Author: Hank Lewis, MA, CFRM

Responsible planning, in any economy, involves identifying sources of funding sufficient to ensure continuation/survival of the programs that satisfy the needs of the people and the communities you serve.

Ensuring the funding of your programs requires that you minimize the risk of (again?) losing a large percentage of your income.

According to “Giving USA 2010,” in 2009, over 88% of the non-governmental dollars that went to Non-Profit Organizations came from individual donors or their estates. And, common wisdom is that at least 80% of that amount — or 65% of all non-government dollars — came from major gifts from individuals.

And even though everybody, including the wealthy, has been impacted by the economy, major donors are still a reliable source of funding.

Their gifts may be smaller than before the “recession,” but if they still have the means, if you still have a relationship with them and if they have a need you can satisfy by getting them to give to you, then they are still major gift prospects.

For an NPO without a major gifts program, now is the time to look seriously at creating one. Indicators (including the increase in spending over the holidays) are that people’s attitudes/outlooks about the economy have turned positive, and the people that are spending are (or should be) your prospects.

A major gift program is no more than the step-by-step identification, cultivation, involvement and (timely) solicitation of a number of individuals … each in their own timeframe. (See: Who Is A Major Gift Prospect?)

The difference between successful and unsuccessful major gift programs is the effort placed on identifying and cultivating prospective major gift prospects. It is the determination of who has access to people with wealth, who is the best person to guide the cultivation process for each individual, and who is the best person to know when the time is right to ask … and then do the “asking.”

A Major Gifts Program is easier to design and implement, and more cost effective than direct mail and the vast majority of events. Major gifts are also a more reliable source of long-term funding than are corporate and foundation grants.

The big question is whether your organization is getting your share of the major gifts money that has been and is still supporting so many nonprofits !!

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your fundraising program? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

Over the years, the biggest mistake that many non-profits made was believing that Grants from Corporations, Foundations and Government would continue at former levels.

Giving by foundations and corporations is dependent upon their available resources, and during the recent “low period” in the stock market their assets shrank dramatically. And, obviously, with shrunken portfolios, they were less able to make grants at the same levels as in prior years – if at all.

•   In a period where the stock market lost almost one-third of its value,
    a non-profit that relied on foundation support went way beyond wishful
    thinking – it bordered on denial of reality !!

•   Where corporations laid off employees and looked for government bailouts,
    counting on corporate support was foolhardy.

•   In that economy, where there was a lot less government money going
    to non-profit organizations, relying on federal, state or local support
    was delusional.

•   It’s was also dangerous to rely on special events; as, during a recession,
    paying to attend an event is likely to drop very low on people’s lists
    of priorities.

While governments cut complete line items, and few foundations or corporations wanted-or-were-able to extend their commitments to non-profit organizations, NPOs still had their commitments to the people they served.

So, when the grant for a specific program ran out and didn’t get renewed, did you end that program and discontinue service to those who needed it, or did you have a backup source of ongoing funding ??

When the event you relied on to fund your programs/operations didn’t do as well as you’d hoped, did you tell the people you serve that you “can’t help them right now” ??

Were you able to continue your programs at prior levels ?? Did you maintain or reduce service to your constituency ?? What did you do ??

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your fundraising program? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

Publicity is an important part of any extended campaign … serving many purposes.
• Multiple opportunities to tell how the Project
  will benefit the community
• Public recognition to the Institutional and
  Campaign Leaders, and selected donors
• Creating and maintaining community
  enthusiasm

There must, however, be specific conditions and a strict timetable for the release of information.

If a goal is not reached, if the campaign fails, then the message everybody gets is that the NPO’s leadership does not have its act together and that people probably shouldn’t trust them with their money. The whole point, therefore, of not announcing or suggesting a campaign is to avoid a public failure.

If you have a significant percentage of the goal already committed and you KNOW (not hope) where the rest is coming from, then it’s safe to make “announcements,” but not before then.

Most publicity that a Campaign gets will be “old news,” but it will be the first time the public gets to hear it.

The official announcement (first press release) is about the person who has volunteered to Chair the Campaign and who has made a significant (pace-setting) commitment. That release, and most subsequent publicity, will also include some stock wording about the Project the Campaign will fund … why the community needs that Project, or how the community will benefit.

Keep in mind, this is the first “announcement” of any kind to be made regarding the Campaign. No mention is made at this point of how much has been raised. The impression to be created is that the process of assembling the leadership is only just beginning, and the only mention of dollars is about The Goal.

Statements of total dollars raised or the posting of a “campaign thermometer,” are not made until well into the Public Phase.

