Effective Frontline Fundraising Part 4

So, you have permission to hire a fundraising team, and youare ready to go. Youave written your job descriptions and posted them on your organizationas website. Good enough, right?

Sadly, itas not. You need to advertise. With the field of inst.i.tutional advancement growing the way that it is, and with more and more nonprofits in need of money, there is increased compet.i.tion among them to attract talent.

There are a number of ways to get the word out. You can post for free on your local craigslist cla.s.sifieds. You can also advertise in the local papers. The Chronicle of Philanthropy is a website that fundraisers tend to visit often as part of the trade, so posting there is also a good idea. Youall also want to advertise in industry-specific publications. Get resourceful and get aggressive with respect to your recruitment process. You canat expect to post something on your website and magically have your phone ringing later that afternoon.

You might even consider hiring a headhunter if you have the resources to spend on one. The point is that you canat expect a lineup outside the door trying to fill your open positions. Even where I work, a college with a reputation of having a pretty solid fundraising shop, is still waiting to fill some critical advancement positions at the time of this writing. Why? Because we have been sitting back waiting for positions to fill instead of actively hunting for the talent we need. Donat let this happen to you. Every day that goes by in which you donat have a fully staffed advancement shop is one in which you are leaving money on the table.

Volunteers: A Blessing and a Curse.

Volunteers are a wonderful a.s.set to add to your operations. They can also be a royal pain and, in the worst case scenario, a management nightmare. The scope of your volunteer program will vary, but here are some thoughts.

Someone I met at a fundraising conference, who worked for a college with an incredibly well-run fundraising shop and an especially well-regarded volunteer program, said that there were three categories of volunteers: 1) the superstar volunteer who goes above and beyond the call of duty, who is proactive and can be relied upon to get the job done; 2) the volunteer who does just the work a.s.signed, and usually only when asked; and 3) the volunteer who does nearly nothing, and requires a significant amount of prodding.

The advantages of having a core of volunteer fundraisers are: You donat have to pay them.

They can often open doors that you cannot.

Sometimes prospects respond to volunteers more positively than professional fundraisers.

They can keep you fresh when youare tired of dealing exclusively with donors.

They are a solid base for funds, and they can serve as a good sounding board for new ideas.

The potential downsides to volunteers: You canat control the messages that they disseminate in the same way that you can with a paid employee. In the worst of situations, they have a negative interaction with your organization and then spread toxic invective about you to everyone they know.

They can be unreliable/inconsistent.

Despite these potential downsides, it makes sense to think about a volunteer program, especially if your development shop is nascent and understaffed. Volunteers bring great energy to the organization, and youall find that oftentimes, folks who canat give you a ton of money will be willing to volunteer for you as a way to make up for it. If, for example, a volunteer can contact ten friends and get each of them to give $100, thatas $1,000 that would have been harder for you to access without that volunteeras personal touch. Aggregate that model up to 100 volunteers, and you can see the potential impact that a strong volunteer program can have.

If you do go down the road of recruiting volunteers, it will make sense to have a volunteer coordinator/manager in your office. What you donat want to do is recruit a large number of volunteers and then have them sitting idle. They want to know that you have your act together, and providing them with clear tasks, deadlines, and expectations is the first step.

How can you find volunteers to help with fundraising? The first step is offering the opportunity to sign up on your organizationas website. You can also include a section on any giving form (whether online, on paper, or in the script for a telephone solicitation), asking if volunteering time might be of interest to the donor.

Another strategy is sending out a designated recruitment message to everyone who has donated to your organization in the past. The language of the appeal can begin by thanking them for their support, followed by outlining your need for volunteers and asking them to respond (either by joining as a volunteer, or by renewing their financial support).

Should you decide to pursue a volunteer program, treat it with the same eye as you would any other aspect of your fundraising program. You should set goals around the number of volunteers that you want to recruit, and write up ajob descriptionsa for the roles for which youare recruiting. You want to do good work at the front end of recruitment by establishing clear guidelines. You donat want a bunch of rag-tag loose cannons that are just in it for the free lunch they get when you thank them in person for volunteering. You can professionalize your volunteer corps, and when you do so, they can become a potent weapon, since it happens often enough that a donor actually responds more warmly to a peer than to a paid fundraising staff member.

How can volunteers help your fundraising operation? With proper training and management, volunteers can be entrusted with tasks at all levels of the giving pyramid. Where I work, we have some volunteers asking for gra.s.sroots-level commitments of $25 to $100, and others making major, $1-million solicitations. You will have to vet your volunteers to a.s.sess their willingness to ask for certain levels of gifts (not everyone wants to ask for six- to seven-figure gifts) and their ability to do so effectively (you donat want certain volunteers asking for six- to seven-figure giftsa or certain prospects being asked by certain volunteers).

