You Can Raise the Money You Need

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You Can Raise the Money You Need

• Presenter Kim Klein
• Klein and Roth Consulting
• kim_at_kleinandroth.com
• Kim Klein is the Chardon Press Series Editor at
  Jossey-Bass
• Publishers and the founder and publisher emerita
  of the Grassroots
• Fundraising Journal. She is also the author of
  Fundraising for Social Change (now in its fifth
  edition), Fundraising for the Long Haul, and
  Fundraising in Times of Crisis. Widely in demand
  as a speaker, Kim has provided training and
  consultation in all 50 United States and 21
  countries. Her new book, Reliable Fundraising in
  Unreliable Times, will be released in September
  2009.
• She is a member of the Building Movement
  Project and lives in Berkeley, CA.

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• What are we dealing with?
• Current Landscape External
• Deep Recession
• High unemployment
• Ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Global Warming
• Closing of major newspapers
• And
• Obama Administration
• Global Economic Meltdown
• Questioning of all economic assumptions
• Need for accessible information more acute than
  ever

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• Current Landscape Nonprofit Sector
• Scandals and Loss of Public Confidence
• Scale of Need
• Privatization of Public Space
• Government Cutbacks Far Exceed Private
• Giving
• Size of Sector
• Paul Light, Wagner School at NYU, Lester Salomon
  at Urban Institute

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• Current Landscape
• Community Radio Reality
• Budget cuts?
• Health Insurance Becoming Unaffordable?
• Competition with Internet?
• On-Air Campaigns Not As Productive
• Too much to do in the time available?
• Other?

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• Keep in Mind
• Charitable contributions have risen from just
  over 200 billion
• in 2000 to more than 300 billion in 2008.
• Living individuals make up 75 of this amount,
  and bequests
• make up another 10.
• Seven out of ten adults give away money more
  people give
• away money than vote, attend a house of worship
  or volunteer

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• Demographics by Income
• People who give to presidential campaigns tend to
  have
• higher incomes (50 percent above 100,000),
• People who give to nonprofit organizations tend
  to have
• moderate to low incomes (50 percent between
  25,000 and
• 75,000).
• (Merkle Study 2008)

Demographics of Donors (contd)
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Successful Fundraising Means Thinking Ahead and
Being in the

• Challenges for the Next Decade
• Attracting younger donors
• Keeping donors
• Starting and maintaining planned giving programs
• Inspiring confidence in the public at large
• Working cross sector to create a strong and
  vibrant nonprofit
• Community
• Other?

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Be aware but dont be paralyzed

• Generally, people give more during recessions
  than during boom times
• Most people give most of their money from their
  income, and most of those incomes are not
  currently affected by what is happening on Wall
  Street.
• If you do good work, and you ask people who agree
  with you to support you, some of them will. Ask
  enough people and you will have the money you
  need.
• Our sector has been through very hard times
  before

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Successful Fundraising Requires Structure

• Innovation Requires
• A Disciplined Systematic Fundraising Program
• Has a goal, which everyone knows and works toward
• Uses strategies for specific reasons, which
  everyone knows
• and supports
• Uses volunteers appropriately and as much as
  possible
• Makes sure the organization never leaves money
• on the table.
• Has strong back office support

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• Innovation requires a broader definition of
  donor
• A donor is traditionally someone who gives your
  organization
• money
• But a donor can also be someone who
• Gives time
• Says nice things about you
• Opens doors for you
• Works for you when they could easily work
  elsewhere
• Expresses gratitude for the services you provide
• Invite all of these people to help you in
  whatever ways they can.
• Mobilize and organize all the positive feelings
  about your
• organization

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• Innovation means focusing on Retaining Current
  Donors
• Basic Requirements for Keeping Donors
• Send a thank you note within 48 hours of
  receiving a donation
• Record the donation in a database
• Send the donor some kind of information at least
  2-3 times a
• year newsletter, Annual Report, special appeals
• Keep your website up to date and interesting

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Segmenting is Key to Working with Donors

• First time givers
• Goals
• make the donor feel good about giving
• get a second gift
• Methods
• Welcoming thank you note
• Newsletter
• Request for another donation

