Tag: fundraising

Three Core Functions

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
3 Core Functions.

The following is from my friend Richard Perry, and it’s too good not to share:

There are three core functions of a nonprofit:

  1. Deliver programs to solve a societal problem.
  2. Inspire and retain supporters to fund it.
  3. Build internal systems that support both.

That is so clear, and so true. 

What I like about what Richard says, and why I want to see it spread, is that this thinking convincingly makes the case that Fundraising (“inspiring and retaining supporters”) is equally important to Program.  And it specifically calls nonprofits to “build internal systems that support both.”

But if your experience is anything like mine, you feel that most nonprofits do not treat Fundraising equally to Program. 

That happens for lots of legitimate reasons: most Founders are program-oriented and naturally focus their time & effort in that area, plus fundraising is by nature uncomfortable to most people.  Additionally, fundraising education has not kept up with the explosion of nonprofits in the U.S.

Fine.

But the shift to “treating Fundraising equally to Program” is one that immediately helps the organization.  The “flywheel effect” is obvious: the fundraising becomes more effective, the organization is better at retaining fundraising talent, the organization retains more donors each year, and the organization raises more money.

The mature, national organizations I served at the beginning of my career had all made this shift.  I think that tells you something.

If you’re a leader of an organization that hasn’t made this shift, it’s worth exploring what’s stopping you.

If you’re working at an organization that hasn’t made this shift, it’s worth sharing this thinking and having a conversation.

10 Years of Above Average Growth

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Above average.

There’s a nonprofit that Better Fundraising has been serving for about 10 years.  And during those years, the nonprofit has experienced above-average growth. 

I was asked to summarize why this organization’s fundraising to individual donors has experienced this uninterrupted run of success.  And I’d like to share that summary with you in case it helps you raise more money.

We have the following beliefs about the world and about individual donors:

  • We’re in a world where there are almost twice as many nonprofits the U.S. than there were 25 years ago.
  • We live in a world where people receive, on average, between 6,000 and 10,000 marketing messages per day
  • We believe that individual donors are materially different than staff, board members, or volunteers.  We believe that individual donors are not subject matter experts like we are, and they care about and value different things than staff do.
  • We know that the average donor in the United States is 68 years old.
  • In the context of direct response fundraising (direct mail, email, phone, radio), we know that Individual donors tend to make the “give-or-not-give” decisions in mere seconds. 
  • We believe that many donors would love to give more than once per year, but that’s only likely to happen if we ask them to.
  • We believe that donors appreciate knowing reasons and stories that show the organization’s work (and the donors’ support) is needed today.
  • We believe that communicating often enough to donors so that the organization is a regular, relevant presence in their lives will lead to more donations than occasional or sporadic communications.

These beliefs lead us to create direct response fundraising and major donor programs with the following goals:

  • Communicate with donors more often than internal audiences might think is necessary.
  • Create communications that are dramatic and urgent, in order to break through the noise and earn donors’ attention.
  • Write and design our communications to touch donors’ values and emotions more than trying to appeal to what the organization values. 

These beliefs and goals have led to 10 years of above-average growth.

There’s more than just beliefs and goals, of course.  You have to maintain your database.  You have to learn what does (and what doesn’t) go on an effective landing page.  You have to learn how to structure a major donor development system.

But all of those are tactics that can be learned by anyone.

If your fundraising isn’t regularly and consistently growing, look at the beliefs and goals that drive your fundraising program.  And if you need a new belief or goal, the ones above are a great place to start because they are proven to guide you to make tactical choices that will help you build deeper relationships with your donors and raise more money.

Maintain Wonder While Being Skeptical

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Sense of wonder.

There’s a great quote from Carl Sagan that, while not ostensibly about fundraising, is absolutely about fundraising:

“At the heart of science is a balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes – an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”

I post that quote today for multiple fun reasons…

I laughed when I read it because there’s a lot of “deep nonsense” in the fundraising world. 

The phrase “deep nonsense” is exceptional writing.  It’s catchy, contradictory, and true all at the same time.

I’ve always admired Carl Sagan.  He and Neil DeGrasse Tyson are mentors of a sort to me.

And speaking of mentors, the next few blog posts are going to be from some of my “fundraising mentors.”

There will be some names you recognize, and hopefully some names that you don’t.  Each post coming your way is great (I’ve vetted every single one).  Hopefully you’ll be introduced to some new people who will become part of your tribe of fundraising mentors.