At least some of your board members who are volunteering for the organization should be helping with the fundraising. Chances are that they are already giving money to the organization, so they should be able to help stir up philanthropic activity at some level. Granted, not every board member will be willing to do this, nor will every board member be good at it, but you should have your eyes open for which members you want to enlist.

I have had the good fortune of forging a very positive relationship with a trustee, which has turned out to benefit my work as a fundraiser immensely. I cannot tell you how many conversations in one region that I cover have been aided, if not simply executed, by this trusteeas partic.i.p.ation.

Of course, it helps that this trustee has lived in the city that I have frequented for decades, that she is extremely well connected, and that she is semi-retired. Therefore, she has free time, knows people, and is unafraid to pick up the phone and call someone to make an appointment. She has also made a few key solicitations in my place, which, given the donorsa personal connections with this trustee, simply made more sense.

I am extremely lucky in this case, as fundraisers and trustees donat often work together in such a systematic manner. However, it would behoove you to take a critical look at your board and discern whom you might consider either taking on the road with you, or whom you might want to contact in advance when youare making a trip to New York, Boston, or Dallas. You could also benefit by pushing for access to board members/trustees, if you donat already have it.

Not to pile another staffing need onto your plate, but you really should consider having a volunteer coordinator within your shop to get the maximum output from your volunteers. This coordinator is oftentimes one of your frontline fundraisers, who, in addition to making direct solicitations, is charged with recruiting, training, and managing a volunteer corps. A well-managed volunteer force can do wonders for your bottom line, both in dollars and in the number of gifts acquired.

The volunteer coordinator should check in monthly with the volunteer base and provide them with updates on the organization. This should include where you stand relative to the relevant fundraising goals, a reminder of their tasks, and a call to make their gifts to the organization if they have not done so already (after all, they should be leading by example), as well as non-fundraising-specific updates that the volunteers can share when making their solicitations.

Another way to engage volunteers is by doing conference calls. Conference calls can be a ha.s.sle, but they are worth the preparation. The difference between sending monthly e-mails and holding a monthly conference call is that you have your volunteersa uninterrupted attention for 20a"30 minutes. Granted, you canat make people join the call, and sometimes attendance can be thin, but I argue that occasional conference calls are worth the preparation.

The formula that I have found works best is as follows: Notify your volunteers a month in advance. Include the date and time of the call. When choosing the time of day, consider time zone differences if you are working with volunteers across different regions.

The week before the call, send a reminder.

Two days before the call, send another reminder. Notify them that you will send call information and the agenda tomorrow.

The day before the call, send a final reminder, complete with agenda and call-in information.

You should be on the line five minutes before the appointed time. Wait until five to seven minutes after the appointed start time to begin going through the content.

Take attendance.

The call itself should last no more than 30 minutes. Ideally, the call will be five minutes of waiting for people to join, ten to fifteen minutes of updates, five minutes of questions and answers, and then a wrap-up.

After the call, send your volunteers a detailed summary of what was covered on the call.

One other note: While I will visit the subject of travel later on, one thing I do want to point out is that your frontline fundraisers should be putting volunteers on their call list when they are planning a trip. It is always a nice gesture to take them out for a coffee or a meal to say thank you for volunteering their time for the organization. Another reason that it is worth the time: Your volunteers are more likely to be responsive and engaged if you take the time to get in front of them. It is harder to ignore your organization once they have a direct, personal point of contact within your ranks. When I was working intensely with volunteers while managing the Young Alumni program, the volunteers whom I visited were, almost without exception, those that were quickest to respond when there was a call to action.

The main thing to remember about volunteers is that they have their utility, but be aware, in advance, of the potential limitations of that utility.

The Minimalist Shop: What to Do When Resources Are Tight.

So, you canat afford to hire everyone I just mentioned? Who is indispensable and who isnat?

It goes without saying that you canat have a fundraising shop without a fundraiser, so youall need at least one gift officer. If you can have an annual fund officer and a major gift officer, so much the better. If you canat immediately hire both, I would err on the side of hiring an annual fund officer initially, and delegating the major gift work to the organizationas executive director. Some may disagree, but I think it wise to increase the breadth of your donor base first, creating a potential pipeline for major gifts down the line. It might be tempting to chase after the bigger fish right out of the gate, but I think good strategy dictates that, if you need to choose between major gifts and annual gifts, you should start with annual gifts.

If youare in this situation, and you donat have enough resources to pursue a major gift program immediately, then you can, for the time being, forgo a researcher. Researchers are going to offer the most help at the top of the gift pyramid, so if you are concentrating on simply building a base, the researcher isnat critical.