Publicity, for the most part, focuses on people … the leaders, the work they’re doing to ensure Campaign success, what they’ve accomplished so far, and (as appropriate – and with their permission) the actual commitment they’ve made toward the Campaign Goal.

The next series of announcements, one-at-a-time and at the appropriate time, are about the people who have volunteered to lead various Divisions, how all of the Board Members have made commitments … totaling $XXXXX, and how successful each of the Divisions has been, dollar-wise.

All of that publicity spread out over the Public Phase of the Campaign, maintains enthusiasm and begins to give recognition to the Campaign leadership and some of the major donors who got the Campaign off to a running start.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

The “Lowest-Rated” prospects are those who are left after the (“higher-rated”) prospects from all the other Divisions have been assigned; and, considering that condition, this segment of your constituency should not be solicited until all of the “higher-rated” prospects have been solicited. As noted, these are the prospects for whom you have no idea of the likely amount of their commitments.

In one small community, all of the newspapers serving that area carried stories about the need for the Campaign. Each story included a pledge form the reader could cut out, fill out and send to a specific Community Gifts Campaign address.

This is a don’t-hold-your-breath-waiting-for-the-commitments-to-roll-in situation, but it is good public relations, good marketing and it does give “everyone” a chance to be part of helping their community.

In another small community, the Chair of the Community Gifts Division, with others helping, recruited 50-60 volunteers (who first made their own gifts/pledges) to go door-to-door in their neighborhoods. We used the local high school auditorium and conducted a training session to educate them about all aspects of the Project the Campaign will fund. We suggested wording they might use to “Ask” for the gift, provided blank pledge cards for their use, described how the pledge cards should be filled out, and answered everybody’s questions.

The Division Chair worked with a large number of Co-Chairs and Captains to make sure that there was someone to knock on every door, and to be sure that there’d be no duplication of effort.

In one community, the banks comprised a separate Division that was solicited by a Chair and members of a committee representing each of the banks. When it was time to take the Campaign to the Community, all of the banks included a small Campaign brochure and a pledge card in the mailings of their monthly statements to their customers.

For a national/statewide organization, face-to-face solicitation is impractical/unlikely, and the constituents of this Membership Gifts Division can be solicited by mail and/or telephone – a combination of both would be best. (Watch for my posting on Mass-Solicitation.)

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

“Lower-Rated” refers to those prospects whose gifts/commitments will fall outside of the definition of a “major gift.” (See: What is A Major Gift?) That doesn’t mean that the total giving from those prospects would be an insignificant dollar figure … it just means that there’d be a relatively large number of prospects, requiring a large number of solicitors/volunteer workers … and that you may not be able to solicit all of these prospects on a face-to-face basis.

These are the prospects whose support you shouldn’t need to reach your Campaign Goal. But, as this is likely to be a large segment of your constituency — a large number of prospects, there are some strong reasons you’d want them to be part of the Campaign:
  (1) The more strongly your community is “bonded” to your organization,
  the more likely they’ll $upport you on an ongoing basis;
  (2) The greater the number of community members who support your
  organization, the more likely foundations will be willing to $upport you; and,
  (3) The more support you get from the broad community, the more likely
  Major Donors will want to be (visibly) associated with you … on an
  ongoing basis.

I referred earlier to Divisions tasked with obtaining gifts in various specific dollar ranges (i.e., $3,000-$5,999 and/or $6,000-$9.999). Prospects for these ranges of commitments are often assigned to the Special Gifts Division.

And, prospects for whom you have no idea of the likely amount of their commitments would be assigned to the General Gifts, Membership Gifts or Community Gifts Division (whatever name works best for your circumstances and that segment of your constituency).

Ideally the Special Gifts prospects will all be solicited on a face-to-face basis – the example (in my previous posting), showing the breakdown for 186 prospects, is typical for this particular Division.

Prospects in the General Gifts Division, the largest segment of your constituency, can be approached in many different ways, depending on the size of the group and their locations. (See my posting this Thursday, December 10, discussing some possible methods of soliciting these large constituencies.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

There are a number of rules for the solicitation of gifts/commitments to a campaign:

A solicitor…
(1) Must make his/her campaign commitment before s/he can solicit commitments from
others;
(2) With few exceptions, can only ask for commitments equal to or less than that which s/he has made; and,
(3) Should be the best person to be asking a particular prospect for his/her commitment.

Simply, a solicitor, to be credible, should be able to tell a prospect that s/he has already made his/her commitment, and s/he must be able to avoid having the prospect ask, “Why should I make a gift that of that amount when you didn’t?” And, the solicitation is more likely to go smoothly/successfully if the solicitor and prospect have a prior (positive) relationship.

