$117,000 total biennial limit. This biennial limit places a ceiling on a donoras total contributions, as explained below.
$100 in currency (cash) to any political committee. (Anonymous cash contributions may not exceed $50.) Contributions exceeding $100 must be made by check, money order, or other written instrument.6 __________.
5 IRS, aOther Sections 501(c) Organizations,a www.irs.gov/publications/ p557/ch04.html#en_US_2010_publink1000200291, 2010.
$30,800 a year without a tax break? Nonsense, right? Nope. People give that much, and more. If thereas a $117,000 biennial limit, that supposes that people are giving not only the max to the political party, but also maxing out on other types of political contributions.
When I was canva.s.sing on behalf of the Democratic Party in 2006, I had more than one instance of canva.s.sing someone only to hear them say, aIave already maxed out this year,a or aIave given the maximum already this year.a When I took the time to clarify that I was raising money for the DNC itself, not a candidate or party, they would say, aYeah, I know. The limitas $26,000 or something like that, right?a At the time, it was $26,700.
So I met, in my few months canva.s.sing on the streets of Boston, more than one individual who gave over $25,000 in a single year to a political party without a tax deduction. I wasnat the only canva.s.ser who ran into that situation in Bostona"and Boston wasnat the only team that reported back that they had had such conversations.
__________.
6 Federal Election Commission, Citizensa Guide, February 2004 (updated February 2011).
In 2009, a non-election year, the Democratic National Committee raised $37,412,427. Of that, nearly $5 million was from contributions at the maximum permitted level (in 2009, $30,400). The Republican National Committee raised $45,695,088.7 In that mid-term election, the largest gift I received was $2,000. It was also my first gift, which, while frustrating, did not disappoint me too much (it was one of the largest contributions from my office for the entire summer, after all). There were a few other $2,000 gifts that summer in my office, and across the country, we did receive a few five figure gifts. These gifts came from hired, outsourced canva.s.sers who were meeting complete strangers on the streets or on doorsteps and asking them for one-time contributions.
Tens of thousands of dollars to an organization without as much as a tax break. Iam going on at such length to drive home the fact that while the tax break is nice, it is by no means necessary to raise significant funds. So, if charitable gifts to your organization do not qualify for a tax deduction, donat sweat it. You can still raise plenty of money.
In this way, philanthropy can seem irrational from an economics perspective. But give someone a good, clear, convincing message as to why your organization deserves your support, and theyall write you a check, deduction or not. As Iave said before, philanthropy is a deeply personal choice, and sometimes those deep personal convictions go beyond the more rational explanation of tax code, selective incentives, etc.
Different Groups, Same Rules.
Regardless of your mission, regardless of how the tax code will treat charitable gifts to your organization, you will not be able to raise any money at all if you are not able to inspire.
Harking back to Chapter 7, I want to reiterate that inspirational messaging will always contain some combination of the following: Your organizationas name and mission The problem The solution A sense of urgency A call to action (i.e., an ask) __________.
7 Federal Election Commission, Sources of Receipts for National Party Committees Through June 30 of the Non-Election Year, www.fec.gov/press/summaries/2012/ Party/6mthSummary/4dncrncsummary2011sixmonth.xls, July 2011 You need to position your organization as a solution to a big societal problem; if you donat secure the philanthropic support of your donors, then your work will be compromised, and the big societal problem will continue to be a big societal problem.
With the DNC fundraising in 2006, we were able to raise money because there was an election and we were delivering a message, day after day, in about 60 seconds or less, that contained all of these points.
As a paid fundraiser working on behalf of the DNC, this was my spiel: the problem (from the left side of the aisle) was that the Republicans in the House, Senate, and White House were taking the country in a very bad direction, were corrupt, and had us in the middle of two wars overseas. Also, they were in the pockets of big business. The solution was to take back the House of Representatives and the Senate, so that we could get America back on track. The urgency was that we were just a few months away from election season and the RNC was doing an equally good job of fundraising. (Their message would have been just as incendiary and emotional, and whatever it was, it worked well.) The call to action was asking for a contribution of $100, $200, $1,000, or other amount depending on the personas perceived inclination, so that we could help get Democratic candidates elected across the country.
