Helen Brown Group

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They’re going to leave (unless you keep them)

This year’s AFP/Urban Institute Fundraising Effectiveness Project reported that for every 100 new donors that supported a small-to-medium sized nonprofit in the United States last year, 107 donors left. Even more starkly, “every $100 gained in 2011 was offset by $100 in losses through gift attrition.”

Every year small-to-medium nonprofits are working harder just to break even.

Overall the study found that the largest gains come from new donors and the largest losses came from lapsed new donors.

Lapsed new donors.

These are the friends that should be easiest to keep. You’re still in the honeymoon phase. They’re excited about your organization enough to make a first gift. Sure, some of them will have given because of a road race or a golf tournament or in memory of someone. But most of those new donors should spell opportunity, not the promise of future loss. And as we’ve been told a hundred times, it costs less to retain a donor than it does to acquire one.

For larger nonprofits (organizations raising $500,000 and more) the figures are very different. For the most part, the more money an organization raises per year, the less likely they are to have donors leave them. Their losses due to attrition are cut by half.

So what’s the difference between small organizations and large ones? How are the larger ones able to keep their new donors?

A stronger fundraising infrastructure makes a big difference; overhead isn’t a bad thing when it is used effectively. The report strongly recommends building internal capacity overall and then annually providing extra budget support to the areas showing the greatest opportunities and success. Most of the larger organizations use prospect research to identify the new and renewing donors that have the highest potential to be upgraded. If yours doesn’t do that already, now is a good time to start.

What can you do now?

We’re swiftly coming up to year-end and your organization will, with luck, have an influx of brand new donors that you don’t want to lose next year.

This January, use prospect research – do an electronic screening of those new year-end donors. Apply data analytics to find the hidden gems in your database. Research the ones with the most potential to find their interests and philanthropic capacity. If you don’t have internal capacity, hire a professional. Prospect research may be an overhead expense, but it’s more expensive to keep treading water year after year.

Resolve to keep more of your new donors next year. You can start now.

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When do you use prospect research?

I’m preparing a web seminar for fundraising consultant Lori Jacobwith’s Ignited Online Fundraising Community this Thursday to introduce her group to prospect research. Lori has been providing coaching and continuing education to her clients through the Ignited Online community for over four years, and I’m impressed at her dedication to capacity building within the fundraising profession. I’m looking forward to sharing what prospect research can do and when to use it.

As I’m putting together my presentation, I was thinking about how to graphically show when prospect research is most helpful, and created this image.

We may identify new prospects with a wealth screening, with data analytics, by happenstance, in conversation with our volunteers or a number of other ways. Something in our identification methods tells us that a prospect is a good fit, but most of these ways don’t involve intensive one-by-one research.

As the relationship progresses with mutual interest on the part of the donor and the nonprofit, Research is used intensively help build a deeper connection. Information gathering is both primary (in conversation with the donor) and secondary (using online and offline resources to collect information).

After the gift is given fundraisers tend to need very little information; much is already known about the donor and their interests. Research may be used to help with stewardship of the donor or their family. For example, news alerts may be used to send a note of congratulations for a birth in the family, a company sold or a marriage announced.

Does this match your experience? When does your organization use research the most?

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Are you ready for ‘Back to School’?

When there’s a kid in your house, ‘tis the season for starting fresh. New notebooks, new pencils, a new calculator…it’s equal parts thrilling and daunting to look at the pile of brand new things and imagine them being used. Even though I’m long out of school, for me September always brings with it a sense of excitement and nervous anticipation about what’s ahead, even more so than January 1st.

In fundraising (or really in any field that uses reports), now’s a good time to take a fresh look at how we share information with each other to be sure that we’re doing it well.

What might that mean for you?

  • Are the reports you created during the last campaign still working for the between-campaign period?
  • Do you have new leadership that has a lot of information needs (but you’re giving them reports their predecessor helped you create)?
  • What do frontline fundraisers and leadership need to know to do their best work? Is it different than four years ago when the profile format was created?