As a reader of this blog, I’m betting you have some of that “wonder” at this amazing thing called Fundraising that we get to do.  And you have some of the skepticism that “winnows the deep truths from the deep nonsense.”

I hope the next posts will help you identify some new ideas and mentors to help you do even more good than you’re already doing!

Direct mail and… Kale?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Kale.

Direct mail is like kale – nobody likes it the first time they try it.

Kale is a tough, leafy vegetable that tastes like a hedge.

But over time, a person can come to see the benefits of eating kale.  You start to appreciate kale.  And with the right prep and dressings, even enjoy it.

Direct mail is a tough, counter-intuitive, expensive way to raise money.

But over time, an organization can come to see the revenue that direct mail brings in and the relationship it builds.  You start to appreciate direct mail.  And with the right approach and understanding, even enjoy it.

Kale will never be as enjoyable as a cheeseburger.  Direct mail will never be as enjoyable as a great conversation with a major donor, or the emotional high of a beneficiary’s story at an event.

You might not like direct mail or kale.  But both of them are still good for you.

This post was originally published on February 6, 2024.

Avoid Looking Too Sleek or Professional

Sarah Lundberg  |  Repeat
Sleek professional.

Before my time at The Better Fundraising Co, I used to be a Director of Marketing and Communications for a nonprofit. But then the nonprofit I was working at needed me to create their fundraising materials from scratch, and I discovered a whole new world of expertise – it challenged the beliefs that my nonprofit and I had for how fundraising worked.

But we started raising a LOT more money. 

Before we learned fundraising best practices, we spent a fair amount of time trying to make our fundraising look sleek and professional.

I remember sending a donor a thank you note and taking the time to print out a label on the printer to make it look more professional.

Little did I realize… a hand scribbled address would have been the better choice.

We were a medium-sized nonprofit and we had the mistaken assumption that we had to have a certain polished “look” to be taken seriously by our donors. For us, this meant highly designed pieces, glossy paper, and yes… many, many printed labels.

Then we learned how powerful it was to be real – to show our donors that there was a human behind each communication. Being authentic and making a connection became more important than looking sleek and professional.

We began to look for opportunities to show donors that a human had touched the communication they were reading.

Things like a scrawled “thank you” on the carrier envelope of a newsletter or a plastic coated paperclip clipping together pieces of a newsletter pack (brilliant idea from John Lepp of Agents of Good!). These tactics showed that a person was behind the mailing, not a brand or a marketing campaign.

Over time, it felt like we were building a friendship with our donors through direct response fundraising, rather than just trying to get a donation.

As with the other best practices we learned along the way, being real and less polished with our donors made our job easier. It felt more like “us.”

Being real and less polished with our donors caused them to trust us more!  And their donations increased because it was clear that a person was asking them to give, not just a brand or an organization.


Read the whole series:

Charging Your ‘Fundraising Battery’

Steven Screen  |  Thank
Battery charging.

Interestingly, the posts on this blog that tend to generate the most feedback are the posts that are about the Fundraiser, not about fundraising.

They are the posts where a Fundraiser feels seen for the work they are doing and the conditions they are doing it in.

So, here’s a note to all the leaders of Fundraising departments out there: make sure you help the Fundraisers you’re leading regularly recharge their “fundraising batteries.”

And I don’t mean giving them days off or spa days (though they aren’t going to turn those down).

I mean making sure they regularly connect with the power of their fundraising work, and feel appreciated for their fundraising work.  I mean things like this:

  • A monthly exercise where they visualize donors giving gifts, and get that “little jolt of joy” that happens when you put yourself in a donor’s shoes as they make a gift.
  • Bring in an experienced donor who can talk about the joy of giving, and the positive role that fundraising plays in a donor’s life
  • Regularly practice “fundraising fika.”
  • Remind them that while the results of their work may feel like numbers on a spreadsheet, to look around at all the program activity and know they play a major role in making it happen. 

Fundraising in a nonprofit (particularly smaller orgs) has its own unique difficulties.  What other department regularly gets negative critical feedback from all the other parts of the organization?  What other department’s wisdom and expertise is regularly pushed aside because of one person’s opinion?

So if you’re in charge of Fundraisers – make sure they regularly get to feel the beauty and grace of fundraising.  You’ll recharge their fundraising batteries, you’ll have happy co-workers who stick around longer, and you’ll create a place where Fundraisers want to work.

The Core Four

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Core four.

