1.     Leslie, tell us a little bit about your job at Hope Cottage Pregnancy and Adoption Center.  When did you begin as DD there?

In August 2009 I came on board as Chief Development Officer at Hope Cottage Pregnancy and Adoption Center, Dallas’ oldest, nonprofit, nonsectarian adoption agency.  This was an agency in dire need of development work.  Despite having an almost 100 year history serving the community, relationships had been allowed to wither, contact with donors was almost nonexistent, there was no reaching out and certainly no “friend raising” going on.

Without a presence in the community,  if people do not know you are there, you cannot raise funds.  During 2011 the Development Department gave special emphasis to raising public awareness of our agency and the many services, outside of private infant adoption, we provided the community.  We blogged, we facebooked, we spoke at Rotary Clubs, we tweeted, we set up monthly newsletters for our families waiting to adopt, we produced videos in house – all with the goal of making the community aware of Hope Cottage.

2.  You’ve talked about how you’re making this year the “Year of the Individual Donor.”   What brought about this decision?

2012 has been dubbed “The Year of the Individual Donor” in the Hope Cottage Development Office.  As mentioned earlier, many relationships had withered due to neglect.  There hadn’t been a real effort to keep our supporters and friends close.  What brought about the decision to focus on our supporters was very simple.  Many, many of our supporters are people who have built their families through Hope Cottage.  Hope Cottage has always been here for our families and always will be.  That is part of our mission.  We WANT to know where our Hope Babies (children adopted through Hope Cottage) and their families are and what they are doing – even if you are 90 years old, you are still a Hope Baby.  From 1918 until the 1960’s we had babies living at Hope Cottage – just like you would see in the movies.  Who doesn’t have an affinity for their very first home?  One of our Hope Babies visited us and said the only thing he knew about his adoption was that he was left on our doorstep.  I pulled out a picture of Hope Cottage at that time and showed him the front porch where he was placed.  He stretched out his hand and caressed that picture while tears welled up in his eyes.  “Thank you for showing me this.”, he said.

3.  What are some of the ways that you’re acknowledging your donors?  Do you have any daily or weekly habits in place for stewarding?

All the things we have done to reconnect are very simple and easy to implement.

1.  We started The Hope Cottage Heritage Society – an alumnae group if you will for our Hope Babies and Hope Families – giving current Hope Families a chance to build Hope Families of the future.  Members of the society are invited to member only events and  are listed in the quarterly agency e-newsletter.
2. We thank our donors.  You would be surprised at how many nonprofits don’t send out a simple typed thank you letter, even with an auto signature for donations received.  I know of which I speak.  I have donated to a few organizations and never received an acknowledgement for my gift.  Believe me – they don’t get a second gift!  If my department of 1.5 people can get letters out the door, then anyone can.
3. Each donor receives a letter, hand signed by the CEO which can also be used as their tax receipt.  Each donor receives a handwritten thank you note from me.  I laugh and say “who knew that having a mother who insisted I learn to write a proper thank you note could be turned into a career!”  Also, each donor receives a call from either a board member or a staff member thanking them for their donation.  Even the CEO helps make the calls.  Sometimes we bring the board members together to our office one evening and make it a “Thank A Donor” Call Night.  Sometimes board members make the calls on their own time.  If the donor has given to a particular program, I make sure a staff member from that area calls them.   Our goal is that every donor receives at least one phone call during the year.  Many times the donors think we are calling to ask for an additional donation and are pleasantly surprised when we tell them we are just calling to say thank you.  There are some donors for which we do not have contact information – these are usually people who donate to us through the United Way, but if we have your information, we are going to let you know how much we appreciate what you do for Hope Cottage.

4.  How are you tracking stewardship?

In our donor database, we keep track of each phone call made, each letter sent, any personal meetings with that donor.  At the end of the year, we should be able to compare that to a donor’s giving history.  What matters most is that we are planting and cultivating.  We all know that you don’t always see an immediate return on your development efforts, however, keeping in touch with our supporters is the right thing to do.

5.  What types of reactions are you receiving from your donors?

Since we started reaching out to reconnect with our supporters we have had people donate that haven’t given in ten years or more and some have never donated before.  Donations aside, it is extremely gratifying just to have a connection again with our families and supporters.

Donor care is important – put yourself in the donor’s place.  Wouldn’t you want to know that what you did was important?  That what you did helped someone?

At one of my previous nonprofits, we had a camp for children with a particular disease.  One of our favorite things to send out, and for our donors to receive, was a couple of pictures from camp and a handwritten thank you note from a camper (done during rest time) all framed together.   A lovely thank you for little hard cash spent.  People love pictures – send a couple of pictures showing “your donation at work”.  You may not be able to share pictures of clients at the food bank, but what about a picture of the shelves filled with donations with a note saying “thank you for making sure our pantry is stocked.  Because of you, five families were able to have a hot meal tonight.”

6.  What would you tell other organizations about donor care?

There is a saying in dentistry that you should only pay attention to the teeth you want to keep.  Conversely stated “if you ignore your teeth, they will go away”.  That can apply to donor relations too – “if you ignore them, they will go away.”

7.  Anything else?

I have been a fan of Simple Development Systems for a couple of years now.  I have never been part of a large development department – in fact in most places I was answering the phones and paying the bills at the same time I was running programs and fundraising.  Pamela has such wonderful ideas and is so willing to share her knowledge.  I appreciate she brings together the “best” in the field of fundraising to help those of us who are still learning.  The newsletters are like little mini seminars I don’t even have to leave my office to attend.  The twice monthly Twitter chats are invaluable – you have the opportunity to learn from people who are actually “in the trenches”.  Pamela Grow and Simple Development Systems are in my “top five to follow” list that I recommend to any and everyone I meet in fundraising.

Leslie Clay has worked in the nonprofit arena since 2000 in both programming and development.  Before joining Hope Cottage she served as Director of Community Development for Literacy Instruction for Texas, Director of Programs and Development  for the National Kidney Foundation of North Texas and Education Manager for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of North Texas.  She earned her BA from Stephens College, concentrating in TV-Radio-Film and Advertising and her Master of Liberal Arts from Southern Methodist University.  She is the Immediate Past President of the Rotary Club of Dallas-Uptown and has served on the board of Dallas Christian Women’s Job Corp.  Her favorite thing to do besides reading and singing?  Talking fundraising!