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Creating Habitual Donors

• Repeat Donors
• Someone who has given more than once, but
• less than three or four times
• Goal
• the donor is proud of the organization
• the donor likes giving to this organization
• Methods
• Thank you notes for each gift
• Small present that brands the organization (i.e
  bookmark,
• post-its)
• newsletter and up to date website
• Special Event

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Building Loyalty With your Long Time Donors

• Donor has given more than four times over the
  course of
• 1-3 years
• GOAL
• the organization is part of the donors identity
• donor seeks out information about the
  organization
• donor is open to being asked for bigger gifts
• Methods
• Thank you calls
• Invitation to events
• Personal visit

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Some people want to give often and some only once
a year

• Frequency of giving
• Some donors are willing to give several times a
  year. These
• donors need to be asked several times a year, and
  encouraged
• to join a monthly donor program.
• Some donors prefer to give once a year and prefer
  not to be
• asked frequently. Keeping these two categories
  straight is very important

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Innovative Fundraising Requires a Solid Major
Gifts Program

• Size of gift
• Donors who start out giving big gifts are given
  more attention
• than those who start out with smaller gifts, but
  the methods of
• welcoming them to the organization are similar.

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When to Ask Donors for Bigger Gifts
Innovative Fundraising Requires Bold Asking

• Someone is ready to be asked for an increase in
  the size of their gift when
• They have given consistently for three years,
  and/or
• They have indicated interest in one or more of
  your programs, and/or
• Someone in your organization knows them and
  thinks they would be willing to give more

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Organizations that Regularly Ask for Bigger Gifts
also have higher retention rates
Importance of Upgrading

• You need to ask your regular donors for increases
  in their giving at least every two-three years.
• Otherwise they may think you dont their money,
  or that your work is not expanding, and they will
  begin to give more to another organization.

www.grassrootsfundraising.org
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Always Know Who You Should Be Asking Next

• In your data base, take your top 50-100 donors
  and note for each one
• NEXT STEP In your data base, take your top
  50-100 donors and notefor each one
• WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
• MISSING INFORMATION
• Review these donors at least monthly

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Innovative Fundraising Means Understanding that
Your Loyal Donors ARE Create Your Most
Predictable Income Stream
Focus on Donors With Stable Incomes

• Donors who give in the 100-1500 range are the
  most likely to keep giving
• Reach them through
• Phone calls
• Houseparties
• Open House at your office

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Create Easy Ways to Say YES

• Ask your under 50 donors to consider giving 1 a
  month more to make their total gift 12 more a
  year.
• Ask lapsed donors to return to your station with
  a gift of 10.00
• If you dont have a pledge program already,
  create one.
• Create a wish list
• Be specific about where the money will go

www.grassrootsfundraising.org
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Acquiring New Donors
The Future of Acquisition is On-Line

• Website needs to invite donations. Every piece
  of text needs to invite people to participate,
  and move people to the donation page.
• The GIVE NOW button needs to be prominent and
  it needs to be easy to make a gift on-line.
• Under GIVE NOW, have options Gift Cards,
  Monthly Giving, Corporate Partnerships, Gift
  Shop, Planned Giving, Each One Reach One, Save a
  ___, Wish List

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One Thing Will Never Change Personal face to
face Asking will always be the most successful
strategy

• Nothing takes the place of face to face asking

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What will make people trust your organization?
Seek out Ways to Boost Public Confidence in Your
Organization

• Post your budget and your financials on your
  website.
• Provide a narrative explanation of numbers
• Have an e-mail address people can write to if
  they have questions (and be sure someone answers
  these inquiries)
• Make sure your board members can answer financial
  and program questions

www.grassrootsfundraising.org
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Ways to Structure this Work
Innovative Fundraising Requires Excellent Time
Management

• Schedule one hour a day or three hours a week or
  whatever works to do
• Acquisition
• Retention
• Upgrade
• Keep staff and board posted on progress, so they
  feel confident but not complacent
• Practice Top Down---Inside Out

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Innovation Requires Dealing Creatively With your
Board

• Board members must
• 1. Test the proposition that the organization is
  worth supporting by asking themselves, Would I
  give?
• And answering a resounding YES!
• 2. Board members must then take that proposition
  out into the community and ask Would you give?

