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Coach Dave

Tips for Crowdfunding Ambassadors

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Congratulations on being recruited as a crowdfunding ambassador.  You are about to embark on a journey that, on one hand, can be thankless and tedious, but on the other, can be endlessly rewarding. In order to make your time as a Crowdfunding Ambassador the worthwhile experience that it should be, here are a few things to remember:

Embrace it!

First and foremost, a crowdfunding campaign is an opportunity for you to sing your organization’s praises from the rooftops. Are you proud of your organization’s mission, vision and accomplishments? Do you believe in the importance and significance of its work? Well here’s your chance to brag on your connection to the organization. Embrace it in the same way that other social media maestros embrace the chance to share pictures of their children, pets, dinners, and vacations.

Ask not what your campaign can do for you, but what you can do for your campaign.

Social media is a great vehicle for reaching large groups of people quickly. But YOU have to do the work. Simply posting on your page isn’t enough to guarantee that people will see your campaign, read it, or follow the call to action.  That’s where you come in. Use personal emails, private messages, tags, phone calls or even text messages, to make sure that the campaign gets the attention that it needs and deserves.

Let the campaign do the ask.

Your Campaign Coordinator has already crafted powerful messaging for the campaign. The theme and stories are compelling, the content is rock solid, the case for support is air tight, and the call to action is crystal clear. Your job as an Ambassador is not to restate the campaign language, but to “make sure that you read this, in the hopes that you will make a donation and help us spread the word.”

Make a list and check it twice…

When creating your list, start with everyone in your rolodex. Scratch off the people who, for some reason or other, should not receive your campaign (say, for professional, conflict of interest reasons). Next, highlight those contacts who: (1) you think will give; (2) are active on social media, and/or (3) have strong connections to an audience of potential donors.  These are the people to prioritize for direct outreach. Be sure to note the method(s) that you will use to reach them (email, phone call, Facebook, etc.) As for the rest of the names on your list, you can get to them with direct outreach if you have time, but they should still be included in the campaign even if you don’t.

…and find out who’s naughty or nice.

With the help of your Campaign Coordinator, who will keep you apprised of donations, click-throughs, unsubscribes, and other metrics, you will track the responses of your contacts throughout the campaign and follow up according to how “naughty” or “nice” they have been.

Give and get.

As in, give time and get results. Depending on the size of your list, it could take from 30 minutes to several hours to do your outreach, and you’ll need to do it every week for the duration of the campaign. Don’t leave productivity to chance, boredom, or lulls in your busy schedule. Designate a specific time for outreach; preferably one that is coordinated with the campaign schedule. For example, if the e-blasts/posts are going out on Tuesday, your follow up should be completed by the end of the week.

Give thanks.

It is your responsibility to directly and personally thank all of your donors within one week of their contribution to the campaign. The thank you can come in the form of an email, handwritten note, phone call, or text message, but a public “thank you” can help to promote the campaign.  So, if possible and appropriate, acknowledge your donors in a tag/post on social media.

Don’t worry, be happy. 

There’s no losing in a properly executed campaign. You get to reach out to people who you maybe haven’t heard from in a while to send well wishes, check in, or just say hi. If you and the rest of the team is doing your job, awareness of the organization and its cause will certainly be raised. As for the monetary goal, don’t fret – it’s the Campaign Coordinator’s job to worry about that.  Focus on the process, and the results will take care of themselves.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Grant Writing

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  1. Lust

In one of the many great songs by Sting there’s a line that goes, “And though my kingdom turns to sand and falls into the sea, I’m mad about you, I’m mad about you.”  This is how some fundraisers feel about grants. You know who you are. You want them. You need them. You must have them, even at the cost of the entire kingdom.

Maybe you covet grants so much because they’re so rare, making up only 10-15% of all charitable giving.  It’s true that grants are attractive and desirable and worthy of your attention, but let’s not get crazy. Give grant seeking the effort that it’s due, but don’t make it the end-all, be-all in your development plan.