In this pre-dawn period before the fall season really heats up with meetings and events and homecoming and all of that – now’s a great time to set aside a few hours to talk with end users of your work. Ask your clients…

  • Are we giving you too much information? Too little?
  • Can we create a variety of report types that meet different needs?
  • How can we help you be more self-sufficient?
  • What kinds of information would you like pushed to you?

Be creative! There are all kinds of cool tools out there now for you to try! Do a little fun research to find dashboards … mapping … analytics … apps … even something as simple as re-thinking report formatting can help breathe new life into the mundane. (In fact, I heard a little bit of gossip from the APRA conference: a certain university with an awesome name now formats profiles so they can be easily read on an iPad – how’s that for creative thinking!?)

What do you want to do differently this new school year?

 

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For fundraisers working with a research team…

Are you sometimes waiting (and waiting!) to have research requests completed for you? Or getting completed research *after* the visit? Frustrating, isn’t it? Wish you had a way to get your research requests done first? It can’t work all the time, but there is a way…

I read a blog post by Rajesh Setty the other day called “Help is on the way.*” Setty’s an entrepreneur consultant and writes for the business market. It’s not long, and it’s worth a read if you have time. If you don’t have time now, here’s my interpretation of what he wrote with regard to prospect research in a typical mid-to-large size development office:

Generally speaking, good help is scarce because:
• People that are good at their jobs are busy becoming even better at their jobs.
• People gravitate toward people who are good at their jobs and ask them to help with their projects …
• …which makes people that are good at their jobs even busier…
• …which makes good help even more scarce.

So what do these good, busy people do to cope with the increased requests for help? Setty writes:

“1. They eliminate meaningless requests.

2. They eliminate requests that were made because the requester was lazy.

3. They eliminate requests that don’t deserve to be fulfilled.

4. They eliminate requests that are not meaningful to them.

They look at the remaining requests and choose the ones that will provide the highest ROI for their investment of time…[T]he odds change significantly depending on ‘who you are’ to them. If you are someone special to them, the terms and conditions section suddenly disappears.

The objective decision making walks out of the door replaced by subjective decision making in your favor.”

Prospect researchers don’t usually have the discretion to eliminate requests for reports.  Normally it’s first come, first served… unless your job title gives you the cachet to jump the queue.  Requests – both worthy and worthless – pile up.  One person’s request for a full profile on a donor prospect they are merely curious about means that another’s truly hot prospect briefing goes further down the list. 

Would a researcher prefer to work with a major gift officer that actively sought visits with prospects that that researcher identified for them?  Sure.  Might that MGO’s requests mysteriously move higher in the research queue from time to time?  Mayyybe.

Would a prospect researcher work harder for a front-line fundraiser that came by their desk and said “Let me tell you about the great meeting I just had with that prospect you researched for me!!”  Absolutely.  Might that person’s requests mysteriously gain helium in the research queue from time to time?  Mayyybe.

I know that I’ve done it.  I worked with a fundraiser who made a fill-in appointment based on a gut feeling I had about a prospect I’d found.  I knew the prospect had their own privately-held company and there were rumors the company was going IPO in the next six months, but that’s about all I had.  Still, the fundraiser honored my gut feeling and set up the discovery meeting.  That act of faith (and the subsequent major gift donation of stock – I’m not kidding – yay!) forged a great researcher/fundraiser team that communicated often from then on.  I will admit to moving that fundraiser’s requests slightly higher in the queue from time to time because we were a team that was making things happen.

Research – good research – is a time-consuming job, and we all only have so much time.  All of us want our work to be for something – to know that what we do has meaning.  If you don’t have a fancy title after your name, consider internal stewardship to jump the queue.  You’re a fundraiser, after all.  You know all about relationship building.

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Solutions for the frustrated

 

I’ve been thinking about Chris Cannon’s blog post “3 Solutions to Prospecting Problems” ever since I read it earlier this week.  Chris’s solutions to common issues we face in the development office are these:

  • We need to respect our colleagues, honor their experience and their contributions…
  • …come up with a good plan …
  • …and stick to it.  No personal or organizational distractions (to the degree that they can be avoided).

