SOFII's Blog

What can fundraisers learn from Steve Jobs?

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:57:00 +0000

By Lucy Gower.

In the 56 years he was on the planet Steve Jobs made a difference to the world. He changed the way we think about technology, from the first ever Macintosh personal computer to the development of tablet computing with the iPad. He changed the landscape of the music industry with iTunes and the iPod and led the development of smartphone technology with the iPhone. So given that making a difference is a fundamental of fundraising, I’ve picked out some of Steve Jobs attributes that I think you can apply to make a difference to yours.

Focus

Steve said, ‘Focusis saying no to a thousand things.’ Your efforts should focus on the activities where you will make the most difference. So perfect the art of gracious and firm rejection because saying no to the activities that won’t help you achieve your targets is as important as saying yes to the ones that will.

Passion

Steve did what he loved. He believed that the only way you do great work is if you love what you do. As a fundraiser you have to be passionate about your cause. Sometimes, after a rejection letter from a funder, a difficult conversation with a volunteer, or a pitch that fell flat it can be easy to lose sight of why you do the job you do. So you need to build up a personal collection of inspiration to remind yourself why you are here. Make time to visit or call your beneficiaries and see the difference you are making. Collect stories and write them down, share them at team meetings, refer back to them, keep those special thank-you letters somewhere close. It’s as important for you to know that you are making a difference as it is for your donors. And if you can’t get passionate about what you are doing you are in the wrong job.

Make connections

In his 2005 commencement speech Steve talks about joining dots, or making connections. He tells a story about how dropping out of college gave him the opportunity to drop into classes he was interested in; the courses he was passionate about. He joined a calligraphy class. At that point in his life calligraphy had absolutely no practical application for Steve, it was only 10 years later when designing the first Macintosh it came back to him. Personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do today if he hadn’t been captivated by that calligraphy class.

Steve said, ‘Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, and poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.’

You can only join the dots looking back. So it’s important that you deliberately make connections now, as the more experiences you have, the more you will be able to combine to bring new perspectives to your fundraising.

Perfection

Steve was a perfectionist. I don’t think it’s possible to be perfect in every area of your work, so focus on the things you do well and then be the very best at them. Play to your strengths. Aim to do at least one thing better than anyone else, for example, thanking donors, running events, or developing volunteers. Tweak other organisations imperfections to make them perfect for you, Steve did.

Prototype

Despite Steve’s quest for perfection, Apple release versions of non-perfect products that they test with their customers and are then quick to make changes and improvements based on customer experience. How many of your projects fail to get off the ground because you are waiting for perfection? Life isn’t perfect and neither are we, so expecting that a new product or service will be perfect the first time makes no sense. Test on a small scale, learn and make changes. Aspire to perfection and value your journey to get there.

Failure

He got fired from the company that he started. That’s pretty rubbish by anyone’s standards and it was very public. But he bounced back, started two companies, Pixar and NeXT, which somewhat ironically were bought by Apple and facilitated Steve’s return. So he failed. But more importantly he had determination, resilience and some may say arrogance to brush himself off and get back in the game. Your fundraising may not always work out first time round, even some of the biggest successes took years to get off the ground. Macmillan Coffee Morning started in 1990 and took years to establish. The key is being brave enough to try something new and to accept failing as important learning to drive your fundraising onto greater success.

Simplify

Apple product design is about simplicity. No product is any more complicated than it has to be. How often are you working on a project that seems over complicated? Keep projects simple, keep messages simple. Think about campaigns like Make Poverty History and the NSPCC’s Full Stop Campaign.

Tell more stories

Steve was a great storyteller; he used visuals and descriptive words to take people on a journey into the world of possibility. He didn’t describe the product, he painted a picture of the benefits, the iPod isn’t an MP3 player. It’s a thousand songs that fit in your pocket. That’s what you must do for your donors. How can you tell stories to help donors visualise the world of possibilities that they are helping to create?

Insight

‘If you ask people what they want, they will ask for a faster horse.’ OK so Henry Ford said that, but I think Steve would have said it first if he had been born in time. Steve disagreed with focus groups because he felt people would not have the ability or vision to know what they would want. Instead he looked to the future to what people didn’t know they wanted yet, and created the need. Did you know 10 years ago that you needed an iPod? No me neither – but turns out I did. How can you get real insight about what your donors want that will help you develop what they will want in the future?

Customer experience

Exceptional customer experience is a core element of Apple’s brand. Buying a product, either online or in store, is designed as an ‘experience’. Apple is a loved and trusted brand, with real brand loyalty. Would your donors queue at your office for your latest fundraising pack, like Apple customers queue up at Apple stores for the release of the next iPhone? How do you develop an equivalent donor experience and keep donors coming back for more?

Think differently

In a world in which we are bombarded with information, the only thing that sets you and your organisation apart from your competition is the ability to interpret that information in a different way from everyone else. Steve thought differently and, for me, this advert from 1997 sums it up.

So love him or hate him, the fact is in the short time he was here, Steve Jobs put a dent in the universe. He made a difference. And now it’s your turn.

Can we say the F word please?

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:13:00 +0000

By Lucy Gower.

Edison said, ‘I have not failed. I have found 10,000 ways that don’t work’.

And if Edison hadn’t kept discovering all those ways that didn’t work, it may never have led him to discover a way that did. The electric light bulb might not have been invented. Imagine how different life would be.

The point is that failure is part of life; it’s part of the process that enables us to discover new things and therefore it’s part of innovation. If something is genuinely new it’s likely to fail because no one has done it before. You cannot be innovative without failing. So get used to it. In fact I think deliberately failing should be part of any innovation programme.

Charities are especially afraid of taking risks. They are afraid of being seen to waste donors’ money. I would argue that if an organisation does not take risks and does not invest money in the development of great ideas for increasing the size and scale of its work, then it is not doing the very best it can for its donors, or its beneficiaries. I actually think that, in a competitive marketplace, unless you have something that makes you different from the competition it’s more risky to be the same as everyone else.

Because we don’t like to share failure it’s really hard to find examples of where things have gone wrong. Failures tend to get swept under the carpet and for every failure that isn’t shared a huge amount of learning is wasted.

One person who is bold enough to share failure is Richard Turner, former director of fundraising at ActionAid. He told me about ActionAid’s ‘What a Feeling’ campaign that failed earlier this year. He wanted to say what happened and what was learnt so that other organisations don’t repeat the same mistakes.

What a feeling

On blue Monday, the second Monday in January and officially the most depressing day of the year, ActionAid in the UK launched ‘What a Feeling’. Prompted by the high attrition rates of face-to-face recruitment, the aim of the campaign was to attract new supporters and get them really involved.

The idea came from meeting supporters. The team deliberately got a diverse group together to hear them talk about ActionAid. What stood out was the way they spoke about what they gained. This tallied with the anecdotal comments from supporters when meeting fundraisers; as a result of donating, fundraising, or campaigning for ActionAid, supporters would frequently describe their feelings. Therefore it was decided that this would be the basis of the campaign - real supporters sharing their real feelings to encourage other people like them to sign up to help ActionAid.

The campaign ran over two months and focused on London and the South East of the UK. It used a mix of media ranging from press, inserts, adverts on the London underground, radio, digital, social media and PR. The supporter care team was trained in social media specifically for the campaign.

Check out the What a Feeling video used below

click here to watch video

Despite the conviction of Richard and the fundraising team that they were onto something great, the campaign failed. ActionAid didn’t reach the targets for sign ups to new direct debits. They missed them by a mile. But there were some interesting results, for example a surge in website traffic and take up of people wishing to go on overseas challenges (called First Hand Experiences) at a time many charities have reported a decline. But this was not enough.

Why did What a Feeling campaign fail?

• More time should have been spent on understanding why attrition was increasing and the cost of acquisition was rising (i.e. the underlying causes not just acknowledging the symptoms).

• The general public simply didn’t believe that real people were talking about their feelings (they were).

• The campaign didn’t have a strong enough link to ActionAid’s work and the people it works alongside.

• Great conversations took place on the phone to follow up leads, but the campaign simply didn’t generate enough leads in the first place.

• There was internal pressure to deliver the campaign, as well as to bring in income in the short term. Financial measures were applied but in retrospect the campaign should have been measured for return on engagement rather than the traditional return on investment. It was more a relationship-building exercise than a way to raise more money.

• ActionAid started big, an initial smaller scale approach to inform and develop a larger campaign in the long term would have worked better.

• Because of quick timescales there was less buy in from stakeholders, both by senior staff and those responsible for delivering it.

What did you learn?

• It is crucial to spend time really understanding the challenge you are trying to solve, time spent at the beginning of a campaign will pay off hugely in the end.

• Minimise risk by testing and piloting on a small scale, make refinements before scaling up.

• Be clear on what you are trying to achieve, the What a Feeling campaign was about engagement but it had immediate financial measures. In hindsight, based on those measures, it was set up to fail.

• Build failure, refinements and changes into the development process.

• Get buy-in for your idea and spend time getting the right people on board.

• You need individual and organisational support to make ideas happen.

• The campaign could have been more strongly rooted in the cause and the people that ActionAid work with.

It really is all about engagement

Subsequently Richard did some reading on how marketing is changing which gave some more food for thought about the What a Feeling campaign. He says, ‘I now understand the full nature of the problem. I feel a bit like a doctor who having heard of the symptoms now knows the cause.’

Simply put, Richard had a revelation: the way people decide how to spend their money has changed. Shouting about your product and broadcasting about you is not what customers or donors want to hear. Think about it. Nowadays a lot of people shop online and before they buy they ask their networks or will do a search and, even then, most of them look at customer recommendations. This is why the days of traditional forms of broadcast marketing are in decline and the interactivity of social media networks is becoming increasingly important.

