Nolo’s Fundraising Tips for Busy Nonprofits

If your nonprofit is like most, you've defined your "major donors" based on a certain average dollar amount that they give annually and keep in touch with them accordingly. But when was the last time you examined that cutoff line?

As Richard Male points out in a recent article made available by the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, entitled "How to Prepare Your Nonprofit for an Economic Recession," now's a good time to lower the dollar threshold and widen your pool of major donors. That gives you more people to whom you reach out, make personal connections with, and ultimately come to rely on to keep your nonprofit viable.

No matter what the economy, his suggestion also carries important implications about not getting into a fundraising rut. Looking at whether your relationships with donors (both major and minor ones) reflect current economic realities and allow you to maximize the degree to which they feel connected to your organization is always a good thing.

Turns out corporate CEOs -- who are usually among the reliable attendees of charity golf tournaments -- don't want to be seen playing golf these days. Something about how it's not good for their image at the same time they're laying people off.

For the full story, see this June 23, 2009 USA TODAY article.

That's the suggestion made by coaches interviewed in this article by Julie Deardoff of the Chicago Tribune. Problems include runners who push themselves harder than they should, feeling they owe it to the charity, and others who decide they're going to make it to the finish line even if they have to stay until well after dark, when the help stations and others have packed up and gone.

Deardoff's article also notes a number of the wonderful things about athletic events built around fundraising, including the extra charge participants get by working together with others toward a cause.

But there's a warning flag in this article for any charity that puts on marathons or similar events -- you don't want to be the one that's a little lax on safety standards, leading to a major injury or safety problem that makes the contributors to this article look prophetic.

A study by the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund found that, among American women, almost half make the decisions on which charities their household will support and how much to give them. Although that's not a majority, it starts getting more significant when you see that the vast majority of men (92%) say their wives are their primary source of influence in making charitable-gift decisions.

And who's influencing these influential wives? Their friends, family, and coworkers.

So now you know which networks to tap into -- and who to ask for when you call a donor's home.

I'm just back from a vacation on the East Coast, which included some long, lovely drives through the small towns of upstate New York. The weather was balmy, the people were friendly. Nevertheless, I believe I alienated an entire small-town fire department -- and all due to their assumption that I knew about their fundraising cause.

There we were, my husband driving his father's car (with New York plates, so that no one knew we were hapless tourists), watching Memorial Day flags flutter from porches and barbecue smoke rise from backyards, when we saw a sign saying "Boot Drive Ahead." I asked my husband, "What's a Boot Drive?" He grew up in Buffalo, so he had more chance of knowing than I. Neither of us had a clue -- it sounded like some traffic penalty, like when they put a big metal thingy around your tire for not knowing that Oakland street-sweepers don't observe a certain federal holiday.

Rows of people lined the town's main street, including some firefighters in uniform, whose backs happened to be turned to us as we made our way along. Then a policeman very sternly motioned for us to stop. We did, but didn't roll down our windows. He gave us a dirty look and let us zoom off (somewhat eagerly, confused by the whole experience).

Only then did the other shoe (or boot) drop. In the rearview mirror, I saw a fireman holding a boot out toward a car. He was collecting money, presumably to support the local fire department. Oops. We did offer some green to the next town's boot-wielding fireman. But c'mon folks, a little more signage would have helped. There's nothing tacky about saying something like, "Support Your Local Fire Department!" Moral of the story: Vagueness in fundraising leads to lost chances to interact with potential donors.

The latest in Nolo's nonprofit podcast series is available for listening. It's an interview with Jennifer Spoerri, PR consultant, about how nonprofits can turn these tough economic times into valuable media opportunities. Listen here. 

Say whatever you like about social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter -- and the overabundance of information they generate -- but for cash-strapped nonprofits, they offer enticing ways of putting your message in front of more people's eyeballs, for free.

If you're the time-stressed person in charge of creating material for such online forays, you'll appreciate that Twitter is (at least for today), the most time-efficient of them all, with its mandate that you restrict your update messages to 140 characters. And now there's a new twist (or is that "tweest"?): Charity Tuesdays.

