Navigating the Fundraising Universe

Stewardship 101 and Humble Pie

Jim Bush — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:02:00 GMT

For the past two years I have participated in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. "Relay" raises money for cancer research, and uses the team fundraising method to recruit relayers and raise money. Like most team fundraising events today, you register online and create or join a existing team. Then you're directed to your personal fundraising page template and you follow the very easy wizard to personalize your page - set your fundraising goal, add photos, etc. Once you finish personalizing your page, the next step is to send emails to your friends and family asking them to sponsor you by making a gift.

We'll start my story here. I did all the tasks above and thenI uploaded my Outlook personal contacts to my fundraising page. I then crafted my own email appeal it to my friends and family asking them to sponsor me as a Relayer. 31 awesome, incredible friends and family gave more than $3,000 on my behalf, with gifts coming in the day of, and even after Relay. Our Relay event was a great time. From 7 pm to 7 am, we walked and we walked...and we walked. And we celebrated with cancer survivors, remembered those who lost their battle with cancer, and raised more than $80,000 for cancer research. Let me pause and thank two folks who inspired me throughout Relay: Staci Bennett - Blackbaud's chief Relay organizer, cheerleader, and the incoming Relay chairperson; and Jon Card - he and I co-captained a team but he really did all the work and deserves all the credit.

After Relay, I knew there was still one more thing I had to do before I was finished - thank the great people who supported me. So, back to my fundraising page I went, where I created my personal thank-you email and included all of my supporters as recipients. I previewed the email, then clicked Send. That was it. I was now done. Or so I thought.

But something happened - an error that was totally my fault - and not a single email got sent. Zero. And to make it worse, I didn't discover this until just a few days ago (nearly two months after Relay) because this was the first time I accessed my personal page in almost two months - the last time was when I "sent" my thank yous. I wondered why my mom didn't really know what I was talking about when I asked her about the thank you email - that should have been a red flag that prompted me to check much earlier.

Stewardship is a topic I regularly present at conferences, and we always have much discussion about acknowledging donors - how should you acknowledge them?; when should you send acknowledgements?; (for the record, I believe acknowledgements should go out within 24 - 48 hours, NOT 24 - 48 DAYS!), should all gifts be acknowledged, even $5 and $10 gifts? I practically preach about this, and I am mostly unforgiving when I hear excuses about why organizations don't follow this fundraising "rule." I just so strongly believe that every donor should be acknowledged - especially the small donors, and acknowledgements should go out within 24 - 48 hours.

So, as soon as I finish this, I will be writing personal thank you cards to all of my donors thanking them for their support, apologizing for taking so long to say thank you, and promising them that their donation will be managed better than their thank you. And I'll slowly eat my Humble Pie one bite at a time.

And, since we're on the topics of stewardship and acknowledging donors, I invite you to share your thoughts about stewardship - share your own horror stories, opinions, or interesting ways you're stewarding donors.

Happy Fundraising!

Congratulations to Pat Conley!

Jim Bush — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:14:00 GMT

I wanted to give a quick shout out and CONGRATULATIONS to Pat Conley, the winner of the "Name Jim Bush's Blog". As I said before all of the entries were great, but there could be only one winner. Pat's entry captured the essence of what I hope this adventure will be - topics that will span the fundraising universe, and news from my various travels. We've already updated my site with the new official name.

So, congratulations Pat! You will soon receive a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate to spend on exciting books about fundraising (or whatever else you might enjoy).

My Blog Finally Has a Name!

Jim Bush — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:15:00 GMT

We have a winner … and my Blog will have a new official name beginning tomorrow! All of the suggestions submitted were great, but there was one that really captured the theme of my Blog. So, check back here tomorrow to see who won, and invite your friends to become part of our little Blogging world.

See you tomorrow!

Happy Fundraising!

Constituent Engagement - Obama and Clinton Style

Jim Bush — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:11:00 GMT

It’s very early Saturday morning and I am on my way home from our Canadian Conference. As usual, I can’t sleep so I am catching up on yesterday’s USA Today. In the paper, there is an article, “Small contributions make big impact,” which has some amazing statistics about online giving to the Obama and Clinton campaigns.

According to the article, of the nearly $129.4 million Obama raised between January and March of this year, 55% of those dollars ($71 million) were made in small, online gifts by individuals. Clinton had similar results. Half of her $65 million ($32.5 million) raised during the same time came from individuals giving small, online donations. The article goes on to say that this kind of giving is unprecedented (I kind of came to that conclusion on my own).

As if this story isn't impressive enough already, there's more. Not only did the candidates ask for money, they also asked for time from these same people, and they got a lot of it (the article didn’t give specifics). Lots and lots of volunteer hours, from people who had never been involved in the past.

So, how are they doing this? Clearly this extraordinary campaign has started a revolution, like nothing we have never seen before. Not because of the Democratic Party, color of their skin or gender of the candidates. There's a revolution because these candidates know their "mission" - change. They have preached this since day one and they Obama and Clinton campaigns starting doing one thing on day one, and have done it every day since - they articulate their mi continued to engage people – getting them so excited about their ability to change the direction of the U.S. that these people are compelled to give and to volunteer. In unprecedented numbers. It doesn’t hurt that television and newspapers are focused on nothing else – it’s Obama and Clinton 24/7. Still, there is a great lesson here: when you figure out how to engage your constituents, it works! Maybe this is a phenomenon that will end with the nomination of a candidate, but I don’t think it has to.Now comes the hard part – you want me to tell you how to engage your constituents so you can get similar results. I wish I had that magic answer – I’d write a book and make a lot of money doing speaking engagements. But I do have some tips that might help:

Articulate your mission and case for support every day, in creative and numerous ways (Obama and Clinton are telling us exactly what they will do to change the direction of the country – this is their case for support);
Compel people to get involved NOW (without money candidates cannot run for office; without money, you cannot achieve your mission)
Make it easy for people to get involved (if you don’t take online gifts today and allow people to volunteer online you’re missing a huge opportunity)
ASK PEOPLE TO GET INVOLVED (well, duh – none of this other stuff matters if we don’t ask people to give and volunteer)
Thank those who do get involved often (I hear the candidates doing this every day to every group they speak to)There are probably more tips we could learn from the campaign, but I think we’re off to a good start. Besides, my plane is landing in Atlanta so I have to turn off my laptop, and raise my seatback and tray table to their upright and locked position.