Note: If your organization is about to launch a large, systemic fundraising campaign, then you will definitely want a major gift officer on hand. As we will discuss later, campaigns, and their accompanying gift pyramids, are top-heavy, meaning that the majority of the dollars raised in a major campaign come from a small number of large gifts at the top. Itas the Pareto principle in action: 80 percent of your donations will come from 20 percent of your donors.1 Administrative supporta"recordkeeping and logisticsa"could be rolled into one position if need be. Know up front that you run the risk of burnout, as administrative staff can often get saddled with an inordinate amount of work in a small, growing shop. If you do need to limit your administrative staff to one person, please be sure to compensate that person well. It is hard to exaggerate just how essential administrators are to keeping the whole operation in clean, working order. All too often, they are paid too little for the impact they have on keeping the office on task and organized.

You can get away without a donor relations team initially. A single event can be delegated to a frontline fundraiser with the help of the administrative support. Thank-you notes can be quickly personalized from a template, and sent by automated software or by a gift officer. Once your shop grows, however, youall want to provide more personalized, in-depth stewardship, and as you turn your sights to leveraging events more systematically, you will want to bring someone on board to focus solely on these tasks.

__________.

1 The qualifier here is that in recent history, with large, multimillion-dollar campaigns, weave actually seen the ratio take on dimensions more along the lines of 5% of the gifts from 95% of the donors.

While not all the staff members I have listed are critical for starting a fundraising shop, I do want you to take home the knowledge that each added member is added value, ensuring that the minimum amount of money is left on the table.

Having discussed in detail the composition of your team, letas focus in the next chapter on the importance of gathering good data and keeping good records.

The Basic Tools.

Collecting Good Data, Keeping Good Records.

Gift officers all too often take data for granted. In well-established development shops, there is sophisticated databasing software that allows you to look up a donoras name, address, employer, spouseas information, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, the boards upon which the donor sits, press releases on their company, their stock options, their previous philanthropy to your organization and others, as well as a detailed history of the direct contact that your organization has had with this donor through significant phone calls, e-mails, personal visits, etc.

Itas all essential information. And the biggest problem is the very fact that we take it for granted. A very complete donor profile is a rare and wonderful thing, and it is made possible only through diligence, attention to detail, and sometimes painstakingly tedious data entry.

The aims of this chapter are to make the case for collecting good data and to walk you through how (and why) to build a good database. Weall also take a look at some examples of what happens to fundraisers when data is wanting.

The Mack Truck Philosophy.

Iave gone on in previous chapters about the importance of good data. Why am I working so hard to drive home the point?

Effective fundraising at all levels, whether a small partic.i.p.ation gift of $25 or a transformational gift of $5 million, is derived from the establishment and continuity of solid relationships with your donors. Fundraisers are the thread that allows for that continuity, but data needs to be maintained and updated vigilantly if the relationship is to be sustained.

Fundraisers come and go; turnover within the profession can be high. Good records on prospects allow for a new fundraiser to come in and be able to hit the ground running, without having to rebuild the relationship from scratch.

A colleague of mine called this mindset the aMack Truck Philosophy.a The Mack Truck Philosophy is really more a practice than a philosophy and is aimed at having a large amount of useful information on a donor entered into a database and easily accessible. That way, if the current fundraiser is. .h.i.t by a Mack Truck and killed, a new employee should be able to step in and continue the conversation from right where it last left off without much ha.s.sle.

Another reason that the importance of information capture has been so driven into my head is my own upbringing. My father worked for several banks on the operations side and, in the second half of his career, was in charge of what was originally called adisaster recovery and emergency managementa before it got the euphemism acontinuity management.a In other words, I was raised by a man whose job it was to think about how to keep a bank going under extreme circ.u.mstancesa"from bank robberies to hurricanes to deer jumping through a branch window (true story).

The problem, of course, is knowing how much information to include. Whereas it is easy to know when there is too little, knowing the threshold of what is too much information is a bit tougher.

The other problem is the fact that this data collection, this reconnaissance, can be time consuming, especially if you are relying on free software or search engines. I know that itas tempting, especially if youare scrambling and under pressure to bring in money to keep the lights on. Itas tough to balance: do I spend time trying to capture all the relevant information about a donor or do I make another phone call to ask for money? I argue that, even though it is time consuming on the front end, you make up for it later and also prevent your frontline staff from getting caught off guard by bringing outdated information into a conversation. Weave all heard the saying: information is power. With fundraising, this is certainly the case.

We probably donat need to know about every phone call or every e-mail thatas pa.s.sed between a fundraiser and a donor. Here is what should be recorded for each donor: Full name, aliases, maiden names Mailing address (or addresses), e-mail, and all phone numbers Religion (this matters so that you know when not to call folks) All business information (as well as previous employment information if possible) Special appeals that a donor has received Which appeals a donor has responded to positively (i.e., he/she made a gift) Events that a donor has attended Every visit to the donor from a staff member (whether itas a fundraiser, executive director, or otherwise) Any phone call / e-mail with the donor that moves the gift conversation forward Any phone call / e-mail with the donor that suggests an increase or decrease in either giving capacity or inclination.

