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acquisition

A checklist for your acquisition program

Last week Reinier wrote about a really important topic – planning for the future of your acquisition program. I’d like to expand on his post by sharing an additional tool, and offering a simple checklist to use in your donor recruitment planning.

In the last blog you read about the Hype cycle (and if you haven’t, please read it here.) A second tool to consider in your planning is one that you have probably seen before: the BCG matrix. This tool divides your offerings into four groups, depending on their market growth and market share. But here’s a retooled version for an acquisition program. (more…)

Sarah Clifton

It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark

Recently I had some fundraisers over to catch up on fundraising developments. They wanted to pick my brain on what I think is “good fundraising” and “where things are going”. These conversations are always interesting, because it helps me shape my own thinking on what is really important to work on.

A diversity of topics surfaced the table in approximately 90 minutes: acquisition channels, retention programs, engagement opportunities, stricter privacy laws, reporting environments, team structure, key information sources, etc.

Because acquisition always seems to get more difficult, it is a topic that is always addressed. This is wonderful, because we absolutely need to talk about it. But it’s not enough to talk about it as part of a 90 minute informal exchange of ideas. If we’re serious about creating new recruitment channels, before the old ones are completely gone, we need to hurry up.

Why is that we’re still not serious about the replacement of recruitment channels that are fading away? (more…)

Reinier Spruit Reinier Spruit

A fundraising checklist: Should you consider “Summer Fundraising”?

I recently asked to some colleagues if they were running specific fundraising campaigns during the summer. Most of them answered they are not! Business as usual seems to be the moto. Worst, some programs are put on hold during the holidays. How can they be wrong? At the end of July, European cities get emptier than ever since kids are out of school and families are on vacation.

But my own experience of being a fundraiser has always been associated with very busy summer months: the period from June to mid August reminds me only to work hard, fully dedicated to analyse first semester’s result and to close planning for the upcoming semesters. On the operational side, I can remember only two tests run in July and August. But what if there was a real potential for fundraising during this time of the year?

(more…)

Patrice Simonnet

Ready. Acquire. Aim.

Once, twelve days into a new fiscal year, we threw out the annual plan.

Fundraisers love – and should love – their strategic and annual plans. We need plans. Then sometimes we need new ones. This is a blog post about agile planning, and thinking less linearly about the planning cycle.

Admittedly, the time we threw out the playbook was a dramatic one: Haiti. January 12, 2010. We all know the story: the earthquake and its horrible loss of life. 300,000 acutely injured, 1.5 million homeless. A minute after the earthquake, MSF/Doctors Without Borders launched the largest rapid emergency response in our history. (more…)

Rebecca Davies Rebecca Davies

7 ‘Big bummers’ for charitable trusts and foundations

(Or, 7 ways to improve your foundation fundraising skills)

“Why is it, that so many nonprofit organizations send in applications to foundations, without even taking the time to find out where these foundations stand for?” I was having a conversation with Jos Verhoeven, managing director of the Dutch Start Foundation. He continued: “I just don’t get it. About 25% of the applications we receive as a foundation, have nothing to do with the mission we stand for. I mean, if you need a mortgage, you don’t go to supermarket to get one, do you? So why send in applications to foundations that don’t match with your mission?”

(more…)

Vera Peerdeman

Face: The Future

The Outlook for Face-to-Face Fundraising
It seems a lot of fundraisers’ time is spent thinking about the future: Will we manage to invest our full budget? Will we reach our targets? What to do if the income is not as planned? Will I have a decent budget next year? Five year plans…

Wouldn’t it be great to have a crystal ball that spelled out at least some of what lay ahead and allowed us to focus just a little more on the present moment? Well, for better or worse, that particular technology hasn’t yet materialized but that doesn’t stop us fundraisers from engaging in a little bit of future gazing. Being prepared for different eventualities is important – it allows us to be able to respond quickly and appropriately and to minimize the damage from inevitable bumps along the way – of course it’s an art, not a science, and with this disclaimer in mind I’d like to offer a few forecasts on how I see the face-to-face method of donor recruitment evolving over the next couple of years.

