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A crowdsourced blog on fundraising and changemaking.

Employee Matching Gift Programs – An Untapped Source of Fundraising

Did you know that thousands of companies offer employee matching gift programs? In fact, over 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift programs to their employees!

What are employee matching gift programs?

Corporate matching gift programs are charitable giving programs created by corporations in which the company matches donations made by employees to eligible nonprofit organizations.

They started in 1954 when the GE Foundation created the Corporate Alumni Program, the first corporate gift-matching program. (more…)

Adam Weinger

Give the donor what he needs …

… not what you want to sell him.

Sounds so easy, you wouldn´t think twice about it. Yet the opposite happens all of the time. Just count the number of  times you´re watching the tele at home, nice and cosy with the kids. And these adverts come on, telling your offspring they should collect these Bagukan action figures of those brand new BeyBlades. And there you find yourself again in the Toys`r´us wondering how the hell you got yourself talked into this, shopping for stuff you don´t want, your kids don´t need, but some marketeer who knows all about ´share of wallet` needs to sell.

And it´s about that feeling “how the hell?” that I want to talk to you, in relation to fundraising of course. Recently I spoke to a guy I know quite well, who has done a lot in fundraising, especially telemarketing. He gave me his opinion on this and I must admit he hit a nerve. (more…)

Peter Goudkamp

Think face-to-face: think mobile

It really does make sense when you think about it. Using mobile as the key device to keep in touch with donors recruited on the street.

Think about it.

The average age of F2F recruits around the world is usually late 20’s, early to mid 30’s.

Almost 60% of Aussies own a smartphone, and around 18% a tablet device. These figures replicated in most developed fundraising nations. Overlay this with age and our key F2F recruits one of the most smartphone/tablet active groups, around 80% of them actively using a mobile device.

Most F2F donors are on the phone (or pretending they are) prior to being approached. Which means they’re “on the go”, as in mobile. Not sitting still.

And let’s face it: a mobile device makes it really easy these days to share content. Great content. At your fingertips.

So why therefore are we stuck in the mid 90’s when it comes to our attitude toward caring for donors recruited on the street? (more…)

Jonathon Grapsas

Is there room for experience fundraising?

Fundraisers should improve their storytelling skills so they can take donors effectively to where the action is.

‘Experience’ marketing is the fashionable new thing for today’s marketer. Apparently you don’t just sell your product, you live it. The aim is to immerse your prospect in a lifestyle that simultaneously stimulates all their senses.

An example of experience marketing is currently practiced by the manufacturers of those cunning designer ‘alco-pop’ drinks – Breezer, Schnapps and the like. Experience marketing for these products involves recruiting attractive, young, out-of-work male models – this is true – who are briefed to sit hour after hour in the most fashionable watering-holes with their Nokia mobile phone and Palm Pilot prominently in view, with the Gucci shoes, the Armani threads, the Rado wrist wear and the Trevor Sorbie hairdo – everything that successful youth might aspire to – and, of course, all the while knocking back bottle after bottle of Zippo, or Heave-up or whatever is being promoted to you, the unsuspecting punter. Just think, that stunningly attractive bloke at the bar who you thought had been stood up and were just about to move in on, may in fact just be coming to the end of his shift.

Silly, isn’t it?

Then I thought about it. Maybe ‘experience marketing’ does have some application for fundraisers… (more…)

Ken Burnett Ken Burnett

It’s Personal!

This is my third blog for 101fundraising and while other may prefer to write about theories of giving. I like to write more about technical things that, hopefully, can immediately help you.

In my previous blogs, I talked about “drip-drip” marketing for legacy fundraising and about organising a legacy event.  Now, I want to discuss how using a “personal touch” can help legacy fundraising

In Indonesia we have a phrase ‘Tak kenal maka tak sayang’— which means “if you don’t get to know people, it’s impossible for you to care for them.”  And with legacy fundraising, personalisation can be a VERY  important factor.

In the WWF Network, globally, we have 24 national offices that have a legacy program. (more…)

Juan Hendrawan Juan Hendrawan

What’s All This Noise about Not Giving “Thank You” Gifts?

Recently, a small raft of articles have appeared about a new study, published in the Journal of Economic Psychology, apparently showing that offering a gift as a “thank you”  (what we in the industry would call a “premium” offer) can reduce the amount of money people will donate to your charity.

I found this to be old news.  But the press (and some marketing gurus) didn’t.   The top GOOGLE search on this was entitled “Charities: Don’t Thank Donors With a Gift! – Forbes”.Well, that’s the private sector for you:  making studies to “discover” what fundraisers already know. (more…)

Mitchell Hinz

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

Failing to Steward the Online Donor

The scene at my desk on Tuesday: In preparing for my monthly ritual of stewarding new donors, I pulled up a spreadsheet that I share with the Gift Processing team. This spreadsheet is a way of double tracking these new donors in order to send them a welcome letter to thank them for their monthly commitment to the organization. I inherited this portfolio (and project) about 4 months ago and hadn’t developed a critical eye around what exactly I was looking at/doing in the bigger picture.