Why should giving to charity be any different? People want to know how what you do is relevant to them and how it will make them feel to be involved; and most importantly how it will help them to feel good. It’s now about connection and being recommended. Your brand, your reputation and what you stand for are more important than before. You have to live and breathe your brand values.

Your people are your brand. So ActionAid were onto something with What a Feeling.

The challenge now for ActionAid is to learn from What a Feeling and to develop the concept into a successful campaign. Often people and organisations want to forget about failure. That is risky. This is the biggest failure of all. Failure gives us all a springboard for success. What we need to do is carry on and even fail again.

I’d like to give a heartfelt round of applause to Richard for being so open about the failure of a campaign he was very much involved in. I hope that sharing his experience will help us all learn, as well as encourage us to be more open about failure in order that we can ultimately all fundraise more effectively for the causes that we are passionate about.

Does anyone else want to be brave and share his or her stories of failure to help prevent others from duplicating your mistakes?

You can follow Richard on Twitter @ifundraiser or his blog at http://ifundraiser.wordpress.com/?'

A checklist to help supercharge your fundraising appeals

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:22:00 +0000

By Damian O’Broin.

Checklists are great. They can make onerous tasks more manageable. And in a busy agency or fundraising department they can be a lifeline to ensure that work is done properly and to the highest standard.

So today I thought I’d share with you two of the checklists we use at Ask Direct to ensure that the campaigns we produce are as effective and compelling as possible.

If you use these 12 points to review the campaigns you produce, it will supercharge your fundraising appeals.

I’ll be honest, though. It can be very difficult to create appeals that tick all 12 of these boxes. We rarely manage to do it. But we’re always trying to get there.

I should also say that we didn’t invent these. We stole them from people who are far cleverer than we are.

The first checklist we stole from Patrick Renvoisé and Christophe Morin, who wrote a book called Neuromarketing (Thomas Nelson, Inc, USA, 2007). In it they argue that the part of brain responsible for action, what they call ‘the old brain’, only responds to six stimuli. And if you want to motivate people to take an action – such as giving money to your cause – you need to use these stimuli.

So here’s checklist no. 1, the Neuromarketing checklist.

1. Self-centred

The old brain only really cares about itself. So you need to make sure that your fundraising appeals are about the donor, not about your organisation. The donor should be the centre of the story, the hero of the piece. Your organisation is merely the trusty sidekick who helps her achieve whatever remarkable thing it is that you’re asking for her help with.

2. Contrast

Our old brains are finely attuned to contrast, difference and change. We notice the new. Does your appeal surprise? Is it unexpected? And does it move between the bad – whatever problem you’re trying to solve – and the good – the positive outcome you’re hoping for?

3. Tangible

The old brain isn’t good at abstract concepts. It likes things to be tangible and concrete. It doesn’t want to end poverty, but it would quite like to stop a child from going to school hungry. It doesn’t get environmental justice and sustainable development, but it would like clean drinking water and not to have an incinerator built next door.

4. Beginning and end

Our old brains pay most attention to what comes at the beginning and the end. The middle tends to be a bit of a mush. Think of your favourite novel. You can probably recall how it starts and how it ends, but I doubt you could relate in detail everything that happens in the 300 pages in between. So make sure the most important information is at the beginning and end of the appeal. And make sure there’s a good story to tie the rest of it all together.

5. Visual stimuli

Apparently the old brain doesn’t even understand words. So make sure you have strong visual stimuli to engage people and move them to action. Wherever possible use images of people, ideally looking straight at the camera.

6. Emotions

As they say in their book, ‘…researchers have demonstrated that [we] make decisions in an emotional manner and then justify them rationally.’ If you want people to take action, you have to engage with their emotions. Make sure your fundraising appeal packs an emotional punch. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t go out.

So that’s the first six. They’re the easy ones.

We also stole the next six. They come from Robert B Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (William Morris and Limited, Inc, USA 1993), who identified six ‘weapons of influence’. Here they are.

7. Reciprocation

Give something. Someone who receives a gift feels obligated to return the favour. This is why premiums – stickers, labels, pens – lift response. But this a lever of influence you need to use with care and prudence. You don’t want a sense of obligation to descend into resentment. Perhaps there are better things you can ‘give’ to your donor, such as special access, insider information – or even gratitude – that would cement and deepen the relationship and a shared sense of obligation to each other.

8. Commitment and consistency

Once people publicly commit to something, they tend to stay consistent with that commitment. I came across a great example of this recently at the Institute of Fundraising National Convention, when Craig Linton of the Greater London Fund for the Blind showed their donor pledge form. New donors area asked to sign a pledge (not compulsory) to ‘continue my regular gift for as long as I can afford it. I reckon these few words will really help to reduce their attrition rates.

9. Social proof

Social proof is hugely influential. We are surprisingly herd-like and will often take our lead from others. How can you demonstrate social proof in your appeals? One technique that has worked in telephone campaigns is to tell donors how much other people gave to the appeal. The donor is very likely to follow suit. Try to think of ways of showing the breadth of support for your cause. If people know other people ‘like them’ – people of the same gender, or from the same locality – support you, they’re more likely to do so themselves.

10. Liking

We prefer to say yes to people we like. So, is your organisation likeable? Do you seem human, genuine, friendly, caring? Do you demonstrate this with excellent donor care?

11. Authority

We are also remarkably easily swayed by authority. Do you come across as authoritative? Do you sound like you know what you’re talking about? Are you experts in your area? Interestingly, one way to convey this is by talking in detail and specifics, using concrete language. The more detail you provide, the more vivid your storytelling, the more likely it is that your donor will believe you. More on that here.

12. Scarcity

Scarcity and exclusivity are powerful motivators. But they can be hard to apply in general fundraising appeals – you often want as many people as possible to contribute. But you should always consider ways to employ scarcity. A J Leon, again at the Institute of Fundraising National Convention, had a great example where he limited the number of donors to a project to a hundred. And these 100 people got special access and benefits. It was a runaway success. You can watch it here

So there you have it: twelve things to aim for in your next fundraising appeal.

Measuring your fundraising effectiveness

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:15:00 +0000

By Kirsten Bullock

Have you ever told someone you were a fundraising professional and they said, ‘oh, you’re a professional beggar then’. It makes me cringe just to type those words. If you’ve been in the field for a while, you know that nothing could be further than the truth. Arm twisting, begging and other ways to manipulate a gift out of someone might work once, but it’s not a way to build long-term, sustainable relationships with those people who will join with you to accomplish your organisation’s goals.

At its best, fundraising is about building long-term partnerships on behalf of the organisation. At its worst, it’s about a transactional approach that results in a one-time gift. Unfortunately, too often it falls into the latter category. And too often, the only measurement we look at is how much money has come in. While that’s certainly a good indicator to track, it’s definitely not the only one that should be followed.

Now the Association of Fundraising Professionals in the USA (AFP) have introduced growth in giving (GiG) reports, based on results from their fundraising effectiveness project (FEP). Just in case you’re not familiar with the fundraising effectiveness project, here’s the summary from AFP’s website:

The goal of the fundraising effectiveness project (FEP) is to help grow philanthropy’s share of the GDP. It pursues this goal by providing nonprofits with tools for tracking and evaluating their annual growth in giving. Growth in giving is the net of gains in giving minus losses in giving. Nonprofits raise more money by investing more money in growth-oriented fundraising strategies that both increase gains and reduce losses. The FEP is focused on ‘effectiveness’ (maximising growth in giving) rather than ‘efficiency’ (minimising costs). It conducts an annual survey and publishes gain/loss statistics in a yearly report through a partnership between AFP, the Urban Institute and AFP’s donor software workgroup.

That definition seems a little wordy to me, so my understanding of the project is that it helps people better measure their fundraising success. It provides a format so that you can compare your year-over-year results and look at indicators for long-term success, rather than just money.

While putting together the report can be a little complicated, the numbers it measures are fairly easy to explain. Gathering the numbers usually requires a good donor management software programme. The good news is that the members of the AFP donor software workgroup (who are partners in this ongoing study) have said that they would build in a report to give you this information.

First, it looks at new donations that are coming in. This could be in the form of new donors, returning donors (those who had stopped giving previously) and donors who gave higher gifts than in the previous year.

Then it compares those numbers to areas of loss in donations. This includes donors who gave less this year than last year, those new donors who gave last year but not this year and those donors (who had given for two or more years) but did not give this year.

AFP, at www.afpnet.org/FEP, has provided tools to help you develop these charts for your organisation. They are available as a service to the community, so you are not required to be a member to access them. Here’s a direct link to the page that provides a template for the report.

All that is well and good, but the most important thing is what the information helps you to accomplish. First, it provides a format for a report you can take to your board to help them understand what the total amount raised means. Next, it can help you measure how you’re doing against other participants in the study. Third, it helps you identify those areas you’re struggling most in – and address them appropriately. And finally, my personal favourite, it will provide validation regarding where you’ve done well – and gives you a reason to celebrate.

The 2010 fundraising effectiveness survey report found that, from 2008 to 2009, respondents reported gains of 45 per cent in new funds coming in. Unfortunately, this was offset by losses of 61.1 per cent, resulting in an overall loss of 8.1 per cent in gifts. The report, in PDF format and available here provides a detailed breakdown (just in case you’re as addicted to data as I am).

Are there similar projects in your part of the world? I’d love to hear about them.

Making it real

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:43:00 +0000

by Lucy Gower

We know that people make decisions based on emotion. Great fundraisers deliberately seek ways to develop emotional connections between their donors and their cause. This is usually achieved in a number of ways, through storytelling, use of language, images and film.