It worked at a rate of about 20 percent, which is on par with the average fundraising organization. Again, all that was delivered in 60 seconds.
If youare representing an organization that needs money to raise awareness, provide treatment and counseling options, and also help promote research of a certain type of illness, your message will contain all those same elements. These are the questions that you should answer when crafting your messaging, both for your ma.s.s written appeals, and for your higher-level conversations: What is your organizationas name? What is the illnessas effect on society? How many people perish each year or are hospitalized as result of this illness? How are the families affected? What does your organization plan to do to address the problem but cannot currently do because of lack of funding? Or, what critical programs will your organization have to cut if it does not continue to receive philanthropic support? Why can the donor not afford to wait? What is on the line? How much are you asking the donor to give?
Here is another question that your organization needs to consider: why should a donor give money to you and not to another nonprofit? What makes your organization uniquely deserving?
Political organizations, you can use the same formula. Professional organizations, you, too. Educational nonprofits? Yes, you, too. It shouldnat make too much of a difference; these basic elements of building your case will remain the same, because, again, philanthropy happens out of inspiration. Yes, there can be a rational side to it, such as a tax deduction, and yes, donors want to know that your organization has its shop in order and that their philanthropic investments are aperforming wella (cue the Stewardship Department!), but getting people to take out their checkbooks and their credit cards will only happen if you inspire them. Your organization has to tug at something deep within your donors. You canat just reason with them. You have to motivate them. You need to tap some part of them that they canat explain. If you think about it, giving away $100,000 that donors could otherwise be spending on themselves doesnat, at the surface, seem like a good idea. But if you, as a fundraiser, can make that feel terrifica"through your skills as a storyteller, as a preachera"then writing that six-figure check is the best idea in the whole wide world. Everyone feels good; everyone is helped.
If you think about your fundraising as a performance (and, as Iave stated earlier, that metaphor is actually a fitting parallel), you donat just want a cathartic response at the end. You donat want just applause. You want a standing ovation, and a demand for an encore.
So thatas it. The takeaway point here is that no matter what type of organization you are, whether your organization is politically active or not, and whether or not charitable gifts to your organizations are tax-deductible, the same basic principles of constructing a compelling fundraising message apply. While you will have to tailor your message so that it resonates with your audience, there is a formula that you can follow. And donat forget to check to see if youave filed the appropriate paperwork with the IRS.
Letas turn to the conclusion now, where weall revisit some of the major themes covered in this book.
Get Out There and Start Asking.
Itas been a long, wild ride. The goal of this book was to walk you through the process of transforming your fundraising operations into a professional operation, from how to recruit qualified candidates for the necessary positions to have a stellar shop to how to solicit gifts of $25 all the way up to $1 milliona"and everything in between.
Iad like to leave you with some final thoughts, some meditations on recurring themes that weave dealt with up to this point.
Rejection.
First: remember that you are going to get rejected. A lot. More than you might think. As a reminder, you will get $0.20 to $0.25 for every dollar you ask for. Whether youare sc.r.a.pping for $10 partic.i.p.ation gifts or soliciting a major donor for $100,000, this ratio will hold over the long term. Again, this can mean that for every $100,000 solicitation you make you get one person in five who says yes, or five people who give you $20,000 in response. It almost always averages out to 1:4 or 1:5.
Do not take the rejections personally. You canat afford to. You need to develop a thick skin and divorce yourself from the outcome. That isnat to suggest that you should also divorce yourself from the preparation that goes into the solicitation. You might be asking why you should bother putting in the effort of coming up with a solicitation strategy.