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DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY
Sources/Strategies
Online fundraising
Religious
Major Donors
Members
House parties
Fees/Products
foundations
Board and Volunteers
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Every Board Member Has A Plan

• I, Betty Lou Board Member, will
• Give 1000 before November 1.
• Help raise 5000 by hosting a house party at my
  house in May.
• GOAL 20 new donors _at_ 100-250 each
• Work on annual general meeting.
• I prefer not to
• Participate in the phone-a-thon
• I will not
• Come to the auction

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Getting the Board on Board the Modern Way

• Some Suggestions
• 1) Eliminate a standing fundraising committee
• 2) Make everything ad hoc and organize
  everything as a short term campaign
• 3) Find ways for every board member to
  participate
• 4) Work most with the most willing board members
• 5) Let the reward for work well done be the end
  of work for the time being

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Eight Most Important Elements In Creating And
Maintaining a Fundraising Team

• 1. Expectations are clearly defined and put out
• ahead of time.
• 2. Every person knows their job and the jobs
• of the other people. People do their job.
• 3. At any given time, some people are planning
  what is going to happen, some people are in the
  middle of doing what is happening, some people
  are recovering from what just happened.

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Eight Elements, Cont.

• 4. Everything is documented and reviewed
• For example
• All meetings have minutes which are sent out
  within 48 hours of the meeting
• A list of TASKS and PERSON RESPONSIBLE is
  created during the meeting separate from the
  minutes
• These can be posted on an internal website with
  updates

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Eight Elements, Cont.

• 5. As much as possible, people work in pairs and
  each pair has a set of responsibilities
• 6. No one is talked into being on the team.
  People are invited and they accept with
  enthusiasm, or they decline with regret.

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Eight Elements, cont.

• 7. All work is time limited as little as a few
  hours to as much as eight weeks. Everything has
  a beginning date, a goal and an end date.
• 8. There is time off for good behavior.

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And Finally,

• Let us pray for the speedy return of common
  sense.

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Dont Leave Money on the Table

• People dont know what you want unless you tell
  them.
• People often express surprise when an
  organization gets into financial trouble, showing
  that the organization has been too circumspect
  and shy
• Follow-up is key collect pledges
• Make follow-up calls persistence is not
  pestering
• Let me know if I can do something is an
  invitation, not a put off

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AVOID BIG CLAIMS and GUILT TRIPS
Practice Fund RAISING

• Now more than ever (when is that not going to
  be true?)
• Without your help, people will die (a little
  too intense)
• We are unique (unlikely that you are really
  the only one of a kind in the world)
• We are the premier/foremost/best

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AVOID
Innovative Fundraising Means Raising Money, Not
Cutting Back

• Cutting your budget. Explore raising the money
  you need before you ever cut your budget
• Talking a lot about how BAD things are,
  especially in your on-air drives.
• Working more and more hours
• Hoping things are going to get better. Things
  are as good as they are going to be, and you have
  
• to work with that.

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How to Riase 50,000 in Six Weeks

• The following is an example of a short term
• intensive major donor campaign.
• For more on this, see your handouts

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About Short Term Campaigns

• Fundraising is a year-round process, but few
  volunteers have the time, patience, inclination
  or strength to help with fundraising all year
  long.
• By dividing up your fundraising program into
  time and goal specific periods you will get far
  more work from your volunteers and much less
  burnout.

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Advantages of Short Campaigns

• You can invite all kinds of people to be involved
• Appeal to competitive people because they like a
  game
• Appeal to people who hate fundraising because
  its all going to be over soon
• Help your organization raise money in a hurry

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Required for Success

• Good systems for keeping track of donors,
  contacts, pledges made and received, etc.
• Thank you notes sent promptly
• A championideally the chair of the campaign
• Ability to keep in touch with all the solicitors
  and keep them up to date on progress toward the
  goal.
• Everyone has to be willing and able to follow up
  and follow through

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Above all.

• Willing to ask for money in person
• Dont even think of doing this kind of campaign
  if you dont have a team of askers

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How to Raise 50,000 in Six Weeks

• Step One
• Identify a message for the campaign

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How to Raise 50,000 in 6 Weeks

• Step Two
• Pick a 6 week period of time for the campaign
  itself, with 2-3 weeks preparation time on the
  front end and 1-2 weeks follow-up and mop-up on
  the back end.