If you need any evidence check out the story of the Explore the Bay campaign for Save the Bay that raised $11 million. Fundraising board members Joan Abrams and Kate Kilguss discovered that reconnecting people to their own relationship to the Bay was the key to inspiring them to give.

David Brooks, author of The Social Animal (Random House Inc, USA, 2011), wrote: ‘Reason is nestled upon emotion and dependent upon it. Emotion assigns value to things and reason can only make choices on the basis of those valuations.’

We also know that fundraising is hard. Fundraising is becoming increasingly competitive with thousands of ‘good causes’ trying to attract income from limited resources. Fundraising is a business discipline and, like any business, charitable organisations must be constantly innovating and developing new ideas to keep ahead of the competition. So, the more creative you are in finding ways to connect donors emotionally to your cause, the more successful your fundraising will be.

Storytelling, good use of language, images and film work fine, but is fine good enough? If you can get your donors to experience your cause in a physical way it will be even more powerful.

‘It’s never enough just to tell people about some new idea. Rather, you have to get them to experience it in a way that evokes power and possibility. Instead of pouring knowledge into people’s heads, you need to help them grind a new set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way.’

John Seely Brown, Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation (Harvard Business Review, USA, 1997).

You have to help people have an experience. There are many ways to do this. Below are some of examples to get you thinking.

Masaru Ibuka, Sony’s then honorary chairman liked carrying his bulky cassette player with him when he travelled. It was rather cumbersome so he instructed Sony engineers to make it smaller. At that time portable cassette players were predominately used by journalists to record interviews, no one understood why anyone would want a cassette player that played and didn’t record. When the Sony Walkman was launched in 1978, Sony employed actors to walk, cycle and, apparently, skateboard around Tokyo demonstrating the use of the Walkman in action. Journalists were taken to a park where they, on their very own Walkmans, could experience the quality sound and see other people using the device. They felt it. It was made real for them. The rest is history.

Chip and Dan Heath tell a compelling story in their latest book, Switch (Random House Inc, USA, 2011), Chip and Dan Heath tell a compelling story of a manufacturer wasting sums of money due to poor purchasing. An employee, desperate to make management understand the waste, hired a summer intern to investigate just one product and the prices that were paid for it. The intern gathered data on the prices paid for standard gloves that were used in all the factories. The result was 424 different gloves and where there were like for like gloves, the cost of these ranged from $5 to $17. At the next board meeting the 424 pairs of gloves were placed on the boardroom table with price tags on. The board members understood. It made the waste real for them in a way that a PowerPoint slide or a spreadsheet would not have done.

During World Water Week UNICEF in New York sold dirty water in dirty water vending machines. No one wanted to drink the dirty water but many made a donation. Watch the clip here to see some emotional responses. Every day, 4,100 children die of water-related diseases. Being asked to buy the dirty water that kills so many made it real for the passers-by.

Plan International pioneered child sponsorship 70 years ago and it remains a key part of their fundraising today. As a child sponsor with them and other sponsorship agencies, such as ActionAid, you can go and visit your child in his or her community and see the difference your donation has made. Sponsors can record and write about their experience. You can learn about The Bramelds trip to Ghana here. It certainly made it real for Lynne and Paul Brameld. It also helps make it real for other child sponsors like them.

Guide Dogs for the Blind hold a blindfold walk where participants are sponsored to walk blindfolded, with the help of a guide dog. I think there is so much more potential for this concept. It helps people understand the crucial role of a guide dog. It makes it real.

Hunger affects a billion people worldwide. WeFeedback asks you to think of your favourite meal and donate that value to help feed others. For example, steak and chips is calculated at $23 that, the steak and chip eater is informed, can feed 92 children. It makes it real.

Unseen tours are walking tours led by homeless guides. They offer a historical yet hitherto unexplored perspective of London, as perceived through the lens of homelessness. The tours include the guides’ own stories and experiences.

Making it real is about helping your donors physically experience your cause. It involves thinking just that bit harder about how to connect your donor emotionally. Whether you make a prototype, or gather real evidence, or play out the real situation, or compare daily lives of your donors and beneficiaries, the more you can do to make it real and emotional, the more connected your donors will be. In a competitive marketplace spending time making it real will make your donors more committed and your fundraising more successful.

If you liked making it real you may also be interested in:

Art of Woo, G Richard Shell and Mario Moussa (Capstone Publishing, UK, 2008).

Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki (The Penguin Group, UK, 2011).

Switch, Chip and Dan Heath (Random House Inc, USA, 2011).

The Social Animal, David Brooks (Random House Inc, USA, 2011).

Dabbling in fundraising won't get you there

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:21:00 +0000

By Christiana Stergiou

Organisations that take up fundraising in a casual, half-hearted or even superficial way, I call ‘dabblers’.

Definition of dabble: to take part in an activity in a superficial or casual way.

Recently, I've come across a number of dedicated people who care about their organisations but have no fundraising experience. They dabble. And that’s fine if you're a local sports club or community group with small funding needs, or you only need a couple of dozen donors, or $25k a year.

But dabbling in fundraising only gets you so far. If you require significant, strategic revenue for your work, dabbling in fundraising will not get you to where you want or need to be. In fact, it may even hinder you.

Nonprofit organisations that dabble in fundraising are usually doomed to a vicious cycle of fundraising ineffectively, never having enough money to get ahead and urgently needing to try and raise more. Eventually the organisation that dabbles gets to a point where they have to make serious decisions. I think that in such a situation there are two options. Fundraise properly. Or don't fundraise at all.

Why might you say no to fundraising?

· Fundraising is not easy. There is a perception held by many organisations that don’t raise money from the public, or that ‘dabble’, that fundraising is the easy solution. It is not.

· Fundraising is not free, nor is it very cheap. Effective fundraising costs money. It requires investment and often for the long term. It is not a quick fix. Normally, money that is invested now may not see any return for at least an entire year.

· Fundraising can be scary. Effective fundraising strategies and tactics often require some level of risk, something to which boards and senior managers are usually averse. This is more the case for those who have relied on government funding for years on end. Now a change is terribly frightening.

· Fundraising is not fair. If you don’t have a cause that appeals to the broad public, or perhaps to many people at all, you’ll find it even harder than most to fundraise. Although, that in itself is not a barrier to fundraising; even if you don't have a 'sexy' cause, you might find that you have supporters that care strongly about what you do.

Here are just some of the options I think you could choose ahead of fundraising.

· Get a loan from a benefactor or the bank. Have a business plan to pay it back.

· If you’re running social businesses that are meant to make a profit and fund your charitable works, then make sure they are making the profit they should. Don’t fundraise to prop up unprofitable business activities.

· Invest your money wisely and use the interest you achieve (sometimes doing this will show more of a return then spending the same money ‘dabbling’ in fundraising).

· Don’t fundraise from the public. Spend more time and effort on your government grants and philanthropic trusts and foundations – these are two of the largest sources of income for the nonprofit sector. Work on becoming a sustainable organisation beyond these sources of funding. There are experts out there who specialise in this type of fundraising alone. This is often the most beneficial investment for organisations already dependent on such income.

Dabbling in fundraising is not a plan. In Mal Warwick’s The Five Strategies for Fundraising Success – the best book that I have read about fundraising planning – he argues that there are only five fundraising strategies: growth, involvement, visibility, efficiency and stability (GIVES). You can’t have a fundraising plan that does it all. You really need to choose only one or two of these and focus on them.

For example, right now, a few of the nonprofits I work with have a growth + involvement strategy. That is, their primary strategy is growth (lots more donors, giving lots more money), and a secondary strategy of involvement (more people involved in their cause and mission). The aim is that within five years they may be able to achieve a stability-driven plan (that they will one day know where most of the money they need is coming from each year).

Another important concept that Mal covers in his book is that of opportunity cost. This is the money you would have made if only you'd done things right. Dabbling in fundraising can result in you spending time on the wrong things and things that won't lead to long-term sustainability. When considered carefully, opportunity cost may well drive you to outsource some areas of fundraising to established experts, such as those who specialise in grant funding or direct mail and concentrate your own efforts on 'only doing what only you can do'.

If you want to fundraise, don't dabble. Get serious about fundraising. Invest; plan for the long term. Plan for the day when your organisation knows, year after year, where most of your money will come from.

Now that would be a wonderful day.

How to raise monthly donors on Facebook – yes, Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Thu, 12 May 2011 07:05:00 +0000

By Pamela Grow

When I read Australian fundraiser Jonathon Grapsas’ March post about how one nonprofit had managed to raise over $100,000 in monthly gifts via Facebook I was intrigued and mildly incredulous.

I believe that social media is invaluable to nonprofit organisations, particularly the small nonprofits, but I confess that I always thought of it as an initial first step in an organisation’s marketing strategy. When it comes to actual donations, I’ve reflected back upon the numerous Facebook birthday-wish gifts I’ve made to various causes without receiving a thank you, let alone a follow up, from a single organisation.

So I arranged to phone Jonathon to talk to him about fundraising in general and, in particular, about the exceptional social media fundraising success of the Soi Dog Foundation and their $100,000 monthly gifts from Facebook users. (Jonathon is the brilliant head of fundraising innovation for Pareto Fundraising in Australia and publishes one of my favourite fundraising blogs.) Jonathon was kind enough to connect me with Leonard Coyne, the genius behind Soi Dog Foundation’s fundraising and Leonard quite generously agreed to be interviewed over the phone.