  1. Gluttony

Keeping with the theme of perspective and realistic expectations, don’t ask for more funding than you can handle.  A $500,000 organization shouldn’t ask for a $250,000 grant from a foundation with an average gift size of $50,000.  A startup with a zero budget probably shouldn’t be asking for funding to launch satellite offices in five cities. As is the case in many other types of sales, an over-ask in a funding request is a surefire way of getting your proposal in the “no” pile.

  1. Greed

Put the fork down and step away from the buffet platter.  You’re not going to be able to eat it all, and even if you could, it would just kill you. No matter what, you will probably waste a whole lot of it.  I mean, look at what’s on your plate already!

There’s no need to go after every single funding opportunity that you come across.  Find the ones that are the best match for your organization and create a grants pipeline that is productive based on your capacity.  (In other words, don’t overwork your poor, bedraggled grant writer!)

  1. Sloth

It’s obvious to a proposal reader when the copy has been pulled from elsewhere.  So don’t be lazy. If you’re going to take the time to submit the proposal, make it your best work. Do less cutting-and-pasting and more personalized writing.  Take the time to think about the questions before you answer them.  And don’t procrastinate until the deadline is looming, when you’re bound to do your sloppiest work.

  1. Wrath

Don’t hold a grudge against funders who decline you.  They’re not going anywhere, and neither are you.  You’re going to have to go back to them and chances are, in your travels you may even have an opportunity to meet a program officer or director. You don’t want your negative feelings to reflexively show themselves at a cocktail party.

Also, don’t kill the messenger.  Oftentimes, it’s not the grant writer’s fault that the proposal was declined. Don’t be so quick to put your development officer’s head in the guillotine.

  1. Envy

Never talk poorly of the grantees of an organization that you’re approaching for funding.  It’s not becoming, and it creates the kind of negative jus that can hinder your ability to build strong relationships.  Don’t hate!

Instead, try to figure out what the funded organization has that yours doesn’t.  By ignoring the green-eyed monster and gathering intelligence instead, you may gain information that could result in you closing the competitive gap.

  1. Pride

There’s a thin line between confidence and pride.  Thin, but clear – mainly, confidence is based on evidence, and pride is based on ego.  Don’t let ego cloud your organization’s case for support.

Avoid hyperbole in your proposals, and eliminate the use of superlatives that aren’t quantified (“We are the absolute best dance company in the universe!”).  Being too boastful is more likely to elicit skepticism than approval. If you’re really the best at what you do, then let the data, track record and testimonials do the talking for you.

Shake off that gala hangover and get back to work!

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If you’re on the staff or board of one of the 27,000 nonprofits in New York City, chances are good that you’re either having a gala this spring or planning one for the fall.  My condolences.

DISCLAIMER: If you’re just getting to know me, then you just found out that I consider event planning an occupational hazard. Whether it’s a wedding (there were 200 people at mine), a sweet sixteen (over 100 at my daughter’s), or a fundraising event (been to five in the past month), events are steeped in details that just drive me bananas.  No, I don’t care about the decor, the menu, centerpieces, or the runners on the tables.  Just tell me when to show up, what to wear, and what time I can go home.

But alas, galas are ubiquitous and very, very necessary for the bottom line of many organizations.

I heard a wise board member once say “I want our gala to be a social success and a financial success.” Sadly, I’ve also seen development officers, CEOs and event planners apologize for anemic fundraising results by calling the event a “friendraiser” and promising donations yet to come through “follow up” and “ongoing cultivation.”  It’s true that event follow up is an excellent the opportunity to cross-sell and/or upgrade gala donors, but in far too many cases it doesn’t happen. Here are some tips on how to make sure it does:

