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Pivoting in 2020: Flip the Focus onto Donors

Posted on  January 21, 2020
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Identify, Inform, Involve, Invest, and Impact. These five simple words have guided many a fundraiser.

Typically when talking about impact we focus on telling donors stories about the impact of a gift on those who benefit. Three things prompt me to suggest that you pivot or flip the focus onto donors:

1. Ron Schiller’s book Belief and Confidence (Ron is with Aspen Leadership Group).

2. Kathleen Loehr’s book Gender Matters: A Guide to Growing Women’s Philanthropy.

3. Brian Saber’s (Asking Matters) recent Facebook and email posts about visiting with donors.

What do these seemingly disparate items have in common? They speak to a reality:

Fundraisers impact the lives of donors.

If you have seen Rent or heard the finale Seasons of Love you know that we all have the same number of minutes in a year 525,600.

Many of those minutes are taken up by the day-to-day – working, sleeping, and eating. Other minutes pass by while we are working full time, taking care of children, attending to an elderly parent, or planning a memorial service for a family member. In most cases, minutes fly by at a fast clip!

When you meet with a donor you are using up their minutes! This time is precious because it can’t be reclaimed – that time is a gift.

As you prepare to connect with donors do you:

  1. Consider the sort of impact that the donor hopes to have?
  2. Ask the donor, as Ron suggests in his book, what THEY hope to see transpire as a result of making a gift?
  3. Write appeals from the perspective of a donor, considering what they would like their resources to accomplish for those you serve? For more on this visit Tom Ahern’s site.

Today I invite you to flip the focus and remember that She is Not Your Donor! If you can’t answer the above questions schedule some visits.

1. Let the donor know that you are not coming to ask for a gift but to say thank you for their support.

2. Indicate that you hope to learn why the donor chooses to support your nonprofit.

3. Ask what they hope to see transpire as a result of their current or a future gift.

Finally, thank the donor for giving of her time because it is one of the most precious gifts of all.

How have you flipped the focus onto the donor? What was the result? I hope to hear from you because we can all learn from one another.

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Fundraising Pivot 2020: New Year, New Role

Posted on  January 14, 2020
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My first post of this year was Prepare to Pivot. Past posts have also focused on providing insight regarding how to effectively lead through change.

This year brings a significant and exciting change for me as I pivot into a new position at the Director of Foundation Relations for Penn State. It’s not a complete 180 because I have served as a director of corporate and foundation relations for two different institutions. That said there will be new things to learn given that I’ll be working in a much larger, complex university.

I relish in the opportunity to learn about and remain connected to the academic enterprise. I am honored and thrilled to join the top-notch team of five: Adrienne, Alan, Holly, Stephanie, and Ronda and to work with Rob Jackson and others in Principal Gifts.

I also look forward to rejoining Penn State’s Division of Development and Alumni Relations. If you are looking for a new opportunity this is a high-performing organization and State College is a wonderful place to live.

In preparation for this shift I’ve been reading The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter by Michael D. Watkins. Watkins provide sage wisdom in this updated version such as:

  1. Make a mental break from the past. I took several weeks off between positions and, as a result, feel refreshed and ready to move forward.
  2. Don’t assume that what has worked in the past will work again. I would add, do not say “when I was with XYZ organization we did it this way and it worked.” I have learned from making moves over the years and from consulting that one size fits all solutions do not exist in fundraising. What’s more, saying this is off-putting to those who have skill and knowledge gained in the organization that you are joining.
  3. Prepare to listen and learn. As suggested in item two, the experts about the organization are those around and above you. Take time to hear them and to gain knowledge about what is done, by whom, how, when, and most importantly why. I would add learn not just the to-dos but about the culture.

There is much more but the final key point is to have a plan, a thoughtful plan, one that you map out. Watkins offers a number of charts and graphs to help you begin to formulate a plan. My only wish is that the book included an online or a paper workbook where I could work in a larger and easier format.