Through some grassroots organic process, Tweeters have started a nonprofit-themed meme and have been posting updates about their favorite charities on Tuesday. They tag the message with "#charitytuesday" so that others can easily search for these entries, and the phrase will appear in the right column of the site under the top 10 "trending topics" if enough people use it (as has been the case today).

There's nothing to stop you, as a nonprofit, from posting your own Charity Tuesday messages about your work. Just encouraging people to support your cause may be enough, though the catchier you can make your entry, the better. Hint: It's better to say something pointing directly to the cause, like, "Help hungry kids or animals," than to say "Support our group." And if other individuals like your phrasing or your cause enough, they'll even retweet your message!

Here are some sample tweets that show a couple of ways the #charitytuesday tag has been used:

• From Twitter user @nikki_madebig: "#charitytuesday we need YOUR causes!!! http://madebig.com/ has over 350 cause, but we need MORE!!! join us 2day! http://bitly.com/VjC1e"
• From Twitter user @WPCL_Teens: "Help your local library on #charitytuesday! (We're in West Chester, PA!)"
  

With many nonprofits still struggling to integrate modern technology into their fundraising and other activities, it's worth giving a special round of applause to those whose websites earned nominations for the prestigious Webby awards, honoring the best of the Web. (We'll set aside for the moment the fact that one of these nonprofits, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, probably has no lack of technological expertise at its disposal.)

The nominees include the aforementioned Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Causecast ("where media, philanthropy, social networking, entertainment, and education converge"); charity: water (yes, that's really its name, apparently a clever way to capitalize on people's Web searches); Outward Bound; and The Nature Conservancy.

A quick glance at these sites reveals what the judges admired, and what other nonprofits designing their websites can learn from. Most of them show clear organization, an up-front and brief explanation of their mission, colorful and vivid use of photos and images, interesting content, and other clever ways to draw in readers and get them more involved in the cause.

Although the Webby awards aren't specifically about these websites' effectiveness in bringing in funds, check out the methods that some of them use. For example, the Nature Conservancy puts a number of donation and other options under the heading "how you can help," and encloses it all in a bright yellow box -- the brightest thing on the page. Charity: water opens its site with inspirational video, and offers two buttons underneath; "enter site," and "donate $33." Note that these don't appear too pushy; they're just a realistic part of supporting a good cause.
 
The Webby winner will be announced on June 8th. For more detailed tips on creating a website that's effective for fundraising purposes, see my article, "Using Your Nonprofit's Website to Help Fundraise."

I just came across a fundraising letter that -- with apologies to the sender, who shall remain unnamed -- seems like a good lesson in how NOT to write a first paragraph.

It goes like this: "During recent months, our world has been experiencing swift and constant change. The challenges of our current times are, however, underscored by a feeling of hope for the future. While the weight of the global financial crisis presses upon us, the generosity of our supporters encourages us to continue our efforts..."

Are you excited by reading this? Did you learn anything new? Were any questions or mysteries raised that the rest of the letter will solve (other than the mystery of what effort or cause the writer will eventually ask your support for)?

To me, this opening sounds generic, like a speech that any political figure might give. It's not at all conversational, and therefore impersonal. What's more, it doesn't give any clues about the relationship between sender and recipient, why exactly the sender is writing, or why we should keep reading.

A good fundraising letter starts with a strong personal message, and preferably a hook that draws people in. You're dealing with nanoseconds here -- that's all the time you have before most readers say, "Just another fundraising letter," and aim yours at the recycling bin. For examples of catchy, interesting fundraising letters and more details on how to write one, see the lengthy discussion in Chapter 4 of my book, Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits.

Check out law professor Vaughn E. James' description of the disastrous sequence of events leading to a possible bankruptcy filing by the Children's Museum of Los Angeles. And here's my even shorter version of the story:

New building constructed but needing millions more to finish and furnish + big pledge that seems like it will save the day + donor assets then frozen due to alleged corruption = big problem for nonprofit

As if we needed further reminders that rich and successful people aren't always what they appear to be... but perhaps this is a lesson in needing to look further and not pin the entire success of one's plans on one pledge.