 1. Shrinking public space in traditional markets

Many councils and cities ban street fundraising

Open any news source in (for example) the UK or Austria (or many of the most established face-to-face markets) and it won’t be long before you read about a city or council that is implementing (or considering) a complete ban or enforced reduction of face-to-face activities in the public domain. Search Twitter for the words ‘fundraiser’ or ‘chugger’ (a term I consider to be both offensive and ignorant by the way) and you’ll see that the face-to-face topic evokes plenty of debate from the public – and a majority of those moved to tweet tend to have a negative view of the practice and are quite vocal in calling for restrictions. I forecast that authorities in these markets will continue to impose limitations and the amount of public space open to street and door-to-door fundraisers will continue to shrink. (more…)

Jack Ryan

Five types of corporate giving

Does your nonprofit take advantage of the variety of corporate giving programs that exist? If not, your organization is missing out! In 2010, U.S. corporations gave over $15.5 billion worth of cash and products to nonprofits (Source: Giving USA’s 2011 annual Report on Philanthropy for 2010). Get in on the action by exploring the different programs that are available.

Here the top five most prevalent types of corporate giving programs: (more…)

Adam Weinger

I wish I’d thought of that

Last week I was proud to be one of the 22 speakers at the inaugural ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ event in London, brilliantly organised by the team and volunteers at sofii.

An excited audience heard about 22 campaigns picked by the speakers as something they wished they had thought of. It was a brilliant and buzzy afternoon with a great fast-paced format that included growing mo’s for Movember, which involved the audience wearing stick on moustaches, to Barbie’s destruction of the rainforest to the audience love-in for charity: water. In fact it was commented that the event felt like TED for fundraising. Pretty cool. Although I have never seen the audience in a TED talk wear stick on moustaches; I think TED are missing a trick.

Some fundraising excellence themes emerged; trust, honesty, truth, storytelling, simplicity, integrity, conviction, empathy and passion.

But for me, many of these celebrated ideas involve two more vital elements; bravery and risk. Trying something new is brave and risky because let’s face it – if it is new we don’t know for sure that it will work. (more…)

Lucy Gower

I Wish I’d Thought Of That

On Thursday afternoon, SOFII (brainchild of fundraising great, Ken Burnett) presented their first ever ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ event. 22 speakers from agencies and charities, large charities and small from across all cause types, spoke about ideas from other fundraisers that they wish they’d had first.

It was a great event (there was a running joke of those who wish they’d thought of I Wish I’d Thought of That), not least because it was fundraisers sharing what they learned from each other, which is at the heart of SOFII.

The 22 big ideas ranged from the very, very old (Aline Reed of Bluefrog spoke about Great Ormond Street Hospital’s wartime appeal from 1940) to the very new (such as MSF’s innovative pills campaign in Spain, brought to life by Reuben Steains); from direct marketing to events to campaigning to social media; from big international names like UNICEF, Amnesty International and Greenpeace to UK charities like I CAN and Botton Village.

But across this diverse range of campaigns, two words seem to creep up time and time again. And it’s these two words I wanted to share with 101Fundraising: authenticity and conviction. (more…)

Alison McCants

7 tips for welcoming new donors

If your organisation has no difficulty finding and keeping new donors, you are either a very lucky or extremely talented fundraiser, and either way one of few. For the rest of us, it seems a constant challenge to find new and better ways to attract high-quality recruits.

So here’s a few tips to help you keep them, once you do find them:

1.    Tell donors both who you are and what you do

welcome!My partner and I (he is also a fundraiser) both love our jobs. But someone recently asked us both why we chose our respective organisations, and we realized that we had very different answers. He immediately began talking about the projects and the people being helped. But not about the Christian motivations, the long and prestigious Catholic history or the unique and important role of both ordinants and lay-people in the work. (Which are all true, but just wasn’t part of his spontaneous answer.) For him, the passion is for what they do.

I immediately began over the values and the vision of my organisation – what we believe in and stand for. And I realized that this is fundamentally more important to me than whatever work we are doing at any given moment. For me it’s first and foremost about who we are. (more…)

Sarah Clifton

Social Network Fundraising: The Beginners Guide

This is me running 16km and raising €2,549 for the Dutch Cancer Institute (NKI-AVL). The target was only €200.

Social network fundraising works because of two reasons: (1) you are asking your own network, and (2) the fundraising is being done publicly. This combined provides a healthy and effective social peer pressure.

When you were young you probably had to do a sponsor run at school. You had to get pledges from your neighbors and family for a quarter or 50 cents per lap. Remember that your neighbor always said: “So, what is the rest giving?” This is the best way to describe social network fundraising, she didn’t even hesitated. Straight away she went into the “how much” discussion…

Recently I gave a presentation for the participants of the ATMA Challenge. In this fundraising event 30 young professionals will climb one of the Himalaya mountains (6,764 meter!). Every participant has to raise 2,000 euro for educational projects in India, so that adds up to 60,000 euro in total. My presentation contained 16 tips on how they can raise this money.

