An organization’s beliefs about fundraising will shape their fundraising plans.
For instance…
that a large percentage
of your individual
donors would love to
make multiple gifts
each year…
an annual plan that
regularly asks donors
to give…
a large percentage
of donors making
multiple gifts.
How are your organization’s beliefs shaping your annual plan?
My last post was about why sharing a shortfall with your donors is good for revenue and your relationships with donors.
That’s a challenging, counter-intuitive idea. So because we humans learn through stories, let me share the story of how one nonprofit navigated their shortfall situation.
Here’s how it went…
Years ago, a nonprofit we were serving let us know that they had a $500,000 shortfall as they approached the end of their fiscal year.
We recommended that they share the shortfall with their donors by running a shortfall campaign.
The conversation that followed went through the standard steps that most of these conversations go through…
First, they told us that sharing their shortfall was a ridiculous idea. They shared that their organization is a pillar in their community. They were worried that making the shortfall public would negatively affect their brand. They were worried that donors would think the organization was a bad steward of their gifts. They were worried that – even if some donors gave a gift to help – that overall it would cause more donors to stop giving to the organization.
We listened. And then we shared that we knew from experience, having run 60 to 70 successful shortfall campaigns, that their donors would give generously if the organization included the shortfall in their messaging. And we shared that, in our experience, the organization would not suffer any of the negative consequences that they feared.
Feeling slightly warmer to the idea but still unconvinced, they said what most organizations say at this point, which is, “Well, there’s no way that will work with our donors because [REASONS].” The reasons tend to be things like, “Our donors are different than other donors” or “this won’t work because all our donors know our founder” or “our donors are professionals and won’t fall for this” (as if there’s something to fall for?!?) and, my personal favorite, “all our donors are from [location] and people from [location] don’t like things like this.”
So we said, “We hear you and acknowledge that these are real concerns. Could we share an example of a shortfall campaign from an organization similar to yours? It worked well for them and we think it would work well for you.”
They replied, “Yes we’d love to see the example… but we have to tell you that our boss isn’t going to like it.”
So, I had a warm conversation with the Director of Donor Development. She was open to the idea, found our experience persuading, and decided it was worth talking about.
This leads to the final step, which is moving up the chain of command to have a conversation with the VP or ED/CEO who can make the final decision. In this case, I spent an hour on the phone with the VP of Philanthropy. She’s a brilliant woman and had all the concerns mentioned earlier – in part because she was very good at fundraising and had never experienced a shortfall before.
I talked her through several shortfall campaigns I’d been through. I shared all the positive reasons that donors respond to shortfalls. I shared results of previous shortfall campaigns compared to standard results.
It was basically an hour-long counselling session. People in Fundraising tend to have deeply held beliefs about what their donors will and will not respond to. And I was warmly sharing some data that challenged this person’s beliefs. There were hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, and relationships with very large donors, so we talked it all the way through.
The VP of Philanthropy bought in, and then met with the Board to get approval. After much discussion, the Board nervously decided to try it.
It was time to get to work. Here’s what we did:
The people were prepped. The letters were mailed. The emails were sent. It was time to see what happened…
Their fiscal year-end campaign normally raised about $150,000, and our campaign raised about $650,000. That’s an “extra” $500,000 that effectively erased the shortfall.
It doesn’t always work out that perfectly, but it does more often than you’d expect. The major donors who get involved often want to know how much is needed to reach the goal. They will often stretch their giving to help you reach the target number.
In addition to the overall success, there are few numbers I’d like to highlight:
In addition, none of the feared negative consequences came to pass. This shortfall was a few years ago, and the organization now has about 25% more donors than they used to. Their major gifts program is going great. They’ve also successfully funded a significant capital campaign.
Their brand was not tarnished. Their standing the community remains strong. Their donors did not leave in a thundering herd.
This whole thing is a lesson in the power of vulnerability.
The organization was vulnerable and courageous enough to share the shortfall with their donors. Their donors responded generously, and were pleased to help the organization in their time of need. There were no negative consequences to speak of.
The organization has a deeper appreciation of their donors than ever before; the organization needed help, and their donors answered the call.
All of this is to say, if you have a shortfall don’t be afraid to share it with your donors.