I have just mailed my second donor survey, and I’m pretty excited. I thought I’d share with you why I’ve added these to my calendar, and why I think you might want to as well.

Two years ago I was looking for a new way to reach out to our supporters. Like almost every other nonprofit, the down economy was taking its toll on us. We made a conscious decision to focus on donor relations and stewardship. (Retention matters!) My organization is fortunate to have a core group of long-time donors – many who have given for more than 20 years now. We wanted to be sure they knew how much we appreciate them.

I turned, as I often do, to the wealth of knowledge shared online. Jonathon Grapsas had written several posts about donor surveys that made so much sense. I had to try it!

(You can find Jonathon’s original posts on survey here: http://jonathongrapsas.blogspot.com/2009/01/surveys-part-one-five-reasons-surveys.html, and also in SOFII’s collection here: http://www.sofii.org/node/420  I urge you to read it all).

I was looking at this survey as an engagement tool. I knew its value would be more anecdotal than statistical. But the data I could collect seemed particularly useful because we don’t have the opportunity to meet many of our supporters face to face. We really needed a way to get to know them better.

So I thought about what I wanted to learn – and tried to think through how best to get that information in a way that I could use it. I balanced curiosity against pragmatism and privacy. And I tried hard to keep the survey focused. (Say “survey” and watch how many people want to add a question!)

The first time, I put the whole thing on one sheet of legal-sized paper (both sides). I personalized each survey – both to insure I could tie responses to the right people and to underline that we really wanted to hear from each individual.

We sent the survey to all of our current donors, and to a smaller segment of recently lapsed donors.

I included an appeal with the survey, so that the mailing did double duty. Historically we had become heavily dependent on December gifts – scary stuff, really, for an organization whose budget runs on a calendar year. I had been working to move giving up in the year. The March mailing asked our supporters to return the survey with either a gift or a pledge of support. We explained that their gift, received near the start of our year, would give us a better idea of what to expect, and allow us to make better plans – making better use of the funds they entrust to us.

The first survey was both successful and a whole lot of fun. For me, it was a little like getting letters from old friends in the mail every day – each returned survey was full of interesting information about the supporter, personal views and great anecdotes. In other words, a treasure trove. We had a 23% response rate and an average gift that was above average.

This year I set out to do it again. But as our supporters have been so loyal, and I’d be writing to mainly the same people, I updated the survey to reflect what we had already learned.

I added some questions as follow-ups to what we had asked the first time. For instance, responses to the first survey helped me see that a donor newsletter would be a good idea – and that it ought to be a mail, not email piece. So in the second survey, I asked for responses about the newsletter and whether it was serving their needs. And I promised to use the next newsletter to share our findings with them.

I’m continually eager for anecdotes and stories from our supporters, so I left more room for open answers instead of check-boxes.

And I changed the format – printing it on an 11×17 sheet of paper so that I had room to use a bigger font and more pictures. Our base, perhaps like yours, is getting older, and I didn’t want this to be a struggle to read. And pictures tell our story well. I wanted our supporters to have visual cues right in front of them as they answered. I also organized the questions into sections to make it easier to read.

I hope this survey generates as positive a response as the last one did. I see it as a really useful tool in what should be a continuing conversation with our supporters. And a good conversation, of course, is two-sided.

So with huge thanks to Jonathon, from whom I borrowed heavily, I’ll be eagerly awaiting responses next week. And when I get them, Pamela has kindly allowed me to share with you what I’ve learned.

Note: I asked Mary what some of the responses to her survey were.

The question in 2010 that gave us the most open answers was “when did you first support Riverfront Recapture – and why?” It was the why of course that led to responses like:

“Because we wanted to improve both sides of the river so people could enjoy being near the water.”

“Because nature is in my soul.  I love observing nature and season changes…”

“I believe in making Hartford a vital, interesting city.  Parks are important to a city.”

“Because I think it is the best thing to happen to Hartford in many, many years – getting people back to the river.”

One woman told us about hearing river stories from her dad, who used to take dates out in a boat on the CT River. She used our parks, and her grandkids joined our rowing program. (We offer the program free to East Hartford and Hartford high school students). Later, I used her story for one in a series of email stories seeking support.

We asked about what people found most important about what we do – I’ve marked those responses, and they should help us target our messages in the future. We also asked about what they attend, and we track that now as well.

One interesting thing I found in 2010 was that a lot of our most loyal supporters rarely or never come to the parks themselves. They just believe in the mission and feel it’s important for the community. It’s totally not about what’s in it for them. (Bless them).

In your interview, your potential boss said, “We’re making $500,000 a year now, and I want to ramp up to $1 Million this year.” And even though you were going to be the only development staff person, you said, okay.

You’re walking to your desk, it’s now month three.

Your boss yells, “SO! Where’s my million dollar grant?” (This actually happened to me).

What do you say?

Managing Up.

If your boss is unable or unwilling to set reasonable expectations for your position, let’s go over what you can do to manage yourself, and help your boss learn how to set expectations for you.

How can you measure your results without a million dollar grant?

Your first measurements for your position cannot be dollars raised. It takes a development staff person 12-18 months just to get into the flow of their position, to learn how to talk persuasively about the mission, and to get the fundraising office standard processes in place.

Measuring Your Results
Here is how you will tell them to measure you. You can say,
“We have the capacity to engage the community. My benchmarks can’t be net income yet. It can be numbers engaged in the community, how many people we talked with, or who attended our events.”


Your Benchmarks:
For example, you could measure:
How many standardized processes you made
Number of new people on mailing list
How many times we communicated
How many personal letters, emails, newsletters, phonecalls, thank yous, lunches, face to face meetings we did

What IS Reasonable for your boss to expect
Expecting you to show up on time, work from 9-5, and go home.
Treating donors well, and giving prompt thank yous on the phone or through a letter.
Having support for each aspect of your role from mentors and your boss.
Putting systems in place to thank donors, track grants, coordinate events, etc.