  1. Thank them immediately.  Process and formally acknowledge your gala gifts within three days of the event. Informally thank donors again on their social media pages – for example, tag them in the pictures you post on your social media sites.
  2. Prospect your list of attendees.  Take a good look at who was in the room, and conduct research/wealth profiles to find out their giving capacity and philanthropic values.  In other words, look for the big fish.
  3. Go on a cultivation tour. Any attendee who made a major gift to the gala should have the opportunity to meet with the CEO or a key board member.  This is an opportunity to start building a relationship with the donor by asking them questions about their giving aspirations.
  4. Stay connected.  Every organization should have a standard for how many touch points should be made with donors that DO NOT include an ask. Add them to your email list and “friend/follow” them on social media so they can stay up to date with the work of the organization in a non-intrusive way.
  5. Don’t let them forget.  Six months after the gala hangover has worn off, make sure to remind them what a good time they had and rekindle the good feelings and spirit of generosity that made your gala so special.  Post a photo/or video with a programmatic highlight to remind them of the work that their gift made possible. And make sure you tag them in the photo, so all of their friends know what a boss philanthropist they are.
  6. Look for deeper engagement. Through your ongoing stewardship efforts, you should have identified donors who are ready to step it up a notch.  Ask them to volunteer on your event committee, provide more names to add to your invitation list, join the inner circle of the annual fund campaign, or directly support specific programs or initiatives of the organization.
  7. Start planning next year’s gala. A gala is a non-stop, year round extravaganza. So get out of bed, nix that comp day and get started. Next year’s gala starts today!

If you’re connected to one of the 27,000 nonprofits  in New York City and you need help in maximizing on your gala fundraising, I strongly recommend and endorse Stetwin Consulting for your event planning needs. Having worked with them on several events in the past, I can attest that they go above and beyond the event planning minutiae and focus on fundraising results.  Happy fundraising!

Work Avoidance (and How to Avoid It)

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Ever been in a meeting and wonder why you’re there? Chances are, you’re there because someone doesn’t want to work.  The average meeting is an excellent way to pass the time without getting anything done, which, sadly, is exactly what some people want to accomplish. And now, the conference call has taken unproductive meetings to new heights, providing slackers with the opportunity to mute their phones and surf their social networking sites with impunity.

At today’s Results-Based Facilitation Workshop, sponsored by the Staten Island Foundation, not only did we learn proven strategies for facilitating productive meetings that move teams from talk to action, but also how to be a good meeting participant.  It all starts with defining the purpose of the meeting, being clear about the roles of the participants, and staying within the boundaries of authority with respect to your role.

First, when planning the meting agenda, think about what you want to accomplish. When the meeting is adjourned, how will things be different? Is the purpose simply to inform or update people or get the to make action commitments? Are you trying to capture input for future decision-making, or will decisions be made in the meeting to inform a way forward? Will the team gain knowledge to improve their productivity and become more unified? Having a clearly articulated, intended result is an imperative for a productive meeting.  Likewise, each activity/item on the agenda should also have an intended result.

Just a reminder, folks: we’re supposed to be discussing the pros and cons of bringing in an outside consultant and coming to a decision on whether that’s the best course.  We’ve all had a choice to weigh in on this and we need to move on to the next agenda item, so I suggest we…(insert action commitment here – it could be taking a vote or deferring to the decider, but it’s a way out of the circular debate of the options and considerations.)

That said, don’t be married to your agenda. With the meeting’s purpose and intended result in mind, be flexible.  As our facilitator told us, “results are the promise, the agenda is the possibility.”  An agenda is a means towards achieving the meeting’s intended result, so if it’s not going well it’s better to switch it up than stick with something that’s not going to get you where you want to be.

Everyone has a role in the meeting (facilitator, attendee, moderator, observer, evaluator, consultant). Knowing your role, and sticking to it, is crucial to making that 60 minutes meaningful.  For example, it is important for a facilitator to maintain neutrality.  Rather than putting forth their own ideas, or making value judgments about the ideas of others, the facilitator’s role is to source input from the group – good, bad, or indifferent.  Active listening is critical to any meeting role, as is putting personal biases and motivations aside. We’ve all sat in on meetings with the Interruptor, the Talk-a-Lotty, the Idea Bully, and the Rambler.  These folks provide us with painful examples of what happens when meeting participants step outside of their roles, exceed the boundaries of their authority, and/or put their own agenda ahead of the intended result of the meeting.