Here’s a “hot take” for you:
If your organization has a shortfall, I encourage you to share it with your donors. Sharing it will be good for your fundraising and donor relationships, both in the short term and the long term.
I know that sounds absurd to many people. But this is a data-driven position.
Sharing a shortfall with your donors is a scary idea for many nonprofits. Doing it usually requires a big shift in thinking. So this is a longer post than normal. I’m going to explain what we’ve noticed about three things:
We want you to get past the fear because of what’s on the other side…
Let’s start by talking for a moment about why sharing a shortfall feels somewhere between dangerous and dumb. Here’s what “common sense” tells you about sharing a shortfall with your donors:
Furthermore, no one likes how it feels to send out a shortfall message. Everyone working at the nonprofit, or leading the nonprofit, or on the Board will feel like the shortfall reflects poorly on them.
All of this makes sense.
And let’s add one more layer: no one ever talks about the results of their shortfall campaign. Have you ever been to a conference where a fundraising professional was up on stage talking about how well their shortfall campaign went? Nope.
There’s so much shame around this that no one talks about it.
Then we add the branding and marketing folks who don’t really understand how vulnerability is such a big part of fundraising success, and they actively push back on mentioning that the organization has a shortfall.
So we’re in a situation where people think shortfall campaigns are a bad idea, no one likes them, and no one talks about the results.
But in my experience, the vast majority of people have never seen the results of a shortfall campaign. They just aren’t aware that…
This idea is so counter-intuitive that, until you have experience with multiple shortfall campaigns, there’s almost no way you’ll believe it.
But it’s true; fundraising campaigns that focus on helping an organization overcome a shortfall work great. And they do not cause the negative consequences that people fear.
I estimate that I’ve helped on between 60 to 70 shortfall campaigns. They’ve been for organizations of all different sizes and in all different sectors. Here’s what happens:
Notice I’m not saying, “shortfall campaigns always raise enough to erase the shortfall.” I’m saying that they always raise quite a bit more than an organization’s “standard” fundraising, and don’t have the negative consequences that people fear. And the campaign will erase the entire shortfall more often than you think.
Those are the numbers. Water is wet, the world is round, shortfall campaigns work great.
I’ve thought about this a lot. Here’s my take on the powerful mix of reasons shortfall campaigns raise so much more money than an organization’s “regular” fundraising. And I suspect that, even though you might not totally believe my main thesis yet, you’ll look at this list and see how it makes sense:
All of those ring true, right?
Put all of them together and you can begin to see why donors respond so generously when an organization shares that they have a shortfall.
Should you go looking for a shortfall? No. Should you share a shortfall four times a year? No again.
But when you have a shortfall, trust that your donors care, and share it with them. You’ll be so glad you did. Your donors will be glad you did, too, because they love helping you.
In my next post, I’ll share a story of an organization that had a shortfall, had all of the perfectly normal concerns about sharing that shortfall with their donors, and decided to run a shortfall campaign.
A lot of smaller nonprofits believe that sharing their uniqueness will cause them to have fundraising success.
But in my experience, when an organization talks about their uniqueness in their fundraising to individual donors, it causes them to raise less. (In fact, when we start working with organizations that have been making a big deal of their uniqueness, we stop mentioning it and they start raising more money.)
Here’s the deal: there’s nothing wrong with uniqueness, and it’s an important idea in a couple of contexts; but in your letters and emails to individual donors it’s something like the 8th most important idea.
Here’s an off-the-cuff list of things that are more important to get right in your fundraising to individual donors than mentioning your organization’s uniqueness:
If you’ve done all seven of those things well, and adding a mention of your uniqueness doesn’t diminish any of those seven, then by all means talk about it.
The lesson we’ve learned looking at fundraising results over the years is that uniqueness matters most to insiders and experts. For instance, your unique approach is often a very important point to include in a grant application.
But when you’re talking to your individual donors – the vast majority of whom aren’t insiders or experts – the results make it clear that there are other, more important messages to communicate first.
Mr. Rogers used to tell a story about something his mother would say:
“When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
That little story always comes to mind after disasters like Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. In the pictures and videos you’ll see rescue workers and volunteers who are helping.
