9.8 Build relationships that last
Posted by: GIFT on: September 8, 2011
The Special 30th Anniversary issue of the Grassroots Fundraising Journal is out and our feature article by Kim Klein is available to read for free online!
Back to Basics: How to Build Relationships that Last
You’ve heard it before, but Kim wants to be sure you hear it again: Find a donor, not a donation. Seek a giver, not a gift. Relationship-building remains the key to good fundraising, but how do you do it? Here are practical ways and examples of how to build relationships with donors. Click here to read the full article.
9.1 Create fundraising materials that get results
Posted by: GIFT on: September 1, 2011
Welcome Guest Blogger, Dalya F. Massachi!
Please join Dalya and GIFT on September 13th for her webinar, Writing to Make a Difference: How to Create Fundraising & Outreach Materials that Get Results. Click here or give Ryan Li a call at 888-458-8588 X301 to register and for more info and to register.
Have you advanced your organization’s mission today? Your readers are eager to know about it!
Every outreach or fundraising piece you write needs to speak to your organization’s reason for existing in the first place. That is, each page should remind your readers that you never forget what you set out to do in your community.
Every values-driven organization has a specific mission to make a positive difference in the world. My guess is that you already know what yours is. You may not have memorized your official mission statement, but you are clear on the essence of your organization. Your mission, after all, is a key part of your organization’s brand.
To your readers, your mission (or perhaps some particular aspect of it) is the heart of the matter. They want to hear that it is central to everything you do. They want to know that your work continues to be relevant to their lives and the life of their community, even as times and circumstances change.
There is no shame in reminding yourself of your organization’s mission statement once in a while. Some people I know even plaster it on the wall or make it their screensaver to keep it at the top of the mind and on the tip of the tongue.
Your mission should inspire and motivate support and commitment from those who share your concerns. Your organization’s name alone should cause your mission to spring to mind.
However, if you — and your colleagues — do not revisit your mission statement regularly, and ideally fine-tune or update it on occasion, you can get stuck in out-of-date patterns of branding. This is true for both start-up organizations (whose missions are usually still evolving) and more established groups. For instance, a client organization of mine had focused for decades on the needs of all low-income families, but recent demographic changes in their county compelled them to focus on new immigrants, with the associated cultural and linguistic challenges.
Even more dangerously, if you are not careful to monitor your work in light of your mission, your organization could easily lose its sense of direction. The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland summarized why you need a strong, relevant mission: “If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
Of course, your readers might not come out and ask, “What is your mission?” Instead, they might want to know what you do (how you benefit your clients and the community), how you do it (products and services featured in your work), and why you exist at all (why you are needed).
Help them out by frequently reminding them of your goals and how you are consistently making progress toward them. You cannot assume that your readers will instantly recall who you are or exactly what you do — and that includes both die-hard supporters/patrons and casual online surfers who may have stumbled across your website. But repetition will certainly help!
Here are some tips for maintaining a focus on mission in your copy.
HIGHLIGHT THE OUTSTANDING STRENGTHS OF YOUR MISSION
Continually remind your readers of what is innovative about your mission. No one likes to reinvent the wheel or be part of something garden-variety. Show that you play a special and essential role in your field: a role that cries out for involvement from your readers. Identifying the uniqueness in your organization’s mission and style is a crucial aspect of furthering your brand.
Ask yourself: How is your mission unique within your field, and how does that give you a special niche?
Your mission may be to implement an entirely new solution to an age-old problem that has been haunting your community. Or maybe you are striving to improve or expand what already has begun to work. Either way, identify what about your mission makes it extraordinary.
Another way to point out your organization’s unique value to your community is to ask your readers to imagine a world without anyone working to advance your mission. What void would that leave? And how troubling would that picture be?
DESCRIBE HOW YOUR WORK EMBODIES YOUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Back away from the practical specifics and take a bit of a philosophical approach.
Ask yourself: What fundamental values or concerns lead your readers to your organization and its mission?
For instance, you and your readers might particularly value the physical and emotional health of young women; the dignity of refugees; the artistic expression of senior citizens; the conservation of wildlife in your region; the science education of middle school students; or waterways free of pollution.