What ISN’T Reasonable for your Boss to Expect.
Expecting you to raise large sums of money in the first year all by yourself. You need to put systems in place in each aspect of your role before you can effectively fundraise.
Expecting you to fundraise for a brand new program or project they just decided to throw together, without regard for your capacity and other responsibilities, without consulting you.
Making $9.00 an hour asking people on a streetcorner to give. I wouldn’t work for that little. Here’s a post about why nonprofits expect you to work for so little. http://www.wildwomanfundraising.com/life-liberty-pursuit-wealthy-donors/
Social ostracism, alienating you, trying to make you feel not included due to ethnicity, gender, financial status, family background, sexual orientation, or other reasons.

Setting Your Magnificent Boundaries
Burnout in this industry is huge, SO. Develop boundaries. Good boundaries in development include:
Address inequalities of power. Be an ACTIVIST. This means speaking up when someone is chastising another person in front of you. This means looking at whether there is a culture of continual learning at an organization, or whether there is a culture of frustration, fear, and bad attitudes.
Get to know your co-workers, pay them genuine compliments on their work, and make yourself indispensable to them. This is how you can begin to take the persuader and activist ranks.
Surround yourself with supportive people who understand (other development professionals, mentors, etc), and give yourself credit for small victories.
Insist on weekly meetings with your boss, to help set and report on priorities.
Know the work will never truly be finished, so work from 9 to 5, and then go home. It doesn’t matter if you are salaried or hourly, you need to realize the cause will still be there in the morning.
Pay attention to what you do, and keep track of your achievements so you’ll be ready to be promoted or move to a better position.

If you want to learn more about how to manage up, this is an excerpt from Mazarine Treyz’s The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising, exclusively available at http://wildwomanfundraising.com/store .

1. Do you have a strategic plan?
2. Do you have 100% board giving?
3. What are your outcomes?  Where’s your impact?

Remember, donors see themselves as investors.  What kind of difference are they making…through you?

Like other books in Emerson & Church’s “1-Hour Book” series, Make Your Board Dramatically More Effective is a short (114 pages) read.  Divided into three distinct parts, each with seven to 15 brief chapters, it is a simple, easy read.  But don’t mistake simple for superficial.  Gayle consistently cuts to the crux with questions that successful boards need to ask themselves to lead with integrity and courage.

Every chapter leads with a question designed to focus your board on what is truly important.  As you read, you’ll be nodding your head.  For Gayle has a gift of simplifying what may seem to be complex board governance issues.  Chapter 4, Do Shared Values Guide Our Practices? will call to mind the recent Susan G. Komen controversy and how it could have been avoided.

Make Your Board Dramatically More Effective, Starting Today is a book that every member of your board should read.

They should.

In my 2012 Small Shop Fundraising Survey, an astonishing 55% of organizations are reporting that they do not have 100% board giving.

How can you reasonably expect others to contribute financially to your organization if members of your board do not?

Yes, I know.  You’ve got members who contribute in-kind services, or volunteer, or bring in new donors.  You just don’t feel right about asking them to contribute financially as well.

Guess what?  More and more grantmaking foundations are making it part of their criteria to only fund organizations with 100% board giving.  In my grant proposal writing consultancy, I’ve even seen the far end of the spectrum where a funder requested a notarized statement attesting to attendance at board meetings.

And, while I don’t recommend set giving amounts, every member of your board should be contributing financially at a level that is generous for them.

My friend, Debra Baker Beck from the Laramie Board Learning Project says: “My counsel to nonprofit boards, when it comes to a policy on member giving, is to do what is best for your organization. That right choice may very well be not requiring contributions from board members. However,  that approach could ultimately have very real financial consequences, as more foundations and more major donors ask and expect to hear that you have 100 percent participation from your board members. This very tangible demonstration of commitment is increasingly important to those we ask to support us via grants and personal gifts.”

What’s that you say?  You don’t currently have a policy on board giving?  There’s no time like now to start.

From my own perspective, I’ve found it much easier to approach board members one-on-one by way of an initial direct mail appeal.  You can download a sample template letter here.  Still awaiting a response from one or three board members?  Try using this follow-up appeal.   Still holding out?  A gentle followup phone call from your board chair will do the trick.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

For even more helpful forms, templates and checklists, check out Simple Development Systems: Successful fundraising for the one-person shop.  Called “the Bible” for the overwhelmed executive director or development director, SDS will set your organization on the path to sustainable funding!

• 
sharing your message, growing your funding and engaging your board!
• This is your chance to learn:
• How to get your board members over their fear of fundraising.
• 4 simple things that can bring quick (and big!) fundraising results.
• How to get clear, focused, and moving in the right direction with your fundraising.
• How to use and adapt stories to more deeply engage our donors
• 12 ways to liven up a board meeting.
• Tips and strategies for doing it all in the one person shop
• How to attract bidders for your silent auction who have more disposable income
• A little-used best practice in auctions to trigger your guest’s generosity gene
• Methods to engage and build long-term relationships with your donors
• About low-cost ways to connect donors to your mission
• How to use Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and YouTube for your cause
• Why building your email list may be the most important part of your social media outreach

The free telesummmit takes place over three days.  You won’t want to miss it!  Register today.

You walked home for lunch.

But I was one of those rare kids who did have a mom who worked outside the home.  Frankly I thought it was pretty cool.  Plus I knew what a pain in the butt she’d been before deciding to return to the workforce.

She just wasn’t cut out to be a stay-at-home mom and was much happier in the business world.

You may have grown up with (or have) a working mother, or one who has, either temporarily or permanently, chosen to forgo a career in order to focus on raising a family. But whichever choice your mother made, chances are you remember her going to any lengths to keep you safe, clothed and fed, so that you could grow into a healthy and happy human being and (hopefully) a productive member of society.

But some moms, who also want to feed and provide for their kids just like your mom did, are facing hardships that make it nearly impossible. They’re among the one in seven people who go to bed hungry every night. That’s right, one in seven. And this isn’t because there isn’t enough food to go around. It’s because there are deep imbalances in access to resources like fertile lands and water. In fact, more than 40 percent of the world’s population – 2.5 billion people – live in poverty, and many of them are women.