It’s also when we Fundraisers play a small role in thousands and thousands of regular people who become “Helpers” – the people who see the news or read our appeals, stop what they are doing, and help by making a gift.
The way humans generously respond to needs will never cease to thrill me. I hope you have the same experience.
Of course, I would prefer that there never be another disaster, large or small.
But when they happen, I’ll appreciate and rejoice in the generosity every time.
PS — If you’re a small nonprofit, and you need extra/emergency money due to hurricanes Helene or Milton, please read this post for our offer to (for free) write an emergency email for you.
We’re replacing today’s blog post with a special announcement:
If you’re at a small nonprofit, and hurricane Helene or hurricane Milton has caused you to need extra/emergency funds, we’d like to help; we will write an emergency fundraising email for you.
Our hearts have been broken by what’s happened in the past couple of weeks – and what might happen in the next few days. We know of several organizations that are waaaay beyond capacity. And staff people who don’t have the time, expertise or budget to get out an emergency email.
So we’d like to help.
If you’re at a small nonprofit and would like us to write a free emergency fundraising email for you, here’s what to do:
We’ll reply with a few detailed questions about your exact situation so we know what to say in the email. Once you send us the answers, we’ll write an emergency email for you within a day or two. We’ll also send a handful of tips that will help you with emergency fundraising in general.
It’s possible that we won’t be able to write an email for every organization that asks for one. We’ve never done this before, and we have no idea how many people will take us up on this offer.
But we are inspired by the thousands of people who are helping as much as they can right now. This is the way we can help, and just like you, we’ll help as much as we can.
If you or your organization need help, please get in touch!
You know all those big charities you know by name? The ones raising tens and hundreds of millions of dollars?
At one point they were all raising exactly as much as you are now.
They had the same struggles you have, the same doubts, the same looming fears about year-end.
And they kept going.
Sometimes it was all they could do just to make it through the end of the year. Sometimes they added one more small thing. Or tried a new offer. Or focused on a core strategy.
Your beneficiaries and your donors need what you’re doing.
Keep going.
Follow me on this one…
The purpose of your email list is a step towards making a donation. Your email list is place for people who are interested to find out a bit more about your organization and then to decide whether to become a donor or not.
So be sure you’re asking them regularly – I’d recommend at least one e-appeal per month asking them to help your beneficiaries or cause.
This will cause the occasional unsubscribe. It will also cause far more people to “take the next step” and make a donation.
For instance, you could send out an e-appeal and get 5 new donors and 1 unsubscribe. That’s preferrable to sending another e-news and getting… nothing.
If you don’t regularly ask your email list to give, your email list will be larger but it will not produce much revenue or many new donors.
You will have trained your email list to receive things from your nonprofit, but not to give to your nonprofit.
Our recommendation: conversations about your email list should center on “Revenue” and “# New Donors”… not size.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a famous astrophysicist. Millions of people love him for his ability to explain complex scientific ideas in ways that non-experts can understand.
But you know what? At any given time there are hundreds of scientists who are deeply annoyed at Tyson. Why? Because his explanations oversimplify the complex realities of astrophysics, or the space-time continuum, you name it.
But the videos and TV appearances that Neil makes aren’t for those experts. The videos and appearances are for you and me. The job of those appearances is to get more people interested and involved in the sciences.
In order to do that job, Neil has taken the occasional potshot from an annoyed expert.
The exact same thing is true of individual donor fundraising: in order to get more people interested and involved in a nonprofit, the leader of the organization has to simplify complex realities. This makes the organization more accessible and raises more money, and results in potshots from friends at sister organizations, Board members, and program staff who are experts.
The Red Cross oversimplifies the complex realities of disaster relief. World Vision oversimplifies the complex realities of childhood poverty. St. Jude’s oversimplifies the complex realities of pediatric cancer research and treatment.
The experts in those fields are deeply annoyed at the oversimplification going on in the fundraising done by those organizations.
But the fundraising is not for those experts. And the fundraising done by those organizations has resulted in millions of people being more involved, and billions of dollars raised to make the world a better place.
So this is a call to all the creators and approvers of fundraising out there. If Neil will take a few potshots in order to get more people interested and involved in the sciences, will you take a few potshots to get more people interested and involved in your cause and helping your beneficiaries?