I am convinced that 2,000 per participant is too low. Just before I went there I posted on Facebook: “They are going to raise 100,000 euro. They just don’t know it yet.” (more…)

Reinier Spruit Reinier Spruit

The Fundraising Parable of the Good Samaritan

Claire Squires stood at the starting line of this year’s London Marathon knowing she’d raised £500 for the Samaritans.

Hours later, when news of her death broke, donations were pouring in to her fundraising page at £500 per minute.

Claire’s death is a tragedy – but what does this phenomenon say about us and the state of fundraising today?

There’s no denying this is a tough time to be fundraising. Yet the day after the marathon saw the largest number of donations JustGiving has ever received in a single day – with more than 10,000 people donating at any given time! In just 3 days Claire raised almost a quarter of the £3.8 million that the Samaritan’s receives each year from individual donations. (more…)

Charlie Hulme Charlie Hulme

Getting digital really working

So what does a solid, well performing digital fundraising program look like?

It’s the question I’m often asked, and am going to share, as best I can in a little under 1,300 words.

Dispelling the myths

One of the most frustrating things about the digital world is that it is full of illusion, and quite a lot of BS.

Here are some of my favourites:

  • Social media is the next big thing and will transform charities fundraising programs
  • Digital is completely different to the offline world, and as such different teams should be working on each program
  • Email and landing page copy must be short (more…)
Jonathon Grapsas

A fundraising check list : how to react to the economic crisis?

Let me propose to you a quick “check-list” hoping it could be useful when it comes to adapt your fundraising program to the economic crisis.

Because…yes..there is a crisis going on! You heard about it…except if you are working on street face-to-face campaigns somewhere in Asia. You are probably experiencing changes in redemption or attrition in the last months or years. If not, you should wonder about what to do if your organization arrive to the point where all indicators turns red.

External factors like credit crunch, increased fiscal pressure on individuals, political instability are much more difficult to face that choosing the right headline for your next DRTV campaign. Right now, Italy is a very good example having a temporary government that face the worst economic downturn since last world war II. As a result, many Italian organizations witnessed a terrible second semester 2011. And I am quite sure that all are monitoring their performance indicators daily…looking for new trends! But these will be hard to identify until next political elections in 2013. (more…)

Patrice Simonnet

The 5 fastest growers and their recipe for success

That we all love ‘rankings’ was clear again when last December I posted a ranking of the fastest growers in Dutch fundraising revenue in recent years. The blog post is by far the most read post on 101fundraising so far and got a lot of reactions.

The post didn’t zoom in on organizations who increased their income substantially compared to the previous year, but the organizations that have a high average growth rate over several years (2006 – 2010). The idea is that by looking at the long-term, we’re looking at organizations who are doing something special in fundraising.

Ramses Man and myself questioned what these organizations did so well. So we decided to organize a ‘diner pensant’ and invited the five fastest growing organizations.

(more…)

Reinier Spruit Reinier Spruit

De 5 snelste groeiers en het recept van hun succes

Dat we allemaal gek zijn op ‘lijstjes’ bleek wel weer toen Reinier afgelopen december hier op 101fundraising een ranglijst publiceerde van de snelste Nederlandse stijgers in fondsenwervende inkomsten van de afgelopen jaren. Het betreffende blog werd ‘by far’ het best gelezen artikel van 101fundraising tot nu toe en kreeg enorm veel reacties.

Het blog zoomde niet in op de organisaties die het voorgaande jaar veel zijn gestegen, maar juist op de organisaties die gemiddeld over meerdere jaren (2006 – 2010) een hoog groeipercentage laten zien. Door naar de langere termijn te kijken, komen de organisaties bovendrijven die echts iets bijzonders aan het doen zijn binnen de fondsenwerving, zo is de gedachte.

Bij Reinier en Ramses Man (Nassau) kwam gelijk de vraag op wát die vijf organisaties dan zo goed doen. Ze besloten een zogenaamd ‘diner pensant’ te organiseren en nodigden de vijf snelste groeiers hiervoor uit.

Jolanda Omvlee (directeur Compassion), Frits Hirschstein (directeur KiKa), Ruud Tombrock (directeur WSPA Benelux), Ellen Kooij (hoofd marketing, communicatie en fondsenwerving War Child) en Wimco Ester (hoofd communicatie en marketing Open Doors) vertelden tijdens het diner openhartig over wat hun organisaties zo succesvol maakt. In dit artikel geven Reinier en Ramses een impressie van deze gedenkwaardige avond in Restaurant Eetvilla van den Brink in Soest.