The Soi Dog Foundation works to help the homeless, neglected and abused dogs and cats of Thailand by reducing pain and suffering through humane population control. From February to November 2010 (a mere nine months) the Soi Dog Foundation saw a 350 per cent increase in monthly donors, attributed primarily to Facebook traffic. Pretty impressive, no?

What’s more, Leonard’s Facebook experiment for the Soi Dog Foundation resulted in increased audience engagement, a significant increase in one-off donations, supporter driven appeals and even five legacy gifts directly attributable to Facebook. Yes, five legacy gifts.

How did he do it?

As Leonard told me, ‘There’s a lot of noise about social media, but it’s a very ephemeral noise. Too many organisations start up a page or group but there is no discipline in taking it forward.

‘Although many organisations believe that they should establish a group instead of a page (or both) this is not the case. Although groups allow you to ‘mass message’ the group’s members, it is typically fairly ineffectual and regarded as yet another Facebook annoyance if done too frequently. Groups were designed for use by people who have a similar interest. Pages on the other hand were specifically designed to represent an organisation. Pages also offer much more functionality and customisation than groups. Be careful not to confuse your audience with too many pages and groups representing your organisation. One page is the best approach.

‘Nonprofits also need to recognise that an investment of time is required to grow your fan base. One thing that works really well for us is to actively post every other day asking fans to ‘invite’ their Facebook friends to “like” us.’

Leonard’s right, it will definitely take some time to reach that initial mass of active followers who will begin to spread the word organically. The key is consistency. Actively pursue new Facebook followers by way of your regular communications, your organisation’s website, your newsletter, email signatures (don’t forget to create email signatures for your board members as well), and via your blog and Twitter.

Another factor in the Soi Dog Foundation’s Facebook success lies in advertising. Like many internet marketers, Leonard finds Facebook advertising far more effective than Google and he’s spent a fair amount of time in testing. He says, ‘I think anyone advertising on Facebook should be going after a recurring gift. It’s not terribly effective to use Facebook advertising for one-time gifts, recurring giving is key.’

Here are a few other tips for Facebook advertising. Leonard only advertises to women and suggests that in order to find out who you should be targeting, test by age, gender, relationship status, location, education, workplace and any other relevant categories you can think of. This is where your ideal donor profile comes in handy. The best way to get started effectively is to tighten down the criteria to a minimum audience reach of 20,000 people. Figure out what a $20 a month recurring donation is worth to your nonprofit and package it in a way that best appeals to your target audience.

What else can you learn from Soi Dog’s success? I liked the interactive sidebar applications that any organisation can emulate immediately on its own Facebook page. Leonard likens each one to a mini web page.

And, if you’re looking for greater engagement, be willing to relinquish some control. As Leonard notes, ‘It makes perfect sense to utilise Facebook for fundraising. Facebook is a social environment. People use it to interact socially. People are sick of you talking at them. Have dialogues with them, establish relationships and train others to do it. And add heaps of photo galleries.’

For more information on Soi Dog’s strategies, be sure to check out Leonard’s presentation on Slideshare.

How to be a fundraising hedgehog

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Sun, 08 May 2011 23:53:00 +0000

By Damian O’Broin

In his book Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t (Random House Business Books, 2001), Jim Collins tells a story about a hedgehog and a fox. Actually, it’s Isaiah Berlin’s story, but here’s how Collins tells it:

‘The fox is a cunning creature, able to devise a myriad of complex strategies for sneak attacks upon the hedgehog. Day in and day out, the fox circles around the hedgehog’s den, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Fast, sleek, beautiful, fleet of foot and crafty – the fox looks like the sure winner. The hedgehog, on the other hand, is a dowdier creature, looking like a genetic mix-up between a porcupine and a small armadillo. He waddles along, going about his simple day, searching for lunch and taking care of his home.

The fox waits in cunning silence at the juncture in the trail. The hedgehog, minding his own business, wanders right into the path of the fox. ‘Aha, I’ve got you now!’ thinks the fox. He leaps out, bounding across the ground, lightning fast. The little hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks, ‘Here we go again. Will he ever learn?’ Rolling up into a perfect little ball, the hedgehog becomes a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The fox, bounding toward his prey, sees the hedgehog defence and calls off the attack. Retreating back to the forest, the fox begins to calculate a new line of attack. Each day, some version of this battle between the hedgehog and the fox takes place, and despite the greater cunning of the fox, the hedgehog always wins.’

People are similarly divided into foxes and hedgehogs. But it is the hedgehogs that make the biggest impression because they simplify the complex into a single, simple unifying idea. Think of Karl Marx and class struggle, Charles Darwin and natural selection, Ken Burnett and relationship fundraising. These are people who have looked at a complex world and found a way of simplifying it. They are hedgehogs.

Collins goes on to argue that all the great companies have a ‘hedgehog concept’, a simple, clear idea that drives everything that they do. For the US pharmacy chain Walgreens it was this: ‘To run the best, most convenient drugstores (pharmacies), with high profit per customer visit’. Once they identified this as their hedgehog concept, they implemented it with fanatical consistency, replacing inconvenient stores with more convenient ones, even closing good stores if the opportunity arose to replace them with potentially great ones. As a result, Walgreens’ stock performance outperformed the rest of the market by a factor of 15 between 1975 and 2000, leaving the likes of Intel and Coca-Cola trailing far behind.

But a hedgehog concept isn’t a goal or a strategy. It’s an understanding of what it is that you can be best in the world at. More specifically, your hedgehog concept can be found where the answers to these three questions overlap.

What can you be best in the world at?

What are you deeply passionate about?

What drives your economic engine?

So what does this have to do with fundraising? Well, I think there’s one, simple thing that most charities could realistically aim to be best in the world at. And it’s something that would definitely drive your economic engine: donor care. The question is, are you deeply passionate about it?

Whether you’re a big charity or a small one, in whatever sector or country, you could be the best charity in the world at donor care. All it needs is the passion to do it and the determination to make it happen.

The small Canadian political party Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada (AAEVPC) is hardly a household name, even in Canada, or a widely recognised cause, but they seem determined to become the best nonprofit in the world at donor care. You can read about how they retain 70 per cent of new donors in this recent post on The Agitator.

Just to put that retention figure in context, in The Agitator’s donor retention survey nearly two-thirds of charities reported that less than 40 per cent of donors ever make a second gift.

And the rate of second gifts is as good an indicator of long-term donor retention as you’re going to get. If you can maximise the number of second gifts you get, you’ll see a major increase in donor retention and a consequent growth in the lifetime value of your donors.

So here’s a free hedgehog concept for you to adopt for your charity:

We will be the best charity in the world at caring for and retaining our donors resulting in a high lifetime value per donor.

Take that to heart, make it the basis of everything you do, and riches will follow. Guaranteed.

Storytelling inspired by film

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:04:00 +0000

By Lucy Gower

So we have already agreed how crucial storytelling is to your fundraising. If you are still unsure, read my last blog For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Tapping into the motivations of your audience, fulfilling their needs, capturing their imagination and evoking emotion that inspires them to take action is fundamental to successful fundraising.

You also know the importance of finding your story. Once you have found it there are many ways to tell it. Earlier this week I was researching the use of film for creating emotional stories. I found so many different examples and I want to share some with you so that they may inspire your own storytelling.

Grab yourself a coffee and take some time to watch these very different short films and consider how they make you feel.

Jot down your thoughts as you go along.

1. The Force: a super bowl advert for Honda using nostalgia and humour.

2. This amateur video captures the destructive power of the tsunami as it hit Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture, Japan.

3. Child’s i foundation raises £10,000 in 38 hours to save baby Joey’s life through the JustGiving community.

4. Topsy Foundation: AIDS sufferer, Selinah, agreed to film herself for 90 days to help others.

5. The tyranny book: Amnesty Portugal’s alternative Facebook.

6. The girl effect showing the extraordinary potential of 600 million adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world.

7. Cadbury’s chocolate advertisement. No one said it has to be all doom and gloom.

Desperate, joyous, funny, thoughtful, inspired and tearful are some of the words that I wrote down.

People need to feel something if they are going to take action, whether that action is to reach for their debit card, agree to a meeting, or write to their MP. How can you use some of the techniques in these films to make your supporters feel emotion and inspire them to take action?

Not all of the above examples are from fundraising. Look to related worlds; industries whose core business is to inspire or stir up an emotional response, for example advertising, journalism, or Hollywood.

How can you learn from other industries to develop your stories to emotionally connect with supporters and spur them into action?

Answers on a postcard please.

Getting along – conflicts among staff

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 13:36:00 +0000

By Kirsten Bullock

There seems to be an invisible line drawn between fundraising staff and programme staff, executive staff and frontline staff, support services, such as accounting and technology, and everyone else. It exists in some way in most of the organisations I’ve worked with in the USA and I would be interested to hear from readers elsewhere to see if this staff divide is universal.

As a lifelong student (and someone who tends to think too much), I have spent time trying to determine the root of these conflicts. It seems to me that they stem from three different areas:

1) A belief that everyone else is just like us.

2) A tendency to think that the area we work in is the most important.

3) Focusing on what we heard – rather than what was meant.

We are not all alike

I confess that I am not a detail-oriented person; however, I have the utmost respect for those who are. I must also confess though that I used to get really irritated with people who dwelt on details when I wanted to talk about the big picture (and still do occasionally). Over time, and through communications tests and profiles such as DISC and Myers Briggs, I’ve come to have a much greater respect for the importance of diversity on work teams. It ensures that we will be less likely to overlook items essential to the success of our project, among other benefits.

Marriage was a similar learning curve for me in this area. My husband and I folded our towels differently, put our toilet paper on the holder differently, squeezed the toothpaste differently and had very different cooking styles (it was a few years before we were able to cook together). It didn’t mean either of us, or our families, were wrong, we were just different.