I hope to continue to find time to write and to connect not because I believe that I have some great wisdom to share. Rather I write because it has enabled me to raise a topic, ask a question, and to learn from all of you who read these missives. Here’s my question for this week:

If you recently made or have made a transition what helped you the most during the first 90 days?

I look forward to hearing from you because we can all learn from one another. You can respond on my website or on LinkedIn. 

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Fundraising 2020: Legacy Giving in a Word(le)?

Posted on  January 8, 2020
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Last week I wrote about being prepared to pivot in 2020. One of the items I didn’t focus on is how we communicate and the changes that have transpired over the years.

What I’ve observed, which may be an outcome of cell phone use and texting, is an increasing move to abbreviated communications. Numerous organizations now use acronyms or initials rather than full names. The donors and prospective donors with whom we communicate are assailed by messages so we feel compelled to keep our missives brief.

What’s a nonprofit to do when you want to pivot and use communication that will have an impact but is clear and concise? Consider the Wordle.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term a wordle is a sort of word cloud. You have most likely seen a wordle. They look like a creation by modern era painter Jackson Pollock. It is as though Pollock pulled back his paintbrush, flicked it at the canvas, and splattered words in an interesting pattern.

The words are oriented in different directions but at the same time are all generally readable. They also tend to be varying sizes and sometimes shapes and the colors vary as well, making the visual more interesting.

It’s pretty easy to create a wordle or word cloud, you can take an existing list and copy it into a platform, click a button and there you have it, a wordle. Sound easy, doesn’t it?

That would be the case if it were easy to choose the words to include in the Wordle. One needs to consider who will help to choose the words to include. Will you use only those terms which are common internally or use donor-centric language?

Consider the language used around legacy giving, e.g. planned giving, estate gift, etc. Dr. Russell James who teaches at Texas Tech has been at the forefront of providing actionable information about the language that resonates with donors (Spoiler Alert: Planned giving is not a term that resonates!). You will find actionable information from Dr. James on the MarketSmart website.

In 2018 Legacy Voice, in collaboration with faculty from the University of Plymouth (including Dr. Adrian Sargeant), issued Everything Research Can Tell Us About Legacy Giving in 2018. That report also speaks to wording that donors might want to hear. If your 2020 includes a focus on planned giving I highly recommend both of these resources to you.

Note: Wordles may not work well with the eldest of your prospective donors. Be sure to consider the font size, type, color, and organization of the words. Word clouds may be a better tool to use with prospective donors that are in their 50s and 60s (and yes, I would be marketing to 50 and 60 year-olds particularly if they do not have children).

If you were going to create a wordle designed to invite a donor to consider a legacy gift what words would you include?

To which professionals do you turn for advice about planned giving marketing?

I look forward to hearing from you because we can all learn from one another.

Sophie Penney is the President of i5 Fundraising.

 
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Fundraising 2020: Prepare to Pivot

Posted on  January 2, 2020
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Happy New Year!? That’s a declaration because I hope that you will have a Happy New Year. It’s also a question — “Will it be a good year?” You and I won’t be able to answer until the ball drops in 2021.

Before I talk about pivoting please know that I support focusing on fundamentals of fundraising. I’ve been teaching known best practices for the past five years and employ them in my consulting work. I called my firm i5 Fundraising because we sometimes make fundraising too complicated. By focusing the I’s

Identify, Inform, Involve, Invest, and Impact

nonprofits can rise above the noise that can distract even the best fundraiser. That noise might present itself in the form of a new tool or in an unproven new practice.

While I believe in staying focused I also know from experience that we all need to be prepared to pivot. Times change and people, yes that means your donors, change – see my articles about:

AI and Fundraising: Is a Bot Coming to Take My Job?

So Many Generations: So Little Time

Tools and techniques that we thought were proven no longer work or never really did. I highly recommend following The Agitator, Adrian Sargeant, Jen Shang, the folks at Bloomerang, Michael Rosen, and Penelope Burk’s Blog — all offer insight based on data or research.

And please, please pivot when it comes to diversity. The cities, states, and countries and the world in which we live are all becoming far more diverse than the population of your own community might suggest.