Women who work hard, but can’t earn enough to feed their families; women whose hearts break when they see their children go hungry; women – half the people on earth – who need equal access to the resources that can help them overcome poverty.

Shockingly sad but true:

Sixty-six percent of the world’s work falls on women’s shoulders, yet they earn only 10% of the world’s income;
If women were given the same level of access to resources that men have, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30%;
Hunger and poverty are about power and inequality, and women and girls face the biggest inequalities of all.

This International Women’s Day, how about showing women everywhere you appreciate their contributions to our world? Oxfam America is giving you a couple of really easy ways to do this:

1. Send an International Women’s Day eCard to a woman you know, to say thank you for all that she does. Better yet, send it to several women who’ve made the world a better place.

2. Give the Oxfam America International Women’s Day 2012 award to a woman you think has made a difference to the world. She could be a teacher, your mom, a non-profit leader, a woman entrepreneur, the neighbor who always checks up on you when you’re ill… the possibilities are endless.

To give your award, just fill out the PDF file with the awardee’s name, and your name and date. You can then save it as a PDF or JPG (JPG if you want your readers to see the actual award) file. Then just publish a post to your blog, or to Facebook (make sure to tag her so she sees it), or wherever you’d like. You can even print it out and give it to her as a tangible reminder of your gratefulness.

If we come together, we may not be able to remove the imbalances between men and women immediately. But we will show women around the world… and in our own neighborhoods… that we care about them.

That’s not too much to ask for half the world’s population, is it?  Thanks.

Many years ago, I met with with a senior citizen organization.  Early on in our meeting, I asked the executive director, Adele Wilkins, a delightful sexagenarian, how much money she was looking to raise.

Fair question, wouldn’t you say?

She was vague: “Enough to continue the programming already in place and grow new programs,” she told me.

I noticed during our tour of the facilities that the computer center was unused.  Adele explained to me that they’d gotten a grant to create the program several years earlier but had no funding to maintain the technology or the classes.

The programs they did have were funded by insignificant earned income, bake sales, spaghetti dinners and small grants from a handful of local business sponsors and foundation funders.

What they were really excited about, according to Adele (and what they hoped to bring me on board to plan), was an idea one of their board members had shared for creating a signature event, a local “Antiques Roadshow” that would become an annual occurrence.

“What a charming idea,” I responded.  “How did you come up with that?”

“One of the regular appraisers from the PBS Antiques Roadshow series recently moved into the area,” Adele responded excitedly.

“Do you know him personally?” I asked.

“No,” she admitted.

“Well then, one of your board members must know him?”

“Well, no…” Adele replied, her voice trailing off.  Despite this, she seemed to be sure that the gentleman in question would be utterly delighted to share his years of hard-won expertise for free to raise money for their organization.

Do you have a plan for how much money you’ll be raising this year?  A reasonable dollar goal for grants, for individual giving, for online giving?

Or are you operating like the senior center?

• Your board member’s cousin knows someone who is best friends with the brother of Bill Gate’s wife!  Let’s drop everything and spend the rest of the week writing a grant proposal for the Gates Foundation.
• You just found out about the Good Search toolbar!  Once you sign up, every time someone uses it, your organization makes money!

When you begin to break away from living a hand-to-mouth existence, when you focus on a plan, centered around building genuine relationships (yes, cliche, yes trite, but that is what sound fundraising is all about) in a strategic, consistent way, you’ll find your fundraising becomes easier.  Steadier.  More reliable.

Only then.

Valentine’s Day has been officially rebooted as Generosity Day:  a day of sharing love and caring to everyone.  You’re generous, aren’t you?  Say “yes!”

1. Where are your donors?
2. How much time do you have to devote to social media?
3. What will you be sharing on social media – and listening to?
4. How will you be measuring your engagement?

For the nonprofit interested in creating a truly donor-centric organization, engaging in social media is a win-win.  Theory, though, doesn’t tell you what to do.  Enter 101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits: A Field Guide, a new book from Melanie Mathos and Chad Norman.

Filled with, yes, 101 tactics, the book actually numbers and breaks down those tactics into five key areas:

1. setup
2. communicate
3. engage
4. fundraise
5. measure

It’s like a formula – and I do love formulas – and it covers all the basics an organization new to social media needs to get started.

Melanie Mathos agreed to answer a few questions about how to apply 101 Social Media Tactics to the “small shop” fundraiser.

 Melanie, what suggestions would you have for a small organization new to social media, particularly, say, an organization where the executive director is also doing the fundraising or there is one lone person acting as the marketing/communications/fundraising department?  Where do they get started?

Well, I can speak from experience! The organization I volunteer with, Fields to Families, is in the same boat. (Only our boat is being steered by one part-time volunteer coordinator!) For a small organization that is volunteer-run or has one employee wearing multiple hats, a great place to start is getting a Facebook page setup and using it to engage with your supporters while promoting volunteer opportunities, news, and events. The viral nature of Facebook will help your message spread further than you could ever imagine. And, it gives you an opportunity to interact with supporters, answer questions, etc. We also use Twitter as a way to quickly mobilize volunteers, as last-minute opportunities often pop up. Lastly, we’ve built quite a photo history on Flickr. It is a great platform, not only for organizing your photos, but it also has many social elements that lend to sharing. The absolute best place to get started however is with a strategy – the tools or tactics come in along the way.

 Do you recommend outsourcing social media or having volunteers do it?  

I think it is always best to have someone who is dedicated to the mission take the social media reigns. Whether that person is a paid staffer or a volunteer, they can speak in the “I” voice and authentically represent the organization. There are many tools, for example Hootsuite, that allow multiple people to manage updates without stepping on each other’s toes. This is a good solution when you have volunteers pitching in – just be sure you provide clear processes and guidelines.

When time and resources play such a big factor, should an organization limit themselves to one tool – say Facebook – or try to engage on all platforms?

