Nolo’s Fundraising Tips for Busy Nonprofits

It was only a matter of time before Marge posed nude for a charity calendar, right? Don't miss it, November 15th. The episode is called "The Devil Wears Nada." 

I'm getting weary of studies that tell us what we already know: donor giving is down, foundations have less money than ever, and so forth.

But now, there's a recent study that helps nonprofits actually do something about their need to raise funds: It's from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, and apparently for the first time, has correlated motivations for giving to income and education levels. It found, to quote their press release, that:

• Among lower-income donors (income less than $50,000), the phrases that resonated as a motivation for giving were helping to meet basic needs or helping the poor help themselves.
• Donors with income between $50,000 and $100,000 were more likely than donors in either higher or lower income groups to say that they gave to "make the world better."
• Among donors with income of $100,000 or more, the phrases selected as motivations for giving included "those with more should help those with less" or "making my community better."

Here's the full press release.

Sorry, couldn't resist the alarmist title. Or reading this article on MSN.com about whether paper money can carry flu germs. Turns out, it can.

Of course, I'd never suggest that you turn away cash donations. Instead, how about suggesting to donors that now's the time to get rid of all that germ-infested money!

According to the article by Gary Strauss, "TV: It's prime time for volunteerism," in the Tuesday, October 13, 2009 issue of USA TODAY, there's a movement afoot: to promote, not only through public service announcements, but by actual examples in scripts of prime-time TV plots, the great things about volunteering for a cause.

Yes, you read that right. It's part of a project called "I Participate," and if you keep your eyes open and your tube plugged in, you might notice, for example, crime solvers on Ghost Whisperer donating blood; doctors on Private Practice treating the homeless; 12-year-old Louise on Gary Unmarried making videotaped greetings for U.S. troops; and more.

Of course, the question on everyone's lips is whether this will make a difference. But hey, Strauss points out, when the character Fonzie on Happy Days got a library card, kids all over the U.S. ran out to do the same thing.

All of which leads to another question: If more volunteers start coming your way, will you be ready? The world is full of disgruntled volunteers who started with great intentions, then dropped out because they were bored, frustrated, or felt like they weren't really make a difference.

This seems like a good time to remind readers of the basic principles of orienting and keeping volunteers (which are covered in far more detail in my book, Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits), including:

• Figure out their personal motives for volunteering, and try to satisfy those at the same time as you get some work out of them -- even if they just want to get some exercise or meet other singles!
• Train them well, and ask for a specific time commitment. Counterintuitive though it might seem, demanding more of volunteers can make them understand their own importance to your organization.
• Make their commitment as convenient as possible to fulfill, including finding ways they can work odd or irregular hours if possible.
• Make it fun! You probably need a lot of tedious tasks done, but don't lay these on too thick. Also figure out how to integrate more interesting work into the time volunteers spend at your organization, such as working directly with people or animals.
  
• Show appreciation much more often than you feel is normal. Everyone likes to hear a "thank you," or receive one in writing. Singling out volunteers in newsletters, throwing volunteer appreciation parties, or simply saying "See you next week -- and thanks again for all the great help!" are great ways to do this.

With committed volunteers at your side, you can get oodles more done, and need to fundraise less.

A fascinating article in the Boston Globe discusses how the combination of fundraising and cause-related marketing embodied in the pink ribbon (which indicates that a portion of a product's proceeds will go to breast cancer charities) is a victim of its own success.

Yes, the pink ribbon raises money for cancer research and education. But it also boosts corporate profits, creates an increasingly visible to reminder to women suffering from a disease they'd like to forget about once in a while, and for some, is just too much pink!

There's no easy lesson to be drawn here -- and many charities wish they had the problem of their cause having become overly visible -- but it is a reminder that mixing charitable work and business can create some unexpected public relations issues.

I'm reading a fascinating book called The Food of a Younger Land, by Mark Kurlansky. It's a compilation of long-lost material from the files of the Works Progress Administration, which created the Federal Writers' Project in order to put writers to work. And a bunch of them were given the task of describing regional food and food-related traditions.