We are equally important

While there could probably be some very energetic discussions about the most important part of an organisation (programmes, fundraising, operations), the truth is that none of them could be successful without the others. We need money to operate programmes, but we need strong programmes to warrant funding and we need good systems in place to assure that everything is operating smoothly.

Communication, especially listening, is the key

Communication is an on-going challenge for people, as evidenced by the deluge of self-help books covering this topic and the increasing number of coaches focusing on it. Two people might be using the same words but mean very different things. Add another culture, even a second or third language into the mix and it’s a wonder we’re able to communicate effectively at all.

Several months ago my mother had some friends from Denmark visiting her. They had gone on a trip to a store and while they were waiting to pay her two friends were having an animated conversation about something fairly mundane. The person behind the register expressed concern to my mother about the argument he assumed they were having because, based on what he knew from his cultural norms, he thought their animation was hostility.

Creating a collaborative environment

So, with these challenges (and many more that we don’t have space to cover here), how do we begin to create a more collaborative environment?

First, understand yourself (with a goal of helping to understand others). The things you find most irritating about others may be things you yourself struggle with, or could be the exact opposite to you. Spend some time thinking about your reaction to other people. If it’s a negative reaction, try to identify what’s causing that reaction and why.

Next, try to see the good in others. When you’re able to identify differences between you and others, try to see the benefits that those differences offer. If you’re like me and love to push forward on projects, it’s good to have one or two people on your team providing cautionary words about possible obstacles. If you’re the type of person who gets stuck because of all the obstacles, it’s beneficial to have someone on the team pushing to move things along.

Bring internal partners into the conversation early. Ask questions about how things operate in their department and understand the implications for their department of what you’re trying to accomplish. Bringing all the parties together at the beginning of a discussion can help avoid delays later on. The primary objective for this meeting would be to discuss what you’re trying to accomplish and then ask for ideas of the best way to get there. It does take longer, but there will be more support for the implementation phase – and you might be pleasantly surprised when a better idea emerges to accomplish whatever it is you’re trying to do.

Understand your organisation’s programmes. Take time to learn about the programmes you’re raising funds for and what the hoped for outcomes are. This is a great opportunity to build bridges with programme staff. And remember, people don’t always remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. Listening goes a long way in helping to build a strong relationship.

Recognise programme and operations staff, talk about them whenever the opportunity arises. As fundraising professionals, we often have the chance to do so publically. Let your programme and operations staff members know how much you appreciate them.

Start a giving programme for staff so, just like donors, they can become investors in the organisation beyond the day-to-day work they do; in some cases, introduce them to the joy of giving. Perhaps in a small way it helps other members of the organisation to get a small glimpse of the way we, as fundraising professionals, have the privilege of helping our donors use their money to accomplish something that they care deeply about and would not be able to accomplish on their own.

So, to summarise, it boils down to being a strong partner by listening and appreciating the strengths each person brings to the table. Hopefully through this process mutual respect will develop and a fruitful partnership can begin. Please let me know how these tips impact your work.

The unstoppable rise of social entrepreneurship

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:59:00 +0000

By Noam Kostucki

You may know a charity that makes money from selling products and services. Maybe you wonder how you can do the same, but have no background or experience in doing so? Perhaps you’re put off by the idea that it might be risky? Don’t be.

I often meet people from charities that struggle through the process of selling goods or services as a way of raising income. So, to help all those looking to take their first steps in the social entrepreneurial world, I’ve put together a short guide to help you on your way.

You might be impressed to learn that, according to the Charity Commission, charities in the UK have raised over £52 billion, of which broadly five per cent is claimed to come from trading. On the other hand, I am amazed by the Hidden Social Enterprise report from Delta, which shows that ethical and social trading represents a staggering potential contribution to the UK economy of £110 billion.

It would seem that trading in itself is no longer the savviest option. Only the organisations that can adapt to this new ethical opportunity will see a growth they could never have expected under the old paradigm. So if profit organisations are starting to realise that it pays to be nice, then why can’t charities capitalise on ‘being nice’ as a way to boost their income too?

Here are three key things to think about if you’re looking to make the most of your assets. And I’ve provided some examples too, so you can get an idea about what other people are already doing.

1. What are you best at?

What is it that your charity does best? Is it a skill, an attitude or even a specialised knowledge you have? How do you help others and what helps them most?

For example, look at the cancer charity Odyssey. This charity gives a one-week course of activities to help cancer patients boost their self-confidence and rebuild shattered spirits, but they were facing an uncertain future because of a drop in their income. Thinking outside the ‘charity’ box and with the help of some social enterprise expertise they are now developing the same course for healthy people who are looking for an injection of positivity in to their lives and who are happy to pay for the service. Odyssey have also now tapped in to the corporate market and are tailoring their course for company team building days which has a huge potential for growth and a secure source of income.

This is a great example where using your existing knowledge and charitable services along with a little commercial thinking can mean finding new sources of fundraising for your charity.

2. What is your business model?

You need to find a model in which your beneficiaries don’t lose out. You should be making money from people who want the same benefits as the groups you help by tailoring your services and products to a wider audience that is ready to pay. Your customers can be individuals and/or companies.

My favourite example is TOMS shoes: for every pair of shoes you buy, they send a new pair to a child in need. So the more they do for a good cause, the more money they make. The more money they make, the more they do for a good cause.

It is best when your charitable purpose is linked to making profit, directly or indirectly.

3. Use technology to make your life easier

Don’t do it all yourself, you can’t be an expert at everything. Social media can be a great tool for charities to make the most of the chance for free publicity and be sure to use all the free services available.

In the UK, we have initiatives like Eclector.com. This for-profit social enterprise helps you build your own bookshop online at no cost. They host the shops and manage all customer service issues. All you have to do is tell your supporters about the books. Every thousand visitors generate an average of £50, with so many charities having large donor bases it’s a great opportunity to generate new income for your charity.*

There are also a number of free services that can offer you a variety of help. Websites such as getsatisfaction.com and uservoice.com can provide you with feedback from customers; ping.fm and hootsuite.com will help you manage your social media and you can even create your own social network for free at sites like webs.com. Ultimately you need to explore what’s out there and make the most of the free technologies.

Seeducation is my own social enterprise company and we look to help individuals and organisations make money whilst having a positive social impact. Right now we are working on preparing a free eLearning tool called, ‘Making money from doing good’, thanks to a generous donation of a £40,000 eLearning platform by GrowthEngineering. We’ll keep you posted as soon as this is up and running.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for social entrepreneurship: a new era has definitely started.

NB: SOFII is not able to endorse or recommend the websites in this blog.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:36:00 +0000

By Lucy Gower

Fundraisers, think about your most successful fundraising campaign, mailing, event, individual gift, trust application or corporate pitch. I bet that they all have something in common. In some way they have fulfilled a need for your audience, captured their imagination and evoked some form of emotion that has inspired them to take action.

In the charity sector there is a lot of talk about the ‘donor journey’ but for me the start of any donor journey is you finding your story and telling it in a way that touches people’s hearts as well as their minds. Telling a story written by your marketing team isn’t good enough. You have to find your own stories that evoke passion and power in you.

People give to help people. The relationships you build with your donors are your relationships – you build rapport, you build trust, you inspire donors to get involved, you make a difference.

I think perfecting the art, and it is an art, of seeking out real stories and telling them in a way that inspires both you and your donors is the essence of being a fundraiser.

A book that has inspired me is Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath (Random House, 2007). They outline six principles that will help your stories to inspire your audiences’ hearts and minds.

1. Simple

Keep your story simple. Focus on your core message. Using analogies helps simplify

complicated information.

Help the Aged’s ‘make a blind man see’ press advertisement is a great example of a simple story.

2. Unexpected

Say something unexpected to get attention. Ask questions to hold people’s attention and curiosity.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn. A six-word story by Ernest Hemingway. Think about it for a moment. Those six words are somewhat unexpec

ted yet hugely powerful. You can read more six word stories here or submit your own.

Amnesty produced an award winning unexpected message to ‘throw away this flyer’ in their insert campaign.

3. Concrete

Be specific. Paint a mental picture with words by using sensory language. The famous president of the USA John Kennedy painted a picture with words in a powerful speech when he said, ‘I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.’

An RSBP campaign to save the albatross brilliantly uses this technique. You are asked to picture the scene: imagine you are in a restaurant tucking into your first bite of succulent Pacific salmon. Something is not right. Read more about what happens next here.

4. Credible

Provide compelling details, whether it’s research and statistics, the name of an industry expert, or something down to earth about the difference you are making. Research shows that many people respond better when they can link their contribution to providing help to a specific situation or person.

‘If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one I will’, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

The Child’s i Foundation raised £10,000 in 38 hours to save baby Joey’s life. The story is all about baby Joey and his parents. Take a few minutes to watch the video in the link. I challenge you not to be moved. Which leads to sticky principle number five.

5. Emotional

People care about people. People care about situations that they can identify with. There is a range of ways in which you can do this and I particularly like Action Aid’s latest campaign, which is a brilliant example of tapping into our emotional need to belong to a community of people like us. Action Aid asks the question ‘How does it make you feel to be part of the Action Aid community?’

6. Stories

The very process of telling a story helps people see how an existing problem might change and how they could help that change happen.

St Mungo’s, a charity for the homeless in London, uses real life stories and includes inspirational accounts of how, with help, people can change their lives.

How to seek stories

Does your storytelling spell SUCCESS? The more of the six principles that you can weave into your communications, the more likely it is that your messages will stick. Your challenge is to continually and deliberately seek stories that inspire you and that you can tell to inspire others. Here are some tactics to help you do just that.