With all of the platforms springing up what seems like daily, it is impossible to engage on all of them in a meaningful way. For any organization, the best thing to do is to look at your goals and strategies and then pick the tools that will get you where you want to go. For example, Google+ and Pinterest may be new and exciting, but unless they meld with your demographics (young techies, or moms, for example), then it may not make sense to add them to the mix. Facebook covers the broadest demographic, but if your organization is trying to reach teens, then you may want to look at other platforms entirely.

 Lastly, with changes to Facebook seemingly occurring daily and new social media tools like Pinterest regularly appearing, how can the small nonprofit keep abreast?

Our goal with 101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits was to share some of the best tools and tactics. We continue that learning on www.101SMT.com, as everything is in a state of perpetual change! Even though you may not choose to build a presence on all platforms, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be listening and participating on an individual basis. That is the absolute best way to keep up. Follow organizations with similar missions and see how they are engaging. National Wildlife Federation, Humane Society of the United States, and the American Red Cross all have excellent social media programs and can serve as “social media mentors.” Read blogs like Mashable, and follow nonprofit social media experts like Beth Kanter, John Haydon, Frank Barry, and others. Participate in industry associations like NTEN, or social media-focused groups like Social Media Club. The resources are endless!

Blackbaud’s recent Growing Philanthropy in the United States report revealed that nonprofits have made little headway into reducing donor attrition rates.  According to recent data collected by the Association of Fundraising Professionals,”the pattern of retention for cash giving in the U.S.has worsened, with some organizations experiencing upwards of 70 percent attrition between the first and second gift.”

Ouch.

Your organization’s thank you letter is the important first step in creating loyal, lifetime donors.  Does yours have all 10 essentials?

1.  Joy.  You want, first and foremost, to make the reader – the donor, your friend, your supporter – experience a genuine sense of joy when they open your letter.

Try envisioning a tired, working mother arriving home early from the office after stopping by the sitter’s to pick up her sick three-year-old.  She’s just listened to 50 minutes of news on her commute home, all the while worrying about her daughter’s fever and frustrated over the time it’s taking her to reach her.  Daughter falls asleep in the car on the way home and, after tucking her baby into bed, mom settles in with her mail, off her feet for the first time in hours.  Bills, circulars and your thank you letter complete her pile.  Your donor opens your envelope and reads …

You are creating miracles!
Every day, thanks to your support of blah blah blah organization, a lonely, homebound senior will receive the gift of food and friendship blah blah

Suddenly your donor is a hero.  She’s making your work possible and you’ve let her know –  in no uncertain terms.  Somehow her life seems a little less exhausting than it did 15 minutes ago.

2.  Speed is of the essence.  You must get your thank you letters out within the first 48 hours.  When your dog has an accident on your living room rug, rubbing his nose in it two hours later isn’t terribly effective, is it?  What system can you put into place to ensure promptness?  30 minutes a day every day first thing in the morning thanking donors?  What will work for your organization?

3.   Personalize.  Your thank you letter (or any letter coming from your organization for that matter and that includes emails) should be personalized.  These days there is absolutely no excuse for the “Dear Friend” letter.  No excuse.

4.  Reference the amount in the body of the letter.  It’s nice to include the date of the gift as well for tax receipt purposes.

5.  Reference what the gift was towards.  Was it an in memoriam gift?  An annual appeal gift?  A matching gift appeal?

6.  Is the donor’s past giving acknowledged?  If a donor has given every year for the past seven years you’ll want to be sure to let them know how much their continued support means to you.

7.  Tax deductible language can be printed in an italic, 8 to 10 point font, centered, below the signature and PS.

8.  Don’t forget your PS.  The PS can be used to drive donors to something new – a Facebook page or a new Twitter account.  Perhaps a new blog on your site or your new enews.

9.  Point the reader in the direction of a contact person in your offices.  “If you have any questions or you’d like to stop by and tour our facilities, please call Mary Ann Development at 555.555.0055. “

10.  Never, ever, ever ask for a second gift.  Now I may change my mind on this one someday.  But I highly doubt it.  There are two schools of thought on whether an organization should have what’s known as a “soft ask” in a donor thank you letter.  You can read the debate, between two well respected fundraisers, here.  According to nearly every recent poll, women are increasingly taking the lead in philanthropic decisions.  Put simply, women write the checks and are more finely attuned to good etiquette.  It simply isn’t good manners to include any ask within  a thank you letter – and that includes including a business reply envelope.  Your thank you letter’s sole purpose should be to thank your donor.  Period.

Want more?  Download the eBook, Lifetime Donor Attraction System to learn how you can create a system for WOWing your donors…all year long!  Even better?  It’s free!

Nope, chances are you’re an executive director or development director who is responsible for writing the grant proposals, maintaining the communications calendar, copywriting, database management, event planning, stewardship and more.

#smNPchat on Twitter was created in 2010 with you in mind.  On the first and third Friday of every month, Marc Pitman, Amy Sept and I dish on how you can create maximum impact in your marketing and fundraising efforts – in minimum time.  We talk about the fun and challenges of “doing it all” in a one-person shop, including individual giving, online giving, copywriting, social media, leading your board, grants, time management and more.  And we’ve featured special guests, including Gail Perry, Mazarine Treyz, Jeff Brooks and more –  answering your questions on targeted topics.

Want to jump in?  Here are the rules of the game:

1. Always use the hashtag #smNPchat.  (But you don’t need to be in the midst of a chat to share great information.  Whenever you come across something that may be of interest to the small nonprofit community, use the hashtag.)
2. Use software like TweetChat or TweetGrid.com.  Your tweets will be automatically tagged and you’ll find participating much easier!
3. Pay attention to the housekeeping rules featured in the first five minutes.  Do take a minute to introduce yourself – even if you’re only lurking.
4. #smNPchat is fairly free-flowing but we typically follow a 4-5 question format.  Try to stick to the question at hand.
5. Often we’ll have a free handout, listing recommended articles or resources.  It’s helpful if you read up prior to the chat and are prepared with your own reactions.
6. Please don’t abuse the hashtag or chat to pimp your products. Amy, Marc, or I will let you know if we feel you’ve crossed the line.
7. Retweet comments you find particularly helpful to expand the conversation. RTs often bring new people into the conversation.
8. Mind your manners.
9. Share the love. Let your friends and colleagues know about this week’s chat by tweeting the details often.
10. Got an idea for a chat topic or would you like to present as a guest expert?  DM any one of us and share your thoughts!
11. Schedule it. Download the 2012 chat schedule and be sure to add #smNPchat to your Google calendar.  We don’t want to miss you!  (Check Twitter for notifications on chats that are rescheduled due to holidays)
12. Twitter chats are fast!  And they can be slightly intimidating to those not familiar with the medium.  Feel free to jump right in and share.  We’re glad that you’re here!