Want to know more about diversity and about new perspectives? Follow people like Angelique Grant and Kathleen Loehr from Aspen Leadership Group, Ikhlaq Hussain from Orphans in Need, Taylor Shanklin from Pursuant, Armando Zumaya, Kishshana Palmer, and Louis Dietz. You are also welcome to contact me to request a copy of my PowerPoint about Diversity in Fundraising.

I’ll leave you with a couple of examples of pivoting.

  1. Pivot when a planned program, project, or form of fundraising falters.

This article about immunization events being shut down due to planned protests is a brilliant example of a nonprofit pivoting. If you read beyond the early portions you will see that the organization turned lemons into lemonade by moving from public, in-person events to a social media campaign to raise funds to provide vaccinations. The campaign is enabling this organization to reach even more people than originally imagined.

[I humbly ask that that you please not assail me with messages about vaccination programs. I’m not sharing this to be pro or con, simply as an example of a nonprofit fundraising pivot].

What’s the lesson? The lesson is not to replace all of your events with a social media campaign. Rather, the wise fundraiser prepares him, her, or themselves to lead through change.  

  1. Pivoting from “annual” and event fundraising to major and planned giving.

This is a type of pivot that I have recommended to several clients after completing a development audit. Jim Langley from Langley Innovations recently described annual giving as the two deadliest words in fundraising; I’ll leave you to read that brief but marvelous missive.

Event fundraising falls not far behind given the massive amount of time and effort which is often uncounted against dollars-raised. I have suggested to clients to audit the number of people and time spent on a fundraising gala or golf tournament then ask — was the $10,000 or $25,000 worth it. More important, could that time have been better spent focusing on major gift fundraising? One client said yes and is in the early stages of reaching out to individual donors and is successfully garnering larger gifts that alone could almost replace the income raised from an event.

What’s the lesson? Consider the true ROI (return in investment) of a specific fundraising activity.

  1. A personal Pivot

I will be pivoting myself in 2020. I will be joining a talented team of five serving as the next Director of Foundation Relations for Penn State.

I am grateful for all that transpired in 2019. I am looking forward to practicing what I’ve been preaching about leading through change. I will continue to write and consult though on a far more limited basis. Thanks for reading and best wishes to you for a happy and healthy New Year!

Sophie Penney is the founder and President of i5 Fundraising and has been selected to be the next Director of Foundation Relations for Penn State University  

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Fundraising and legacy: This one is personal

Posted on  December 17, 2019
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I published this piece a year ago on my mother’s birthday which is in December. She’s been gone for almost 20 years now but her legacy lives on in the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren that are part of her family line.

I am reposting this article about legacy because she is the perfect example of the phrase we use in our work: anyone can leave a legacy. As a first-generation American who lived through the Depression mom didn’t have much, yet what she did have she shared.

She gave in simple ways, in the church collection plate and by leaving food on the porch for people passing through the community who had no home. Those may seem small contributions but like the story of the starfish being thrown into the ocean one at a time, her gifts made a difference for each hungry person who came by or stayed in our house.

As I have aged I have come to realize that it was my mother’s example that led me to become a giver. In some ways, it was also she who led me to become a fundraiser. I certainly didn’t seek to raise funds because the idea of picking pockets, being a beggar or asking people for money appealed to me.

I do what I do because, like my mom, I believe that giving is about changing and saving lives (sometimes of the donor as much as the recipient).

I have been honored to serve organizations such as Penn State, Foxdale Village, Centre Safe, Centre Care and other nonprofits as a staff member or consultant. That work has enabled me to plan and implement capital campaigns, coach and train executive directors and board members, and assess fundraising performance. I have also helped people to determine what their legacies will be and have been fortunate to teach some members of the next generation of fundraising leaders.

Mother, I didn’t do a very good job of honoring you during your lifetime. Today I honor your legacy through my words and work.

I didn’t say it when you were alive, thank you mother. Thank you for giving me life and for being the role model that you were, you may be gone, but your legacy lives on.

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