It’s not rocket science, but it’s true.  We lose our tempers, we lose our focus, and then we lose our way.

Don’t we accomplish so much more on a personal level when we stick to those three things?  Imagine what we could do as a development team.

For me, a lot of wasted potential I see in development shops comes down to communication and training. 

“I’ve stopped requesting research,” said one fundraiser to me recently. “It just takes too long to get it back and by the time I get the profile, the visit’s already happened.  It’s just too frustrating.  Google’s my researcher now.”

“I don’t get it,” said a researcher. “I’m working for four fundraisers and each one asks me for full profiles on people they’ve never met.  It takes me two days to do each full profile along with all the other stuff I’m doing, and then when I finally give it to the fundraiser I never hear anything back!  It’s frustrating!”

“The researchers don’t understand what I need,” said another fundraiser. “I work with a very specific group of high-level donors in a particular industry.  I get profiles back on people in the same industry with wildly varying capacity ratings.  I know what people make in this industry and every rating is wrong!  I need consistency from profile to profile and an understanding of this industry and what people make.”

“Sure, I would love to go to a training seminar on private equity compensation/lawyers/oil & gas futures” said a researcher to me recently. “We just don’t have the budget for training right now.”

There’s one really simple answer for each of these frustrated people.  Do you see yourself in one of them?

Great teams communicate well together.  We’re in the communicating and relationship building business, and the communicating and relationship building needs to happen both externally AND internally.

Talk to each other.  Respect each other.  Make a plan.  Do it.

 

Update:  Great infographic on exactly this subject:

Elevate Communication Between Your Colleagues

 

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17 questions to ask before hiring a research consultant

The Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration (SOFII) has curated a group of great articles on how to be an effective partner with consultants in our sector.  As a riff on Alison McCants’ great web article sharing her experience, I thought I’d add some questions to ask before engaging a research consultant:

  1. What resources do you use?
  2. Do you purchase them yourself?
  3. How often do you attend continuing education courses to keep up with the latest resources and trends?
  4. Do you teach any training courses?
  5. What types of organizations have you worked for?
  6. What kinds of reports do you provide?
  7. How much do they cost?
  8. May I see samples of your work?
  9. How long does it usually take for you to complete a report?
  10. May I speak with three current/recent clients?
  11. What is your privacy/confidentiality policy? (Thanks to Jen Filla for that one!)

Ask a consultant’s references:

  1. How easy is this consultant to work with?
  2. Do they provide good customer service when something goes wrong?
  3. Do they deliver research when promised?
  4. How do you feel about the quality of what you receive?
  5. Is their work good value for the price?
  6. Are they innovative?

Do you have more questions to add?

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How to get a 500% increase in prospects

Here is a crazy-good story for you:

When Brown University began their “Boldly Brown” campaign in July 2003 they had 1,535 people identified as potential major donors.  That may sound like a lot, but they had over $1 billion to raise to support scholarships, attract and retain faculty and to upgrade their facilities and research capability.  The fundraisers, both paid and volunteer, had some serious work to do if they were going to reach that ambitious goal.

During the course of the seven years to follow, the Brown research team made sure that their alumni records were up-to-date and that the data was as free from error as possible.  They used sophisticated screening tools to find people with the means and interest in supporting Brown.  They segmented their data to identify new potential donors based on the characteristics of their current loyal supporters.  And they researched and fine-tuned the information they had to be sure not to bother people who weren’t likely to be interested in supporting Brown at a higher level.

Because in addition to using these methods to identify future supporters, the other thing we researchers are trying to do is eliminate (to the degree possible) annoying people with unnecessary mail, phone calls and visits when they don’t want them.  It’s good business to avoid irritating people, but it’s also a smart way to save money, trees, electricity, and peoples’ valuable time. To be good stewards of past donor dollars.

So what happened?

5,284 new major gift prospects were identified.

That’s more than a 500% increase in potential supporters!