Put your focus on the lifetime value of a donor – and educate your board as well.

Do you need a plan for 2012?  Learn why nonprofit about.com called Simple Development Systems your “road map to success that can take the scary out and bring in a sense of comfort, self-confidence, and focus about what can and should be done.”

What resolutions will you be making to advance your organization in 2012?  I asked a few of my friends and colleagues to share their best resolutions for 2012.

Nonprofit database expert Robert Weiner said “like many people, my resolutions are often the same year after year.  If you’ve tried and failed to keep your resolutions, keep trying.”  His offers a resolution that every nonprofit should heed:  Be good to your data.  Robert says “I wrote this post two years ago and still stand behind it   I hope nonprofits will resolve to be good to their donor data.  That means making sure that there are documented standards for how data is stored, that staff are trained on those standards, that data is entered properly, that someone is in charge of keeping your data clean, that you know what is and isn’t a gift and how to properly issue tax receipts, and that you treat your donors’ data with the care and confidentiality it deserves”

Jeff Schreifels of Veritus offers up Six New Year’s Resolutions that will Change Your Life…or at Least Make You a Better Major Gift Officer–#5 Be Curious—Ask More Questions.

I think nonprofits should resolve to ask more in 2012. Hopefully in the context of researching, engaging, and loving on donors and prospects. But if they did all that without the ask, next year would be dismal. My mantra? “More asking in 2012!”
Marc A Pitman, CFCC, The Fundraising Coach

1. Work on Partnerships.
2. Fund Development. Get at least two development staff/consultants to help you.
3. Learn. Take a webinar, attend a workshop, read a book. If you know how to be better, you will do better.

Mazarine Treyz, Wildwoman Fundraising

1.       Make fundraising a priority.
2.       Focus on the donor, not themselves.
3.       Spend more face time with their donors.

Sandy Rees, Get Fully Funded

I offer some new year’s resolutions for board members:

Are you that one person fundraising office with no graphic designer?

Or do you even have a larger staff, but still people will never approve your budget when it includes graphic design?

Do you have to DIYourself graphic design and are you just tearing your hair out?

Do you need help with a logo?

How about a job description?

Does your Twitter background leave something to be desired?

I hear you girl!

You’ve probably never heard of Sparked.com. So let me tell you about this site.

Here’s my hipster cat moment, I found out about Sparked.com when it was still the Extraordinaires. Located in Austin Texas but virtually everywhere, Sparked.com is a microvolunteering site where people from all over the world can help you do various virtual tasks.

If you need a research task done, a web task, an HR task, or even a design task, chances are, you can find someone on sparked willing to check out your project and at least give you a tiny bit of advice.

I’m a fundraising consultant, and one of my jobs is the Development Director for the Austin Civic Orchestra. The marketing manager and I had been talking about creating a new look and feel for the orchestra, and so I asked the good people on Sparked to give me some logo ideas. And WOW the response was incredible in the first week alone! (There are time limits on challenges on Sparked.com so I had 10 days to get a response from people.)

If you enjoy humorous writing and have ever wanted to see if a slightly humorous or tongue in cheek description of what you need would get more volunteers, let me tell you, it WORKS! At least, on Sparked.com it does.

I started out with a description of our problem.

“Our logo is extremely….curly”

(Caveat: I had to apply to be on spark, but it was really easy. Put in our 501 c 3 number, added a picture and a little description about who we are before I started this process)

Here’s what I wrote for our challenge.

“Dear Sir or Madam Superstar,

First of all, thank you for reading!

Here’s the deal. We have an old logo that was designed by the founders wife. It’s very last century. We have looked at other orchestra websites and we would REALLY love to have a logo that is not curly script, but perhaps a block font.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

We really love Orchestra Nova’s branding: http://orchestranova.org

Also the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s branding, too http://cso.org”

As you can see, I encouraged their creativity. I went overboard with the enthusiasm. And I was specific about the look we were going for.

We wanted a less curly logo because we would have the logo embroidered on shirts to wear at our annual outdoor concerts in Zilker Park in June in Austin and the curly logo was totally unreadable in that context.

Then I put in some verbiage about who the orchestra is, and where it’s going, and ended with mountains and mountains of thank yous.

THE FIRST DAY I posed this challenge, we got a response! I got an email from Sparked and quickly went back to the site to check it out.
THE RESULTS:

Womp Womp, it was EXTREMELY curly. I laughed at the audacity of the designer, and decided to just keep waiting to see what happened.

The second logo on the second day wasn’t much better than the first. It reminded me of a bobble toy. But it was starting to go in the right direction.

The third logo was….not quite what we wanted, but unusual, and stripped down, and I could see this was going to get interesting.

The fourth logo reminded me of a TV station logo or an eyeball, wasn’t sure if that was the look we wanted, but I thanked them anyway.

The next logo was a redo from the person who made the second logo. It was okay, but it looked kind of… like a hat to me. So I said thank you and kept waiting.

And then, suddenly, GOLD.
This really spoke to me. I LOVED IT. Even with the curly script.

Then I got THIS ONE and I loved this one too, I showed it to one of the board members, and he got really excited about it. He wanted to make a couple of changes, but adored it, overall.

I asked these two designers to make a couple of changes, and voila!

I LOVED both of these. We’ve since put in two more challenges for the Sparked.com community and they have come through with flying colors every time. (For a twitter background and another one, to look over a job description)

The board is dragging their heels on deciding on this logo, but you know what?  This whole process was good and helped me articulate the brand of the orchestra more, and made me more certain of the look we were looking for.