I know that you have some strong views and really good ideas on what this program should ultimately look like, but right now we’re trying to decide on the overall structure of this partnership.  It’s very likely that the structure will include a working group whose task will be to design and develop the program, and  you will certainly play a big part in that. But for now, let’s focus on establishing agreed upon roles, responsibilities, lines of communication and accountability that will make the partnership a success.

It can be difficult to stop a rogue participant from derailing a meeting (and demoralizing everyone else in the room).  Our facilitator gave us a simple but powerful reminder to share with your colleagues that can help to keep your meetings on track:

“Brevity is a leadership skill.”

For more on results-based facilitation, take a look at this super-fantastic workbook by Jolie Bain Pillsbury, Ph.D.

The Secret History of Staten Island

To most people, Staten Island is only known for a handful of things:

The Ferry

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Wu-Tang Clan

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The Landfill

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Big Ang (Rest in Peace!)

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Well I’m here to tell you, there’s plenty more to know about forgotten borough.  For example, did you know that said landfill, once the largest garbage dump in the world, is in the process of being renovated into a 2,200 acre park? (RIP, landfill!) Or that Staten Island was a staging area for the departure of British troops returning to England after the Revolutionary War? Or that on September 11, 1776, a delegation led by Benjamin Franklin row boated to Staten Island from Jersey to negotiate an end to the war with King George’s emissary? (Needless to say, they couldn’t come to an accord.)  The house where that meeting took place is still standing, and is now a museum known as The Conference House.

Staten Island also has interesting ties to the Civil War. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who led the all-Black Massachusetts 54th Infantry into battle and was subsequently immortalized by Matthew Broderick in the Oscar-winning epic “Glory,” was a Staten Islander.  Before the war started, he lived with his family right around the corner from where I live now in Livingston, a community of prominent abolitionists.

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Just few days prior to Colonel Shaw’s heroic death on July 18, 1863 at the battle at Fort Wagner, there was mass terror back home in Staten Island and around New York City. In what came to be known as the Draft Riots, an estimated 120 people were killed during a four-day period from July 11th to 15th, when protests against draft requirements, which unfairly targeted immigrants and poor people, escalated into violence and outright attacks and lynchings of Blacks, abolitionists and Union sympathizers.    (Some death toll estimates are in the thousands).  Many Black and Abolitionist residents of Staten Island were forced to flee to New Jersey or fortify their homes to protect their community from angry mobs.  This fascinating and chilling history can be found in the archives at the Staten Island Museum.

Staten Island is also the location of the oldest, continuously inhabited free black settlement in the country. Sandy Ground, established in 1833, provided safe haven for freedmen from Maryland and other parts,who came to earn their living in the booming oyster industry.  The history of Sandy Ground was captured in the Sandy Ground Historical Society‘s quilting program, “Faces of the Underground Railroad” which provides profiles of some of Sandy Ground’s earliest settlers. The quilts are on display in a library exhibition at St. John’s University’s Staten Island Campus.

Sports? Football: Did you know that Staten Island was once home to an NFL franchise? The Staten Island Stapes, who played in (surprise!) the Stapleton section of the borough,compiled a tepid 14-22-9 record in four seasons from 1929 to 1932.  The Stapes also fielded the smallest player in NFL history, Jack “Soapy” Shapiro, a five-foot tall blocking back who played in one game for the franchise.  Baseball: Bobby Thompson, the New York Giant outfielder who hit the “Shot Heard Around the World” in 1951, rode the ferry back to his Staten Island home after his historic home run. Mary Outerbridge (for whom the Outerbridge Crossing is named) brought tennis to the U.S. by way of Staten Island, which is also home to the nation’s oldest cricket club.  This and more little-known sports history of the borough is being featured in an exhibition called “Home Games,” a collaboration between the Staten Island Museum and the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame.