So I made a bad assumption: this spreadsheet captured every new monthly donor regardless of what channel they first gave through.

Imagine my surprise when a colleague from Gift Processing came by my office and off the cusp asked me if I’d like them to list donors who give online on the spreadsheet. Two words flashed through my mind: Mass Panic. (more…)

Vanessa Chase

Lack of trust: the key barrier to donating

Our own research shows that “I do not trust UNICEF to use my donations well” is one of the top 3 claimed reasons for not donating, together with ‘not knowing enough about what UNICEF does’, and other generic reasons such as ‘not being able to afford it’, ‘already giving to other organizations’, and ‘preferring to give people directly’. This probably sounds familiar and shows us how important Trust is when making a donation.

Why is Trust so important?

From a historical perspective, Trust has become more and more important. Mostly because it is increasingly difficult to trust the rapidly growing circle of people and institutions we don’t personally know. In primitive societies and even until the 19th century and in many places well into the 20th century, we interacted mostly face to face with people in our family and small communities.

With the development of large cities and explosion in communication and transportation technologies, our circle of close family and friends became smaller, while our (virtual) circle of personal and professional acquaintances expanded dramatically. (more…)

Julie Verhaar

Make loyal donors not war

Thinking about human psychology is something I find myself doing often. It really interests me – which is handy, as there are insights into the human psyche that are innate within the discipline of fundraising. When I was browsing online a little while ago, following links through Wikipedia, I was fascinated to come across an entry on psychopathic personality disorder – mainly because I realised that I hadn’t actually understood what a psychopath really is until then. It said:

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions … lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity … promiscuous sexual behaviour, many short-term marital relationships, and antisocial behaviours such as parasitic lifestyle …

I found myself recalling this again, in the context of relationship fundraising, prompted in part by this recent post on 101fundraising by Ken Burnett. I realised there are a lot of brands out there that behave like psychopaths. (more…)

Rachel Beer

Why Tell a ‘Story’ When You Can Tell The Truth?

(Or ‘How to bring integrity to your storytelling, while keeping donors and fundraisers loyal all at the same time’)

About half our donors are leaving. According to Third Sector’s latest survey half the fundraisers are close behind them. It seems the only ones staying are the beneficiaries and God knows they’d leave if they could!

Anyone else seeing a correlation here?

But could it be that the answer to both these problems lies in the same thing; a lack of genuine connection to the cause? With all the hype around storytelling it seems we’ve missed the most fundamental point of all…

These aren’t just ‘stories’.

So how has this disconnect affected us and our donors? Let’s start with the much maligned donor, ‘Attriting Annie’ (irony intentional!), blissfully unaware of where she is on her ‘journey’. Why’s she leaving; was it something we said? Let’s face it; she doesn’t cancel regular payments for the things she wants. So the question has to be are we doing enough to make her want to be a part of what we do? (more…)

Charlie Hulme Charlie Hulme

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

The Real Challenge of Multi-Channel Fundraising (or Sales): Customer Service

It’s called many things and it can be a bit of a buzz term: integrated fundraising or multi-channel fundraising.

Whatever its name, its definition is the same: “the use of multiple channels to raise money”. However, it’s not the name or the definition that’s most open to debate. Rather, it is whether multi-channel fundraising leads to better results and a deeper donor relationship.

The furious adoption of the internet for fundraising has brought the issue of multi-channel marketing to the forefront. In the past, direct mail, TV, and the telephone have been effectively combined to help improve fundraising results. For example, the telephone has been used to reactivate lapsed donors and convert direct mail single gift donors to more valuable monthly debit (regular) donors. The evidence, generally, with multi-channel marketing prior to the emergence online giving, was that using a more active channel (e.g., the human voice of a phone call) was a very effective way of upgrading donors who were regularly swimming in the channels of a more passive medium like direct mail. (more…)

Mike Johnston

Where are we going in 2012? A possible and promising new direction for fundraisers.

A direct marketing eminence recently described fundraising as, ‘the important art of cajoling money from people for good causes.’

Though rather obvious it’s nevertheless a fairly apt description, if perhaps more useful in summarising how others see us than in illustrating how we aspire to be. Although the phrase may hint at disapproval it’s neither negative, nor critical. Fundraising is undeniably important, for it fuels good works. ‘Art’ in this context simply means the creation of beautiful or thought-provoking works. ‘Cajoling’ implies effort, persuasiveness and determined persistence. But art can suggest artfulness and cajoling can also mean to elicit or obtain by pleading, flattery or insincere language. And it’s limited. The art of cajoling implies the mendicant mode. It includes no sense of sincerity, respect, rapport or accountability. (more…)

Ken Burnett Ken Burnett

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

Fork Handles

Last week Steve Bridger and I spoke at the Institute of Fundraising Convention in London about fundraising, engagement and technology. We included a bit of Two Ronnies nostalgia from the seventies for those in the audience that were born before the Internet was invented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ

Fork handles and the Two Ronnies isn’t as random as it may seem in a fundraising and technology session. Let me explain.