Preparation does matter, even if, despite your best efforts, youare looking at 1:4 odds in the best of situations. You should enter every gift conversation a.s.suming that youare going to hear yes.
Remember: there are hard nos and soft nos. There is also anot yet,a anot that much,a or anot this time.a No is not a permanent state. Rather, it is a response to a singular appeal at a given moment in time. If someone says no this year (or quarter), that does not preclude him or her from giving later. The flip side, of course, is that just because someone gives now does not necessarily mean that he or she will give later. Take no donor for granted, and donat take anoa to mean forever.
Recently, when interviewing a candidate for a major gift position, a colleague talked (accurately, for the record) about how we divide our prospect pools into thirds. You have your top third: the people you can always rely on to be consistent and generous, those you can turn to in times of crisis or campaigns to step up their giving. Then you have the middle third: the people who give when theyare asked to give, not always the amount that youad hoped for, but people who can be prodded. Then you have your bottom third, your C list: the people who never get back to you or rarely respond, and are terrible donors relative to their capacity.
I was quick to qualify. Those thirds are malleable, moving targets. Someone in your top third today can very easily drop to the bottom third, and someone who has never given might finally see the light and begin writing checks and taking your calls. You just never know when theyall convert, nor will you necessarily be able to predict why. So you have to get out there, see as many people as you can, and solicit as much as possible at all three tiers of your prospect pool. The gritty work will pay off.
And, seriously, donat take rejection personally. Remember: you are not responsible for the outcome. You are responsible only for making the best possible case to the donor. Once youave made the solicitation, you donat control the situation.
Staffing.
If youare the executive director of development, take heed: you need staff members. Itas so hard to stomach the initial startup cost of paying another staff member, but believe me, in fundraising, staff members are a wise investment. You leave money on the table for every aspect of the gift cycle that you leave unprofessionalized. With some positions, it will be obvious. Frontline fundraisers are usually going to raise more than what they are paid. At least thatas the hope, under normal circ.u.mstances. So thatas a no-brainer. But what about your research staff, your stewardship department? Then, the argument becomes more indirect, a bit tougher to argue. I will argue for it, though. Granted, you want optimal efficiency from every hire, but you want a fully staffed shop. The more overstretched you make your employees, the more you ask them to do beyond their specialized role, the more you begin to sacrifice quality.
A mediocre stewardship report can be more harmful than none at all, for example. You donat want half-baked products coming out of your office, whether itas an invitation to an event or a million-dollar proposal. You therefore want to take the time and trust in the investment to hire an entire development staff. Start with your fundraisers and then move on to support staff (they, after all, keep the front linersa heads screwed on straight), researchers, donor relations, etc.
Fully staffed shops are good not just for efficiency but also for morale. You can build a team that thrives on the collaboration required to close gifts of all sizes. Put too much work on any given individual, and you run into troubles of att.i.tude and stress. You also run the risk of burning out the few staff members you do have, which will leave you in a very bad place.
The Fundraiseras Place.
The development shopas place within an organization can be strange. The buy-in among other const.i.tuents within the organization isnat always immediate, nor guaranteed, especially if youare just beginning to make the operation more professional. While still part of the nonprofit world, your operations mimic some for-profit business practices, since your work has very significant implications for the bottom line. Depending on how your nonprofit is doing, you might be fundraising just to keep the lights on at first.
On the one hand, your operation is mission-driven: you are asking for money to support a particular mission in which you believe strongly. On the other hand, youare a pragmatic, bottom linea"driven operation: if your work isnat successful, the organization suffers.
The point is that a professional fundraising operation, when itas first set up, can raise some eyebrows. Even well after itas set up, it can continue to raise eyebrows. The development shop can often be perceived as a shadow organization within the organization. Your work can make others in the organization uncomfortable, as though somehow youare going to alienate their already small and fragile base of support.
Iad say that the aversion toward your work within your own ranks comes from a misguided understanding of what you do as opposed to an actual dislike of the operations. The discomfort that you can, and often do, cause is ill-founded, and can be easily ameliorated if you address this issue straight on.
