Category: Financing & Loans

Continuing from last week’s posting….

As it will not always be appropriate to run down the prepared list of questions with every interviewee, the interviewer must be able to “read people,” must be able to know when to forget the prepared questionnaire and just chat with Mr./Ms. Jones about the NPO’s issues and possible futures.

Sample interview questions might be:
* On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate the importance to you
(and to your family) of “this” aspect of the NPO’s mission?
* On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate the importance to you
(and to your family) of “this” program?
* What would it take to get you to want to be part of the leadership
for a major fundraising effort?
* What would it take to get you to want to be a major donor for
such an effort?
* What should we do to get other potential leaders/donors enthusiastic
about the project/activity we’re considering?
• When might be the best time to kick-off the program/campaign? Why?

The two major objectives in conducting the interviews are: 1) determination how/if a program/project/activity should be implemented; and, 2) beginning the cultivation of those folks who could help make it happen,

Considering those objectives, it is essential, as with all serious development activities, that those interviews be face-to-face.

You can’t be taken very seriously and you can’t read body language over the phone; and, a mailed “survey” doesn’t give the option to ask follow-up questions nor allow the interviewer to digress and/or “pick the subject’s brain.”

Being face-to-face highlights the importance of the process and, thereby, suggests that the interviewee’s thoughts/comments/reactions are very important to that process.

To prepare for the interviews, each potential interviewee is sent a brief personal note to prepare them for the phone call arranging an interview appointment.

Having done this for almost forty years, I suggest that the best structure for a “Planning Study” is to have an outsider (an experienced study consultant) work with the NPO to design and plan the study and to conduct the interviews.

An outsider is perceived as being objective. S/he is seen (by the interviewees) as not having an “agenda” … not focused on a specific outcome. The objective outsider is “merely” gathering data that will help the NPO “plan for the future.”

And, after each interview: the interviewer should generate a report summarizing the respondent’s thoughts/attitudes, and suggesting what the next step(s) might be to further cultivate that person and get him/her to the point where s/he will want to be part of (and even support) the NPO’s projects, programs and/or activities; and, the organization should send a (snail mail) note to the interviewee thanking him/her for participating.

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Want to create a Major Gifts Program, a Bequest Program, a Special Event, a Recognition Program, a Capital Campaign ??

The most important information you’d want to have is whether your (prospective) constituents/donors will agree with what you want to do, and what would motivate those folks to want to participate in and/or support your activity.

The best way to get the best answers to those questions would be to ask those (prospective) constituents/donors. And, the best way to ask would be by means of a “Planning Study.”

That the “Study” is for “Planning” purposes suggests that you’ve not committed to taking a particular action and/or to creating a specific kind of program – even though you may have!!

When you ask someone to participate in this kind of “Study,” you are asking for their advice and saying that what you do (or don’t do) will be impacted by what they say (or don’t say).

Unlike the obsolete “feasibility study,” with all its “baggage,” a “Planning Study” asks in-depth questions about a broad range of subjects. Then, based on the study’s findings, an organization will be able to proceed with programs/activities it knows will be supported by its constituents.

The “Planning Study” should almost always be the first step in the creation or expansion of a program because it is a strong means of cultivating the folks you hope will be your leaders and donors … when you do whatever it is that you’d like to do.

When you ask someone’s advice, they’re more likely to look upon you favorably … because you were smart enough to know to ask them ☺

To quote an old fundraising saying: “If you want advice, ask for money; if you want money, ask for advice.” And a “Planning Study” is a great way to ask for advice.

So, the first step in the planning study process is determining what it is that you want the study to accomplish.

The second step is the creation of a list of those folks you’d like to interview – a list that can be as long as you’d like … as long as you’re realistic. No one goes on that list unless you have or can get access to that person.

The people you want to interview are those folks who can and will likely have an impact on your ability to successfully implement the programs, campaigns and/or activities that you’re considering.

The third step is the creation of an extensive list of questions that relate to the NPO’s mission, programs, fundraising and what you want the study to accomplish. Questions must be designed/worded to avoid planting doubt as to the need for or likely success of any particular program or activity.

Next Week: The Planning Study: Implementation

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1. All Board Members Must Be Donors … to the best of their ability. Not all board members are wealthy, but everyone should give at the highest level possible for their circumstances. It is important to be able to say to the public that 100% of your board supports your mission to the best of their ability. If your board members won’t give, why should anyone else?

2. You must give people reasons that will make them want to give. That you need money is not one of those reasons. Show prospective donors how their giving will make a difference in people’s lives. And, more importantly, show them how their giving will make a difference in their own lives.