(4) There is also a rule that limits to 5-6 the number of prospects assigned to any one solicitor at any one time. Volunteers should feel that it’s relatively easy to solicit the few prospects they’ve been assigned … and you want to avoid solicitor burnout.

The number of volunteer solicitors needed in any one Division depends on the number of prospects in that segment of the constituency. For example:

If a Division has 186 prospects, approximately 36 of those
individuals would need to be recruited to be solicitors.

That’s 1 Division Chair … who recruits/educates/solicits
6 Division Co-Chairs or Vice-Chairs … who recruit/educate/solicit
30 Division Captains … who solicit the remaining 150 prospects.

There are, of course, exceptions – any number of prospects can be assigned to a solicitor (a few at a time), depending on the willingness of the solicitor, his/her level of success in prior solicitations and the quality of his/her relationships with other likely prospects.

It’s also possible that you can have some solicitors with only 1 or 2 prospects to approach – simply because of the relationship (or lack of such) between the volunteer and prospective donors.

5) Each solicitor should have a pledge card/form for each assigned prospect … with the name of the prospect already on the card. During the solicitation, after the specific dollar “Ask” has been made and agreed to, the solicitor brings out the pledge card and asks for a signature.

(6) If, for whatever reason, a prospect is not ready/willing to sign the pledge form, it should never be left with the prospect. The solicitor must make another appointment to come back to get the card signed. Leaving the card risks never seeing it again.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

Leadership is the key factor in any capital campaign – leadership that energizes the process from its onset. So, to start a campaign, the first donors must be Board Members.

These individuals must set an example with their level of giving so they have the credibility/leverage to solicit the other Board Members and so they can legitimately recruit and solicit the Campaign Chair.

Ideally, the Campaign Chair makes the largest commitment … so s/he can legitimately solicit commitments from anyone else, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

The largest donor, in any case, should be one of the first few to make his/her commitment, and should be available to lend his/her “clout” to the recruitment and/or solicitation of the top campaign leaders and (possibly) to that of some highly visible community leaders.

(Recruiting leaders includes educating them as to their responsibilities in “setting an example,” recruiting other leaders to participate in the process, asking others to make commitments of specific dollar amounts, and adhering to the campaign timetable.)

Sticking with the hospital as the example, once the Campaign Chair has signed on and made his/her commitment, s/he and (possibly) one-or-two Board Members will recruit the Hospital Family Chair. They will then work with that Chair to identify and recruit the Chairs for the “campaigns” for the Board and the Administration.

Then, with the advice and counsel of the Administration, the Hospital Family Chair will recruit and solicit the Chairs for the Medical Staff, Nursing Staff and each of the other Sub-Divisions of the Family.

When the time is right, the Campaign Chair (often with “assistance” of one or more Board Members) will recruit and solicit those individuals who have been identified as the best candidates to be Division Chairs – keeping in mind that no Division Chair should be recruited until close to the time when their “services” will actually be needed.

The Campaign Chair, the various Division Chairs, a representative of the Board (to ensure compliance with Organizational Policies) and the NPO’s CEO (to advise on matters relating to the Hospital Family and the NPO’s mission) will comprise the Campaign Cabinet – which will have total responsibility for conducting the Campaign.

[In addition, one other member of the Cabinet should be a Campaign Treasurer – a non-Organizational-Family person whose stature in the community will lend credibility to his/her oversight of Campaign income.]

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Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving,
I’m taking a few days to do nothing more than enjoy my family.
See you next Tuesday.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

Once the “Quiet Phase” has been completed and the various “campaigns” for the Hospital Family are well under way, solicitation can begin in the next group of prospects – corporations, small businesses and the individual prospects assigned to Divisions tasked with obtaining gifts in various specific dollar ranges (i.e., $3,000-$5,999 and/or $6,000-$9.999). But … there is still no public/media mention/evidence of a campaign-in-progress.

In doing your pre-campaign planning/analysis, you would have come up with realistic dollar goals (and, for some, dollar ranges) for each Division … goals that you know, based on research, cultivation and knowledge about the people in each Division, will be attainable.

Only after commitments (from the Quiet Phase, the Hospital Family, and other Divisions tasked with raising significant percentages of the campaign goal) have reached the “Safety Point” (80% or more of the goal has been committed and you know where the rest is coming from) can the Campaign go “public.” But … “going public” doesn’t mean that everything you know must instantly become public knowledge !!

A good rule under which to operate an extended campaign is that you should be able to reach your Campaign Goal without gifts/pledges from the “lower-rated” groups of Individuals, but you proceed with each individual “campaign” until everyone you want to have involved (and everyone who might want to be involved) has become involved.