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Reinier Spruit Reinier Spruit

Why you should consider a telethon

2011 was a very special fundraising year for the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF Kankerbestrijding)  in which over € 130 million was raised. That’s an increase of over 20% versus last year. Especially income from legacies, Alpe d’HuZes ( a major cycling fundraising event which generated € 20 million in 2011) and income from private donors led to this significant increase.

An important way for the Dutch Cancer Society to recruit donors is the campaign “Stand Up To Cancer” in which a telethon has a major role. TV is for the Dutch Cancer Society an almost steady part in the multichannel mix to recruit donors and this was the fifth telethon since 2006.

In 2010, for the first time the “Stand Up To Cancer” concept was used and this campaign resulted in no less than 50,000 structural donors. That was an amazing result and far beyond everybody’s expectations. The fundraising potential of this concept was clearly demonstrated. I wrote blog about it last year. Consider this as part two so it could be helpful if you read the first one.

With this concept funds will be raised to accelerate groundbreaking research that can get new therapies to patients quickly, enabling (inter)national scientists to work together. (more…)

Lars Arnoldussen

Waarom je een telethon moet overwegen

2011 was een zeer bijzonder fondsenwervend jaar voor KWF Kankerbestrijding waarin ruim 130 miljoen euro aan inkomsten werd gegenereerd. Dat is een stijging van ruim 20%. Vooral nalatenschappen, Alpe d’HuZes en particuliere donateurs zorgden voor deze aanzienlijke stijging.

Een belangrijke manier voor KWF Kankerbestrijding om donateurs te werven is de campagne ‘Sta op tegen kanker’ (SOTK) met daarin een belangrijke plek voor een fondsenwervende tv-show. Tv is de afgelopen jaren een bijna vaste waarde in de kanalen-mix om donateurs te werven en dit was de 5e fondsenwervende Tv-show van KWF sinds 2006.

In 2010 werd voor het eerst het SOTK concept gebruikt en deze campagne resulteerde in maar liefst 50.000 structurele donateurs. Het potentieel van dit concept voor fondsenwerving werd overduidelijk aangetoond en ik heb hierover eerder een blog geschreven. Dit blog is hier een vervolg op, het kan derhalve handig zijn om mijn eerder blog te lezen.

SOTK is een uitnodiging en symbool van een beweging van mensen die in actie komen en opstaan om hun bijdrage te leveren in de strijd tegen kanker. (more…)

Lars Arnoldussen

Reader Beware: Contains Dangerous Ideas on How to Motivate (Face-to-Face) Fundraisers!

Greenpeace International Executive Director with some motivated street fundraisers

It will come as no surprise that the highest achieving face-to-face fundraisers you are likely to come across are also among the most highly motivated people working in any organisation. How else do you imagine they deal with a working life that places them on a daily collision course with public indifference, slamming doors and verbal and physical abuse and yet still come away at the end of their shift holding onto their sanity never mind a bunch of new sign-ups for their non-profit?

To be sure, successful face-to-face fundraising requires a degree of talent and a positive mindset is certainly a must, but without motivation no fundraiser would last more than a few days. In fact the high rate of staff turnover in face-to-face fundraising is well known and is a headache and a major expense for most organisations.

Managers are aware of the importance of this fuzzy thing called ‘Motivation’, some even spend a lot of of time, effort and money in the hope that their team will be motivated enough to get through the day with success and show up for work again the next day. But despite this awareness and the efforts put in place to harness motivation there is still a constant “churn and burn” of staff. Why? (more…)

Jack Ryan

Stop recruiting donors!

We live in very interesting times, times in which a charity can achieve outstanding results with less effort and money. The world is connecting at an enormous space, and connections are made based on shared values and passion and a common purpose, social media being the driving force behind these partnerships. Fundraising is no longer dominated by the main fundraising techniques Direct Mail, Telemarketing and Direct Dialogue, but online social network fundraising, crowdfunding, open innovation, facebook, eBay, SMS, Mobile giving, products and also services among others are at the disposal of every fundraiser to integrate and execute.

The fundraising income that will also grow significantly in the next years is that of companies. Companies are expected to become more social and contribute to society. This is not only required from the customer point of view but also to acquire the talent of today and tomorrow to make the business grow.

More and more companies are interested in cooperating with charities to create emotional relevant partnerships for everyone. It’s no coincidence that Some American Charities call themselves Emotion Providers. (more…)

David Berg

My very expensive fundraising film info-graphic

Remember about 20 years ago when we all suddenly got Apple Macs? Suddenly anyone could be a graphic designer! Or, correction: suddenly anyone could be a really terrible designer.