3. The best person-to-person fundraiser is a well-trained and well-motivated volunteer who solicits his/her peers, friends, family and colleagues. Professional fundraising staff or counsel can help you design and run your program and train your volunteers, but staff and counsel cannot usually do as good a job soliciting as can an impassioned volunteer. (And, remember, Board Members are volunteers.)

4. You must do Adequate Planning/Research before implementing any fundraising strategy — no matter the size of the gifts you’re soliciting or the goal you need to reach. And, you should, periodically, test variations of your methodology to ensure that your efforts are as (cost-)effective as possible.

5. You must have a means/method of tracking your fundraising and leadership prospects, your donors and your contacts with them. If you’re a very small organization and only have a few prospects/donors, you could probably use file folders and/or spreadsheets; but, once you have significant numbers of individuals to track, you must have the appropriate computer software.

There are many brands of such software, some are free, some are expensive, but don’t buy on the basis of cost. Select the software that will allow you the best use of the data you will collect. And don’t try to design your own — unless you’re a fundraising database expert, you don’t know what information to collect, how to arrange it, and how you’re going to use it.

6. Please, do not write your own fundraising materials … not until you have the required experience/expertise/perspective. And, if you insist on doing so, pay an experienced development professional to review and comment on your writing.

Writing for fundraising is an Art. Most fundraising letters, case statements, grant proposals, etc, are nowhere near as effective as they could be. Many fundraising letters (and you’ve probably gotten some of them) are really terrible.

7. You must diversify your sources of funding for your fundraising program to be successful over the long term. Every time the economy takes a hit, foundations, government and corporations reduce their funding of non-profits. The greater the number of individual major donors an organization has, the smaller the chance that an economic downturn will force you to reduce services to your community.

8. DO NOT assume that a special event will make everything better!! You can’t expect to create a special event and have it be instantaneously successful. An event most often requires a multi-year period to establish itself and begin generating enough income to do more than pay its own costs.

A great number of attendees at special events are paying for entertainment or to “honor” someone they care about. You can’t count on those people buying tickets every year. They may find an event that’s more entertaining or that has an “honoree” to whom they feel a greater connection.

9. All donors must be thanked/recognized for their gifts, but not every donor wants to be thanked/recognized in the same way. Some like seeing their names in print, some don’t; some like plaques, some don’t; some like old-fashioned letters, some prefer email; the better you know your donors, the more appropriately you can thank/recognize them.

10. A successful fundraising program should be designed based on the needs of your donors, not on the needs of the organization. Donors give to satisfy their own needs, and then, maybe yours.

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They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)

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or expanding your fundraising program?
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Look forward to hearing from you.
Comments & Questions
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There’s been frequent discussion about a Board Member’s obligation to contribute to his/her nonprofit; and, what that boils down to is that every Board Member must set an example by giving to the best of his/her ability.

Even a dollar (if that’s all s/he can afford) will help demonstrate, to other potential (individual and institutional) funders, that every Board Member has “supported” their organization.

Keep in mind that other potential donors, especially those who’d make the larger gifts, would have less reason/motivation to give if they see that an organization does not have 100%, wholehearted, Board Member participation.

In addition, a Board Member:
1. Helps to identify other potential donors;
2. Conveys to those individuals the depth of his feeling/passion for the organization and its mission;
3. Exhibits the satisfaction that she gets from seeing how people are helped by what the organization does; and,
4. Gets the prospective donor to where she wants to share in those feelings.

The nonprofit Board Member should be a visible example of how a potential donor can share in the warm-and-fuzzies of being part of something really rewarding/satisfying.

Board Members may not all be major donors, and may not all be involved in the identification, cultivation and solicitation of donors, but all Board Members do have to be involved. Their level of involvement makes a statement to others as to their level of commitment…. Sometimes, what they don’t do also makes a statement.

Everything that Board Members do can impact (positively or negatively) the organization’s ability to engender charitable support.

A Board Member is someone who sets an example, and by example gets others to want to become donors/advocates/leaders to that organization.

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Have you heard about
The Fundraising Series of ebooks?
They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating
or expanding your fundraising program?
AskHank
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We welcome your questions/problems —
they are likely to engender further discussion.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Comments & Questions
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A few years ago I asked: “Does your nonprofit have a Director of Development who Isn’t?” Since then, I’ve encountered organizations with “Philanthropy Coordinators,” “Fund Directors,” “Donor Managers,” and people with equally unimpressive titles – people who didn’t know the definition of “Development.”

So many nonprofits are hiring people for all-or-part of their fundraising/development operations without knowing what to look for in candidates for those positions.