Because of your shared values, you can make some basic assumptions about what your readers understand and agree on. In your written pieces, build on those assumptions about what works, what does not work, and what important beliefs should be upheld. You will naturally hit on the core thoughts and feelings your readers harbor, as they pertain to your mission and activities.
Ask yourself: How would your organization complete this sentence to clarify shared assumptions about the world, how it works, and what is important?
“Our organization focuses on ______ and we value ________________ . We believe our work is important in the world because ______________ .”
Many nonprofits explicitly talk about their values and guiding principles in their outreach and fundraising materials. So can you.
Once you have identified the values and beliefs most meaningful to your organization, they will inform the rest of your copywriting and illuminate your message.
Join Dalya in her September 13 webinar, “Writing to Make a Difference: How to Create Fundraising & Outreach Materials that Get Results.” The webinar is based on her award-winning book, Writing to Make a Difference.
8.30 What Are You Doing After School?
Posted by: Pam Pompey on: August 30, 2011
Yes it’s me. I’m back for another blog installment. First let me say I really appreciated Charles Long’s piece on the “Downtime of Summer.” I think of summer as my season. It’s all about vacations, birthdays, and the grandson.
For this blog, I want to move a little bit away from the hard hitting stuff and chirp a bit about something that was near and dear to my heart at one time; sports, middle school sports to be precise. There’s a threat to them becoming endangered. The loss of after-school programs for middle school kids in general is really starting to bug me. I guess because I don’t have pre-teens running about anymore I don’t always think about what some of them are missing out on.
Over summer break I had to come to the aid of two young ladies (11 and 13 year olds). The incident concerned me on multiple levels. The girls had embarked on an unauthorized daylong outing that included public transportation, no sense of direction, and no money for their return trip home. I cringe when I think about it, and dangers they could have encountered. Their little adventure also reminds me of how grateful I am to be past those pre-teen years of parenting. Anyway, after my mom and I finished chewing them out for making such bad decisions, I asked them about their extracurricular activities once school was back in session. “I’m interested in playing basketball or volleyball, but I probably won’t because they been eliminated ‘cause of cut-back.”
I can’t say that I was surprised at the girl’s answer, after all, eliminating sports and music and other activities as a method for cost cutting in the public school system isn’t new. Hearing it from an actual student versus hearing it on the six o’clock news did make the girl’s statement more personal to me. The other young lady said she had an interest in photography; she also expressed concerns about cuts. My initial reaction upon listening to them was saying to myself “maybe I can…” At the same time, another little voice in the back of my mind silently replied, “That’s a major issue.” That issue is too big, you can’t possibly tackle it by yourself.” In other words, I was hearing “my plate is full, so don’t even try to pretend like you can help.” It was true, even if I wanted to help, with all I have going on where would I possibly carve out time to create an after-school program for girls? Not to mention the amount of funding it would require.
Unfortunately, the challenge for both these girls is probably true for so many of our youth who are seeking extracurricular outlets. Most kids who come from low-income homes don’t have the resources to engage in organized activities outside of school and community. I personally believe extracurricular activities like sports help develop disciplines and qualities that can shape a young adult’s desire to become socially successful adults. At least, it helped me. Growing up, both after-school programs and sports were major for my siblings and me. It gave us a recreational and a social connection to our community and beyond our community.
I know some of you hard-core activist may be thinking, so what, it’s just sports. I know some people who do movement building don’t support or believe in competitive sports in school, but this isn’t about “jock’ism,” this is about acknowledging the fact that middle school and high school athletic programs and after-school activities have helped shape and produced some pretty amazing adults who now brilliantly serve their communities.
Maybe I will do something, like putting on my gym shoes and starting a youth sports club or making a financial contribution to a club already in place, or picket a local school board meeting. Here’s a quirky question; how do we level the playing field, when we have no left fielder?
8.18 The Psychology of Fundraising Goals
Posted by: kimkleinfundraises on: August 18, 2011
Dear Kim:
My organization is in the middle of our spring campaign and each staff and board member has committed to reaching individual goals. I was close to reaching my goal last week and entered some “offline” donations to my fundraising page. Then I remembered that I had just sent out a couple of email asks, and didn’t want to dissuade people from giving if they saw that I was at or over my goal. So I upped my goal by $500. Does any of this matter? What’s the psychology behind this? Are people more or less likely to give if you’re way behind, almost at or over your goal?
