My hope has been that the work we do in 8, 6, or 3 hours together will impact organizations for a long time into the future. The goal is to change paradigms in those workshops. We focus on taking any “lack” conversations out of existence and focus on possibility and impact.

Do the strategies last? Do people get something from the time together? Recently I received this message:

Just after our one session with you years ago, we had done everything you suggested.

In 2006 our revenue was 16,000+ (that was our first year)
In 2007 our revenue was 106,000
in 2008 our revenue was 108,000
in 2009 our revenue will end up slightly above $255,000 . . . we were just short of making our $265,000 goal and haven’t done our annual ask yet and have traditionally done about $10,000 with it . . .

Our donors now repeatedly tell us that we do more for them than they do for us . . . In fact our biggest donors are now into selectively bringing their potential big donor friends into the circle. ~Marnita

Although the workshop is constantly updated, there are some core topics that get covered no matter what the length:

• Storytelling: Learning to tell stories that powerfully convey your mission.
• Money: Talk about money so the community understands why more money is needed.
• Asking: Identifying what is holding your organization back from asking for large gifts.
• Using social media to support our communication.

I’m grateful to learn when the workshop makes a difference because I believe that focusing on measures, donor-centered actions, and clear communication will bring in more dollars. I’ve seen it work immediately. One participant phoned me the next morning after a full day workshop to report she’d just asked for and gotten a yes to a $5000 gift. A gift she’d been struggling to ask for previously.

And just last week I received this message:

I was in an event planning meeting today and my volunteers were talking about lowering the dollar amounts of our live auction. They were uncomfortable stating large dollar amounts in front of an audience even though each of them has contributed over $10,000. In fact the one that was the most uncomfortable has made a $50,000 cash gift.

The reason I am emailing you is because it was your training years ago with my board of directors about money that helped me move this group forward and be unafraid to ask for large donations! I was able to explain to them that it is okay to ask for money and that is the ONLY reason we are holding this golf tournament. People expect it and we never have to apologize for asking for money at a fundraising event.

I wanted you to know how much your work makes a difference even years later… I simply understood that their discomfort had to do with how their family handled money when they were growing up. And from that place I could move them forward without being hooked myself. ~Michelle

Since that first workshop I’ve now delivered three different length versions of it: Full-day, day and- a-half and the ever popular 3-hour session to more than 500 people. About 1/3 of those who have attended have been board members who leave with an excitement for helping with fundraising that is contagious.

I’m delighted to learn from Marnita and Michelle that they created sustainable strategies from our time together that continue to serve their organizations.

Join us in August for the three-hour workshop in St. Paul. Bring board members or new staff. I promise you’ll take away helpful strategies that last.

This topic of this month’s Personal Branding magazine is philanthropy. I was honored to be invited to submit an article and have found myself in an issue alongside a number of my sheros and heros of the nonprofit community: Beth Kanter, Rosetta Thurman, Marc A. Pitman, Roger Carr, Paul Young of Charity: Water and more.

My article “Can You Teach People How to Fundraise” is a true story from a training session I led with the board and staff of a local nonprofit a few years ago. The dread that was pervasive at the beginning of the session changed to excitement and a desire to take immediate action by the end of the session.

Since that session thousands of dollars have now been raised from individual donors by the board members; dollars that may have gone to other organizations if they hadn’t invited participation.

Here are the guidelines I shared in my article about teaching people to fundraise: (excerpt from Personal Branding, August 2010 issue)

• Acknowledge current donors via phone with a warm, personal thank you.
• Deepen supporters’ relationship by learning why they give.
• Each time you share what is going well, share an example of how more money will impact one person.
• Don’t take “no” personally. It’s not about you.
• Break down the support needed into bite-size amounts. For example, support a child per day, per week or month.
• Share short stories of real people impacted by your work. You allow others to feel great when you invite them to help save or change a life.

To read my full article and great information from others check out the August issue of Personal Branding.