The various essays provide a marvelous cross-section of American life in the 1900s -- and what cross section would be complete without a little charitable work? Enter Mr. John G. Saunders, City Sergeant of Richmond Virginia. He made a name for himself creating great vats of "Sergeant Saunders' Brunswick Stews" and selling it by the quart -- at 50 cents per, which must have seemed like a lot during the Depression -- in order to support the American Legion and other causes.

Before you're tempted to recreate this intriguing bit of history, here's a quick look at the recipe for 600 gallons of Sergeant Saunders' stew:

240 veal shins
12 beef shins
780 pounds chicken
48 pounds bacon (as a substitute for squirrel)
1,800 pounds Irish potatoes
18 bushels celery
600 pounds onions
24 dozen bushels carrots
360 pounds cabbage
150 gallons canned tomatoes
72 gallons canned corn
48 pounds butter
salt, pepper, and thyme

This mountain of ingredients must all be put into iron cauldrons and stewed for six hours.
Hmm, hiring a caterer starts to look pretty good, yes?

This new study and report in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, by Ann Goggins Gregory and Don Howard, probably won't surprise anyone in the nonprofit sector -- you've probably long gotten used to working on an ancient computer at an even more ancient desk -- but it sure is nice to hear some sympathy from a respected source. And some acknowledgment that there's only so much that nonprofits can do themselves to shift resources toward basic infrastructural needs (and thus greater efficiency down the line), when every nonprofit knows that the funders have their eye on the nonprofits' spending ratios.

It's the funders who need to wake up and realize that, in order to prevent a few nonprofits from misusing donors' funds, the vast majority are toiling away in conditions that border on the Dickensian. Take it from someone who -- not that long ago -- had to take a disk to her home computer every time she needed to print out a grant proposal.

Reading the University of Washington alumni magazine (Columns) of September 2009, I was drawn to the story of Phil Smart -- soon to be 90 years old -- and his views on volunteering.

In fact, the subject of volunteering is so important to Smart that he's written two memoirs about it -- called Angels Among Us and The Real Angels Among Us (the proceeds of which benefit Seattle's Children's Hospital). (Hey, I volunteered there during high school! I mostly remember helping kids blow bubbles during recreational therapy.)

Anyway, here's the apparent crux of Smart's thinking: Every day can be conceptually divided into three eight-hour chunks. Two of those three chunks are usually spent working and sleeping.

But it's the third eight hours, he says, that define each of us as a person. Smart has chosen to spend many of those hours volunteering (mostly at the aforementioned hospital, at the bedsides of sick and dying children). Of his time with the kids, Smart says, "They taught me life and death and everything in between."

Of course, the first thing that occurs to me and probably everyone else is that we don't exactly have an extra eight hours waiting to be filled -- those hours get eaten up quickly by commuting time, errands, making dinner, maintaining relationships with friends, and so forth. Still, it's an intriguing notion. And when you think about it, things like making dinner and seeing friends DO define us as people in important ways, and reflect sometimes unconscious priority choices.

So where does volunteering fit in? I know the answer for myself, and hope the efforts of Phil Smart and others to speak out will inspire others to devote at least a little time to a cause.

They're at it again in Britain, with a calendar featuring local women, being raffled off to support a cancer foundation. It's not clear how much is being bared on the calendar itself, but the raffle tickets have photos of the women's thighs -- and ask people to guess who they belong to. Here's the story in the Lancashire Telegraph.

It's quite the hit in Ribchester, apparently. (That's in the Ribble Valley, of course.)

All very reminiscent of the movie Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, and John Alderton. (A must-see for anyone in fundraising.) The plot involves middle-age women posing nude for a calendar in order to raise money for a local hospital.

Not that I'm suggesting anything.

It's always fun to read about an unusual fundraising idea, and here's one that caught my eye recently: Portable Playhouse, a nonprofit that visits pediatric units in hospitals and recovering women in outpatient cancer centers and helps them make their own beaded jewelry, is going for a Guinness World Record.

They aim to string together the world's longest necklace, over two miles long. For a dollar, donors can add a bead to the strand.

