A Small Change- Fundraising Blog

This is a question I often ask myself.  Are we in the world of philanthropy working together or working against each other.  Are we in competition or in collaboration?

Lets say for an example that you work for a nonprofit that provides food for children in Africa. There are hundred of non-profits doing that vary thing why should I give my money (or why should I raise money) for you instead of another organization? I am really happy with many organizations that focus their organization on a specific niche group of people that they know how to serve or issue because it allows them to specialize. What about when two organizations that have a similar or overlapping missions do they go after the same dollars?

I know many nonprofits pride themselves on how collaborative they can be. And sometimes I believe this is true when you see a couple organizations coming together to serve a family in need, or an organization has a staff member who’s salary or work area is directed from an organization outside of the nonprofit.

I have found that when it comes to fundraising there is a very small amount sharing that is going on. Try calling up a local nonprofit and telling them that you would like to see a copy of their sponsorship levels and benefits (and don’t forget to tell them you work for a nonprofit) and you’ll get a no almost every time.

What do you think? Should nonprofits be open to collaboration and shared information on everything? Should nonprofits take a more serious business approach and see their partners as competition? Or is it a mix between the two?

There is a lot to think about in today’s world when you talk about online fundraising. In many ways it is still in its infancy. I write a little bit about it in my post, A Foretelling of the Birth of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising. What will the future look like? What is coming in the new frontier of online giving? I think that it has a lot to do with what is happening in online chat rooms, on message boards, on blogs, and other social media networks. Richard McPherson says in his book, Digital Giving, “Charitable success online will be driven not by the size of your email list or even your donor base, but by the number of people who are talking about you through social media.”

Here are a few simple rules that I gleaned from that book:

• Start with a clear idea of what you want your community to do
• Plan for your superusers
• Have a growth plan
• Balance listening and leading

You need to know what you want to promote online. Is it a general issue, a cause linked to a geographic area? Make sure that you have this idea in place. Once you start your online community you will start to see a few “superusers” emerge. These are the one out of a hundred that leave a comment or send you an email. Make sure that you are talking to them, thanking them for their comments, asking for their input. Make sure that you are responding and changing based on what your community is telling you. If you ignore them and don’t listen they will go away. Here is another interesting quote from Digital Giving:

Online networks for social action and engagement, of course, compete not for retail sales but for the affections of people willing to speak up or at least listen to others with a cause… “The more connected people feel, the more active they’ll be.” Randy Paynter, founder of Care2

I’m just starting to see the power of this kind of planning and action. There are a few places that I’m trying to start some online community. One of them is connected to each post. A few examples of this working really well would be my All Donors as Major Donor’s post or I Don’t Want to Ask for Money. A couple places that I’m going to try and start some new conversations is are my Idealist Group, my Facebook page, and the Search & Questions section. I want to create a place where I can be listening to the kinds of things that you want me to talk about. Have you had success creating online communities? Has it contributed to fundraising success for you?

I am currently in career transition. In a few weeks time I will be leaving my current job to start as the Campaign Manager at a local community college. It is going to be a great opportunity to be a part of a great institution of higher education and participate in a capital campaign. I am very excited and hope this will bring a whole new skill set for me to reflect on at A Small Change.

Over the next couple of weeks I would really appreciate any input and advice from you on capital campaigns. Next week on April 21, I am hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants on the topic, “Ingredients to a Successful Capital Campaign.” Please send your submissions to me at infosmallchange@gmail.com, the last day to submit will be Friday, April 18. I really want this carnival to be a good one so if you have a few minutes to craft a creative and exciting article (on Capital Campaigns) I’d love to promote it on next weeks post.

In early May you will also see another one of my “Online Interviews.” At the end of January I interviewed a number of online fundraising experts and wrote a five part series. Come early May you will see a very similar interview on the topic of capital campaigns. Feel free to let me know of any great capital campaign resources, or pieces of advice below.

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What does your non-profit stand for? How do you raise money? As donors ask more and more for outcomes and details about programs what sets your organization apart? What figures, stats and stories do you use to tell your story? Do you know if your programs are better than the programs of other organizations?

Too often many organizations focus to strongly on administrative rate to judge if a non-profit is a good steward. I’ve always had a really hard time with administrative rates because it can be such a relative number. The administrative rate is traditionally the percent of money that goes to fundraising and administration versus to service provision. It bothers me because many times getting a good administrative rate has nothing to do with good fundraising or good program development. I also find that it’s hard to separate what dollars are “service dollars” and what dollars are “administrative.” Administration and fundraising has a lot to do with service provision.

So what’s the answer? What do you think? Post a comment and share your thoughts. One answer is to set up measurable outcomes. Non-profits need to be able to clearly articulate what is happening with the money donors are giving. How are lives being changed and how is the organization continually improving? Are you the best at what you’re doing or is someone else? Make sure that you are setting up measurable outcomes to help you and your donors know you are doing a good job.

A few conversations on this topic that might interest you related to the topic of outcomes:
Give Well- a foundation that is breaking the mold regarding donor outcomes. They are pioneering some radical ideas on what organizations make the most difference for your dollar.
Tactical Philanthropy- Google Finance has started a listing of organizations and Tactical Philanthropy has been talking with them about what kinds of measurable outcomes to use to list non-profits.