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Step Three Create Materials

• Develop a one page description of the campaign
• Have return envelopes and reply cards
• Put something on your website about the campaign
  specifically
• Develop FAQs for solicitors
• NOTE NO NEED FOR FANCY MATERIALS

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Create a letter to introduce campaign

• Elements of the letter
• I write with an urgent request. As you know,
  we recently .
• We must raise 50,000 in the next six weeks to
  insure success
• We hope you can make a gift of ___ (or a large
  gift) .
• Someone will call you soon.

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Step Four

• Create a simple gift range chart
• of gifts size of prospects
• 2 5000 8
• 4 2500 16
• 10 1000 30
• 20 500 40
• 40 250 80
• 76 gifts X 2 152 prospects
• You will need 2 times the number of prospects as
  the number of gifts

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A Variation with fewer prospects

• A very simple gift range chart
• Goal 50,000
• gifts Prospects
• 1 (20) 10,000 4
• 2 (20) 5,000 8
• 4 (20) 2,500 8
• 20 (40) 1,000 40
• 27 X 2 54 prospects

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Caveat Dont Fixate on 50,000

• If you
• are just starting out
• work in a poor community
• dont need 50,000
• prefer weird numbers
• Pick a goal that works for you.
• 10,000, 17,501, 23,000 what is important is
  to meet or exceed the goal!

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Step Five Determine the number of volunteers
needed.FORMULA

• Divide prospects by 6 weeks requests per
  week
• Each volunteer can ask 3 prospects per week.
• So asks per week divided by 3 volunteers
  needed
• For example
• 156 prospects/ 6 weeks 25 asks per week
• 25 asks per week divided 3 per person 8
  volunteers

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Characteristics of Volunteers

• Care about cause
• Give themselves
• Have 2 hours/week for 6 weeks
• Flexible schedules
• Friendly and interested in others
• Able to keep on track and work in a team

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Step Six Invite the Volunteers to a Meeting

• Describe the campaign
• Go over message and materials
• Brainstorm more prospects as needed
• Compile a list of prospects
• Send out first round of letters
• Go over the Gift Range Chart and identify at
  least half the prospects needed

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Prospect IdentificationCreate a list of people
who are

• Friends and colleagues of the campaign team
  do they give away money?
• do they care about this cause?
• can they make this size gift?
• Current donors who could give an extra gift,
  who could give more?
• CAUTION dont approach people just because they
  have money

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Step Seven Training

• Train the volunteers (either at the meeting, or
  at an additional meeting)
• Go over basic principles of asking for money,
  make the volunteers practice the phone call a few
  times and the meeting at least once.
• Give each volunteer 3 names to follow up with in
  the first week

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Fundraising is 10 planning and 90 follow-up

• Step Eight
• Each week volunteers get 3 more names. Every
  week a new set of letters goes out to that list.
  
• Keep in touch with volunteers by email and phone.
  Every time a gift comes in, send out an e-mail
  with the new total. E-mail a weekly report with
  each persons progress.

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Stay on top of your committee

• Step Nine
• Make sure people are doing their work. The chair
  of the committee needs to check in with members
  every couple of weeks, and needs to talk with
  anyone who falls behind.
• Inevitably one-two people will flake, but one or
  two others will be on fire and will take those
  peoples names.

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How to Raise 50,000 in 6 Weeks

• Step Ten

• In 4th week, everyone needs to meet in person.
  Go over the prospect list again. Ask campaign
  team members to discuss where they are with each
  prospect.
• Rally volunteers for final push

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SUMMARY Calendar of Campaign

• Before Campaign
• Decide on message
• Create gift range chart
• Begin looking for prospects
• Create some materials
• Develop letter
• Identify campaign team
• Invite them to a meeting

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Campaign Begins

• Compile prospect list
• Train volunteers
• Send out first round of letters (ideally right
  before the training)
• Pass out first set of names

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Campaign proceedsWeek 1-3

• Frequent check-ins
• Constant update on campaign progress available
• Each week, letters out and names out
• 4th Week
• Meet in person. Go over all prospects.
• 6th week MEET GOAL Celebrate
• Wrap-up thank all donors and volunteers

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Celebrate 50,000 With a PARTY

• End the campaign at the end of six weeks no
  matter where you are to your goal.
• If you fall short, figure out what you learned
  and what you should do differently next time
• If you meet your goal, ditto above.
• ABOVE ALL AT THIS MEETING,
• HAVE FUN.