· Carry a notebook with you. Use it, make collecting stories and observations on life a habit. We know that the more connections we make the more likely it is we are going to put those connections together to come up with something new. That something new could be your wonderfully compelling story… or the next big fundraising idea.

· Read more stories. Millions of authors have spent time writing stories. Read them. Think about what the author does to keep you eagerly turning the pages. Try using that author’s tactics on your own stories.

· Watch films and consider their storytelling styles. What keeps your interest? What turns you off?

· As with everything, if you are going to become good you need to practice. Practice telling stories; practice on your friends and family, use your voice and body language to bring the stories to life.

· Volunteer at a local school or a reading stories project – or perhaps you have a Ministry of Stories near you? What a cool place!

· Practice writing. Start a blog.

· Get some storytelling training. It will be one of the best investments you and your organisation will ever make.

· Enjoy your story-seeking adventure.

Have a go. Tell us how you get on.

Oldies but goodies

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:18:00 +0000

By Christiana Stergiou

Most of us spend a lot of time focusing on what’s new and on chasing the latest trends. We fail to see that some of the best fundraising methods out there aren’t new, they are traditional and old – but they are executed to perfection. With that in mind, I am going to recommend three ‘old’ fundraising books.

The oldest book on my fundraising bookshelf is Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. It was first published in 1932 and since then has been reprinted numerous times. Caples himself revised it four times and the last edition, which alone has been reprinted 14 times, is still available in paperback.

Caples wrote thousands of direct mail pieces over many years and collected thorough results from each campaign. Advertising genius David Ogilvy said Caples ‘has no theories only facts’ and he shares hundreds of them in this book. Not only will Caples teach you how to test, he will teach you everything he learnt as a result of his body of work and research, including his mistakes. He also provides excellent guides for all aspects of direct marketing – from writing headlines, the first paragraph of an advert or letter, through to hundreds of ways to improve your overall copy to increase response.

I often hear fundraisers say ‘we tested that’, but in reality they didn’t. They just gave something a go to see if it would work. That’s just trying, not testing. Testing involves comparing, learning and continually improving what you do and how you do it. This book will teach you the genuine ins and outs of testing. I’m confident it will improve many fundraising campaigns.

David Ogilvy said he learned all he knew about copywriting from John Caples. In 1983 Ogilvy’s own book Ogilvy on Advertising was published and it too has been revised and reprinted many times. Whether it’s advertising, direct mail copy or advice on how to work with an agency, Ogilvy on Advertising is a must read for the savvy fundraiser. You can read a more detailed review of it on SOFII here.

Published in 2000, Mal Warwick’s Five Strategies for Fundraising Success: A Mission-Based Guide to Achieving Your Goals is a book I often refer to when putting together a fundraising strategy for a charity. Mal identifies the five main strategies as growth, involvement, visibility, efficiency and stability (GIVES). So often boards and management want all those things at once. Oh, to live in that perfect world.

Thankfully, Mal methodically explains the best strategy for any organisation’s current situation and future needs. He also assists in answering some of the frequent questions about developing a fundraising strategy. These include: should we run special events? Are we ready for a capital campaign? And should we launch a direct mail campaign? He also outlines ten key benchmarks that will assist in evaluating your success.

You can find out more about the latest fundraising book news and reviews at www.fundraisingbooks.net. You can also contact Christiana at christiana@fundraisingbooks.net.

Legacy giving: the greatest privilege a fundraiser will have.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:34:00 +0000

By Kimberley Mackenzie

When my mother in law was dying I asked my friend, who is a minister, what I could do. I felt so helpless. Kirsty told me that when people are near death they really just want to talk and need someone to listen.

My mother in law took her last breath in a room that was full of laughter. She was finally at peace. I now know that death, while sad, can be as natural and as beautiful as the loud and painful birth of a child, it’s the circle of life.

What does this deeply personal experience have to do with fundraising? A lot...

This past week a man came into our office for an appointment he had arranged before Christmas. We had talked in December about his will and the potential of including our charity as one of his top three beneficiaries.

Dear reader, you don’t need to know any more about that visit with ‘Mr Jones’ other than to know that I am speaking from experience and not theory. I was deeply honoured to be a part of such important decision.

I am a generalist fundraiser and by no means consider myself an expert in any given area. But, there are some things I have learned through working with legators (people who have bequeathed a legacy) that I want to share with you.

Make the time

Nothing that you have to do that day will be more important than talking to your donor about his or her final wishes in life. Nothing – even if the meeting that was scheduled for an hour turns into three. Gently move it forward to make sure the business objectives are accomplished and be available to listen to your donor talk about her life, her dreams, her regrets and final wishes. Legacy gifts are not about you or your charity. Legacy gifts are 100 per cent donor-centred. Always make the time.

Be sure you can keep your promise

Sometimes donors suggest something very specific like a place they visited or a play they saw. Try to understand their motivations by asking open-ended questions such as:

‘It sounds like you love visiting the XYZ exhibit in the museum. Can you tell me more about that?’

Actively listen and turn off the ‘yes but...’ thoughts swimming around in your head. Be truly curious. Once you understand the true motivations of the suggestion you will be in a much better position to meet a desire to be affiliated with a certain feeling or place or programme. You can then offer a less restrictive solution.

For example, perhaps you work for a theatre company and your donor fell in love with a contemporary new play. What the donor might say is ‘I love the David Mamet plays your company produces and I want to leave a legacy toward that’. Through active listening we can get to the underlying motivation. It isn’t realistic for a bequest to be directed toward producing David Mamet plays every year – in perpetuity. Perhaps the legacy your donor is striving for is an endowment to ensure that your theatre company always has the funding to try new, leading edge and risky productions.

You can get to this place through actively listening to your donor.

Be truly honest

If you don’t think that your charity is the right one or that perhaps the donor has your charity mixed up with another make sure you clarify it immediately. I have had a few donors talk to me and use the name of another charity and it is always a little risky to make sure they called the right place. No one wants a bequest that was intended for someone else.

Be respectful

It may seem like I’m pointing out the obvious but I’m going to do it anyway. Your legator is very likely to be much closer to and have more experience of the cause than you. Organising their affairs may be slightly overwhelming due to frequent conversations with financial advisors and lawyers, as well as balancing family needs and obligations. With some people, their thoughts may wander or their bodies may be frail. Respect their experience and wisdom. I believe our job is to help make the process of finalising an estate as simple as possible.

Through empathy and understanding of their love for our cause, we can offer peace of mind that no financial advisor or lawyer can.

Know your job

Remind your donors several times that you recommend they discuss their plans with their financial advisor and their family. Then explain why. It is very important that everyone understands that your charity is in the will because the donor wanted it there. Not because you did something to entice, manipulate, or coerce. Harsh words I know. You might try saying something like:

‘Mrs Norman, It really has been a pleasure talking to you about your estate plans. We at xyz charity are very grateful for your decision to include us in your will. Please remember to discuss your plans with your financial advisor (or executor or lawyer) and, if you are comfortable doing so, with your family. If we are all aware of your desires it will be easier to ensure that your wishes are granted.’

Discuss recognition

It can be very helpful to a charity to have details of how the legator would like to be acknowledged, even including the wording they would like placed on a bench or a plaque. Having these details in the will can ensure that in the future, when the donor is gone and you have moved on, your charity doesn’t have to guess what was promised. Your charity will be legally bound to carry out the donor’s wishes if it is written in the will. Just make sure that you negotiate something realistic and easy for your charity to implement.

In summary

In my ten years of fundraising, nothing has been as rewarding as my experience working on the planned giving programme. I know that I am better able to do this work for having had first-hand experience with the final stages of life. If you haven’t had the experience of taking the final steps of life with someone then I would suggest reading Tuesday’s with Morrie by Mitch Albom. It is an amazing story, which is not just on how to die but also on how to live. And that really is what legacy fundraising is all about – helping people live in peace, knowing that they have helped make a difference in the world, long after their lives will be over.

Direct mail (social media, email, [fill in the blank]) is dead.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:48:00 +0000

By Pamela Grow.

‘The minute that you’re not learning I believe you’re dead.’

Jack Nicholson.

Do you remember when the experts said ‘bricks and mortar are dead’ because everyone would be shopping online?

‘They’ have been saying that for over ten years now and I’m finding that my local supermarket is still filled with shoppers. How about you? Oh sure, e-commerce has changed the way that we shop, but retail is still alive and kicking (and it isn’t because people don’t know that they can buy online). How is this possible? Well, lots of reasons but three of the biggest are:

a) Change (even welcomed change) is very difficult.

b) Shopping is still a popular activity.

c) There are items people still want to touch, see and try before they buy.

d) The big one: people want immediate gratification – I’ve simply got to have the item now!

What about direct mail, is that dead? Nope. According to DM News, income from direct mail is expected to grow 5.8 per cent to 47.8 billion in 2011.

Has it changed? Yes it has and in a really good way. Junk mail has declined, mostly because mailer

s are becoming smarter by targeting better. So you’re seeing less mail in your mailbox but what you do see is more relevant. Think about how that information can help set your organisation’s next piece of direct mail apart.

Email marketing? Oh yes, I recall when the spam laws were going to destroy email marketing. Did they? Nope. According to Pew’s latest research, 90-100 per cent of every generation from millennials (those born after 1985 who have grown up with the Web and who are now entering the jobs market, higher education and the electorate) to the silent generation (people born between 1925 and 1945) use email. And even though we gripe and moan about it, it still works – if it gets opened. That means putting together a strategy for acquiring email addresses and putting some thought and effort into creating attention-grabbing subject lines and a compelling message. What is dead is the easy ‘send anything’ emails that were popular circa 2001.