And as a bonus, this project is bringing them media coverage, including the following article on the Philanthropy Project's website.

Guidestar recently issued a survey showing how family foundations -- in other words, small, local, family-owned foundations with typical endowments below $10 millions -- prefer to be approached by grantseekers.

It's an important topic given that, as Guidestar points out, competition for philanthropic dollars is so high that the chances of getting a grant from one of the major, richer foundations are "slim to none."

The most important part of their survey-based advice has to do with the importance of personal relationship-building to these grantors. They really, really don't want to receive an impersonal, out-of-nowhere grant proposal!

Also notice that (at last), they prefer you get in touch via email. That should make it easier for any organization whose E.D. or development staff don't like picking up the telephone for a cold call (and know 1,000 ways to procrastinate that task).

Don't miss The Chronicle of Philanthropy's effort to do something concrete about the widespread problem of tired, uninspiring fundraising prose, by inviting readers to comment on one organization's draft appeal letter.

The proffered letter was actually pretty good to begin with. In some ways, that makes the suggestions for change even more instructive. Obvious errors like bad grammar or logical  inconsistencies are easy to deal with, and could have perhaps been spotted in-house. But all writing can be improved, and in this case the commenters give some excellent suggestions for improvement, focusing on length (notice how long the original letter takes to get to the point?) and engaging personally with the reader.

For a quick writing lesson, take a look at the letter and imagine how you'd rewrite it, then read the comments that follow. Learning to edit is a great way to learn how to write!

Is it the economy, or am I just happening to notice more news of fundraising scams -- total scams, in which people who are unaffiliated with any organization pose as canvassers in order to raise a few -- or a lotta -- bucks?

Like the woman in Oregon who's been going door to door pretending to raise money on behalf of a cat charity.

Or the young man in Urbandale, Iowa posing as the pitcher for the high school baseball team and requesting money for a supposed team trip to Hawaii.

The kids and adults approaching people in public places in Minneapolis asking for money for local parks.

And the all-too-organized effort among college-age kids in San Francisco selling $40 books, supposedly on behalf of a local hospital.

No, there's probably not much anyone can directly do about such scams -- new ones will arise as fast as old ones get tracked down. But any nonprofit doing outreach or canvassing can help potential donors distinguish the real fundraisers from the scammers by providing lots of official-looking brochures and other identification materials, and giving people a phone number that they can call for verification. (A sophisticated enough scammer can fake all this, too, but it's worth trying to stay at least a half-step ahead of them!)

Have I not ranted about this yet? Or maybe I have, but I'm still continually surprised at how often nonprofits compose a nice email and then put no thought into giving it a subject line that will make people want to open it.

Just like with mailed fundraising appeals, email readers are looking for an excuse to ignore the message. We're all swamped with email even if we receive nothing but spam! A  less than compelling subject line provides the perfect excuse to zap your email into cyber-eternity.

The worst entry lines I've seen are simply inexplicable -- using mysterious or nonsubtsantive words like, "signs" or simply the organization's acronym. Others title their emails like distress telegrams: "Donations down," or "Help, need more money." It takes a pretty committed donor to not run from that one.

A better approach? As with all types of fundraising, it's to keep people's eyes on the goal; with intriguing subject lines like, "New program close to launch," or "We did it!" Then you can share the hopeful part of your news or plans -- but explain what funding or other help you need to complete or continue similar efforts. You don't have to believe me -- divide your donors into two groups and give it a try.

Care to take a break to look at the big picture? The Giving USA Foundation, (a nonprofit whose mission is "advancing the research, education and public understanding of philanthropy") recently released its annual survey of giving trends and amounts.

Some highlights:

• Not surprisingly, giving is down, by 2%.
• Surprisingly, among the hardest hit are those charities that provide for basic human needs like food, shelter, and clothing.
  
• There's some good news: Overall giving is still over $300 billion per year, or 2.2% of U.S. GDP -- a historically strong amount, and a good indicator that people still want to give to the extent they can.
  

Click here for the press release. The report itself costs $75, but I confess I usually access it at my local Foundation Center library.