Even more incredible, Brown University received $710 million in new gifts and pledges from those newly identified and upgraded prospects.  If you’re thinking “Hmmm, that number looks eerily like it’s nearly three-quarters of the total campaign goal”- you’re catching on.  That’s the impact of applied prospect research and analytics – it makes a huge difference.

What else?

Brown University reached their goal of $1.4 billion eighteen months early, and went on (during the worst recession of our lifetimes) to garner over $1.6 billion in total support by the time they stopped counting in December of 2010.

Can their success be yours?

Sure, Brown University is a huge organization.  And yes, they have a crack research and analytics team headed by Elizabeth Crabtree, a brilliant leader in our field.  But the techniques Brown used can be applied to your nonprofit and scaled to your needs.  What are the building blocks?

  • A cause that provides measurable results and inspires loyal support;
  • A multi-faceted prospect identification program that is funded to scale;
  • Policies and metrics for prospect relationship management;
  • Highly skilled prospect researchers/analysts who are both strategists and tacticians;
  • Effective collaboration between the research team and frontline fundraisers;
  • Inspired and engaging fundraisers and leadership;
  • Inspired and engaged donors and volunteers;
  • Stewardship that surprises (pleasantly, of course).

All of this takes time and money as well as a serious commitment of your heart to achieve the kind of success they had.  But the results are undeniable:

  • Increased participation…
  • Increased donations…
  • And a solid foundation for future support.

Even if you’re a small organization with a staff of one, you can do this.  You’ll need help, obviously, but there’s no time like the present to get started.


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What’s in store for philanthropy?

Because most of us spend our time in the trenches researching, cultivating, asking, stewarding and reporting, it’s nice to spend an afternoon with someone who surveys the landscape from higher terrain and focuses in on objects and trends that we need to know about.

Last week Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, spoke at a Women in Development of Greater Boston (WID) event.  Palmer gave her picks for the “Top Ten Trends in Philanthropy” and predicted what we’re going to see more of in the months ahead.

Some things that captured my attention and imagination were:

The changing relationship between government and nonprofits regarding taxation…

With the recent strain on the economy coupled with consumers’ growing concern over the efficacy of nonprofit organizations, it was just a matter of time before government officials started debating a larger fee structure for PILOT (Payment In Lieu of Taxes) programs (or changing tax codes to include nonprofits).  In Boston, where over half of the land is owned either by nonprofits or the government, PILOT payments are an important source of a struggling city’s tax revenue.  There’s a good overview of the discussion here at the Inside Higher Ed site, and Palmer predicted more developments to come on this issue in the months ahead.

… and government investment in programs via social impact bonds.

A recent import from the UK is the creation of social impact bonds (brief article here from the NYT).  Social impact bonds work like this:  Private investors give the seed funding for a nonprofit organization/venture.  If the nonprofit meets its stated goals, the investors get paid back with interest by the government at the end of a designated period.  It’s venture funding with a social benefit twist, and it’ll be interesting to see if the program ideas being floated in New York City and Massachusetts get picked up.  If you’re interested, there’s more information about social impact funds in a white paper written by Harvard economist Jeffrey Liebman.

The impact of technology in fundraising

From robot fundraisers on the streets like Don-8er and DONA to the use of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for interacting with our constituencies, there’s going to be a continuing explosion of new tools to engage and motivate donors, from small to large.  Think that online giving isn’t going to work for large donors?  Stacy Palmer told us that last year there were at least nine gifts of $100,000 made online, and that some high net worth donors she’s spoken with said that the only barrier they find to donating online like that is that most organizations’ websites aren’t equipped to accept large donations!  Even if you don’t think it’ll ever happen, doesn’t it make sense to act like it could?

Some of Palmer’s other top trends included:

  • the consolidation/merging together of nonprofits to avoid closure or to gain access to collaborative funding
  • the rise of giving by women and how the change in demographics is transforming our society
  • the importance of continuing education, staff retention and morale for nonprofit success.

What trends in philanthropy do you see?  What do you think is in store for us?