At www.majorgivingnow.org I found a helpful article by Richard K. Dupree: “Measuring Performance – A Station Manger’s Guide to Evaluating Major Gifts Officers.”

Although this article is based on staff in public broadcasting I believe the tool shared is very helpful in measuring the effectiveness of any major gifts officer.

This is also a great tool to use to measure the first 90 days of employment as well as annually.

The thing I like the best about this tool is that it weights all four areas equally. Creating an environment for both long and short-term effectiveness.

Here’s a recap of the article and the four areas to measure:
1. Dollar goal – while important, Dupree believes this is the least important of the four measures. I agree that even first-year major gifts officers should be presented with a defined dollar goal of cash/cash pledges and deferred gifts. And by equally weighting this area with the other four the system builds in long-term success as well as rewards for short term wins.
2. Proposals/Asks – Set a goal for the minimum number of proposals or actual asks to be generated each year. To guard against a staffer sending out a large number of unfunded proposals or asking too early, the “hit rate” is measured in section four.
3. Contacts – This is a key area to measure. A pre-determined number of annual contacts should be established with the highest percentage of these being face-to-face.
4. Overall Quality of Work – There are five aspects to measure. Each is given the same weight and they build on the three previous measures.

• Hit rate: Simply measure the ratio of yeses to no’s in the proposals submitted or asks made.
• Prospecting: Pre-determine the number of prospecting visits at the beginning of the fiscal year. This is critical in keeping the pipeline filled and the acquisition rate growing.
• Cultivations: These are meetings with individuals who are not new to the organization and may be much closer to making or accepting a proposal for a major gift. These visits are also important in maintaining an appropriate retention rate with existing donors.
• Use of management/leadership: This is a great way to encourage and remind major gifts officers that management and board leadership can and should be involved in key solicitations.
• Budget management: Being responsible for their own costs associated with bringing in a major gift can be a great safeguard against incurring expenses that may not be necessary.

The system is based on 100 points and Dupree says a score of 80 or higher would illustrate above-standard performance. The full article is listed on the Resources page. It’s a very thorough discussion of these measures and has a link to download the Word document tool.

Some guidelines to maintain quality donor communication throughout the year:

• Includes 1-2 personal contacts annually with top donors, mixed with other media. Remember last week I defined personal as in-person or on the phone.
• Keep your mission relevant without being intrusive.
• Maintain some sort of monthly contact via newsletters, e-alerts, annual report, special donor message, etc.
• Whenever possible, send a special message to a segmented group of supporters. e.g. Multi-year donors get an “Insiders” message a couple times a year or are invited to an exclusive meeting with your CEO.
• Don’t let too much time pass with no communication. Especially if you want the donor to give again this year. The “void” of time between asks is especially important.

This tool has been refined and used by many organizations over the years. I first started using a plan like this many years ago as both a development and executive director. Then, when I worked as a senior instructor at Raising More Money, now called Benevon™, we coached organizations to create plans similar to this one.

More information can be found on how to create a donor communication plan in chapter 14 of Raising More Money: A Step By Step Guide to Building Lifelong Donors, by Terry Axelrod.

Notice the red circles on the chart below. Those indicate there is too much time with little to no communication for key supporters on this plan.

To keep this manageable: You don’t have to create the whole year-long calendar all at once. Start with a couple of months at a time. Just be sure that before January 2011 you have a full year completed and ready to guide you.

Scheduling time to complete a plan like this one is invaluable. It allows you and your team to decide which months are too busy, which months need more touches and where to “put” the personal touches with key supporters so they know you’ve noticed them and their gift is special to your organization.

I’d love to hear from you about what kind of plan you’ve created.