Making the most of your nonprofit's web presence is no longer just a cool option, it's your best bet economically, when every stamp costs more money than your budget allows.

For ideas on expanding your online opportunities, check out news of this recent announcement from YouTube, which allows nonprofits, for free, to overlay ads onto videos they post. (Don't have a video? This is a perfect project for a volunteer or intern.)

Or, look at what other nonprofits are doing on Twitter. 

But don't forget the basics: A website that tells people who you are and what you do, with clear explanation of why you're a reliable and worthy place to send their money. For more information on this topic, see my article, "Using Your Nonprofit's Website to Help Fundraise," and this recent survey report about where nonprofit websites fall short.

Every nonprofit knows that telling its donors or funders, "We'll go under without some money!" is no recipe for fundraising success. As dire as the need for services to the clients or cause may be, the inevitable underlying message is, "We're kind of a mess, perhaps not the model of efficiency you'd want working on this cause or chewing through your money."

Yet many nonprofits, forgetting this lesson and driven by some very real desperation, regularly pull out the "Help, this is it!" message anyway.

Well, if ever there were a reason to tone down the desperation, it's expressed in the recent article in The New York Times by Stephanie Strom, called "As Detroit Struggles, Foundations Shift Mission." It quotes a University of Michigan professor, Larry Gant, who articulates what local Detroit charitable foundations are carrying out in practice: "Insolvent organizations need to be dissolved, weak ones need to be merged and acquired, and only the strongest should receive the stimulus they need to become more financially sound."

Gulp. By way of example, the article discusses one organization on the way to insolvency that a foundation guided into a merger with another organization. It was probably one of the lucky ones -- others are no doubt receiving outright "no's" to funding. If it were my organization, I'd want to take a hard look at my position before approaching a foundation, and if some radical change like a merger is the only realistic hope, have my plan in hand before seeking new money. Let them see that you've got your turnaround plan in place -- a light at the end of the tunnel.

So, the Girl Scouts have gotten themselves into a flap about whether they should be forbidding use of the Internet as a way of selling cookies. It seems that door-to-door is okay; and marketing your cookies on the Internet is okay; but once a girl (in this case, a particular girl named Wild) starts actually letting customers order online, that's either unfair to other girls or a safety risk. Not exactly a bright dividing line.

You'll find the whole story, called "The Cookie Crumbles," written up by Kurt Soller in Newsweek. He raises the important points that Internet sales are not necessarily safer than knocking on strangers' doors, and that a little entrepreneurship should probably be rewarded rather than slapped down, especially in a world where kids will need to know how to use the Internet (at least until the Next Big Thing comes along).

Another point that didn't get raised in the article, which may also underlie the unease with Internet sales, is that the girl in question had her parents' help in setting up the website, and not all Girl Scouts have that opportunity. That's a little troubling, but hardly new. I remember being irked as a kid when other parents took the cookies to work and sold them, while my dad worked at home and had no office to peddle sweets at. Here's hoping the Girl Scouts find a way to make this a "teaching moment" about Internet usage for all concerned, rather than get into an impossible enforcement effort.

And while we're on the topic, when is a major nonprofit going to come up with healthier snacks to sell?

Confession first: I based that headline on a sample of one. Namely me.

But I've noticed over the years that one of the secret pleasures of volunteering is feeling like I'm part of the "inner circle" of a cool group that's providing a great service.

Most recently, in volunteering to walk and socialize with dogs at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, I actually get to meet the adoptable dogs before members of the public do. Like the two here: The smiling Pomeranian is Popcorn, and the cone-wearing one, whose parentage I don't know, is Pippi. If I were looking for a dog right now, I'd be in a prime position to choose my new friend (not that it didn't take all my willpower not to tuck these two into my car and drive off... ).

I'm sure nonprofits can do more to capitalize on sentiments like mine, both to recruit and keep more volunteers, and to get donors interested as well. I've already heard of theater companies that give major donors a "backstage tour". What else can your group do?

How far will Rob Gitin go to get a date with Sarah Silverman? And how much will people pay his homeless-youth nonprofit to spur him on? Find out in this San Francisco Chronicle article -- and pick up some tips about online fundraising, while you're at it.