Remember, no matter how well planned and how well led your campaign might be, there’s always a chance that something can go wrong; and, since the large base of lower-rated prospects is the group you know the least about, you can’t rely on any particular outcome of that “campaign.”

Some years back (too many for me to want to count) in counselling a capital campaign for a hospital, the person recruited to chair the Division responsible for soliciting pledges from $5,000-$9,999 made the decision that all of the people assigned to that Division as prospects weren’t going to be solicited.

We had prepared pledge cards for each of those 150 prospects, the Chair took those pledge cards … ostensibly to assign prospects to his various team leaders and solicitors, then informed the campaign leadership that he wasn’t going to do what he had agreed to do.

It was a good thing we had Plan B in the safe. Luckily/happily, the campaign reached its goal. The point being: The more extensive the Planning Study and the greater the depth of campaign planning, the more likely you’ll be able to ensure success.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

As with the basic campaign, you must start with the knowledge of where the commitments will come from to achieve your dollar goal … only this time you are not limiting yourself to a relatively few major donors. This time, in addition to the major donors, you will need specific sums from different segments of your constituency.

In a campaign for a hospital, for example, at the top of the leadership pyramid are the highest-rated prospects — some major donors, prominent members of the community, some board members and (maybe) a few docs.

These individuals have responsibility for setting an example with their giving, and for recruiting and soliciting those who will be the leaders of the various segments of the campaign – including the overall campaign chair. This is the “Quiet Phase” — the solicitation of those donors whose commitments will ensure reaching the first “Safety Point” (60%, 80%, or more of the goal).

The overall Campaign is separated into smaller “campaigns,” one for each segment of the constituency – the board, the administration, the medical staff, the nursing staff, each of the other hospital departments, the auxiliary, local (large) corporations, local businesses and the various segments of the broad community.

Each of those segments/Divisions must have a Chair, a person who will set the example, and recruit and solicit those who will solicit others in their Division. The Chair of a Division must be someone who is respected by the members of his/her segment and who has the clout to successfully lead a “campaign” limited to that segment.

Typically, the Chair for each of the Divisions of the Hospital Family are members of the Division they will chair, but they are not necessarily the Heads of their Departments – great care must be exercised to avoid the appearance of a Department Head coercing members of his/her Department.

As a practical matter, the “campaign” for the Board of Trustees should precede the “campaign” for the Administrators/Executives, which should precede the “campaign” for the docs … otherwise you’ll have the docs saying, “If they didn’t, why should we?”

In that context, the “campaign” for the docs should precede the “campaign” for the nurses, and those previous four “campaigns” should precede those for the rest of the hospital staff. Realistically, because you can’t solicit one segment of a hospital family (other than the Board) without the hospital grapevine spreading the word fairly quickly, the various “campaigns” for the different segments of the hospital family tend to be implemented within the same timeframe.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

The “basic” campaign is active for a very short period of time, with relatively few donors. It is often said that if you have a $1 million goal, find someone with $1 million get them to give it to you … and your campaign is over !!

Since that doesn’t happen too often, there should be a group of prospective major donors … able to make gifts equal to and larger than one-percent of the campaign goal. This group should be large enough to ensure reaching the goal and small enough that the goal can be reached in the shortest period of time. #

If you do decide on the “basic,” no frills approach … and only involve those few major donors whose commitments will assure reaching your goal, you will be, in essence, dipping into your major gifts program. ##

The keys to a successful “basic” campaign are in knowing which of your potential major donors are “ready” to make their commitments, and knowing what amounts they are likely to commit. You can only know this if there is a relationship between the prospect and your organization, and if you have been cultivating them for long enough to know that they are ready to say, “Yes.” ###

In addition, you must know if the project for which you will ask their support is something that they feel strongly enough about to want to support it; and, those potential donors must also know that they will get the satisfaction and the recognition they want/need by supporting the campaign/project.

For the “basic” campaign, there need not be a formal campaign structure with a campaign chair and/or other designated leaders. On the other hand, if you select a chair who is well known, who is committed to the organization’s mission, strongly supports the project the campaign will fund, and who has the skills and willingness to actually solicit the other members of the small group, you will have a volunteer leader who will make-it-happen !!

Recognition for that volunteer leader, and for that small group of donors can take many forms, but all leaders/donors must be recognized individually in a way that is significant for him/her. More on “Donor Recognition” in future postings.

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#(See: Constructing The Gift Table
##(See: What is a Major Gift ?? and, Who Is A Major Gifts Prospect ??
###(See: Cultivating Major Donors

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.