5 Cures for Your Worst Fundraising Challenges

This post originally appeared on Guidestar  Your fundraising job never ends.  If you’re like most of us, you’re having a hard time keeping the donors you have.  Getting them to make larger gifts.  Finding new donors.

Here’s 5 tips to overcome your biggest fundraising challenges:

1)  Seek out training!  New research on major gift fundraising by Adrian Sargeant and Amy Eisenstein shows the more training you get, the more you raise.  How much?  They found a $37,000 increase in major gift income associated with each form of training!    As a special exclusive for our loyal readers, Pursuant is giving away one night free hotel to the first 10 folks who sign up for their one day Fundraising Bootcamp

2) Set a revenue goal and cultivation plan for each donor in your portfolio.  Walt Disney said “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”  You can’t wish your donors into giving.  Hope is not a strategy. You have to be thoughtful and intentional.  Determine what you should ask for and when and plan each move and each visit along to way to get there.  Apply your cultivation plan and revenue goals to a calendar and you’re off to the races with a fundraising plan!

3) Resolve to learn more about your donors.  Adrian Sargeant recommends, “Talk to your donors about the 1 program they care about not the 10 others they don’t.” Affordable digital tools like highly visualized email surveys can help you identify your donor’s passions and boost their retention.

4) Get clear on where you can turn the greatest fundraising profit – major gifts.  Love him or hate him, but everyday Mark Zuckerberg wakes up and asks himself: "Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?”  Are you?

5) Dedicate yourself to making your donors FEEL something.  While you’re trying to articulate just how awesome your programs are your donor might be tossing your letter in the trash.   How YOU feel is irrelevant.  What your donors feel is the ONLY thing that matters.  Is your appeal rousing?  Does it make them feel good about themselves for supporting you?  It should.

Ready to raise more?  I hope you’ll join me April 19th for Fundraising Bootcamp! The first 10 to sign up get one night free hotel!

Hope to see you there!

Going to AFP? 10 sessions you can’t miss

This post originally appeared on NP HUB March 15, 2016 I’m packing my bags and counting down the days to AFP International in Boston!  I hope you’ll come say hi to me in one of my sessions:  “Relationship Fundraising” on Sunday at 12:30 with Adrian Sargeant and Jay Love or “Why Midlevel Donors are Sweeter than Christmas Morning” with Mark Rovner and Mohit Pramanik on Tuesday at 3:15.  We’ve got lots of free fundraising goodies waiting for you at the Pursuant booth 1216, so come say hi!

Spending 3 days getting inspired by fundraising thought leaders and seeing “best of” campaigns from around the world is like my own personal Christmas.  Last year’s AFP boasted a star studded keynote line up with Seth Godin, Whoopi Goldberg and Isabel Allende but my favorite session was “Everything You Know about Donor Decision Making is Wrong” by Alan Hutson and Bernard Ross.  Who am I most excited to see this year?  The list is long!  Enjoy my cheat sheet of can’t miss sessions in alphabetical order…

1. Tom Ahern

I am a mega fan of Tom Ahern (who isn’t?).  Even if you’ve already seen his Loverizing Your Donor before there’s new guaranteed pearls of wisdom every time.  This year he’s also doing a session on “Making Money on Facebook: Yes, it can be done.”

2. Roger Craver, Editor The Agitator

I’m a huge fan of Roger’s book, Retention Fundraising: The Art and Science of Keeping Your Donors for Life and excited for his session on “Rebels with Causes – Fundraising as a Driver of Social Change”.

3. NPExperts: Shanon Doolittle (Shanon Doolittle + Co.) & Mark Rovner (Sea Change Strategies)

Two of my all-time favorite humans TOGETHER in one session?  It’s like fundraising is throwing a party and everyone’s invited!  Shanon is pure fundraising joy and Mark is like the defense attorney for great donor experiences.  Ready to get inspired with great stewardship ideas and a renewed passion for fundraising?  Join them for “The Future of Fundraising NP Experts panel”.  You can also see Shanon as part of another dynamic duo with the incomparable Beth Ann Locke in their session “10 Habits of Highly Successful Fundraisers”.

4. Anne Melvin, Director of Training and Education at Harvard

Anne’s session “The Art and Science of Fundraising Persuasion” promises to show us how to apply social science principles to get donors to a yes.

5. Mark Rovner (Sea Change Strategies) & Mohit Pramanik, Save the Children Canada

I’m honored to get to partner with these two in “Why Midlevel Donors are Sweeter than Christmas Morning”.  Join us to get tools, insight and inspiration to launch a successful midlevel program.