• Slides & highlights from webinar on high net worth donors. RT @guidestarusa
• Easy to understand & implement: 7 Simple Questions for Your Social Media Plan. RT @TheRitterGroup
• Tying together direct mail + web using PURLs RT @TheDMailMan
• Good read for #nonrprofits: 7 Things Your Organization Must Do Because of Social Media. RT @jeanlucr @xanpearson
• 86% of #nonprofits have Facebook presence, 60% on Twitter. NTEN’s socmedia report. RT @SmartNonprofits
• Spreadsheet Aerobics: Actionable Measurement for Social Media. Think about it for donor data too! from @kanter

In case you didn’t know, you don’t have to be a Twitter follower to access my tweets. You can set up my updates to be sent to you via RSS feed OR just check out my Twitter page occasionally to see what I’ve been sharing.

If you are a follower, send me a DM! I’d love to connect with you.

The radio story really struck a chord for me because I love the idea of telling a lot with so few words. Now I often have board members and staff create short stories like these in the workshops and fundraising action planning sessions I deliver. I’ve found that people are amazed what can be learned from such a small number of words.

Six-word stories can be used as a headline in a newsletter article, in the subject line for an email you really want read, as the first line of a direct mail letter, on websites, you name it. And yes, less really is more.

Last summer at a Volunteers of America conference in Denver, Jim White from the Colorado affiliate office showed me his collection of six word stories. Here is one of them:

If you remember that when people read something about your organization you want them to want to know MORE. . . then these stories are perfect and packed with lots of emotional connection for readers.

I encourage organizations to create a list of six word stories as a team building exercise at a planning meeting or board meeting. You’ll be amazed at how creative your team can be.

Here are a few more to get your creative juices going:
First Ernest Hemingway’s famous story:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

From Life House in Duluth, MN an awesome organization serving homeless teens:
Homeless doesn’t have to be hopeless.

From the Ely, MN winter festival:
Shhhh! Winter in Ely is fabulous!

My own:
Creates compelling stories to raise millions.

What’s your six-word story that will cause people to want to learn more about you? Let me know!

pro·pin·qui·ty   [proh-ping-kwi-tee] Source: Dictionary.com
–noun
1.
nearness in place; proximity.
2.
nearness of relation; kinship.
3.
affinity of nature; similarity.
4.
nearness in time.

Then I found this on Wikipedia: The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships or relationships with those whom they encounter often, forming a bond between subject and friend. In other words, relationships tend to be formed between those who have a high propinquity.

It’s a simple concept. The people who stay most connected to you will be in a deeper, more meaningful relationship. And in our social profit world that often creates more contributions of time, advice, “stuff” and money.

What a great word. Does your organization have propinquity?

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Priest. Someone who listens with discretion. It’s important when talking with people about money that information learned be held close to the vest due to all the important and private things that may be shared.

CEO. The person with the vision who creates an amazing plan. In this case it’s the annual development plan. This is the take-charge attitude. Development officers exhibiting CEO-type behavior motivate others to help them reach the agency fundraising goals.

Entrepreneur.  Great development officers are self motivated with a drive for results. They don’t need someone looking over their shoulder to meet their goals and often exceed by using new, outside the box strategies.

Ringmaster.  This one is really important. They get in the limelight when it’s important to do so. And then they take themselves out of the limelight to shine the light on others: donors, staff & volunteers.

As Chad explained to me, awesome development officers are all of these at some point in their day. And sometimes they are all of these in the same meeting. Which are you today?

I attended an awesome seminar last week with @ChrisBrogan, author and marketing & Twitter guru at Best Buy HQ in Bloomington, MN. I found Chris Brogan is as quick witted and entertaining in person as he is on Twitter.  And I found him to be a fountain of knowledge about how best to use social media. One of the most powerful things he shared with us: The three main ingredients of social media are Listening, Connecting & Publishing. With a big emphasis on the listening.

What social media offers for nonprofits is a way to listen to your community. Whether using Facebook, Twitter, a website that’s interactive or sending email with a call to action, the whole point is about more deeply engaging your community. The very best way to deeply engage others is by hearing what they have to say. And not just about you. Listen to what gets them frustrated, or excited or causes them to feel great about anything and build on that.  