Cut, fade 20 years… and suddenly through our phones, cameras, laptops everyone can be a film-maker. Often, a really bad one.

I watch loads of films and drtv made by charities and their agencies, and lots of them are rather unfit for purpose. So I drew the vastly sophisticated info-graphic below to explain where things go wrong. Rocket science it isn’t. Yet, still so many films fail because they ignore it.

(And I’ve just realised it works for most other forms of fundraising communication too).

Very expensive infographic

(more…)

Derek Humphries

Face-to-Face: In or Out?

Justin Bieber - born in the same year as face-to-face fundraising

Sometimes it’s easy to feel that the face-to-face recruitment of regular donors has been around forever, but in reality it’s still a teenager.

Born only in 1994 face–to-face fundraising has, in its seventeen years moved from being a new and daring method of finding committed donors to a being a reliable stalwart in the fundraising toolboxes of many non-profits. And, like many teenagers, face-to-face fundraising causes a mixture of reactions ranging from intense loathing from those who hate it to those who herald it as the savior of philanthropy that allowed a new and previously hard to reach demographic to experience the joy of giving.

Some have questioned whether it is not now time for face-to-face fundraising to consider retirement; to gracefully step aside before it is pushed. However, this blogger sees plenty of life in a fundraising form that has not yet hit the grand old age of twenty. Face-to-face will surely undergo transformations in the years ahead but the power of one human looking into the eyes of another and asking them to help is too powerful to consider retiring it just yet. Instead, let’s weigh up the alternatives available to those organisations already involved in face-to-face or for those late starters who are considering how best to go about starting out in a tough and competitive fundraising marketplace. (more…)

Jack Ryan

Event & Community Fundraising

Over the last years, fundraising events have become more and more important. Events like the Dutch Alpe d’Huzes (20M in 2011) and Roparun (4,9M), and the UK Cancer Research’s Race for Life (raising over £362 million since 1994) clearly indicate the potential of person-to-person fundraising. Our most dedicated supporters are no longer just our ambassadors, they become fundraisers themselves!

When you’re considering organizing your own event, great info can be found online on choosing the right event for your organisation, like e.g. the Convio Report “Peer-to-Peer Event Fundraising for Everyone – Choosing the right event for your organization”, or, on our own 101fundraising blog: How much can I expect from my fundraising event?

However, with the growth of the number of events, also more and more critical notes can be found. Questions whether the market for (sporting events) isn’t becoming saturated quite rapidly, given the large amount of initiatives at this very moment. Some of them hardly reach the break-even point, still others are already quite profitable the first year. So, even more important, questions arise on the effectiveness of these events, like e.g. the interesting article Are Charity Walks and Races Worth the Effort?

(more…)

Ellen Janssens

Crystal ball fundraising: Lifetime Value

Some time ago on the KISSmetrics blog a case study was shown on how to calculate the Lifetime Value of your customer (let’s say donors in our case). You might have seen below infographic already, but it’s such a great and clear example I want to make sure as much fundraisers as possible have seen it.

It’s not the calculation that is so interesting, because with some common sense (and a skilled data analyst) you can put something similar together yourself. What is most interesting is that this infograpic underlines the importance of using Lifetime Value (LTV) in your acquisition strategy.

In fundraising we’re always struggling with acquisition. I yet have to meet the fundraiser who says that it’s going easy and smooth year after year… It’s always difficult for everyone! Having said that, most of us are still recruiting new donors and even growing income. How come? Because we invest in the future.

(more…)

Reinier Spruit Reinier Spruit

Is Asian charity different than Western charity?

If you are just learning that the economic world is shifting focus from the West to the East, well, then you probably shouldn’t even be reading this blog. (You’re a *fund* raiser!) But as you know, it is. And the shift is enourmous.

The swing to the East is centered, of course, on Asia’s two biggest countries, China and India, but as countless Economist articles point out, many countries with LESS than a billion people (!) have a lot going on as well. For example, most people don’t know that Singapore, where I now live, boasts one of the world’s highest GDP-per-capitas: almost US$ 60,000 per person (one in six households has a net worth of MORE than US$ 1 million). However, Indonesia is still the region’s *largest* economy, despite having far higher poverty rates. The GDP-per-capita in Indonesia is only a bit over US$ 4,600 per person (almost 1,500% lower!). Conclusion: Singapore has LOTS of rich people. Indonesia has LOTS of poor people, but a fair number of RICH people, too.

So, if you were a fundraiser (which is a fair assumption, since you’re still reading) the question is — where should you be fundraising? (more…)

Mitchell Hinz