(more…)

Lucy Gower

Why I Love (And Feel Uncomfortable About Loving) Legacy Fundraising

I’m writing this on the one-year anniversary of my move from Toronto to London, so you’re reading this one year after I started my career as a professional fundraiser, and what a lot has changed during that time. I’ve gone from fundraiser in theory, to fundraiser in practice; blogger, to paid writer (ha!).

But there’s another difference that has been developing more recently and at the IoF National Convention last week, it finally hit me – I’ve fallen madly, deeply, head-over-heels in love with legacy gifts.

This may come as a surprise to those who knew me in Toronto because I used to be quite vocal about my distaste for this field of fundraising. I thought it was dull, cold, and frankly it bored me half to death when we studied it in school (pun intended). (more…)

Margaux Smith

Crisis? There is no crisis!

Earlier this year we interviewed 10 senior fundraisers in the Dutch Market to ask them if the economic turmoil changed their opinion about the fundraising potential in their market. And, if any, where they saw fundraising opportunities.

In the majority of interviews, the current economic situation was debunked as an excuse for non-performance. Even if the market is getting a bit rough, there is plenty of opportunity for growth, was their main message.

The question is: Where is the money? And how to get it? (more…)

Erik van Dorp

Simply the best: Top 10 blog posts (Q2 2012)

Here is our quarterly Top 10 again! Below are the best blog posts that were published in the past quarter.

If you don’t have time to read all the valuable information that we publish, at least read these 10…

Great to see that new crowdblogger Mike has made it into the Top 10 with his first blog post!

According to our readers these are the best blog posts of the second quarter of 2012: (more…)

101 fundraising icon 101fundraising

A perfect pitch?

© fallingfifth.com

If you work with creative agencies, there’s a good chance you will someday be involved in a pitch process.

I’ve been involved client-side in two separate pitches, each of which have taught me where I’ve made mistakes, and where a few good choices can make everything run smoothly for all involved.

Here are a few of the tips I’ve learned that I hope will be useful if you ever find yourself conducting an agency pitch. (more…)

Alison McCants

Visiting funerals: part of your job description?

I am a relationship manager and I really like my job. One thing I like about it is the diversity: you meet a wide variety of people. Interesting people. People you would otherwise not meet. This can be the CEO of a large, global company, but it can also be a young owner of a creative start-up. And it can be an 80-year old founder of a large family business, but this can also be a 30-some year old multimillionaire.

Another part of this variety is the fact that you meet these people in different settings, and that you have various types of meetings: thank-you meetings for a spontaneous donation, creative brainstorm meetings, prospecting meetings where you have to give everything in you to secure their support, etc.

Last Monday I had a different type of meeting, joining a colleague of mine. (more…)

Gerbren Deves

Donate! It’s proven to make you happy!

Some weeks ago I was at a party, with lots of new people to meet. It was a very nice party: we watched football on a big screen, had a barbecue, and kids were playing in the garden. I started talking to a lady I’ve never met before, and of course she asked me what kind of work I do. Normally I adjust my reply to the person in front of me, because the plain answer ‘fundraiser’ can get you in strange places. So I replied: ‘I’m a fundraiser. I generate money for extra projects, and focus on major gifts and legacies”. I was quite happy with my answer and wanted to take another bite from my meal, when my new friend concluded: “Aha, you beg for money by selling lies to people”. My heart missed a beat and my meal suddenly tasted not that good anymore. This conclusion was exactly the opposite of by idea of fundraising. Well, not quite the opposite because begging for money was somehow true. But I was not selling lies, I was selling happiness to donors. Because: donating makes people happy. And I could proof this, too. Scientifically! (more…)

Elsbeth Takkenberg

Geven maakt (wetenschappelijk bewezen) gelukkig!

Enige weken geleden was ik op een feestje waar ik de helft van de mensen nog niet kende.  Het was een leuk feestje, met voetbal via een beamer en een barbecue. Ik raakte in gesprek met iemand die me vroeg wat ik voor werk deed. Deze vraag beantwoord ik meestal op verschillende manieren, aangepast aan de doelgroep waartoe ik denk dat de vrager behoort. “Ik ben fondsenwerver”, zei ik, en voegde enigszins overbodig toe: “Ik zorg voor extra financiële middelen voor kankeronderzoek, waarbij ik mij richt op grote gevers en nalatenschappen”. Mijn gesprekspartner dacht kort na en zei: “Aha, je bedelt dus om geld door leugens te verkopen”. Ik verslikte mij en dacht na. Deze snelle conclusie stond lijnrecht tegenover mijn idee over fondsenwerving, en ook lijnrecht tegenover mijn idee over mijzelf. Dat bedelen om geld, daar zat natuurlijk wel wat in, maar ik verkoop geen leugens. Ik verkoop geluk! Want mensen die geven, worden namelijk gelukkig doordat ze geven. En dat is nog eens wetenschappelijk bewezen ook, en hier lieg ik niets aan. (more…)

Elsbeth Takkenberg