Now social media is dead. Really? Someone must be sleeping under a rock to completely miss all the media attention Facebook is getting (heck, the movie alone has won more than a few awards). Is it being over-used and over-populated? Sure, but just like retail, direct mail and email this is a natural progression of business. Come to think of it, the same thing happened with the gold rush – a new frontier was discovered to have gold and early adapters collected the easy gold. Others saw this and rushed in and soon someone declared the gold rush was dead.

Now have you taken a look at the price of gold in the current market? It’s experiencing record highs. So, perhaps you can’t get rich just panning for gold but there are lots of companies that have adapted and are using sophisticated equipment to make money in the harder to reach but still well alive gold market.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Are direct mail, email, and social media dead? Keep buying into that so that my clients and other organisations ‘in the know’ can keep these gold mines all to ourselves.

Seriously, what should you do? Use every media that you can afford ... and get strategic about how you use it.

Take a cue from my friend John Lepp of Agents of Good, ‘Donors don’t give to the channel. They give to the campaign. Give your donors a reason to care, be frank with what you want, tell them how they will help, spread across channels evenly and you will win.’

Sound, donor-centric fundraising is not and will never be an overnight process. Before you dismiss a medium spend some time learning its finer points and developing a strategy for how you can apply age-old tried and true concepts to the new.

Do your donors trust you?

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:42:00 +0000

By Damian O'Broin

Last year, Oxfam Ireland posted on their website a copy of a thank-you letter they received from a donor. It is both inspiring and terrifying, and is worth reproducing in full here.

Please find enclosed a cheque… to pay for raffle tickets… Oxfam is my primary charity. Castlebar, the place where I work, has an Oxfam shop and I can go in and make an extra donation for a specific purpose either because disaster has struck somewhere or for a special occasion in my own life… I would like to let you know that I give money to Oxfam in good faith. There are many people in the world who live in dire circumstances and I trust Oxfam and its employees/volunteers to do the best for them that they are able to do within the given circumstances. I like it that Oxfam is a large organisation so that they have expertise in various fields and a large body of personnel to draw upon.

You are unable as an individual to deliver aid to whoever needs it. That would be impossible and very wasteful. The money you received from me is real money – with that I mean, if I didn’t give the money to you, I wouldn’t have difficulty finding another use for it. What I am really trying to say is this: I trust you to spend money wisely and carefully and give aid appropriately with consideration to people’s background. I don’t expect Oxfam employees to work for nothing, they need to be properly paid.

I am proud to support Oxfam and I know that puts a responsibility on all Oxfam personnel.

The first thing to say is that this is a genuinely committed donor we’re hearing from. While she or he is clearly responsive to emergencies, there is also the intriguing line ‘I can go in and make an extra donation... for a special occasion in my own life’. This is not someone who sees giving as a chore or a burden. There is no suggestion of guilt rather there is the hint that giving is a joyous thing, something for a special occasion. We don’t know if the donations are made in celebration, in thanksgiving, in memoriam, or for some other reason but they are clearly very meaningful and deeply important.

It’s also clear that not only does this donor trust Oxfam to put his or her money to good use, she or he also understands that it costs money to run effective charities and that the staff need to be paid. Hurray! An enlightened donor. There can be a view in our sector that donors think fundraising is free and staff should work for nothing. Sure, there are people who believe that, but I think this donor is more typical of the public view.

It’s fantastic to hear a donor express her trust in your organisation and its work in this way. And she’s not even expecting miracles. She or he doesn’t want Oxfam to end hunger or defeat poverty, merely for their staff and volunteers to ‘do the best for [people that live in dire circumstances] that they are able to do within the given circumstances’. There is genuine understanding here, along with a genuine desire to change the world for the better. And a recognition that the best way to do so is through large, professional organisations like Oxfam.

In many ways, this person is a dream donor.

But in amongst the praise for Oxfam’s work and expressions of support is the faintest of threats. And also the deadliest. While this trust is freely given, it is conditional.

The line ‘I would like to let you know, that I give money to Oxfam in good faith’ is not a compliment. It’s a warning, one that Oxfam and all other charities neglect at their peril. If we don’t live up to the trust placed in us by donors, that trust – and the support that goes with it – will be withdrawn.

So what must we do to maintain that trust?

Well, I’m assuming that you have the basics covered – you use the money given to you for the stated purpose, you’re honest and reputable and there are no skeletons about to pop out of your cupboard. If that’s not the case, then you really have more important things to be doing than reading this blog.

It turns out that one of the simplest things you can do to build trust is to just remind donors that they can trust you. Researchers have found, for instance, that adding the line ‘you can trust us to do the job for you’ at the end of an ad for an auto service company, caused people to rate the ad higher in every category tested:

Fair price – up seven per cent.

Caring – up 11 percent.

Fair treatment – up 20 per cent.

Quality – up 30 per cent.

Competency – up 33 per cent.

It appears that trust is contagious. This is a crucial point for a charity’s relationship with donors; if they trust you to handle their donations properly – thank them for their gifts, process them promptly and correctly – then they’ll trust you in the rest of your work. They’ll trust that you handle your finances properly and that you deliver on your mission.

Conversely, if they don’t trust you to handle their donations properly, then that lack of trust will leak into other areas. They may start wondering about your financial probity. They may question whether you’re delivering on your promise to change the world.

The other key way to build trust with donors is to tell them how their money has made a difference. Giving donors feedback on their gifts not only reinforces trust, it reminds donors of why they gave in the first place, helping to build loyalty and motivate further giving. In fact, we know that for major donors, demonstrating the difference a gift has or can make is one of the strongest motivators for giving.

And to finish, here’s a great, simple example from Amnesty International Ireland on how to provide real, emotional, tangible feedback to donors.

Click here to view letter.

Happy New Year.

Evaluation in a fundraising office: why, what and a little bit of how.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:22:00 +0000

By Kirsten Bullock

Over the past few years we’ve been hearing about the various ways that not-for-profit groups should be evaluated. In the US, the conversation has been focused primarily on financial indicators of success (i.e. overhead rates that simply measure the percentage of total dollars that appear to go directly towards programmes rather than to ‘overhead’ costs such as administration and fundraising). Most fundraisers I know would agree that this is a short-sighted approach. So what do we track as an alternative? Some organisations are now rightfully attempting to present alternative ways of ranking nonprofits that go beyond financial but, in your everyday life of running a nonprofit organisation, should you be providing evaluation outcomes for your fundraising programme? This article will attempt to answer that question, as well as what to track and how.

There are three primary reasons for starting and continuing an evaluation component for any programme. Mainly, it gives you something to reach for. In the well-known fairy-tale Alice in Wonderland the character of the Cheshire Cat points out that, ‘If you don’t know where you are going, any road will lead you there’. Stephen Covey offers this as habit 2 in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that is to ‘begin with the end in mind’. In the nonprofit sector we have funders who require it (along with the general public). If we don’t define what we want to measure ahead of time, it’s likely that a funder or government body will come up with something that could be more difficult and expensive to track (and may be a less accurate measure of what you are attempting to accomplish). In addition, evaluation is important because it helps us see what’s working (and what’s not). Just because a fundraising programme works well down the street, or for a similar agency in a different part of the country doesn’t mean that it will work just as well for your organisation. So evaluation will help you to determine what to continue (and what to discontinue) for your organisation’s fundraising programme.

There are many things that you could track in your fundraising programme. The one aspect that most people seem to want to jump to first is money. However I’m going to be so bold as to say that I believe that’s the second (or even third) thing that should be measured. Short-term strategies to bring funding in the door quickly could be detrimental to the overall fundraising programme and to the long-term intentions of donors. By building long-term relationships with donors we can ensure a longer-term commitment by donors (resulting in higher lifetime giving). It’s expensive to acquire a new donor, so the longer they feel an affinity to the organisation, the better. We want to measure revenue, but interim measurements (such as the numbers of contacts that are made to each donor/prospect, awareness, numbers of volunteers, etc.) may be more important. A third aspect to measure is the cost of fundraising (with a long-term perspective). Not all of the cultivation work that is done this year will result in a gift this year. In fact, one organisation I worked for several years ago took a full six years of cultivation and negotiation to finalise a $7 million lead-gift for a capital campaign. Patience does pay off. There are many smaller groups that don’t have the ability to invest funds in the meantime, but it is an investment that will pay off.

There are many ways to track the indicators listed above, but your primary tool will be your donor database. There are many options out there and most will provide what you need. However there is no one software programme that will be the best choice for every organisation. TechSoup.org offers some information to help in this selection process. It’s important to assess what you need it to do and then select the one that will meet your needs. In addition, be mindful of the GIGO principle (garbage in, garbage out). Spending the time to determine how your data will be tracked will be much easier than trying to adjust data once it has been entered inconsistently. A common challenge I’ve seen in this area is that software programmes and database administrators often speak a different language from fundraising professionals. This communication breakdown can often leave the fundraising professionals believing that the database can’t do what they want it to, when in reality they may have asked something in a way the database administrator didn’t understand.

In closing, please keep it simple. We can spend hours creating plans and reports that give us lots of information, but nothing helpful in planning for the future or accurately evaluating what we’ve accomplished. Identify the few things that really make a difference in your organisation. Then focus on those. Also, test. Test different mailing packages, test different strategies with different donors. You might have some gut feelings about different tactics, but very often our donors don’t think the same way as us. Some of your feelings will be confirmed through testing (and in some cases you may be surprised by the findings). And finally, you can do it. Don’t be overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done, just pick the important things to focus on. You can do it. Really.