 

 

 

 

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Building Alliances for Nonprofit Success

Last month I had a great conversation with my friend Ellen Winiarczik about her strategic planning work with nonprofits.  Our two worlds run parallel to each other most of the time; while my team and I are usually helping an organization find funding sources, Ellen deals more with making sure that a nonprofit is structurally strong, that the organization is prepared to meet its mission and that its board has a firm grip on the rudder.  I asked Ellen to share a few words about her work and how our worlds collide (in a good way!) with each other.

Ellen and Helen

For 13 years I’ve run a firm that consults with nonprofits, foundations and government agencies, large and small, in strategic planning and implementation, resource investment, program evaluation, leadership and fund development as well as inclusive excellence.  I just returned from a 12 day exchange visit with leaders of US nonprofit organizations visiting their counterparts in charities of all flavors in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  These visits that I lead every year are designed to create lasting relationships and learning opportunities amongst far-flung peers, and they’re always an enlightening and wonderful experience for all of us.

While our economy is showing small signs of recovery, it’s clear that an Irish banking collapse and an over-extended government calling for austerity measures means cut backs for everyone there, especially for nonprofits depending upon government programs and funding.

Every nonprofit organization no matter where you are needs to chart a steady course for their future.  Those that are the strongest, even in difficult times, find ways to strategically engage board members, staff, volunteers and stakeholders to guide the organization’s future by making concrete goal-driven plans to ensure success.

They do this in part by sharing mission and operational clarity that spans across the organization at all levels.  This phenomenon occurs when good communication exists, vertically and horizontally, and everyone is consulted about strategic plan creation and reasonable goal setting.

Strategic planning, according to BoardSource, the leading US information-sharing organization for nonprofit leadership, requires both thinkers and doers and must meet the needs of a wide variety of stakeholders.  If [any] are left out of the process, the final plan tends to serve the needs of a few who may not be fully aware of the actual impact of their decisions. The BoardSource website goes on to outline the different roles for each of the key players in this equation.

Board members govern the organization and set policy as well as outline strategic organizational direction.   Boards deal with multiple priorities including organizational governance, investment and spending policies, and programmatic direction.  Clearly board members need to have a keen eye on ensuring that financial resources are always available to support key programs that carry out the organization’s mission.

Executive leadership provides the data necessary to inform the board and works in tandem with the board to craft reasonable (or even lofty!) strategic plans.  Operational data includes specifics on all resources needed to run and sustain operations with enough in the bank for adverse situations (in a perfect world, 6-12 months).  This information is optimally sourced from all departments and outlines an organization’s current direction with solid operational data to inform and support key growth opportunities.

With data in hand executive leadership and board members feel confident that they have all the right information to make key strategic planning decisions that includes anticipating how much money, personnel, and facilities are needed to support existing operations, and grow, if desired.

But what if an organization has key roles such as development (fundraising) that are not invited to participate in the process?  In my experience, this happens all too often.  Here’s where effective communications including relationship building and strategic outreach as well as a healthy dose of data to support the development office’s real or potential impact on the bottom line come in handy.

Sometimes, though, it’s simply a case of the board and executive leadership not being aware of development’s expertise.  For example, I worked with a small organization on strategic planning a few years ago.  This organization was embedded in a larger, higher education institution, but hadn’t engaged in conversation with the fundraising staff of the parent institution during their 5 year existence.  While highly autonomous this small organization neglected to realize that they had larger institutional resources to leverage in securing future programmatic success.  Once they forged those relationships, key funders were quickly identified and became engaged as supporters.

Steering a clear course in these economic times can be unnerving. Boards, CEOs, and fundraising staff have the opportunity to create a strong team with which to weather the storm together.  As spring moves into summer it’s beginning to look like our economy may have some small squalls to navigate.  Nonprofits need to stay true to their course and communicate across the organization to accomplish their strategic outcomes for stability and growth.

Ellen Winiarczyk is President of Win-ar-zic & Associates in Denver, CO.  Her firm specializes in strategic planning, leadership development and evaluation for nonprofits and foundations.  She is on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenw.

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