Three Reasons You Should Occasionally Let Your Fundraiser Try Something New

Something new.

If you have some control or influence over fundraising at your organization – please take a minute to read this.

Maybe you’re the Executive Director, or a Board member, or the Head of Programs. But you have some “say” over your fundraising strategy, content and language.

Here’s what I want you to do:

Let your Fundraiser try something new every once in a while. Even something you don’t like.

There are three main reasons you want to do this…

  1. No one piece of fundraising is going to make or break your year. So it’s fine if you try something new every once in a while, even if you’re a small organization. Most nonprofits overestimate the importance of any one particular piece of fundraising.
  2. If a smart Fundraiser doesn’t get to try new things every once in a while, they will likely leave. One of the reasons nonprofit fundraising has a massive turnover problem is that Fundraisers are told they will be responsible for the fundraising – and usually told they need to raise more money than last year – but also must take all of the advice from non-Fundraisers. Would you thrive in that environment?
  3. For your organization to raise a different amount of money, you must communicate differently than you have in the past. Put another way, your current communication plan and messaging are perfectly designed to raise the amount of money that you raised last year. If you want to raise meaningfully more, you need to make meaningful changes.

If you don’t accept a little risk by giving your Fundraisers the freedom and leeway they need to make changes, you haven’t given them the freedom and leeway they need to achieve the fundraising goals.

Getting Boundary-Stretching Fundraising Approved

Exceed expectation.

I’m fresh off the plane from last week’s Storytelling Conference, and there’s something I forgot to share.

It’s a simple, story-based tool for anyone who wants to try a fundraising approach that’s new to their organization… and needs to get their boss to approve it.

This tool doesn’t make it easy – a fundraising approach that’s new can challenge beliefs people have about how fundraising works. And beliefs don’t easily change. But it’s a start, so here goes…

Step 1 – Share What You Learned

Share the new strategy, tactic or approach that you learned at the conference.

Step 2 – Tell Your Story

Share how the knowledge of new strategy or tactic changed how you think. Give examples if you can, saying things like, “I used to think that it worked like X, but now I see that it can work like Y.”

Share how you think that the approach could help your organization raise more money and achieve more of your mission.

Step 3 – Share Why You Can’t Believe

Confess that you now wonder if the previous approach you took is really the best approach. You’re not “proclaiming” here – that can put people on the defensive because the meta is that “you’re right and they’re wrong” – and we don’t want that.

Confess that you’re wondering if the current way of doing things is raising less money than you could be and holding your organization back from doing more.

Step 4 – Share Your Conflict

Acknowledge that by sharing this you’re aware that it upsets the status quo, and that you don’t enjoy doing that.

Step 5 – “What Should I Do About This?”

Ask a simple, direct question: “What should I do about this?”

Be a good listener.

You may get shut down. You may find that there’s a possibility of trying the new approach.

Regardless, be solutions-oriented. Offer to look for a low stakes place to try the idea. Perhaps you can try it in an e-appeal during a dead time of the year? If people are worried about the Board’s reaction, take the Board off the send list.

Step 6 – Remember That You Are On The Same Team

If your organization is completely against the new approach, now you know.

But you will have honored the organization by introducing a new idea in a sensitive, thoughtful way. Their reaction is up to them.

What comes next is up to you. Some people in this situation will bring the idea up again a few months later. Some people will leave the organization. Whatever your approach is, remember that you’re on the same team right now.

Step 7 – You Can Always Ask For A Do-Over

If there’s no tolerance for failure, there’s no innovation.

That goes for your organization; if your organization isn’t willing to fail, they won’t be willing to try your idea.

But in this moment it also goes for you – you tried a new approach to get a new idea approved. And kudos to you; you took the vulnerable approach, tried to innovate, and were willing to fail. Good on you.

If it didn’t work, you can thank the person for listening, and in most cases you can ask if you can try again later.

In My Experience…

If you present a challenging idea in a sensitive, thoughtful way, you have a better chance of getting in a conversation about it.

If you get in a conversation about it, you have a better chance of it getting approved.

So whether you’re back from the conference and have a head full of new ideas that conflict with “the stories your organization tells itself about fundraising,” or just read about an idea that you want to try, give this approach a go.

How to Innovate (and when NOT to)

Make Things Much Better

We talk often about “Repeating” the tactics and messages that work for your donors.

During one such post a while back, I brought up an important question: “how do you innovate when you’re in a culture of repeating what’s worked in the past? Because you have to innovate.”

I Was Wrong, That’s Awkward…

Let me begin by saying that I was wrong about something: you don’t have to innovate.

This might be controversial, but most nonprofits should not be innovating.