I’m pretty certain that you’re aware that Staten Island is surrounded by water. But how much do you know about the Island’s rich maritime history, such as the story of Katherine Walker, one of the earliest known female lighthouse keepers? The Noble Maritime Collection, located on the campus of Snug Harbor Cultural Center (nee Sailor’s Snug Harbor),  captures her story and chronicles the fascinating evolution of the shipping industry in New York Harbor through visual art and interactive classes.  Trust me, it’s a lot more interesting than you might think.

And the same can be said for my hometown.

What the 990 is telling your funders

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Happy Tax Day!

The IRS 990 Form is one of those things that just has to get done because…well, because it has to. The harsh reality is that, other than enforcing the filing requirement, the IRS doesn’t have the capacity to do much with all of the information that they require you to provide. Funders, on the other hand, consistently use the 990 to get a picture of an organization’s capacity and financial health.

  • The number that funders are most inclined to hone in on is Liquid Unrestricted Net Assets, better known as LUNA, for some crazy reason (Get it? See what I did there?). Funders want to know what your reserves look like, how much cash you have on hand (if any). They care less about your overall assets, which might include a building or some other instrument that can’t be quickly converted to working capital.  What they want to know is, how long can your organization survive at its current burn rate?
  • The year-to-year comparisons on the 990 are useful to funders in identifying trends, growth or contraction. They look for seismic shifts in your revenue streams, spikes in expenses, or other indicators of a financial sea change.
  • The 990 is also used to examine the overhead question (everyone’s favorite topic, I know). How much money is the organization spending on program, versus management and fundraising?  There isn’t any set standard – private funders have their own, which can  range from 75/25 and up.  The BBB suggests that 65/35 is a healthy number. And government tends to restrict expenditures on overhead to 10%, unless you go through the exhaustive process of applying for a indirect cost rate. The main thing to consider when it comes to overhead is that you need to be aware of your organization’s rate and be able to give it context – a rationale, justification or explanation. You should also be able to explain major changes in your overhead rate over time.

So before you blast out that 990 and publish it on your website, make sure you’ve thoroughly examined it yourself – and prepare yourself with talking points to address the questions of your funders.

 

Collective Impact: Shiny New Object or Real Solution?

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Some people in the field are drinking the Collective Impact Kool-Aid like water in an oasis. Others are bristling at the thought of adding this big, hairy, complex additional thing to their already overfull plates. Who is right?

This post isn’t meant to define collective impact in any great detail, nor sway opinion in one direction or the other. If you want to know what it is, check out this primer by FSG, a mission-driven consulting firm that is at the forefront of the collective impact movement nationally. My purpose, in 300 words (or so), is to try to synthesize all of the information and insights I’ve gleaned from the myriad of meetings, readings and workshops on Collective Impact that I’ve taken in over the past several months (most recently, at today’s SINC: 2016 Conference). But don’t expect a firm answer to the title question. I can only express amazement at how polarizing Collective Impact has become in such a relatively short time on the block.

Funders and philanthropic pundits laud Collective Impact as The Way Things Should Be Done. They firmly believe that service providers should be working across sectors to address complex, entrenched problems. Services should be coordinated according to a common agenda. Organizations should communicate, partner and work towards a common result, informed by data and supported by a backbone organization that oversees fiscal management and data collection for the collaborative. All of these efforts should be aimed at reducing the negative statistics and/or increasing the positive ones, to achieve a population-level result.

Sounds great, right?

It does, until you ask the CEO who is in the process of completing an audit, preparing for a board meeting, and working frantically to meet a key proposal deadline while trying to fill a vacancy in the development department. Our poor, beleaguered CEOs are just too busy and distracted to add more meetings, more talking, more data collection, and more partnership strategies to the mix.

We can sympathize with them, right?

We can, unless (or until) it occurs to them that Collective Impact isn’t an additional thing to do; it’s a different way of approaching what they already do. And that’s the sticking point. Collective Impact requires systems-level change within all of the organizations that undertake it, and it therefore requires the organization’s leaders to change.

Collective Impact is messy and complicated. It takes time – years, decades – before you’ll ever achieve results. It requires relationships and partnerships that are “built at the speed of trust.” And it requires more funding than any one organization has, to achieve population-level results that no one organization can reach alone.

