A Small Change- Fundraising Blog

Monday, I wrote about many new models of giving. One of those is called Friendraising and I wanted to go in a bit more depth on some ideas that they have. Cultivating donors online can be tricky business for many non-profits and can never be reviewed as the replacement to personal interaction. Technology provides us with many opportunities but it is not the answer.

“One lesson from the technology revolution is already clear-a bold vision and good management will always have more impact that technology. So will poor focus and bad management.”- Richard McPherson, Digital Giving

Here are a few tips from Advanced Solutions International (ASI). I encourage you to visit the original website and read in more detail about each of these points and ideas. They have gone into more depth on each item than I have here.

• Integrate peer-to-peer fundraising into your current fundraising strategies.
• Introduce online events to the list of ways a donor can help.
• Identify campaign ‘champions’ and give them the tools to rapidly expand the donor network.
• Understand, motivate and thank your donors.
• Create friendly competition and build individual and team incentives into your campaigns.
• Reduce unnecessary administrative efforts from each campaign.
• Automate your donor acquisition strategy.

If you want to follow along with what ASI is doing you can check out their online interactive community. They also have regular webcasts that are of no charge to the listener on various topics and ideas. The next webcast on Freindraising is March 19 this would be a great way to hear these ideas directly from them for no charge.

I thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss with fund development professionals. What do you think of the new TV show “The Big Give?” Do you like it, dislike it?

From a fund development perspective I have not be very impressed. It takes a long time to cultivate donors and to raise money for a cause or issue. It would be neat if each candidate had more time to develop a larger scale plan. There are so many opportunities to use social networking, granting, business involvement that can raise a significant amount of money but they take a couple months to a year to develop.

I heard Oprah mention that the major idea behind the series is to show how easy it is to help people. And under that definition I think that the show was a success. However, with Oprah’s influence and wealth I was expecting something a little more spectacular. Why not use her money to hire 10 industry experts to serve internationally helping nonprofits and make the show all about how they are changing the world. Or tell America that everyone is eligible to be a part of the “Big Give” all they have to do is create a “Big Give” project of their own locally. Then the show could highlight the most impressive projects.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the first couple of episodes. I hope that they start to develop the story behind the families that are being helped. This last week I didn’t feel that student loans for a medical doctor or that paying for a penthouse suite that a family will have to move out of when the money is gone are “Big Give” type solutions. What did you think?

I thought and thought about posting this article or not. I know that many of my readers do not have a faith background (or come from a different background than me) and was a little afraid they might find a “parable” offensive. Then I started to think more about some of the ideas I found in this parable and how much they benefited my thinking on fundraising. So if you are offended or angry at this post please either post a comment with concrete reasons why or send me an email and let me know.Eric Foley from the Mission Increase Foundation has some really unique ideas about transformational giving that you can read in his quotes throughout this post.

You know the intrinsic problem with fund raising? We try to mediate meaning, instead of assisting others to make meaning. What I mean by this is that we identify a good cause, we share it with people, we ask them for money, they give it to us, and then we send them a letter saying, “Oh, you should have seen little Timmy’s eyes light up when we gave him that new computer we bought with the money you sent us!”…That’s meaning mediation. That makes us the middleman. The meaning goes through us. Instead, let donors communicate with donors. Let donors ask other donors. Instead of jumping in and doing the work, stand on the sidelines and coach. Offer them tools. Challenge them. Most of all, set them loose and stay out of their way.-Eric Foley

You can read the story for yourself in the Bible in Mark chapter 10 starting at verse 17. Here is a paraphrase as to how the story goes. A man approaches Jesus and asks him what he must do to be perfect. Jesus answers by asking the man if he has followed the commandments and the man responds that he has kept them all since he was a young boy. Jesus then tells him that he must sell all that he has and give his money to the poor. Saddened the man then leaves because he has great wealth.Lets look at Jesus as the key leader of his non-profit (or ministry). In that situation if I was asked the same questions by the rich young ruler I probably would have directed him donate to a couple of the villages I was headed to or passed him off to one of my disciples to talk with him about how he can fund a new project that I’m working on. But this is not what Jesus said:

Well, if you want to be perfect, I have put together a great brochure with some of our key ministries that could really use your support, and here are some fantastic testimonials from folks I’ve healed.-Eric Foley

This made me realize that one of the key problems in fundraising today is that we don’t care about the cultivation process of the donor. The process is not meant to help the donor better understand their own reasons for giving and connect them to how they can be fulfilled and make a real difference. The process is built around how can we get them to better understand what we do in such a way that they will want to give more money. Jesus responded to the needs he saw in the life of the rich young ruler.

But Jesus didn’t focus on what the young ruler could do for his ministry. Instead, he perceived that the young ruler had a lack …It wasn’t that the poor needed the young ruler’s money - it was that the young ruler needed to give his money away.-Eric Foley

This is where the idea of transformational giving begins. This kind of giving allows the donor and the organization to be changed. It involves giving that goes far beyond a financial gift and is more about a lifestyle or an attitude of the heart. It involves stewarding and cultivating donors in such a way that partnerships are being really created. This kind of cultivation allows donors to take ownership of the process and invest themselves in the purpose/mission of your non-profit.