6. Adrian Sargeant, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy

I’m honored to get to present with Adrian, Jay Love and Ian MacQuillin in Relationship Fundraising: Where do we go from here?  Join us to get critical insight into the donor journey and what strategies work best when!  You’ve got two more chances to see Adrian at this years AFP, in the Rebels, Renegades & Pioneer's Session: "You can't be truly a profession without academic research." Or is fundraising somehow the exception? and “You Can Raise Major Gifts at Your Small Shop: Research Proven Methods and Best Practices” with Amy Eisenstein and Jay Love.

7. Stephen Pidgeon

I love Stephen’s book Love Your Donors to Death and expect great things from his copy clinic “Be More Creative in Communication with Supporters”.

8. Bernard Ross and Alan Hutson

Last year these two knocked it out of the park in their standing room only session on behavioral economics and the great news is they are back in “Behavioral Economics: the Science of Fundraising Psychology”.  Catch Bernard in another session with Angela Cluff “Global Fundraising: 5 campaigns that will change your ideas.”

9. Stephen Shattuck

I am a huge fan of Stephen and expect session “The Art and Science of Retaining Digital Donors” will be a huge hit.

10. Gail Perry

Nonprofits struggling to get their board members fundraising can look forward to some hands on help in Gail’s session, “Teach Your Board Members to Open Doors to New Major Gifts Prospects”.

I hope to see you in Boston at one of my sessions or at the Pursuant booth, #1216.   Come say hi!

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Fundraisers

We have a brand new year in front of us.   A clean slate.  The chance to make it our best year ever.  Are you ready to say goodbye to what isn't working and supercharge your fundraising efforts to make it your most profitable year ever?  

1. Get clarity on where you can turn the greatest fundraising profit – retaining your current donors

The best source for your next gift comes from your last gift.  Not events.  Not even acquisition, although most people would probably say their strategy for raising more money in 2014 is by getting new donors.  Every year the Fundraising Effectiveness Project gives us more bad news on donor attrition.  The money we make from new donors barely covers the donors we lost.  We make a profit in fundraising three ways: 1) extending donor loyalty 2) increasingly generous giving and 3) realizing higher gift values sooner.  Follow steps 2-5 to achieve these profit drivers.

2.  Evaluate your portfolio of donors

Occasionally clients hire me to searches for them and I am always surprised by the number of major gift officers I interview who boast about portfolios of 300 – 500 donors.  One major gift officer working full time cannot possible manage 500 donors, there is not enough time in the day.  While all donors deserve meaningful thank you’s, touches and updates you have to invest the time in understanding which donors want to have a deeper closer relationship with a major gift officer.  Typically 30% will, which means you have to get to know your donors and their interests, capacity, and communications preferences to determine if they belong in your major gift portfolio.  Roll out the red carpet to your donors this year! Call on them to formally introduce your role as their representative who lets them know how their giving is making an impact.  Find out why they are giving and what they are passionate about.  You’ll gleam critical data to determine what donors should be on your portfolio.   Once you know who should be on your caseload you are ready for step #3…

3.  Set a revenue goal and cultivation plan for every donor on your caseload

Lewis Carroll said “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”  If you don’t have a revenue goal and a plan for each donor you’re working in the dark.  You are also not alone, according to a recent donor retention study by Sage, now Abila, a whopping 69% of nonprofits lack a formal strategy for managing donor loyalty.  Now that you know which donors want to have a relationship with you and more about their interests and capacity you can apply your relationship fundraising goals to a calendar with dates for each touches and your ask.

4.  Thank meaningfully, early and often

Properly thanking your donor by being prompt and meaningful determines if that donor will give again.  With 8 out of 10 donors not making a second gift, don’t underestimate everything that is riding on your thank you.  A good thank you sets up the next gift!  Knock it out of the park with some of these fantastic tips on crafting a killer thank you letter from Gail Perry.  Thank within 48 hours, make it personal, have a board member call to say thanks, and always make the donor the hero of the story.  Congratulate them on what THEY will make happen because of THEIR generosity.

5.  Manage up

I talk to a lot of frustrated development directors.  They may feel unsupported because their CEO or board, or worse, both are not engaged in fundraising.  Several complain their CEO or board approving a budget that includes a blanket increase in funding without a strategy or additional investment in resources.  Discussing these issues with leadership requires delicacy and diplomacy but it’s critical that development directors confidently make the case to their CEO to invest in a donor centered strategy and maintain realistic expectations.

Your clean slate is waiting, time to get on your way!

Happy New Year,

Rachel