In my experience, the vast majority of nonprofits should focus on the basic building blocks of solid donor communications and fundraising before they try to innovate.

Most nonprofits should “learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist” (eternal thanks for that quote, Picasso). Most nonprofits should take advantage of the incredible body of knowledge that’s been built up over the last 60 years for how to raise money effectively.

Listen, if you’re raising less than $2 million per year, you probably shouldn’t be innovating. You should focus your time on fundamentals like getting good at Asking, Thanking and Reporting, getting receipts out on time, focusing your time on major donors, having a website that’s good at receiving & tracking gifts, etc.

For instance, say you’re currently sending out 3 appeal letters per year and have a newsletter that doesn’t raise money. My advice would be to send out 5 appeals per year and start raising money with your newsletter before trying something your organization has never done before.

Those are the “long cuts” to success.

Two Paths to Innovation

Ok. You’ve fostered a culture of Repeating: you repeat tactics that work, and you invest the minimum time and money needed to update successful tactics (and not a dollar or minute more).

Then there are two paths to innovation:

  1. When you update your materials, work to improve We call this “incremental innovation,” and it’s what most nonprofits should be doing.
  2. Try entirely new tactics. This looks like “launching a Facebook presence” or “trying telemarketing.”

Incremental Innovation

Here’s how you innovate incrementally…

As you update materials you’ve used in the past (e.g., your year-end appeal letter, or your fall event), you do your necessary updates and then ask, “Are there any tweaks we could make so that this works a little better?”

Here are examples of tweaks you can make that almost always work:

  • Add matching funds
  • Make the language more donor-centric
  • Talk about your organization less
  • Add a deadline with consequences
  • Make the offer more attractive
  • Use customized gift ask amounts based on each donor’s last gift

Not very sexy, eh? But it’s how most of the really successful fundraising programs got where they are today. Incremental innovation over time creates a fundraising program that predictably raises more money.

Try New Tactics (but Minimize Risk)

The big idea here is to try new things without putting large portions of your revenue at risk.

Here’s a perfect example from a couple years ago: a nonprofit that regularly raised $50,000 from their Year-End appeal letter decided to not send their letter. They chose to only send emails because email was so much cheaper.

The organization saved approximately $4,000, but raised $25,000 instead of their regular $50,000. Ouch.

Any time you are considering an idea that puts a lot of revenue at risk, your goal should be to minimize the risk as much as possible.

For instance, they could have sent the letter to their Major and Mid-level donors. That’s where about 80% of their revenue came from. That would have guaranteed 80% of the revenue ($40,000!). Then they could have experimented by doing an email-only campaign to the rest of their donors.

And you know what would have worked even better? Sending the letter to all donors, and then sending a follow-up letter, and emails.

When trying something brand new, we usually follow these three principles:

  1. Determine the “minimum effective dose.” You want to figure out the least amount you have to spend in order to get a test with reproducible results. Maybe it’s a new Facebook presence where you need to spend 15 hours per week and $1,000 per month boosting posts. Maybe that’s a radio campaign where you need to spend $20,000 on spots to really know if the campaign is working or not. Whatever it is, do the research and figure out what you need to do to make your test a good test.
  2. Have a budget and a timeline. Define exactly how much money and time you’re going to spend on a test. If you don’t have a specific budget and timeline, you’re at risk of over-spending, or getting out too early, or running into conflict because different people in your organization have different expectations. We see this all the time in donor acquisition. Starting to do donor acquisition is hard, and usually takes at least a year to really get going. If you know that but don’t say it, and someone in the organization thinks it’s only going to take 3 months, you’re in trouble.
  3. Define success. You have to specifically define what success looks like. It doesn’t work to say “we’ve engaged our donors more” or “we’ve built awareness in our community.” You want to use specific metrics like “our retention rate will go up 2%” or “we’ll acquire 250 new donors.” Get specific. As Peter Drucker said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” I’ve watched a LOT of money get wasted on new initiatives where the results weren’t really measurable.

What’s Next for You?

Hopefully this helps you a) think about what you should be doing next to raise more money, and b) avoid the common mistakes many nonprofits make.

Now, make a plan and go get ‘em! And if you want help, get in touch. You can use our experience (from successes and failures we’ve learned from) to move your organization forward faster!

This post was originally published on June 21, 2018.

When to Attempt to Innovate

When to Attempt to Innovate

I wrote recently about how the vast majority of small nonprofits should not spend time and money attempting to innovate.

But there are times when attempting to innovate is the right thing to do:

You should attempt to innovate after you have stabilized your fundraising, optimized your fundraising, and expanded your fundraising.

Stabilize, Optimize, Expand, Innovate

Most small- to medium-sized nonprofits need to stabilize their fundraising.

