Fundraising is very important to the sustainability of most non-profit organizations. As noted in an earlier series: No money, no mission. In this post, Leah Lamb offers insight into successfully conducting campaigns. She explores these in the context of earlier posts in this Your Outcomes Well series. Going the wrong way, as a fundraiser seeks to raise funds the right way, can block a non-profit’s success.
SHARE
Leah Lamb
In this Series I’ve tried to offer some insight into an area I’ve worked in for many years: Fundraising. As important as knowing what to do, to be a successful fundraiser, is also knowing what not to do. Routinely making mistakes or falling into traps are signs of an ineffectual fundraising operation.
What is Effective Fundraising?
I’ve addressed the key skills of successful fundraisers in two earlier Series posts:
Fundraising mistakes and traps
Ineffective fundraisers are likely to be adversely affected by one or more of these mistakes or traps. While effective fundraisers will occasionally take missteps, these steps will not become regular, bad habits for them.
Common mistakes
Several common mistakes were described in my Non-profits: 4 Fundraising Mistakes to Avoid Making post. Those mistakes are:
- Insufficient fundraising resources
- Poor resource utilization
- Insufficient training
- Poor communications
Again, knowing what NOT to do can be instrumental in one’s fundraising success. In addition to these common mistakes, there are traps to watch out for while conducting Annual and Capital Campaigns.
Annual Campaigns
If your organization conducts annual campaigns to solicit donations, there is one trap which will greatly hinder the fruitfulness of such initiatives: A stale mailing list.
To avoid falling into this trip, an organization must be willing to invest in a good mailing list. Whether purchased or built from scratch, such a list will serve a non-profit well. Assuming you have such a list at your fingertips, understand this too: It often takes 3 or 4 years to really reap the harvest of such campaigns. Expecting a great campaign in your first year isn’t the most likely outcome.
It is important for everyone in the organization to play a role in building the mailing list. There should be a process in place to capture the business cards or contact information for everyone a non-profit does business with, partners with, or interacts with. So the Executive Director, Board members, and designated fundraisers shouldn’t be the only ones involved in capturing information for this list. If everyone is involved it helps keep the mailing list relevant.
Capital Campaigns
These campaigns can, at certain stages of an organization’s growth, be essential. However, they can at times present hurdles, namely: Getting the financial goal right; the right response when you don’t. Having to ‘move the finish line’ when the campaign has already reached the original capital goal is a very unpleasant situation. Also, changing the scope of the project midstream will also jeopardize the end result. If the goal does change, transparency and clear communications are required. The integrity of the organization is compromised if donors perceive a non-profit that is not transparent. If you get the financial goal right on Day 1, capital campaigns are far less problematic.
LEARN
If you have followed the series, Lamb already outlined the common mistakes. In this post she outlines the pitfalls that one should be mindful of in campaigns:
- Stale mailing lists will hurt your fundraising efforts
- Be diligent to get your Financial Goals right for a Capital Campaign
- If you miss the mark in your goals be transparent, be upfront, and set the record straight
GROW
Some common campaign traps that a non-profit organization could fall into were explored by Lamb in this post. A few other TRAPS and strategies, addressed in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, offer additional food for thought and growth:
- Backup Plan – Unforeseen disasters will happen. Have a PLAN B for large campaigns. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
- Make friends with the right people – Leadership, the board, and all interested members should establish relationships with the movers and shakers in the community
- Donors – Develop and nurture but NEVER assume their giving or overuse your existing donors – You should never rest on your laurels. In business, you have to always work on bringing in new customers. For non-profit organizations you cannot allow yourself to get comfortable with just your existing donors. Donors are to be appreciated, respected, but never taken for granted. It won’t work out well in the long term.
- Beyond a stale mailing list, make sure that your data is scrubbed, clean, and your programming is correct. There is nothing worse than mailing a donor request or thank you note to the wrong person for the wrong amount. Mistakes happen, but don’t let this become a pattern of behavior in your organization.
- Non-profits, many of them, have to open up to new types of funding, like private sources, foundations, and the like. It will be prudent to either take baby steps towards new funding sources OR if possible create or develop separate committees or advisory boards for these new efforts that go beyond the traditional grants. Private funders and foundations have different requirements and look for different indicators to support a non-profit.
In summarizing the need to raise funds in new and unique ways, Bonnie Osinski (Director of Development at Camba) remarked:
“You see groups that want things done differently, but they don’t want to do things differently”.
Non-profits as a whole are under-funded and over worked, but they have to stretch, grow, and expand to the continual challenges that will come their way. That being said, all of the TRAPS are real and still exist. So just take Leah Lamb’s 30 years of experience, and our few additional tips (in this section), as good practices to cultivate and follow.
Succeeding in any function within a non-profit demands, to put it simply, acknowledging and accepting the core must-avoids (common mistakes, campaign traps) and key must-dos. This two-dimension approach can be very effective and isn’t unusual. For example, the Bible offers Christians good qualities to adopt (e.g. several Proverbs passages) as well as bad behavior to avoid (e.g. the Ten Commandments). Needless to say, in running a non-profit there is a lot of stuff that isn’t black and white; where there aren’t any clear musts to abide by. Your discernment and growth as a non-leader or fundraiser will allow you to see these gray areas better.
This post, including links to three prior Leah Lamb series posts, sought to offer a broad view of the actions needed to raise funds. She has shared knowledge and insight that will help a non-profit avoid traps and achieve success.
Photo credit: Arizona Dept. of Transportation/flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
(to be continued)
Your Outcomes Well
Subscribe to get our latest content by email.