The power of social media is that it CAN be helpful. If you don’t think so, take a look at how much money was raised in text messages in a few days following the Haiti earthquake. Millions of dollars. $10 at a time. By millions of people all over the world.

Being helpful is key. One of the best ways to use social media is in support of your fundraising and marketing efforts. How? Share startling statistics, answer FAQs, share the cost of serving one client, send followers to helpful resources at other people’s websites. The more helpful you are using your chosen method of social media, the more “followers, friends and engaged listeners” you’ll generate.

On May 6, my membership webinar topic will be Social Marketing for Social Profits. Guest speaker is national social media guru: Amy Sample Ward.  In a recent blog post @amysampleward talks about the Effects of Joining the Conversation.

Amy says: “People are talking online and the best way to influence what they are saying or how they are thinking about issues is to talk with them.

Amy reminds us that being an active member of the conversation…whatever the conversation is…pays off. But I say: First you have to join the conversation.

“The organization that I work for has a great base of donors but the top of our pyramid only has 3 donors that we heavily rely on for support. How can we move some of our donors up the donor pyramid?” – from Sacha.

The easy answer is: Ask. Ask more of your donors to increase their gift size at in person meetings AFTER you have spent time with them one-on-one to learn more about WHY they give in the first place.

And, there is more to it than that.

Getting donors to give MORE once they start supporting and investing in your organization is part of what I call the “fun” of development work. Here are a few suggestions on how to create a system to always be working on this:

1. Take a look at your donor list and identify who has given faithfully over a few years, at a significant level, which might be $100 for some organizations or $500 in others and even $1000+ in others. Choose a group of 15 or 20 to start with.

2. Review this list with key leadership (board & staff and even former board members). Identify who would be the very best person to approach each donor to get to know them more deeply and engage them in the work of your organization.

3. Do some donor research next. Either use a firm who handles this or use this list of sites that I identified awhile back to help you dig around and learn more about capacity to give and their interests. Digging For Gold

4. Armed with that data and information, set a goal for what size give you want to invite from each person on the list.

5. Simultaneously, make sure the written messages on your newsletter, website and print materials is very, very clear about what you need the money for…and why more dollars are needed. Don’t ask, but share the facts about cost of your services, waiting lists, and so on.

6. Begin to set visits or phone calls with those identified on your list. Most important in those meetings is to LISTEN to them. Learn more about them. Learn what it is about your work that gets them excited and feeling connected.

7. I’m a big fan of letting the person know that I’d like to ask them to increase their gift, but that I believe they are not ready to do that yet, so I’ll be asking them to do that later, when we’ve spent some time together and I’m certain they ARE ready.

8. Always, on each visit, phone call, email and thank you letter or note, let them know about the waiting list for your services or what you are not able to do today due to limited resources.

9. Keep in touch with these special people gently, so as not to annoy them. Have a board member put a personal note on their thank you letter for their next contribution. Have someone phone them personally to invite them to see the graduation ceremony of your students or volunteers. Expect that only 20-25% will ever attend such functions, but that the phone call alone is doing the work to keep this person connected and engaged.

10. When you KNOW for certain that this person really does love your organization and has the means to say yes to what you want them to do: ASK. But WHO asks is key. It must be the very person they can’t say no to. That could be a client, a former board member, a friend of theirs or you.

11. When they do say yes, for whatever amount they agree to, acknowledge them quickly and personally. AND keep in touch all year long after the gift is given. Don’t forget them and ignore their investment.

This is a short list with lots more I could share about moving people up the donor pyramid. Check out these books for more great tips and strategies about both retaining donors and inviting gifts:

Donor Centered Fundraising, Penelope Burk
Yours For the Asking, Reginald Levy
Asking: A 59 Minute Guide, Jerold Panas