May be over thinking this,
~Close to goal
Dear Thinking:
The psychology of this is very similar to a ball game: When are you most excited? Most of us would say when our team is either a little ahead or a little behind, but there is time to catch up.
The difference between your fundraising campaign and a ball game is that people probably aren’t paying nearly as much attention to the goal as they would be if they were watching a game. They are mostly thinking about whether they have the money, and, if yes, whether they want to give to you. I think it is OK that you upped your goal, but I probably would have just sent a follow up e-mail to these people saying, “Great news—I reached my goal, and now you can help me go over it.” You could also explain that everyone has an individual goal, which added together equals the organization’s goal and you all haven’t quite reached that yet.
Good luck!
~Kim Klein
8.15 Develop a member-led approach to grassroots fundraising
Posted by: GIFT on: August 15, 2011
Join FIERCE staff and members on August 19th at 10am PT as they share lessons they have learned while creating a grassroots fundraising program that places leadership development at its core, addressing important questions such as:
- How do we engage in resource building that, like our other work, prioritizes the leadership of people directly affected by the issues we work on?
- How do we equip our members and staff with the skills and confidence to generate the resources that will sustain our work?
Although FIERCE is a youth-led organization, this webinar will share best practices that are applicable to many membership-led grassroots organizations.
Cost: $50-$150 per site, depending on your group’s budget size. For more information and to register visit: www.grassrootsfundraising.org/webinars or call Ryan Li at: 510-452-4520 X301
8.4 Report Back from PTO conference
Posted by: GIFT on: August 4, 2011
I just returned from the Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed pre-conference institute, “Beyond Silly Games:” Popular Education as a Methodology for Political Education, Leadership Development, Grassroots Organizing, and Movement Building with our brilliant and talented facilitator, Francisco “Pancho” Arguelles Paz y Puente.
One of the things I was most looking forward to exploring within this space was how we at GIFT can better use popular and political education tools within our training curriculum. I consider my training approach to be based in popular education, so I appreciated a space to reground and reflect on how I’d like to hone my facilitation skills and how to bring it to my work here at GIFT.
As many of us have experienced, talking about race, class, money, access to resources, and power within our communities and organizations is often difficult and complicated. We each have our own experiences of having or not having “enough,” feeling alone, isolated, and powerless. These experiences have a profound impact on us individually and collectively in re-imagining what is possible and what it is that we’re fighting for. (I’m using “enough” as a relative and subjective term within a capitalist system. See enough online discussion by Dean Spade and Tyrone Boucher for more on this). I’m interested in finding ways that we can deepen these conversations to help us think and act differently about how we do our work within and outside of our organizations and how we’re in relationship to one another. I so desperately want us to move away from a scarcity, competitive, individualistic and fear-based model and toward one that is about abundance, collaboration, collectivity, love, and connection.
But how? How do we move away from these harmful models that maintain the status quo and keep so many of us struggling and suffering? How do we build new ones that sustain us and are sustainable? How do we develop models that create space for accountability, transparency, healing, and transformation? How can we all begin to more consciously and intentionally open up and have real conversations around access, interdependency, and resource sharing and/or re-distribution in which all of our communities are taken care of and sustained?
I see popular and political education as an important tool in helping us to get there. It’s a way for us to strengthen our collective knowledge and histories of struggle within a political context, find points of connection, solidarity, and commonality, and take action together toward creating a more just world. I see this type of work happening in communities (often outside of nonprofit organizations), and it brings me great joy and hope to see people developing new ways of deepening relationships and community toward collective access and liberation. I see exciting new models toward creating collective access and liberation being created in communities that brings me great joy and hope. There are so many possibilities for developing new ways of sustaining ourselves and our communities.
Where are you finding places of hope and ways of building connection and interdependency? How have you seen political and popular education be transformative within your work and communities?
7.26 The Downtime of Summer
Posted by: GIFT on: July 26, 2011
Recently here at GIFT we have been discussing downtime and how to make the best use of it. We haven’t been talking about it so much because we have a lot of it, but because folks seem to use this slow fundraising season to relax and rejuvenate before Fall is here. We are in the full swing of summer, when kids are off from school, professionals are vacationing and the general office pace seems to be slightly more relaxed in the not-for-profit world.