Sounds impossible, right?

And yet, it also minimizes isolation and allows service providers to better understand the larger context and environment that influences their work. When properly executed, Collective Impact increases efficiency and generates the kind of results that we all want.

Sounds like that’s what it’s really all about.

Right?

How Watertight is Your Fundraising?

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How do you know whether your organization is maximizing on its fundraising efforts?

The Leaky Bucket Assessment is a quick, informal tool that measures the level of maturity of nine basic practices that contribute to (or detract from) the fundraising team’s effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.  The Leaky Budget Assessment measures:

  • how organizations qualify, acquire, retain or upgrade funders
  • what metrics are being used to manage fundraising
  • what methods are used to improve undesirable results

The Leaky Bucket Assessment is free, takes 5 minutes, and you’ll get your CONFIDENTIAL results immediately. You’ll also receive a copy of your results by e-mail and the opportunity to schedule a free, 30-minute debrief from Leaky Bucket mastermind Ellen Bristol.

Click here to take the Leaky Bucket Assessment.

Why is Everyone so Afraid of Results?

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There’s no purpose to this work other than to achieve results. So why are we afraid of them? Ask a service provider about intended or expected results and chances are they’ll start talking sideways about how difficult and complex it is to define success and/or impact in a measurable way.

Yes, tracking results is difficult. Yes, generating results is complex. Yes, there are many factors that can get in the way of success. I say so what. If you’re doing  service work and you’re not willing to track results (or at least try), then you ought to be off somewhere else, doing something else.

If you’re working on a project to support young people in getting college degrees, you should be able to state, at any given moment, exactly how many young people you’ve helped to get into college – over the past week, month, quarter, and year. You should be able to state how many are still in college, how many have dropped out, and what those who did are doing right now. That’s a result-based approach.

If you run a jobs program, how many people have you helped to get jobs? If you run an early education program, how many children are reading on level by third grade? If you run a drug abuse prevention/intervention program, how many people have you helped to rehabilitate? If you’re a basketball coach, is your team scoring more points than the other? If you don’t know, then you can’t possibly know whether your program is working.

There’s no downside to developing a results statement that’s responsive to the organization’s mission and activities. The worst that can happen if you miss your mark is that you learn things about your process that will allow you to make course corrections and generate better results in the future.

So pick a number and then go after it. Monitor it closely, every day if you have to. Post the number on the wall and update it daily, weekly, monthly. Get your team to buy into the idea that the number matters more than anything else.  Because it does. Convince them that the number is the main reason why they do the work.  Because it is. If they disagree, then they should be off somewhere else, doing something else.

Click here to learn more about Results-Based Accountability.  Or visit the websites of the Staten Island Foundation to download a useful tip sheet on writing powerful results statements.

 

 

 

Three Questions to Ask a Prospective Donor

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People talk too much.  Especially fundraisers.

Fundraisers spend way too much time spouting their elevator pitch, talking about their needs, making “asks” from the podium at the gala, regurgitating the major goals of the organization’s strategic plan. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Here’s a little secret: most donors don’t care much about any of that stuff.  What do they care about?  If you really want to know, why not just ask?

No one wants to go on a date with someone who only talks about him/herself. I do this, I did that. I want this, I need that. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Stop having me-me-meetings with potential donors and instead, try asking these three questions:

  • The Success Question: “What do you want to achieve?”
  • The Frustration Question: “What do you want to avoid?”
  • The “Right-Charity” Question: “What helps you decide which charities to support?”

Ask these and other open-ended questions and you’ll find yourself in a conversation that’s (surprise!) about them, and not you. In this way, you’ll learn what’s important to them and what they’re looking for.  You’ll start to figure out if they’re the right fit for you and if so, what kind of time and effort it will take to convert them to a donor.  You may even learn things that will help you in your cultivation of other donors.

So the next time you find yourself in front of a prospective donor, shut up! Unless you’re asking a question.

For more tips on establishing donor trust, visit the resource library on the Bristol Strategy Group website.