In the early stages of setting up your operations, it makes sense to educate the rest of the organization on the work that you do and why you are doing it. Take the time to explain how they can partner with you, how you are part of the team, how sometimes they might actually be better poised to solicit a prospect than you, depending on the donor. Explain how your success has implications for the programs that the other departments oversee.
Ask them what they would do with additional funding. Have them be a part of the conversation early, to help them realize that partnering with the development shop is actually a great idea.
In short, engage the other departments within your organization, and more than anything, be transparent about what you do and how you do it. Be sure to report internally on your successes: circulate news of significant accomplishments, and narrate which programs those philanthropic dollars will be affecting.
Why We Do It.
This applies to the entire development shop, but most specifically to the frontline fundraisers: you have to believe in the mission of your organization. I know this sounds mind-numbingly obvious. But it isnat always the case when someone is brought on board to fundraise for your organization with either a limited understanding of or a limited appreciation for your mission. The understanding side can be ameliorated, but the appreciation factor is harder to inspire. An employee is either delighted and proud to represent your organization, or he or she is not.
You need pa.s.sion for the mission because fundraisers, in many cases, are the most public face of the organization. Youare meeting people at events, at the office, on the road. You cannot afford to have a less-than-enthusiastic employee among your ranks. If you are misrepresented or underrepresented, there will be a huge mess to clean up or, worse, a relationship that is irreparably damaged.
To prospective fundraisers: work for the causes you feel good about. Donat take a job at any nonprofit just to pad your rsum. You will burn yourself out and do a disservice to yourself and the organization youare representing.
We fundraise for nonprofits because we believe in the mission of the organization, its leadership, and the outcomes that the organization helps to produce in society. We fundraise to allow the organization to expand the scope and depth of its operations, and to take the pressure off nonqualified or not-as-qualified individuals from having to raise money, allowing them to concentrate on what they are best suited to do.
We fundraise to validate the mission of the nonprofit by building a core of supporters who will consistently make gifts of $5 all the way to $50,000 or more. We fundraise because it raises awareness of the worthy cause and helps to build a movement of socially aware citizens. By asking for their philanthropic support, we are asking our donor base to join our mission, to be a very real part of it.
We forge the essential relationships between the public and the organization. We communicate the mission in a way that engages an audience beyond the scope of the employees and the directly affected const.i.tuents, and we make an honest call for action, a humble request for support. We are asking people to partner with the us, to help us walk the road to progress together.
Our job is to connect the dreamers and the doers with the supporters.
Your Donors.
The majority of this book has been focused on how you should do your job. Itas easy to lose sight of your audience, to cease to consider them as anything but dollar signs, new gifts, and a source of cash to underwrite your budgeted expenses. Do so at your own peril.
Behind every gift is a human being. This might sound very elementary, but remember, we are in the business, above all, of relationship-building. We build relationships with people, not with checks or research dossiers.
I talked about how our prospect pool can be divided into thirds: your all-stars, your stable donors who do just as much as you ask, and your duds. While this is generally true, you have to treat each conversation with every donor as though he or she is the next million-dollar support of your organization. Even the duds.
We must work hard to avoid having our view of donors turn adversarial, as if they are a problem. Yes, they can be tough, yes, itas a letdown when they give us $1,000 instead of the $10,000 we had asked for, and yes, itas frustrating when a gift conversation drags on for monthsa"or years.
Iall be the first to admit I have my favorite prospects and my least favorite prospects. At times, I downright dread calling one to set up an appointment, or knowing what Iam in for, I have to steel myself before certain visits.
Itas natural. And itas not good business. We really have to appreciate every donor, every prospect, even if the wealthiest prospect in our pool is undergiving by a lot. You really have to go into every conversation with every prospect thinking the following: I like you a lot.
You are going to give me exactly what I ask for.
