Mission Movers

Home / Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Fundraising’

Pause or Pounce? Timing your nonprofit capital campaign.

by Greg Ritter on July 6th, 2010
Tags: , , - Posted in: Capital Campaign, Fundraising - 1 Comment »

I have found that when a campaign goes on too long, year after year, its spirit begins to sag, leaders get tired and donors wonder if it will ever end.

You can sustain a great, upbeat campaign experience for 18-24 months, in my experience. This is the period of active asking for leadership and major gifts, and the broader, more public campaign events.

But there are special situations that call for a revised time schedule. My most recent new church building campaign was one of these.

The feasibility study was positive, and the first six months of campaigning was right on schedule. The present church building was 80 years old, and an early gift of land put the project within reach, or so it seemed.

But a group opposing the project was forming. This was of great concern to the pastor, who saw her role as pastor to all the members. How could she put aside her excitement for the project to listen attentively to some members’ objections?

Early in the planning process, the finance committee had asked the opinion of a local construction company about remodeling the present building, rather than building a new structure. An elevator would need to be added for those unable to handle the steps – up for worship and down for fellowship and the rest rooms.

The construction company’s verdict was clear. It would surely cost more to remodel, and at the end you would still be in an 80 year-old building.

So the campaign proceeded on the strength of their assessment. Then it became clear that not all members were in favor, especially those whose homes were older than 80 years, and were just fine, thank you.

In order not to lose these members, we decided to take a year off to hold a series of listening groups and to spend some money on a thoroughgoing remodeling analysis.

The land donor was kind enough to extend his offer to allow for this extended period. At the end of the year, the verdict was the same. It just wouldn’t be worth it to remodel.

So the campaign resumed and was successful. No members were lost in the process.

In this case, it was better to pause than to pounce.

Does Your Nonprofit Have a Donor Communications Calendar?

by Greg Ritter on July 1st, 2010
Tags: , , - Posted in: Communications, Fundraising - 2 Comments »

A successful communications plan should include a year-long calendar to easily track when different messages need to be delivered and how to deliver them. For nonprofits it is essential to have a structured communications calendar to ensure you are reaching your donors on a regular basis.

I was thrilled to see nonprofit consultant Lori Jacobwith (@LJacobwith) sharing a sample communications calendar (it’s an Excel document that can be used as a template) in her recent post: Keep Track of Donor Communications With this Awesome Tool! Lori also shares some great tips for connecting with donors in this article. I highly recommend you read the post and download this tool to use with your communications planning.

Thank you Lori for sharing this amazing tool!

Making a List, Checking it Twice…Capital Campaign Readiness Checklist

by Greg Ritter on June 30th, 2010
Tags: , , - Posted in: Capital Campaign, Fundraising - No Comments »

The following checklist provides nonprofits with one test to help them assess their readiness to launch a capital campaign:

1.    Compelling statement of the capital need(s).
2.    Engaging case for support.
3.    Strategic plan.
4.    Audited financial statements.
5.    History of balanced budgets.
6.    Enthusiastic Board Chair and Board Members.
7.    Executive in place for at least three years.
8.    Strong volunteer leadership.
9.    Trusted campaign counsel to provide guidance (if goal exceeds $500,000).
10.   Attractive and consistent look to publications and web presence.
11.   Community image that is strong and positive.
12.   Positive report from the feasibility study which should:

  • Test the plan and the feasibility of the financial goal
  • Highlight the areas of the case for support that need to be strengthened
  • Identify planning assumptions that need to be revised
  • Suggest strategies that will contribute to the campaign’s success

Positive responses to the items on this checklist give your organization an excellent chance of succeeding. I recommend you involve an experienced nonprofit consultant who specializes in capital campaigns as early in the process as you are able. An expert consultant will help guide the process saving you time, energy and money in the long run.