That means getting your systems locked in so you know exactly what to do, when to start, how long it takes, and you get it done on time. (Most small nonprofits have work to do on this stage, in my experience.)

Then they need to optimize their fundraising.

That’s making each appeal or e-appeal work as well as possible. That’s using segmentation and talking to different groups of people with different messaging. That’s analyzing the results of each fundraising campaign and making the next one better.

Then organizations need to expand their fundraising. That’s trying a new channel, like radio or Facebook. Or beginning a scalable donor acquisition program. Or sending 6 appeals instead of 4.

Then, and only then in my opinion, should organizations be trying to innovate.

The three things above are hard. But our industry knows how to do them.

Don’t Skip a Stage!

Too many nonprofits skip over the steps above.

They skip things that we know will work to raise them more money. Instead, they try things that might work.

They waste tons of time and money. And they pay the opportunity cost of the money they could have raised – and the donor relationships they could have made deeper.

Because remember, innovation doesn’t always work. In fact it rarely works.

(Side note: this is why I’ve been saying “attempting to innovate.” Because when organizations attempt to innovate, they often come up with a) things other organizations have tried before that didn’t work, and b) new strategies and/or tactics that don’t work.)

To all you small nonprofits out there: let the big organizations, who have optimized their fundraising, spend the money to innovate. There will be some successes and some failures.

Then copy their successes.

The Real Trick

The real trick is knowing when to innovate.

In my experience, too many smaller nonprofits like the idea of innovating – of working on something exciting – more than they like the hard work of following best practices.

So they attempt to innovate when they should be following surer paths to success.

If a nonprofit follows best practices, it will raise more money.
If a nonprofit tries to innovate, it might raise more money.

And you want to know what’s really exciting? Raising more money with less work. That’s what happens when you follow best practices!

Why attempting to innovate is rarely the smart choice

Why attempting to innovate is rarely the smart choice

The vast majority of nonprofits should not spend time and money attempting to innovate.

Let’s keep this super brief.

The fastest, cheapest way to raise more money is almost always to follow fundraising best practices.

Especially when most small nonprofits can see growth of 15% to 20% per year when they start following best practices.

“But wait,” I can already hear people thinking, “we’re small, we have to innovate. And regular fundraising is boring.”

Please hear me out: that line of thinking is what keeps many small nonprofits small.

First of all, you do not have to innovate. Your organization was started to do one thing: make an impact for a cause or group of people who need help. Not to make an impact AND create innovative fundraising.

Having the impact your organization was started for and creating innovative fundraising are two completely different things that require completely different skillsets. It’s highly unlikely that a small nonprofit will be good at both.

Attempting to Innovate is a Bet

Organizations that attempt to innovate are betting time and money that the results will be better than the results they could get from best practices.

Sometimes you win. Most of the time you lose. Best practices are best practices for a reason: they are proven.

In my experience, attempting to innovate is a bad bet for most small nonprofits.

Let the “big guys” innovate. Let the big guys absorb the costs of all the testing and failures that lead to breakthroughs. Small nonprofits should be following the known paths to success.

Try Proven Tactics that are New to You

Most small nonprofits confuse “trying new things” with “attempting to innovate.”

Should small nonprofits should try new things? Of course.

For instance, you could try to acquire new donors using radio. That might be new for your organization, but it isn’t innovation. It’s a proven tactic. There are known Cost Per New Donor amounts (around $100). There are known ROIs (around 1.1 to 1.3). There are known ways to make it succeed (have a great offer, tell stories, long form is more effective than short form).

The thing I want smaller nonprofits to know is that the Fundraisers Who Came Before You have tried almost everything. If you look around, they’ve figured out what tends to work well and what doesn’t. Lean into that set of knowledge!

And here’s the amazing thing; those Fundraisers Who Came Before You will share their knowledge! They’ll tell you what they did and how they did it. They’ll share the results. You can apply what they learned to your organization, to grow faster.

You just have to take the initiative.

The Good News for Small Nonprofits

There are things you don’t have to do. Things you can take off your plate.

And one of them is attempting to innovate.

There’s an incredible body of knowledge that’s been built up over the last 70 years for how to raise money effectively. Lean into that body of knowledge – it’s what I do every day.

Every once in a great while, attempting to innovate is the right course. It’s fun (and usually expensive).

But the majority of the time there are huge gains to be made not from attempting to innovate, but from taking what’s worked for other organizations and applying it to your organization.

You’ll save yourself a lot of time and heartache. And you’ll do more good faster.

PS — Get some of our best practices from our free e-book, “Asks that Make Your Donors Take Action.”