Any information that your organization has gleaned from the donor or from other sources that might have implications for a donoras giving capacity or inclination. This could include any number of things, including the following: A change in job (promotion, layoff, new company, etc.) A liquidity event involving a donoras company An IPO involving a donoras company A bankruptcy filing involving a donoras company The selling or buying of a new home Any information on a donoras children, in terms of schooling How do you get this information?

The easiest, but least common way, is when donors send you their updated contact information. Itas nice when they do this, but donat count on it. Donors rarely think about telling you when they move or that their company has just been sold.

Make sure your gift forms, both online and print, allow for maximum information capture. Youall want the full name, including middle name (for research purposes), address, primary and secondary e-mails and phone numbers, employment information, etc.

Once you have a donoras name and business information, you can plug them into Google Alerts, which will deliver news to your inbox based on queries or topics that you are interested in. Itas a good way to stay on top of donors, especially the ones at the top of your pyramid (weall get to gift pyramids in the next chapter).

Another good way to gather information: read. If your organization is based locally, make sure youare reading the paper, scanning it for information on your donors. If youave gone to a performance lately, study the donor roll: who are the platinum, gold, or silver donors? Are any of those names in your donor pool? Local news will oftentimes include examples of significant philanthropy that can open the doors of a certain organization. Keep your eyes open.

Oftentimes, donors tend to know one another, especially if youare a locally based organization. You should never be afraid of asking donors, whether in person, via e-mail, or over the phone, who else you should be talking to. You can run by them a list of donors in the area, both to see who you should be tapping for larger gifts, and also for informational updates on other donors. This does two things: it gets you information you wouldnat otherwise have and gets the donor even more invested in your cause. Any kind of non-monetary form of engagement is a good one!

I canat tell you how many times Iave gotten good information on donors from other donors not only with respect to new addresses, but also with information on their jobs, their children, and their wealth. You would be amazed how connected some folks are and just how much they know about one another.

Another reason why itas good to ask your donors who else you should be contacting is that it gets them involved in a non-monetary way. They get to feel (correctly) as though they are helping your organization beyond the act of writing a check. They can also help open doors that you might not be able to open. When asking your prospects who else you should be seeing, ask if they might be willing to introduce you.

Sometimes, because of privacy concerns, a donor might not be able to divulge specifics (because they are clients, for example), but will be able to say, aItall be worth your time to call this person.a So never be afraid to ask your donors who else you should be contacting. More often than not, youall be pleasantly surprised.

Letas now turn to an essential part of the fundraising process: taking notes when we meet with donors.

Taking Good Notes.

Fundraisers should, ideally, submit contact notes for each donor theyave met or spoken to within 12 to 24 hours. This is not just in the interest of timelinessa"this is also in the interest of remembering the content of the conversation.

When spending a day outside the office, conducting face-to-face visits, you can (and should) have many visits a day. Three to five prospect visits is a good target for a per diem visit count. It is hard enough keeping those visits straight in your head at the end of the day in your hotel room. The longer you wait to type up your contact notes, the poorer the quality and the less relevant the details will be.

All fundraisers have their own strategy for capturing notes. Here is what I and other successful fundraisers do. These practices should result in sufficient data capture.

Bring a small notepad with you to each visit. It will ideally fit in a jacket pocket, so as to be discreet. If youare traveling, hotel notepads often do the trick.

Immediately after the meeting, jot down the most important things that came up in the meeting. Themes in the conversation Mood of donor towards your organization, or, more pointedly, to the efforts of the fundraising shop Any of the aforementioned data points Do this for each visit you have that day.

At the end of the work day, in your hotel room (or back at your office), type up all of your notes in a narrative format. Err on the side of including more details than you think you need. You donat need to include how they took their coffee, but with respect to information that could be pertinent to development work, include it, even if its usefulness might be a little remote. Again, if you have a researcher, theyall be able to sniff out subtle details that might be more significant than you think. Examples could include mentioning a certain investment, in, say, a copper mining company. While it could seem like a random, pa.s.sing reference, if thereas a huge spike in the construction of wind farms, which require a significant amount of copper, youad be wise to check in with that prospect to see how his or her investment is doing. Another example could be a child changing schools (to public or private, to a less or more expensive school). That will affect a donoras immediate capacity to make a gift.

E-mail those notes to yourself, your supervisor, and your support staff. Make sure that the notes get entered into your organizationas database.

Iall admit it: itas hard at the end of the day to sit down and spend an hour typing up notes, especially if youave had a gla.s.s or two of wine with dinner. But if you donat get those notes typed up within 12 hours of that visit, then the quality and detail level of those notes will suffer. It is worth it for you to hunker down and hammer out those notes that same night.

Capture the Moment.