BRINGING A GOOD IDEA TO MAJOR GIFT PROSPECTS

by Greg Ritter on June 24th, 2010
Tags: , , - Posted in: Fundraising - No Comments »

To take a major step forward, a nonprofit organization needs to become successful at bringing their best ideas before potential donors for consideration and funding.

I have worked with nonprofits who believe in their mission so sincerely, they can’t imagine that a donor would not join in support, just hearing about the program. But major donor prospects are bombarded with many such program descriptions every week, and don’t have the funds to support them all.

How do you make the case for your nonprofit program or project stand out so it gets the consideration it deserves? It is worth it to bring in professional expertise to help create this case for giving? It will be useful all year long, but needs to be reviewed and updated each year as circumstances change in the organization and/or in its service community.

Does the case state the right set of needs in the vocabulary of a major donor?
Organizations make a common mistake by describing their own needs instead of the needs of those they serve. Another common mistake is to miss the all-important balance between statistics and emotional appeal.

Have you described your program in a nutshell that follows naturally the needs you just described?
Major donors are busy people and have a whole stack of program literature they try to plow through. Don’t make their job harder by going on and on about program details. It’s easy for us to miss the boat on this one, as we are so used to talking about our program.

Are you able to describe to the prospect why it makes the most sense to fund your organization (rather than someone else) to meet these needs? Remember the stack of proposals in front of the donor. One or two of them might present a similar program idea to what you are presenting.

Are you able to describe the costs of the project, with just the right amount of detail for the donor to grasp quickly? Although some prospects like spreadsheets of figures, the case for support is not the place for this. In this document we want to establish an idea quickly and in a compelling way. Supporting detail belongs in an appendix.

Have you painted a verbal picture for the reader of what success will mean? Suppose all the needed funds are raised. Can you leave the donor with a mental picture of how life will be different, and for whom?

You can see that writing a compelling case for support is practically an art form. It uses words and paragraphs, but the writing is as tight as poetry. We’ll get once chance with this donor, better invest a little up front to make it shine.

FUNDRAISING’S CRYSTAL BALL

by Greg Ritter on June 22nd, 2010
Tags: , , , , - Posted in: Capital Campaign, Fundraising - 1 Comment »

A few years ago I had the opportunity to address the American Library Association at their annual meeting in Chicago at the Palmer House. They were interested in endowment fundraising, and because I knew the room would be full of English majors I titled my remarks “Is Your Endowment To Be or Not To Be?” I concentrated on the importance of the feasibility study in answering that question. The audience showed great interest. Later, when they published my presentation in their journal, they used a sketch of a crystal ball to illustrate my theme.

Is your campaign to be or not to be? I guess a good feasibility study is the closest thing we have to a crystal-ball prediction. Except that there is no reliance upon magic with the study – just careful details and the skills of a competent interviewer. If you are out to raise $500,000 or more, it is our rule of thumb in the profession that it will be worth it for you to retain an experienced nonprofit capital campaign fundraising consultant to help you with the process.

The first step may well be a feasibility study, a series of confidential, personal, structured interviews to test your project and goal among those potential donors whose support you will surely need for a successful campaign.

Sound expensive?
It is likely that the first gift or two of the resulting campaign will easily cover the expenses of the study.

Volunteer interviewer instead?
The survey instrument must be carefully designed to yield the results you need, and the interviewer must be trained to pick up the nonverbal cues that reveal what the interviewee really thinks.

Can a staff member do it?
Confidentiality is the key to truthful responses. Prospects are more likely to trust that an outside objective professional will keep their responses confidential.

How about doing the interviews here?
There is a better chance of getting truthful answers when the interview is conducted at a site chosen by the prospect. When people enter the nonprofit’s site, they have a tendency to be more positive in their responses than how they really feel.

Finally, the interviewer needs a background in fundraising and development to listen for the cues that the prospect is ready to make a substantial gift. In one instance in my own experience, I followed the cues that resulted in the donor making a challenge grant of half the campaign’s total. That was an interview well worth the cost!

« Older Entries