Happy Fundraising!

How does my gift impact your mission? Observations from the Canadian Conference on Philanthropy....

Jim Bush — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:26:00 GMT

One of my goals with my new blog is to share stories and interesting information from fundraising and philanthropy conferences I attend, and I thought it might be relevant to kick off this part of my blog today at Blackbaud's Canadian Conference on Philanthropy in Montreal, happening today and tomorrow.

Today at lunch, Marc Chardon, our CEO, talked about five trends the nonprofit sector will face over the next several years (I am paraphrasing): demand for what nonprofits do will continue to grow; the number of nonprofits is proliferating; donors are getting more skeptical; the number of donors in North America continues to decline; and nonprofits will have to become better users of technology.

There are a lot of comments to be made about each of these trends, but there is one that really got me thinking - "donors are getting more skeptical". This is absolutely true. Today's donor expects much more from the nonprofit he/she supports. I do, anyway, and my friends who frequently support nonprofits tell me the same thing. I care so much less today about the "cost per dollar raised". I want to know the impact my gift had on the mission of that organization. I know it takes money to make money - this is a lesson I didn't learn until I became part of the forprofit world, and it's a lesson I am glad I learned. How did my gift impact your mission? For me, this question is answered by how many animals my local SPCA saved, neutered/spayed, adopted out, and sadly - euthanized; or how many students at Elon got the chance to study there through a scholarship; or what new research will be funded by the money we raised for our local Relay for Life last weekend.

Marc got me thinking more about this today during his talk, and his comments took me back to around 4 AM last Saturday morning when I was walking around the track at the old Wando High School in Mount Pleasant, SC - walking as a participant in my local Relay for Life. Our goal was to raise $120,000 for the American Cancer Society. We started the night with just over $50K. The event organizers were somewhat disappointed because we were so short of our goal, and it was kind of a downer for everyone. I found out during the night that we had gotten up to $60K which was a nice increase, but was still way short of our goal. Still, participants continued walking, and laughing, and really enjoying the camaraderie that comes with devoting a whole night to walking around a track.

So, it was around 4 AM and I was walking by myself, and I was walking slowly so I could look at the lumniary memorials and tributes that lined both sides of the track. It suddenly dawned on me that what we were doing, and whatever money we raised, was going to impact the fight against cancer. If the money we raised saved someone's life wasn't that an incredible impact on ACS's mission? No, we didn't hit our goal, and sure - $120K could do even more. But, my point is we spent a lot of time being disappointed about our goal, when the bigger story was right there in front of us. We impacted the fight against cancer! And, by the way, money is still coming in and we're now over $70K!!

Do your donors really know how their gifts impact your mission? Before you automatically say yes, you might want to take a step back and ask them. Cuz I didn't. And, I think I somewhat more enlightened than the average donor...maybe...

Here's a promise to the organizations I donate to - I am going to start asking how the money they raise directly impacts their mission. And, the ones who can tell me how are the ones I will be supporting in the future.

Love your thoughts on this...

Happy Fundraising!

Welcome to Jim's Blog

Jim Bush — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:09:00 GMT

Hello and welcome to my new Blog. I have been trying to start this Blog for several weeks now but for the life of me I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say. I am still working on that but in the meantime let me begin by saying HELLO. And, welcome to my temporarily unnamed Blog. I look forward to a lively exchange of thoughts and opinions about all things fundraising. So, don’t hold back. Share your comments and opinions with me. This will make it a lot more fun for us all!

But, we can’t really have exciting discussions until we’ve taken care of one important task – my Blog needs a name. As creative as I thought I was every name I came up with was quickly laughed at by my friends. So, I turn to you – the creative members of this Blog community. Help me name my Blog. And, did I mention that the winner will be rewarded? If I choose your entry to become my official Blog name you will receive a $50 Amazon.com gift card!

Here is some information about me that I would like to incorporate into my Blog’s name. First, I want everyone to know my Blog is about fundraising. Also, my first name needs to be in the Blog title. I also travel nearly every week so if you would get bonus points if you could somehow incorporate travel into the name. Serious, sarcastic, silly – all entries will be considered.

As with any contest there are rules, and here are the rules for the “Name Jim’s Blog” contest:

You can submit as many Blog names as you want. Each entry will be reviewed by the blue-ribbon selection committee (that would be me);
Submit your entries by commenting to this Blog entry; if the exact same Blog name is submitted by two or more people, the person who submitted it first gets credit;
I will choose the winner – this will be the one I like the most. Or the one who includes the most bribe money with their entry. There will be no popular vote;
The deadline for entries is 11:59 pm on April 30, so get busy;
Any and all entries will become my exclusive property and you will forfeit all rights, thus allowing me to take full credit for thinking of the name myself;
The winner will receive a $50 gift card, by email, to Amazon.com;
I can add any other rules anytime I want.

That’s it. Put on your creative thinking cap and help me name my Blog! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

That’s all for now. See you again soon.

Happy fundraising!