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Put your picture on the piano

February 28, 2011 By Sandy
piano pics

I was at a fundraising committee meeting recently and we were talking about growing the organization’s donor base. This is a common goal for nonprofit organizations, right?  Well, I’m always delighted when folks who don’t have formal fundraising training get it, as happened that day.

As we were talking about strategies for growing the donor base, we talked about how minimizing the loss of donors would help increase our overall number of active donors.  That’s when one sweet man said “we need to put our picture on their piano.”  We giggled immediately knowing what he meant.

I remember when I was little, my Grandma had lots of photos of family and friends on her beautiful upright piano.  That was her way of keeping them close and remembering them often.  The suggestion of putting our picture on the donor’s piano was a perfect way to describe the importance we need to put on relationships with our donors.  Our donors are so much more to us than just the check they write.  Their gift is a vote of confidence in the work our organization is doing.  It’s their way of saying they support what we’re doing and they want to see us succeed.  They, too, want to see the change we’re after in the world.

And that kind of support deserves our attention and respect.  Maybe we should put their picture on our piano, too.

Filed Under: Capital Campaigns, Communications/Public Relations, Donor Relations, Donor Research, Fundraising Planning, General Fundraising, Get Fully Funded, Inspiration, Leadership

Good fundraising practices I learned from my cat

January 25, 2011 By Sandy
Missy 2

Missy is one of four cats that live here with us. We adopted her from a local shelter about 10 years ago and she’s a sweetie. She’s the oldest and the smallest of the pack and to help her keep weight on, we feed her canned cat food every afternoon about 4 pm.  She LOVES her “tuna” as we call it and eats every last bite.

Lately, I’ve been watching her and thinking that Missy might have something to teach us about fundraising.

She knows what her goal is. Missy knows what she wants and every afternoon, she waits in her usual spot for her dinner.

She’s hopeful. When anyone walks to the kitchen at any time in the afternoon, Missy goes too, just to see if she might get fed early.

She builds relationship. She gives out lots of love during the day to those who feed her.

She expresses appreciation. She purrs and gives out love to those who help her reach her goal.

This is all good, but sometimes she’s a pest.  In fact, we’ve started calling her “Pesty Cat” because she ALWAYS wants to be fed.  This is a danger for many nonprofit fundraising folks – always showing up with their hand out for money.

If that’s how you approach fundraising, your donors will likely get tired of it.  Make sure that you ask often enough for a gift, but not too often.  It’s a fine line to walk, but one your donors will appreciate if you can get it right. If you want to take it a step further, ask your donors how often and when they’d like to be asked for a gift.  It puts your donor in charge of the relationship and they’ll be much happier.  You’ll likely see your results go up and your expenses go down.  Wondering how to do that?  Survey your donors and simply ask them what they want.

Gotta go – Missy is ready for her dinner!

Filed Under: Direct Mail, Donor Relations, Donor Research, Fundraising Planning, General Fundraising, Get Fully Funded, Inspiration, Marketing, Strategic, Uncategorized

You can’t eat an elephant in one bite

January 4, 2011 By Sandy

Happy New Year my friends! I hope your 2011 is off to a great start.

I’ve seen many blog posts recently about New Year’s resolutions and many bloggers are suggesting that you NOT create them. They say that too many people set resolutions that aren’t realistic, then fail quickly and beat themselves up. I think there’s some truth to that.

Here’s what I’m doing for myself this year. I’ve set a goal I want to work toward and I’m focused on the baby steps required to get me there. One goal I’m working on is weight loss. And instead of focusing on the 20 pounds I want to lose, I’m working on spending just 20 minutes a day exercising in some way and cutting down on my portions. It’s a baby step, but it’s much more doable to me that dropping 20 pounds. And I’m much more likely to stick with it because I can have a sense of completion every day.

How can you apply this principle to your fundraising office? Well, let’s say you have a goal to get 250 new donors by July 1. That’s roughly 45 new donors a month or 10 new donors a week. Depending on the strategy you choose, 10 new donors a week should be pretty easy. You should be able to talk to enough new people to gain that many. You see how this works?

Any big goal becomes doable when you break it down into baby steps. You’ve probably heard the saying that you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Same thing.

So whether you’re creating resolutions or just setting goals for the year, be sure to break them down into manageable pieces to ensure your success!

Filed Under: Fundraising Planning, General Fundraising
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