It can be hard, especially after you figure out that you rarely get exactly what you ask for. However, your mind-set plays a huge role in how you carry yourself even if you donat know it. I canat describe exactly how it will change your posture, your delivery, and your enthusiasm, but it will. If you go into a phone call or a meeting and think that youare wasting your time, well, then, youare probably going to end up wasting your time. And your donoras time, which is even worse. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You can be pessimistic after the meeting, but please, do yourself a favor and be delusionally optimistic every time you speak with a donor.
The point is that bad eggs arenat always bad eggs. You never know when someoneas circ.u.mstances change, when they finally decide that they need to start giving away more, when they finally let go of some longstanding grudge that they had with your organization. You canat predict it. You can only influence it with consistent contact, constant grat.i.tude, and an unflaggingly positive outlook on converting that prospect. I know that Iave already regaled you with tales of donors who for years had been pegged by my predecessors as people to put on the B list on good days, the C list on others. Would probably never be big donors. Then, through no magic of mine, I go into a first meeting with one such donor, and she told me she was going to give me a check for $20,000, which is five times her biggest gift to the organization ever. I repeat, I brought nothing special to the conversation, save a new face and fresh energy. The donor herself, though, had concluded she was ready to deepen her philanthropic relationship with the organization.
Now, notes up to that point had never suggested that I would be entering a conversation in which $20,000 would come up as a figure. The file on her suggested that the meeting would be cordial, that she would talk about how she prefers to give more to her prep school, and that she would hedge if asked to consider increasing her giving beyond $4,000 a year.
What I did right in preparing for that meeting was acknowledge the obstacles but not let those obstacles define the conversation. I went in there with a positive mind-set, and took stock of the fact that it had taken more than a year to secure this appointment, and I could not afford to waste this opportunity. She travels a lot for her work, so after four trips to Texas and almost 18 months of attempting unsuccessfully to see her, we finally intersected. She had only a half hour, so I knew I had to go in there and make the best use of limited time. And I was fortunate that she was positively predisposed to talk about increasing her giving.
Remember: until they say no, we a.s.sume that the answer is yes. There are plenty of yesses along the way until we get to the solicitation. Yes, I will visit with you. Yes, I will answer your questions about my current philanthropy, family situation, etc. Yes, I will see you again. Yes, I will consider a proposal. Count each one among your victories.
And also remember: there are hard nos, soft nos, not yets, not that muches, and not this years. In relationship-building, nothing is permanent, and everything is mutable.
The flip side, of course, the less-fun side, is that good eggs arenat always good eggs. For whatever the reason, sometimes people just stop giving to your organization. Or they start giving less.
Leave nothing to chance and a.s.sume nothing. Engage the donor. Ask: Why did you stop giving this year? What would have made you continue your support?
Again, how you choose to view someone from your A list who suddenly stops giving will influence the outcome of the situation. If you view having to get a donor to re-up his support or asking him pointed questions about how to get him back on board as an annoyance, both parties are likely to leave the conversation annoyed, and you arenat likely to get the information you need to reconvert.
If, however, you view the interaction as an opportunity to engage meaningfully with someone who already has a pre-established relationship with your organization, and to have a conversation with him about his priorities, well, then itas much more likely that youall both feel good about the short term, and will have a clearer idea of the donoras intentions regarding his philanthropic relationship with you in the future.
People stop giving for many reasons. It just happens. Sometimes, itas out of your control. Other times, it isnat. Do damage control for the ones you can without selling the integrity of the organization. Address the problem or concern directly and quickly insofar as you are able.
For the ones you canat control: keep them on your list, and keep them connected through nonmonetary means until theyare ready to reestablish their philanthropic relationship with you.
Here is a partial listing of reasons people might stop contributing to your organization: They moved away, and your organization is locally based.
They have chosen to focus their philanthropic commitments on a different cause.
They are upset about something that your organization has done or dislike the current leadership.