Bottom Line? As someone who has had to do a lot of graphic design without being a graphic designer, (sound familiar?) I would HIGHLY recommend Sparked.com for your nonprofit.

Top tips for getting the most out of Sparked.com,

• Make it funny,
• Make it specific,
• Make it manageable.
• It’s important to always be gracious and say thank you and give awards, just like you learned in Managing Volunteers 101.

What do you mean you never took a course called Managing volunteers 101? You DIDN’T??! Then come and take my Mega-Fundraising with Volunteers Webinar  for CharityHowTo.com! The February class is filling up fast, and I’ve got EVEN MORE websites like this and fresh ideas for retaining volunteers and volunteer appreciation in the webinar too!

Thanks for the opportunity to tell people about this fun resource Pam!

About Mazarine Treyz

Mazarine Treyz has supervised lots and lots of volunteers. Ooh, lots.  She’s the author of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising, called one of the Top Ten books of 2010 by Beth Kanter. She’s currently finishing her second book, called “The Wild Woman’s Guide to Social Media,” out in 2012.

She has raised over $1M for nonprofits and has co-founded a nonprofit too. She teaches workshops, webinars, and speaks around the country on fundraising. Click here to see her webinars: http://wildwomanfundraising.com/webinars  

Mazarine’s blog, Http://wildwomanfundraising.com has over 10,000 monthly readers, over 40K incoming links, and is consistently rated one of the top fundraising blogs by industry experts, including FundraisingSuccess Magazine. Follow Mazarine on Twitter at @wildwomanfund. Http://twitter.com/wildwomanfund

If you live in and work with, an NPO/NGO culture, you understand – in your gut – what it means to live in a Gladiator Culture; where 9 out of 10 equally qualified (but unequally prepared) foundation and agency grant apps – are rejected.  You know that knot in the pit of your stomach, when receiving a foundation or funding agency grant rejection letter. It comes with the territory, doesn’t it?

Shoveling Seaweed Against the Tide

The devastating devolution of federal, state, and local funding and budget cuts is driven by a toxic, polarized, ideological, and political environment; where the underlying motivation seems more directed at demonizing and victimizing the victims, than meeting the needs of those who are the most vulnerable and at risk. Add to that, the significant loss of principal in foundations due to dramatic losses in the market, drives both grantmaking reductions, and more rigorous evaluative and performance criteria …

Result:

In this culture, we create daily scenarios of seemingly impossible fundraising requirements, with expectations of increased tangible and measurable deliverables, in unrealistic timelines, to make-up our widening annual budget gaps – while we are compete with one another in our Gladiator Culture – in a smaller and smaller finite pool of resources. It’s no surprise then, that the average tenure of development directors … is just 18 months.

For NPO’s & NGO’s …

needs have always exceeded resources When we are client-centered, we are idealistically and compassionately drawn 24/7 into meeting the needs of those most vulnerable and at risk in our local, regional, country and global communities. As resources evaporate, we often find ourselves personally writing emotional and physical checks that our bodies and our institutions can’t cash. It really is hard to see the light at end of the tunnel … it’s either extinguished – or worse – it’s oscillating! We often feel more like fodder – than facilitators.

Changing the Paradigm

As a result, we have been inexorably drawn into accepting, participating and perpetuating a Culture of Scarcity, at so many levels in our organizations, that it’s often hard to imagine where, or how, to begin to change the paradigm … and the cycle.

The Buddhists have a name for this existential scenario – they call it Samsara – our wandering together through an endless cycle of self-inflicted, self-perpetuating, attachment to unreality, frustration, and suffering. Albert Einstein defined insanity as, “Doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results”.  That great American philosopher Yogi Berra, called it “Déjà vu all over, and over again”.  Sound familiar, it’s all the same riff isn’t it?

So, how do we break the itch scratch cycle- the pattern of Samsara, insanity, and déjà vu all over again?  Hint: The good news … it’s all learned organizational cultural behavior!

An Organizational Culture of Scarcity reflects our shared (often unarticulated) view of each other, and our stakeholders. It represents our shared, underlying institutional alignment, intentionality and our motivation – always modeled top down – it’s really contagious, and infects every internal stakeholder.

How we treat each other as stakeholders on the inside – is often an excellent predictor of how we will perceive and treat others outside the institution (i.e. clients, donors, foundations, and other orgs in the community). For example, if we have a bunker mentality – we often see a siloed departmental and institutional “Us against Them” mindset.  Consequently, collaboration, cooperation, partnerships, transparency, shared learning, and trust – are often not in the institutional spell checker.

An NPO Culture of Scarcity is a shared belief system, it is an Edifice Complex, a bulwark against the onslaught of all of the stuff we are assaulted by internally and externally.  We’re more concerned about our individual, departmental, and institutional survival – than serving our shared vision, mission, and values – through shared learning and collaborative partnerships together in the community.

 If we were a for profit corporation, we would say we were intensely product-centered – talking AT people – where marketing, social media, finance, management, development, operations and admin, are engaged in a ritualized daily battle of mortal combat, competing for internal and external resources (it’s not very safe is it?), versus, our being customer and donor centered – listening to, learning from, and engaging and talking WITH people.

Can you see how an Organizational Culture of Scarcity morphs into self-perpetuating, self-fulfilling, reactive, crisis managed, cycles; motivated by shared intentionality and self preservation behavior?

 “We met the enemy – and they is us!” Pogo (the cartoon character) said.  Not your co-workers, not the board, not management, not the volunteers, not the clients, not the foundations, not other agencies in the community, not your lapsed subscribers or donors – they’re not the enemy – we are. They are all just excuses for isolating each other and everybody we perceive as a threat. And when we do, what do we get back (fill in the blank) Yup, you got it, Samsara, Insanity, Déjà vu all over and over again.

