Nolo’s Fundraising Tips for Busy Nonprofits

I once met an artist -- not a starving artist, but not a rich one, either -- whose favorite way to have fun was to attend fundraising galas. She liked the sense of a grand occasion, the chance to learn something, and the opportunity to meet new people who shared an interest in a good cause. (She was single, which may also have had something to do with it.) She didn't serve on any boards, or do any other nonprofit-related activities; attending these events was basically it.

Now, I've never met anyone like her before, or since. But it has made me wonder, when I attend fundraising events, whether she or someone else who wasn't closely connected to the organization would, in fact, have a good time.

In many cases the answer is no -- especially if one's purpose in attending is to meet new people. Most guests at gala events arrive with their own group of friends, sit with their friends, and talk to their friends and only a select few others all evening. Board members and volunteers tend to be either reconnecting with each other or chatting up major donors. An outsider could feel pretty isolated.

Given that your planners already have plenty on their plate, I'm not suggesting restructuring the entire event for my sample-of-one single-woman friend. But it does make me wonder whether there are simple ways to get people out of their core groups and mixing a bit more at such events. Meeting like-minded people might even serve to increase their connectedness with the nonprofit they've chosen to support.

Making sure to have nametags might be a good start. But when will they make use of these in introducing themselves? It's helpful to leave some time for guests to walk around and mingle -- perhaps while looking at displays about your nonprofit's work, or getting a drink --  before sitting at their designated tables. Guests at any event get very territorial, and once they're attached to a table and chair, it's hard to move them.

You might also deputize any board members or volunteers who aren't otherwise occupied to keep an eye out for guests who've arrived alone, and make sure to greet them and introduce them to others who might share their interests.  

Of course, if your nonprofit's membership is big enough, you could go all out and have a "singles-only" event, dedicated to mingling. But you might face the situation described to me by another friend who attended such an event in support of a local animal shelter: "It was fun, but mostly women who attended -- the few men in the room looked kinda overwhelmed." 
 

I recently received a forwarded email from someone I respect, encouraging me to attend an event at, he said, a "great organization."

Here are key portions of the original email. I've changed the organization's acronyms, but only from other acronyms -- collections of letters that gave me no clue as to what the organization was called, much less what it did:

"Please help us get the word out to your Bay Area friends, relations, and colleagues that ABCD will hold an informal gathering in Oakland on [date] at the [location]. . . . ABCD movement leaders will offer an overview and update on our movement's exciting new initiative:  the EFGHI Leadership Institute.

Huh? I kept reading, just to see whether I'd get more information about the organization's mission and why I should support it. Nope: Just descriptions of plans to construct various buildings, and instructions on where I could give online.

If I'd already known about the organization, the email would, I assume, have made sense. But even then, I wonder, would I have been moved to give? How about a little reminder of why their mission and projects are important to me? What's more, the email's writers clearly didn't give even half a thought to the prospect that their well-meaning supporters would forward the email to others. They should have! 

Years after the fact, a random memory of a certain special event gone bad can cause me to cringe. So I thought I'd collect some ideas for how you can avoid a similar syndrome:

1) Coach your registration desk volunteers on what to do or who to call if someone shows up without a ticket -- it might be a major donor.

2) Coach your emcee on how how to pronounce the names of people who will be recognized or thanked. Stumbling over the keynote speaker's last name, for example, won't endear the speaker to your group, and your guests may conclude that he or she is not so important after all.

3) Attend to the bodily basics -- make sure key people know where the extra toilet paper is, and that whoever has the master restroom key doesn't go home early!

4) Put a time limit on speeches and enforce it equally for everyone.

5) If drinks are to be served at a bar, choose a server who knows how and when to cut people off.

6) If you'll be thanking people, don't rely on memory. Bring a list that you've checked five times beforehand, and follow that with a blanket statement about the "many other wonderful people who have helped out in so many ways."

7) Get the food served on time. Hungry people get grumpy. If you're not having the event professionally catered, make sure that some of the people involved have served food to crowds before, and have a well-considered plan for getting everyone fed by a certain time. (Hint: Buffet lines are fastest for serving, with people able to line up on either side.)

8) Don't give anyone food poisoning. Check with your local health department for its standards on refrigeration and how long different items can safely sit out.

I'm glad to say that not all of these mini-disasters have happened to me -- but I've seen many of them happen! And most can be averted with some advance planning.

Is it my imagination, or was there a lot less regulation of bake sales when I was a kid?

I've been noodling around the Internet, and a surprising number of cities and counties -- from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois to Lewiston, Maine -- require nonprofit groups (and others) to get a permit before holding a bake sale.

Not all areas charge for the permit, and the majority still let you go ahead without one. But even the no-permit areas are paying increasing attention to the health issues surrounding selling food to the public, and expect bake sales to comply. And I wouldn't want to be the group that makes the paper because of a "permit bust" or a Salmonella outbreak.

Who knew that the humble cream pie was such a villain? I'm seeing it over and over again, on everyone's "DO NOT SELL!" list even for groups that have a permit. Apparently all the milk and eggs make a lovely recipe for not only custard, but for bacterial growth when left outside a refrigerator.  

In the absence of any national rules, here's what I'd suggest if you're planning a bake sale:

1. Call your local health or food service department to find out the permit and any other rules. Follow them.
   
2. Take your own steps to avoid being the cause of health problems, such as reminding your bakers to be extra careful about cleanliness in the food prep process, wrapping or covering everything in plastic at the sale, and serving with tongs.
3. Ask bakers to create labels with full and accurate lists of ingredients, in case buyers have allergies. (Peanuts, wheat, and dairy are common concerns.)
   
4. Whatever you do, don't serve cream pies. Or pumpkin, or meringue.
   

How did we all survive childhood, I wonder?

The Lawrence Hall of Science, in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus, is known primarily as a place to take your kids to learn about math and science. So you've got to hand it to whoever there thought up "Geek Out Night," their new-ish monthly event where adults can mingle, meet scientists, play with the exhibits that are usually surrounded by a crowd of kids, and visit a cash bar.

It's not an event that every nonprofit can repeat -- but worth noting is how the organization took its existing assets and found a new (and fun) way to use them, reaching a different audience.

Too bad I missed the one where you bring in your broken old electronics (toasters, DVD players, etc.) and their experts helped you take it apart, put it back together, and see if you could make it work!

I don't usually follow the sports news -- much less point other people to it -- but you've got to check out this article by Rick Reilly, of ESPN Magazine.

It's about a curmedgeonly lawyer named Alfred G. Rava who attended an A's game to benefit breast cancer causes, at which women were offered free mammgrams and floppy plaid sun hats. When Rava didn't get a hat (because he's a man), he sued.

I wish I could offer some words of wisdom about how to avoid such situations, but complainers like this guy are hard to anticipate.

In the meantime, comfort can be drawn from Reilly's report that other A's fans have shown no interest in cashing in on the settlement that resulted from the lawsuit.

 

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 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?

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.

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.