As the new Executive Director, I am eager and excited to learn all about GIFT and the work we do but I am confronted daily with the reality of having started a new position in mid-June. So how does one remain motivated and on task when everyone else seems to be on vacation? What can you take care of now so that you can hit the ground running come fall fundraising season? I decided to do a little digging around online for some helpful tips and below are a few that I found. While not all of them are going to apply to everyone, I believe there are some healthy nuggets that we could all be introduced to or have a refresher on.
On the Simple Productivity Blog there is a 10-ways to be productive during downtimes list. Some of my favorites include; reviewing/updating your calendar, updating your resume, updating your personal goals and cleaning out your email box.
That last one was particularly interesting to me so I was excited there was a link to teach me how to be an “Email Ninja”;if you are anything like me your email box is cluttered, and reading it can be anxiety inducing. The tips provided here were helpful and I was happy someone else had given some thought to my email worries.
Finally in my search I found a blog that has some pretty rad suggestions on how to “Mind the Gap.” Although this one is geared towards freelance graphic designers, I think some valuable lessons can be taken away for the freelance fundraising professionals out there, including “Building your Network” and “Get Reading.”
In the end, managing our downtime will be an ever evolving process by which we find what works best for ourselves. As I looked up tips for using my time wisely I was able to reflect on my own personal style. For me that made the conversation worthy enough.
I hope that at least some of the tips resonate with you and motivate you to make your own “downtime plan.” As a person who normalizes working under stress and in the crunch of it all, accessing possible alternatives forms of behavior has been helpful. Let me know what you all think in the comments.
CRL
7-19 The Human Side of Major Donor Programming
Posted by: theoyangcopley on: July 19, 2011
This month I am writing about what cori parrish at North Star Fund calls “the human side of donor programming.” Here I focus on progressive major donor programming, such as donor workshops and conferences. This is something I have experience with, having attended and helped to design programs and retreats at Resource Generation. To me, the work has been about building community and developing ways for donors to connect with each other and with people working in movements for social justice. I think feeling a sense of connection and community creates happier people, and happy people tend to give more, and people tend to support what they feel connected to. I hope this will help demystify donor programming and create conversations and opportunities for partnership.
The history of donor programming is intertwined with the rise of progressive social justice foundations in the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as Liberty Hill Foundation in Los Angeles, North Star Fund in New York, and Haymarket People’s Fund in Boston. All of these foundations are part of the Funding Exchange, a national network of progressive foundations. At the time, inheritors got together and created wealth conferences and other venues where donors could talk about the personal and technical aspects of having wealth and giving, including ethical investments and giving vehicles, and the politics and philanthropic practices of moving it toward grassroots movements for social and economic justice.
In 1999, some younger attendees of these progressive wealth conferences went on to start a retreat for people under 35 called Making Money Make Change that focused on the issues of young people with wealth. This retreat is now one of many programs organized by Resource Generation. Many other groups also offer programming for donors of all types. For example, Bolder Giving works to inspire people to give more and take more risks with their giving. The Tides Foundation and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice have also hosted organizing conferences with donor participation in the past decade.
Why are donor conferences necessary? A common experience many people with wealth experience is isolation. On multiple levels- geopolitically, socioeconomically and psychologically, the structures that perpetuate and worsen the wealth gap (http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105) are bad for everyone and everything. From what I have experienced and observed, many donors need some degree of donor-only spaces, at least for a time. Ironically, it comes down to meeting people where they are at, and giving them a space to talk about their wealth, privilege and giving, while also providing the political education, tools and resources to ultimately take action.
But what about accountability? In our stratified society there are already more than enough exclusive places in this world for wealthy people to “build community” with each other. Creating spaces where wealthy people get together and talk about funding social change is problematic. The fact that these donor spaces have tended to be almost entirely white adds another dimension to the potential negative consequences of creating donor-only spaces. The perspectives of those most impacted by inequality and injustice simply are not adequately represented.