So what do we want for outcomes -

First we have to own our own stuff – if we want to change our outcomes in here AND out there, we have to change our attitude & behavior – and,  before we do that, we have make some hard decisions together.  When we drink the Culture of Scarcity Kool-Aid, we have to own that we agree to participate in a culture that consumes people, good will, trust and social capital.
A culture of scarcity begins with a shared institutional belief that there isn’t enough emotional support, care, concern, kindness, compassion, and generosity, to go around, so we will extract it from each other.

Is that what really what we want for outcomes … for ourselves, for our board, for our volunteers, for our clients, for our community partners, for our donors? Or, do we choose to invest in a culture of generosity and gratitude – with each other – it’s contagious.

It’s not about the money.

#occupythemind

What do you think?

Today’s guest post is brought to us by Jon Hardie, also known as @PocoJuan on Twitter.

Here’s the post, followed by commentary from Andrea Khilstedt of Asking Matters.

When someone gives more than $500, in addition to a thank you letter, they also get a personal phone call within 24 hours of receipt. I send an email to my board saying I have donors to thank; they email back saying they are available and I assign calls.

Here’s an email I sent to them today (name changed.)

Dear Board Members,

I usually ask you to call and thank those who give donations of more than $500. Today, I’d like to ask someone to call and thank someone who gave $20 to the annual campaign.

Why?

Her name is Mary Smith and she sent a note with her donation letting us know that she is unemployed. She could have chosen not to give, but she didn’t. Her note means that she wishes she could give more. Giving when it is hard to give is an exceptionally meaningful act.

If you would like to call her, please let her know that $20 is an important gift. Last year, nearly $15,000 was contributed by hundreds of people who gave less than $100 each – many of these were $20 gifts. We need each of these people to make that choice to give every year. She is part of our community and it takes all of us together to make our work successful.

If you would like to call her, please let me know and I will share her number.

There are three reasons to make a call like this. First, everything I said above is true. A stretch gift is a deeply meaningful gift, whether a person is stretching to give $20 or $20,000.

Second, a healthy annual campaign is built on a broad foundation of small gifts. (yes, it’s the gift pyramid again!) We want all of our $20 donors to repeat their gifts each year and increase them over time, while many new $20 donors come into the campaign for the first time each year, filling in the bottom of the pyramid as other donors move up.

Third, Mary probably won’t always be unemployed. She has told us that she wishes to give more, and one day she will be in a position to give more. How much more depends on how she feels about us. Also, she is likely to make or revise her estate plans at some point in her life. The single most likely prospect for a planned gift is a long term donor who gave small or moderate gifts every year for more than ten years.

I spent a lot of time writing about one individual who has given us $20. It’s not a waste of time – but it also underscores why it’s so important to have a large team building and nurturing our many relationships, from our $20,000 donors all the way to Mary.

Thanks,

Rene

The Chair responded right away, pleased to make the call. I look forward to hearing how it went.

I share this for a couple reasons. First, does anyone think I made a mistake? Why? Does anyone have a story like this to share? I’d love to hear it.

I have been with this organization for two years. When I first arrived, I was told there were issues with donor fatigue. One of the first things I did was put a comprehensive donor stewardship plan in place and jumpstart our cultivation efforts. My plan had a lot of deep personal cultivation with major donors, and more generic, less frequent outreach with those giving smaller donations. After two years I’ve seen a huge increase in giving in the major donor group, and not much movement anywhere else.

The reason for having a stewardship plan that has more personalized activity at the top of the donor pyramid is not actually that major donors are more important, it’s that there are fewer of them, so a deeper plan is more manageable.

Andrea Kihlstedt • You raise a great question about how to make the people in your funding base feel as special as major donors. And as you suggest, getting board members to make thank you calls is a great strategy. Has anyone thought to engage program staff in that way too? Or how about personalized e-mail thank you notes? e-mail can feel very personal while being quick and free.

What I specially like about board members making thank you calls is that it reinforces their own commitment to the organization at the same time it acknowledges the donor!

What do you think?  Personally I think that Rene is doing a marvelous job at building relationships and setting the stage for long-term sustainability.

Are you a member of a development office that is fully integrated into your organization, and part of programming and long range planning meetings? If so, congratulations and read no further, this article is not meant for you. This article is for the vast majority of development staff who has a back office and is expected to conjure up the funds to run your organization’s programs.

Why is integrating programming and development staff so important? Brian Reich in his newest book, Shift and Reset: Strategies for Addressing Serious Issues in a Connected Society, gets to the heart of the matter, ‘Funders want wins, not tries.’ The funding world is competitive. Organizations need to solicit fresh perspectives and to create a holistic and organic approach to serving their mission most effectively. Breaking down internal silos and promoting partnerships between departments allows for a freer exchange of ideas and a better understanding of the larger issues that impact an organization’s sustainability.

So rather than focusing on WHY this trend is so prevalent, let’s focus on HOW to better integrate the development and programming functions. Typically, development staff intersects with program staff at events and at meetings with major donors. More frequent contact and communication between development and program staff members will help to create a more efficient and targeted organization. The goal is to create a true partnership between the program and development functions. Here are some ideas to create a better-integrated organization (and make your job easier!)

• Share: Invite program staff to a development meeting to discusses current and prospective grants and current trends in funding. Likewise, request that development staff be present in program planning meetings. Synergies are likely to arise between funding opportunities and program direction.
• Involve: When writing grant proposals, ask program staff for their comments about the need and efficacy of the program. They will feel more involved and therefore more invested in the outcome of the proposal.
• Communicate: The development department can help program staff develop better programs. Ask program staff members for their opinion about what could be better executed within a program. In many instances funders are able to suggest partners to enhance program execution or consultants to assist with organizational structure.
• Set a Time Limit: Everyone is busy and overworked, so set a limit of 30-45 minutes for all meetings. Include an agenda with time limits on each section. Any in depth follow up can be done by email.
• Serve Food: A sure fire way to get high attendance at meetings.

The programming and development functions are interdependent and need each other to survive. More effective communication and an open forum for the sharing of ideas will create a healthier and more vibrant organization, and will make your job substantially more enjoyable.

Marti is the principal at Marti Fischer Grant Services, LLC in Weston, CT. She works with nonprofits on organizational, messaging and fundraising development. Marti can be reached through her website at www.mfgrants.com.