“We want to raise more than 1 million dollars each year from our individual donors.  What should we do?”

That, my friend, is a great question that more small nonprofits should be asking. 

We were curious, so we looked at our clients that had broken the “raise $1mm in a year from individual donors” barrier.

This post shares the four strategies that had the largest effect.  And how using all four strategies at the same time had a supercharging effect…

Optimized Events

They professionalized their events by having a tighter schedule, fewer people on stage, a tighter script, and left the “we have to convince people to give” thinking at home.

Perhaps most importantly, they changed their content strategy.  The first thing they did was to figure out what the ask would be for, and then designed the content of the event to make the ask as powerful as possible.

They raised more money at the event, and their donors had a better time.

Strategic Major Donor Systems

They installed a proven system to manage their major donors.

Major donors were identified and ranked, relationships were cultivated, and the right amount of time was spent on the right donors.

The systematic approach retained more major donors year over year, and lifted more major donors to higher levels of giving.

More Donor Communications

They increased the amount of fundraising sent to individual donors beyond what they previously believed was possible. 

They saw that they were not going to grow into a larger organization until they embraced one of the key behaviors of larger organizations: communicating more often.

And they started raising more money every year.

Segment Appropriate Messaging

They embraced the wisdom that different audiences should be communicated to differently.  So they spoke differently to a Foundation, and differently in an email to individual donors, and differently to a long time major donor.

This caused consternation among staff, but the organizations started raising more money.

The Flywheel

Those four strategies work together like the proverbial “flywheel” to accelerate growth…

  • Because the event is optimized, more people come back the next year, plus more people invite their friends.  So there are more people at the event, and they tend to give more because the event is well constructed…
  • The major donors are identified, and then systematically cultivated, so the organization has a growing major donor file…
  • Because segment-appropriate messaging is used, each piece of fundraising raises more money because it’s relevant to that audience…
  • Because there are more donor communications, the organization raises more and retains more donors…
  • This leads to more donors going to the event… and the circle continues.

To show you what it looks like when it all comes together, here’s the event performance for an organization that we began serving in 2016:

Gross revenue chart.

Impressive, eh?

Virtuous Circle

Those are the “Core Four” strategies that, working together, create a self-reinforcing virtuous circle that helps organizations experience crazy growth.

Which of the Core Four could your organization improve at? If you’d like help, send an email to info@betterfundraising.com.  Or go here to see how we help organizations like yours!

The Danger of Focusing on One Metric

Steven Screen  |  Report
Secret meeting.

A friend who’s a Fundraiser recently shared a story with me.  It was about a nonprofit who received a pitch from a consultant that he would increase their average gift size.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  What nonprofit wouldn’t want all of their donors giving more?

So the nonprofit hired the consultant.  And their average gift size went up! 

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Too bad what also happened is that their response rates went down.  And their retention rates went down.  So despite the increase in average gift, the organization is raising less total money than they used to be.  And they have fewer donors.

That doesn’t sound great.

This is a great illustration of the danger of focusing too much on one fundraising metric.  All the main metrics are important, but none of them exist in a vacuum.

It’s relatively easy to increase any one metric.  Need higher response rates to your direct mail?  Include a freemium!  (Your response rate will go up… but your package now costs more.)  Want to increase the ROI on your next campaign?  Don’t send direct mail, only send email!  (Your ROI will go up because you’ve lowered costs by so much, but you’ll raise less money overall.)

The trick is understanding the whole system and the tradeoffs made with every tactic.

Any time someone wants to optimize one metric, always be wary.  Ask what the consequences will be to the other metrics.

And always remember: the only metric you can use to pay for programs is Net Revenue.

Direct mail and… Kale?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Kale.

Direct mail is like kale – nobody likes it the first time they try it.

Kale is a tough, leafy vegetable that tastes like a hedge.

But over time, a person can come to see the benefits of eating kale.  You start to appreciate kale.  And with the right prep and dressings, even enjoy it.

Direct mail is a tough, counter-intuitive, expensive way to raise money.

But over time, an organization can come to see the revenue that direct mail brings in and the relationship it builds.  You start to appreciate direct mail.  And with the right approach and understanding, even enjoy it.

Kale will never be as enjoyable as a cheeseburger.  Direct mail will never be as enjoyable as a great conversation with a major donor, or the emotional high of a beneficiary’s story at an event.

You might not like direct mail or kale.  But both of them are still good for you.