Ideally, social justice donor conferences and other forms of donor programming provide a supportive yet also challenging space. In order to challenge donors, it is critical to bring grassroots activists and professionals working in impacted communities as content providers and facilitators. Another critical yet often missed step is to work to build donor diversity. The goal is to create transformational spaces that move donors from a place of isolation to connectedness, and past a place of only needing donor-only spaces.
Donor programming is sometimes built into organizing and movement building conferences. An upcoming example is the Funding Exchange Skills Conference September 14-16 in Tucson, AZ. For the first time, the conference will be open to those beyond the Funding Exchange network, with donor and allies invited to participate. The new structure is designed to build and strengthen authentic relationships with donors and allies who have a commitment and investment in FEX and to create spaces where their roles and voices are visible, creating a new generation of donors at all giving levels.
While I wrote here about programming that is specifically designed for high net worth individuals, I believe philanthropic education is important in communities at all income levels. I think its important to think about meaningful and appropriate ways to engage donors at all giving levels in grassroots work to strengthen and broaden the foundations from which we take action for progressive change. Social justice needs as robust and diverse a community as possible to support it. As we work to support social justice across class and other differences I think we should remember that we are all in this together.
7.14 Develop fundraising leadership
Posted by: GIFT on: July 14, 2011
July-August 2011 Grassroots Fundraising Journal
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Featuring:
Developing Fundraising Leadership
by Marjorie Childress
The departure of an executive director naturally raises questions about carrying fundraising forward. The SouthWest Organizing Project learned that succession planning for shared fundraising responsibilities even before a transition makes the process far easier. Read the full article here.
7.12 Steps for Raising $20,000
Posted by: kimkleinfundraises on: July 12, 2011
- In: Dear Kim | Fundraising
- 2 Comments
Dear Ms. Klein:
I am the treasurer of the Spanish Honor Society at my local High School. My goal is to raise approximately $20,000 in order to have all our club members fly to Costa Rica. We plan to volunteer at an orphanage there where we will teach the children English and organize activities for them. The problem is, however, that I have no idea where to start. I know a project of this scale requires more than a bake sale, but what? I understand that you are probably more used to dealing with things of a larger scale, but do you have any tips for the penniless high school student?
Gratefully,
Never Too Young To Start Fundraising
Dear Never:
Actually, your project is bigger than many I deal with, and it sounds like an important learning experience for your Club. You will want to do this in phases:
1) Form a small committee of club members, maybe your teacher and a couple of parents to help you. Do not attempt this on your own!
2) Start with the parents of the Club Members. Send a letter home with each club member describing the trip and why it is so important, not just for the children you will be helping, but also a chance to become much more fluent in Spanish and to experience Costa Rican culture. Note that your club wants everyone to be able to participate, and so is not leveling a price for each student, but rather raising a lump sum that will pay for everyone. However, to get started you need to know what parents may be able to contribute. The form should indicate that each student costs $1000 (or whatever is true) and ask parents to note what they can afford.
3) While that is happening, ask any one you know (or look on the internet) for scholarship sources in your community that might be available from Zonta, Rotary, or other service clubs. If a local merchant is known to be supportive of high school activities, approach her or him. Given the nature of this trip, I would approach travel agents, recreational equipment stores and bookstores.
4) Also, your committee should make a list of people they know in the community who they think would be supportive of this kind of trip. Think about people who went on trips like this when they were in high school or college, people who travel a lot, people who speak more than one language and think that is important, people who volunteer with children, and people who graduated from your high school and loved it, etc. The key here is that the person must be known by someone on the committee. Send this list an e-mail or letter, which you will follow up with a phone call. These people should be approached for gifts in the $50-$250 range.
5) Finally, keep track of the money as it comes in. Once you are at about $18,000, consider a bake sale or other similar event, but make sure you have a banner with your goal on it, and ask people to donate to your trip rather than selling each cookie for $.50.
6) On the back end, you will need to thank everyone who gives, and after the trip is over, send them a report about it and another thank you. You should consider having a group blog during the trip that donors can subscribe to.
For more ideas of ways to raise this kind of money, see the book, “The Accidental Fundraiser” by Stephanie Roth and Mimi Ho (Jossey Bass Publishers). It has 11 strategies in great detail, with forms, templates and lots of examples.
And good luck! I think these trips are wonderful and I wish your club all the best.
~Kim Klein
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