If an organization’s CEO (or whomever is doing the searching/hiring) doesn’t understand what development is all about, how can that person hire someone who will be effective as a development officer??

A development officer is someone who knows/understands the NPO,
its mission, its leadership and its hopes and aspirations. He/She
has the experience and skills to help the organization plan for
next week, next year, and (strategically) for a number of years;
and, he/she plays a major role in ensuring the organization’s future.

A development officer’s primary role should not be as a fundraiser. She/he serves best, most effectively, as a planner, trainer, designer and coordinator of the various programs that comprise a development operation. There will be occasions, of course, where this person’s experience/skills/perception makes him/her the right one to ask for the gift, but not always and not often.

This person should have input at all levels, should be able to guide/train the board members, the CEO and staff, and should be able to bring to all of them an awareness and understanding of how they affect the development process and how they can make that process more effective.

An NPO that hires people just to fill a slot, that doesn’t hire qualified development people, puts its future at risk. If a CEO doesn’t know what to look for in a candidate, she/he should find someone who knows what to look for, and have that person help with the search. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt if that CEO were to ask for help in determining what development activities it needs and how they should be structured. That way you’ll know what to look for in a development candidate.

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Have you heard about
The Fundraising Series of ebooks?
They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating
or expanding your fundraising program?
AskHank
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We welcome your questions/problems —
they are likely to engender further discussion.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Comments & Questions
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“Development” is, by definition, the process of creating and enhancing relationships with (potential) donors to ensure current and future funding; “Fundraising” is only about income generation.

With “Development,” with the relationships you create, you take a major step toward ensuring future income; with “Fundraising,” income generation focuses on “now,” with no provision, no assurance, and little-or-any potential for the future.

If people’s giving provides the opportunity for them to feel good about helping to advance the organization’s mission and services, if they give because they want to please the person who is “asking,” because they want to see their name alongside the names of recognizable personalities, or if they want to see their name on (a floor, a wing, or on the outside of) a building, those reasons, for the most part, have to do with satisfying the needs of the donor.

If you create/maintain relationships with donors, you increase the likelihood that they will continue to give — that’s “Development.” If all you do is “Fundraising,” you make it that much harder to ensure your organization’s future.

Fundraising is like a band-aid, Development is closer to a cure.

“Development” is more about people “giving” to an organization than it is buying a product, a recognition opportunity or a ticket to an event. “Giving” implies not expecting anything in return … except for that “good feeling.”

“Development” is also about understanding who your (prospective) (long-term) donors are, and what you have to do to get them to want to support your organization.

Whether it’s a Corporation, a Foundation, a prospective Major Donor or the recipient of a mass solicitation, they’re not going to write you a check if you don’t show them that doing so will satisfy their needs.

Getting a Corporation to want to give to a non-profit is a simple matter of learning, understanding and acting on the needs of the corporation and those of its decision makers. Will supporting your NPO help the corporation’s marketing efforts and increase its revenue? Will supporting your NPO and espousing your cause make the corporate leaders look good? … feel good ??

Foundations give based on their mission and the needs of the foundation leadership. Do you try to create relationships with foundations whose leaders feel strongly about your programs and activities and about the people you serve? Do you know who those leaders are and what is important to them?

To get individual (potential) major donors to want to give, you have to know them well enough to know what’s important to them. You have to know/understand their priorities and what will make them feel good.

Just because a nonprofit does wonderful things in a cost-effective manner doesn’t mean that potential donors will want to support it.

Getting people to want to give, and corporations and foundations are run by people, is about learning, understanding and appealing to their various needs.

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Have you heard about
The Fundraising Series of ebooks?
They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating
or expanding your fundraising program?
AskHank
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We welcome your questions/problems —
they are likely to engender further discussion.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Comments & Questions
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In the NP community, as elsewhere, it’s targeted marketing that is most effective. But you can’t target your market until they’ve been identified.

Direct mail is, for many NPOs, an essential part of building a substantial base for the donor pyramid. But, unless you’re a huge organization with high visibility and a great level of success, it’s not branding that has the major impact on the results of donor-acquisition mailings, it’s the list selection process, the roll-out mailings, the testing of copy, all the tried-and-tested elements of the traditional direct mail program.

And, such a program can’t be evaluated in its first six months of operation, its first year, or even two years. I’ve seen reference to three years as being a minimum period for such an evaluation – the usual period it takes to have a direct mail program begin to “show a profit” – not as the period it takes to market/establish a “brand.”

