. I get too many emails from them telling me how badly their fundraisers are going. Time for a change in strategy.