How to Innovate (and when NOT to)

Make Things Much Better

We’ve been blogging all this month about “Repeating” the tactics and messages that work for your donors.

And earlier this month I brought up an important question: “how do you innovate when you’re in a culture of repeating what’s worked in the past? Because you have to innovate.”

I Was Wrong, That’s Awkward…

Let me begin by saying that I was wrong about something: you don’t have to innovate.

This might be controversial, but most nonprofits should not be innovating.

In my experience, the vast majority of nonprofits should focus on the basic building blocks of solid donor communications and fundraising before they try to innovate.

Most nonprofits should “learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist” (eternal thanks for that quote, Picasso). Most nonprofits should take advantage of the incredible body of knowledge that’s been built up over the last 60 years for how to raise money effectively.

Listen, if you’re raising less than $2 million per year, you probably shouldn’t be innovating. You should focus your time on fundamentals like getting good at Asking, Thanking and Reporting, getting receipts out on time, focusing your time on major donors, having a website that’s good at receiving & tracking gifts, etc.

For instance, say you’re currently sending out 3 appeal letters per year and have a newsletter that doesn’t raise money. My advice would be to send out 5 appeals per year and start raising money with your newsletter before trying something your organization has never done before.

Those are the “long cuts” to success.

Two Paths to Innovation

Ok. You’ve fostered a culture of Repeating: you repeat tactics that work, and you invest the minimum time and money needed to update successful tactics (and not a dollar or minute more).

Then there are two paths to innovation:

  1. When you update your materials, work to improve We call this “incremental innovation,” and it’s what most nonprofits should be doing.
  2. Try entirely new tactics. This looks like “launching a Facebook presence” or “trying telemarketing.”

Incremental Innovation

Here’s how you innovate incrementally…

As you update materials you’ve used in the past (e.g., your year-end appeal letter, or your fall event), you do your necessary updates and then ask, “Are there any tweaks we could make so that this works a little better?”

Here are examples of tweaks you can make that almost always work:

  • Add matching funds
  • Make the language more donor-centric
  • Talk about your organization less
  • Add a deadline with consequences
  • Make the offer more attractive
  • Use customized gift ask amounts based on each donor’s last gift

Not very sexy, eh? But it’s how most of the really successful fundraising programs got where they are today. Incremental innovation over time creates a fundraising program that predictably raises more money.

Try New Tactics (but Minimize Risk)

The big idea here is to try new things without putting large portions of your revenue at risk.

Here’s a perfect example from a couple years ago: a nonprofit that regularly raised $50,000 from their Year-End appeal letter decided to not send their letter. They chose to only send emails because email was so much cheaper.

The organization saved approximately $4,000, but raised $25,000 instead of their regular $50,000. Ouch.

Any time you are considering an idea that puts a lot of revenue at risk, your goal should be to minimize the risk as much as possible.

For instance, they could have sent the letter to their Major and Mid-level donors. That’s where about 80% of their revenue came from. That would have guaranteed 80% of the revenue ($40,000!). Then they could have experimented by doing an email-only campaign to the rest of their donors.

And you know what would have worked even better? Sending the letter to all donors, and then sending a follow-up letter, and emails.

When trying something brand new, we usually follow these three principles:

  1. Determine the “minimum effective dose.” You want to figure out the least amount you have to spend in order to get a test with reproducible results. Maybe it’s a new Facebook presence where you need to spend 15 hours per week and $1,000 per month boosting posts. Maybe that’s a radio campaign where you need to spend $20,000 on spots to really know if the campaign is working or not. Whatever it is, do the research and figure out what you need to do to make your test a good test.
  2. Have a budget and a timeline. Define exactly how much money and time you’re going to spend on a test. If you don’t have a specific budget and timeline, you’re at risk of over-spending, or getting out too early, or running into conflict because different people in your organization have different expectations. We see this all the time in donor acquisition. Starting to do donor acquisition is hard, and usually takes at least a year to really get going. If you know that but don’t say it, and someone in the organization thinks it’s only going to take 3 months, you’re in trouble.
  3. Define success. You have to specifically define what success looks like. It doesn’t work to say “we’ve engaged our donors more” or “we’ve built awareness in our community.” You want to use specific metrics like “our retention rate will go up 2%” or “we’ll acquire 250 new donors.” Get specific. As Peter Drucker said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” I’ve watched a LOT of money get wasted on new initiatives where the results weren’t really measurable.

What’s Next for You?

Hopefully this helps you a) think about what you should be doing next to raise more money, and b) avoid the common mistakes many nonprofits make.

Now, make a plan and go get ‘em! And if you want help, get in touch. You can use our experience (from successes and failures we’ve learned from) to move your organization forward faster!