That stuff about counting hits in a search engine as a way of evaluating an NPO’s “brand recognition” is of minor significance. Don’t get me wrong, marketing is an important part of what we do in development, and “brand recognition” can be a big help – but it’s not essential to the relationship building that is so important to the development process.

No matter on what level or to what end we work with nonprofits, it wouldn’t hurt to have a broad based background in development, before trying to apply to nonprofit development/fundraising some accountant’s theory of ranges or medians or marketing statistics or hits on a search engine.

And, the way of getting an organization’s board to understand the process, and the expected results-over-time if proper procedure is followed, is not to send them to check out search engines, but to have them check out their contacts in the community.

Certainly, if the members of an NPO’s Board and/or its CEO don’t know what to look for when they hire a development person, they sure aren’t going to know how to evaluate that person or his/her programs.

If you’re looking for advice on measuring the effectiveness of development programs, remember, if you’re relying on information you’re getting on-line, everybody has opinions, but not everybody has the experience and expertise; and, “buzzwords do not equate to best practices.”

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Have you heard about
The Fundraising Series of ebooks?
They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)

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Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating
or expanding your fundraising program?
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We’ve been posting these pieces for the last five years,
and we welcome your questions/problems.
They are likely to engender further discussion.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Comments & Questions
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If you’re reading this on-line, and would like to comment/expand on the above piece, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply.” If you’re reading this as an email, and you want to comment on the above piece, email Comments to offer your thoughts. Your comments, with appropriate attribution, could be the basis of a new posting.

An email read: “I own a catering company and we often donate goods and services to nonprofits in our community … to a generous degree. Frankly, we are discontinuing the practice, [as we’re] just tired of being treated like ‘second class’ donors.”

Having heard that complaint many times before, I responded:
I know exactly how you feel. That’s one of the main reasons I wrote my article regarding In-Kind donations. I have, far too often, known of shortsighted nonprofits that deal badly with In-Kind donations, thinking that such products and services, given generously to them, do not represent “real money.”

And when such In-Kind donations are given some degree of recognition, often nonprofit leaders become contentious, even pugnacious, arguing that the public credit of an In-Kind donation should be cited in terms of the wholesale cost, rather than recognizing the donation for what it would have cost the nonprofit at retail.

My mantra, in that regard, has always been: “Don’t Be Unkind to In-Kind”

At the close of a successful capital building campaign with a client, the time to finalize the design/content of the wall plaques of donors’ names … at their respective donation levels, a few top leaders of the organization were indignant when I urged that the donor of paint for the entire interior of the building be placed at the $20,000 level, as that was what the project budget said would have been the cost of the paint to the organization.

Those leaders insisted that we find out either the wholesale cost, or what it cost to manufacture the paint. I told them in strong terms that such disregard for a truly major gift would be insulting and highly absurd. I felt strongly about the issue, I was insistent … and, thankfully, I won the argument.

I’ve also had my own personal bad and disappointing experience as a capital campaign consultant. In the final stage of a successful campaign, when I saw that my role, for the most part, was mostly fulfilled, I (with what I considered as philanthropic intent) informed the organization that they didn’t have to pay me for the last month of our contract.

I soon found out that my In-Kind donation was not regarded by the organization as “real money.” That’s what the Director said when I asked to be named in the organization’s donor publications for the campaign. I was not even an In-Kind donor. To them, I was no donor at all.

The basic message here is that nonprofits must regard all types of gifts, including those that are “In-Kind,” with the care and consideration they deserve. It’s so easy, and so appropriate, to acknowledge “real” cash and securities properly. But all too often, when it comes to In-Kind gifts, it’s another kettle of fish. It should not be.

Speaking to all who make those “In-Kind” gifts, maybe it would only take a little reminding on your part regarding the insensitive way the organizations, to which you donated willingly, accepted your generous donations. And it would be worth “asking” why they do not give those gifts the credit and regard they deserve.

If they don’t get it, discontinue your support, tell them why, then move on to another, worthy, but appreciative, nonprofit organization.

Certainly, you care about what is good in your community – even if some of the receivers of your In-Kind donations seem to be uncaring, you should reconsider your plan to totally discontinue giving.

You may feel less fulfilled personally if you discontinue your donations to all nonprofits. Don’t lose that warm-and-fuzzy feeling.

And, we know there are nonprofits out there that would greatly benefit from your generosity, and at the same time, know how to show it, gratefully and enthusiastically, and treat you as the first-class donor you are.

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They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)
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If you’re reading this on-line, and would like to comment/expand on the above piece, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply.” If you’re reading this as an email, and you want to comment on the above piece, email Comments to offer your thoughts. Your comments, with appropriate attribution, could be the basis of a new posting.