My fundraising books wishlist for Christmas.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 07:03:00 +0000

By Christiana Stergiou

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, for those of you who don’t but may still have an end of year holiday (like me), and for those that just need to get inspired for the year ahead, I thought I would share my fundraising book wish list with you all.

Whether you write fundraising letters, content for your website, donor newsletters, promotional brochures or anything else for your organisation, here are my top ten fundraising books to make you a better copywriter (in no particular order of excellence).

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. This book completely changed my thinking on how to create effective messages that ‘stick’ to the minds of our donors.

How to Write Successful Fundraising Letters and Revolution in the Mailbox by Mal Warwick. Time and time again, when I need inspiration for a fundraising letter, I turn to Mal and the many excellent letters and ideas he features in these two awesome books. Read the review of Revolution on SOFII here.

Tiny Essentials for Writing for Fundraising and Asking Properly by George Smith. Brilliant and simple. George Smith is the George Orwell for fundraising writers. Find out more about George on SOFII here.

The Influential Fundraiser by Bernard Ross and Clare Segal. This book examines fundraising asks, both written and verbal, from the donor’s perspective. It also explains different communication preferences and explains the many ways people receive and process information. Check out SOFII’s review here.

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy. Entertaining and excellent. If you are thinking of advertising, or even already advertise, this might be the guidance you have been looking for.

Read the review on SOFII here.

Tested Advertising Methods by John Capels. David Ogilvy once said that John Capels was the person from whom he had learned everything about copywriting. This book was first published in 1932 and the current revised edition in 1998, though not a lot has changed.

Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes and How to Write Fundraising Materials that Raise more Money by Tom Ahern. Tom’s books are worth their weight in gold. He is mentioned all over the SOFII site but a good place to start is with his nine-step communications audit.

So, what will I be reading over my end of year break? The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine. I’ve only read the intro so far, but I’m hooked. Here are two people who really understand the dilemma of many nonprofit staff trying to come to terms with social media and the online world. I can’t wait to finally have some time to read the rest of it.

Happy reading to you.

Christiana.

Where in the world? How fundraisers can learn from other worlds…

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 07:31:00 +0000

By Lucy Gower

Innovation isn’t about a single eureka moment; it’s about a series of thoughts and connections that combine to create something new. Einstein didn’t sit in a darkened room waiting for inspiration; he had a team of people working with him, systematically making new connections.

Not every connection will work but failing quickly and learning is crucial to any successful innovation process. However, the wider you cast your net in your search for inspiration, the more you move away from your current, tired and tested patterns of thinking, the more previously unconnected connections you are likely to make and the more chance you have of coming up with something new.

‘I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work’.

Thomas Edison

Seeking new inspiration takes continued and deliberate effort. However, there are techniques that will help you gather connections that will lead to your breakthrough idea. One of the techniques is called ‘where in the world?’

Where in the world?

This is where you think about where else in the world your challenge is faced and consider what solutions you can borrow, or in the words of business management writer Tom Peters ‘swipe with glee’.

‘Swipe from the best, then adapt’. Tom Peters

The particular challenges you are facing will have been solved elsewhere. It’s your job to look outside of what you currently know, identify how others are solving your challenge, learn from them and apply it to your particular situation. It’s not about just copying like for like but finding common principles that you can adapt for your needs. SOFII is a great place to find inspiration that you can adapt, but we also need to look wider at what other organisations outside our sector are doing. For example we need to consider the corporate sector, diverse industries, art, science, history and nature.

Look outside the charity sector

NSPCC and First Direct

If your challenge is to improve your donor experience, you may look at what companies or individuals offer exceptional customer experiences. Learn from them and apply the key elements to how you work with your donors. The NSPCC have worked with online banking organisation First Direct, seeking inspiration from their world-renowned exceptional customer service. NSPCC fundraisers met with First Directs’ customer service team and applied key learning to their stewardship programmes. This approach of asking for expertise can also strengthen your current corporate partnerships or help to build relationships with prospects as an alternative to a formal pitch.

Remove yourself from your topic

Search for examples of ‘where in the world?’ that don’t necessarily relate to your challenge directly. Remember it’s about making new connections. You don’t know what you don’t know - until you try.

· Pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson teamed up with tent makers to develop ways to bond body tissue after operations.

· In the early 90s when the use of aerosols was being discouraged due to the impact on the environment, deodorant companies were inspired by the roller ball pen to spread liquid over a thin area which led to the development of roll on deodorant.

· Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press developed from the technology of the screw-type wine presses of the Rhine Valley.

The Natural World

George de Mestral, while walking in the Jura mountains in France in 1941 noticed burs on his dogs coat and his woollen clothes. On closer inspection he realised they were formed of hundreds of hooks. He went on to duplicate the hooks from Nylon. This led to the development of Velcroä.

Did you know that the Japanese Bullet train was inspired by the shape of the beak of a kingfisher, that Honda studied cockroaches when developing their rough terrain vehicles or that the binding agents in the common blue mussel have been studied for the development of super glues?

Case Study - ColaLife

An inspirational example of the ‘where in the world’ approach is ColaLife. In 1988 Simon Berry was a development worker in remote northeast Zambia. He was bemused that he could buy Coca-Cola everywhere, yet aid organisations struggled to get medical supplies to rural areas. ColaLife identified that part of Coca-Cola’s core business (i.e. the business they were really in), was not soft drink production but logistics and distribution networks. The Coca-Cola company trains and provides transportation to networks of local entrepreneurs in order to get the soft drink to the far reaches of the world. Coca-Cola is delivered by a variety of carts, bikes and on foot to rural areas.

One in every five children die before their fifth birthday from simple causes such as dehydration through diarrhea. If aid agencies could tap into, or learn from Coca-Cola’s distribution networks it would make a huge difference to the lives of children in Africa.

So one solution is for aid agencies to replicate Coca-Cola’s distribution model and develop their own local networks of trained and equipped entrepreneurs. Good idea.

But Colalife have taken this a step further, they are negotiating with Coca-Cola and the local entrepreneurs who distribute the drink to see how they can use their deliveries to get life saving medicines to the children that need it. ColaLife are now piloting this model in Zambia. You can read more on the ColaLife blog or their Facebook page.

Simon had the ColaLife idea 20 years ago, and the help of relatively new social media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr have been instrumental in raising awareness and international support of the project.

Case Study - Great Ormond Street and Formula One

Doctors working in the intensive care unit at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital were seeking ways to more quickly transfer sick children to the operating theatre from intensive care. They noted the speed and accuracy that Formula ones teams carried out the pit stop procedures (which has reduced from 6 minutes in the 1960s to less than 15 seconds now).

The Doctors worked with the pit teams to make their processes more efficient and less error-prone. The pit teams were able to spot many ways for the doctors to work more efficiently. They've completely changed their process; it has now streamlined and both technical errors and information communication errors have been reduced by 40%.

When was the last time you visited a business outside your ‘normal’ remit?

Seven steps to make ‘where in the world?’ easy:

1. Ask yourself ‘what business are you in’? Think of the core competencies required to deliver your project. Think broadly, for example if you are considering the best way to develop a new newsletter; are you a publisher, storyteller, newscaster, web author, project manager, researcher, designer, letter writer, marketer? Very probably a combination of all of these things and more.

2. Then think of where else in the world you could seek inspiration, e.g. news presenters, publishing companies, advertising agencies, authors etc…

3. Now think specifically of organisations, things and people that are already doing this. Write them down.

4. Prioritise your list.

5. Get in touch with them, ask for their advice. If this is daunting, start among your friendship group. Someone is bound to know someone from the industry on your list. People are usually flattered to be asked for help.

6. Think about whether this particular organisation/person can help in other areas of your business for example, could there be opportunities to work with a corporate partner in ways other than pure fundraising?

7. Do it today, while your interest and focus is strong – and let us know how you get on.

8. Keep practicing and applying this technique, as with anything the more you practice the better you will get.

If you want to read more

Sticky Wisdom? What If! The Innovation Company

Where Good Ideas Come From Stephen Johnson

Innovation Matters NCVO

The trials and tribulations of event fundraising.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 13:52:00 +0000

By Vishal Talreja

One of the trustees of a children’s shelter home in India was able to get a rock bank to perform for free, so the home decided to host a rock concert. The shelter had to organise the event and cover related costs, which they were initially confident they could get through sponsorship. However, a week before the scheduled date of the concert, no sponsorship had been found and the costs were eating into their reserves. Furthermore, they had only sold 500 of the targeted 3000 tickets. They were in a difficult position; they could not afford to spend any more money on marketing, yet their only hope was to sell more tickets to recover costs. In the end, this charity made a loss of USD 6500 on the event and pledged never again to organise a fundraising event.

What went wrong? Was it just bad luck or could they have avoided this loss?

Without a doubt, event fundraising can be either one of the most effective, sure-fire ways to raise funds for your organisation, or it can be a nightmare-like experience plagued with low numbers and a lack of sponsorship. Fundraising events are a double-edged sword and many a charity has fallen into the trap of planning an elaborate event before they are ready or have all the necessary competencies in place in order to guarantee its success.

Over the past 11 years, I have conducted some successful and some not-so-successful fundraising events for small charities and have come up with seven lessons to help you avoid the mistakes that I made.

Lesson one: is your organisation ready for event fundraising?

Not all charities are capable of planning and hosting an event. The children’s shelter mentioned above is a classic example of this. Access to a celebrity or a rock band is never reason enough to jump into an event unless you have right staff, the capital to make an investment, the network to attract sponsorship and the necessary marketing muscle to sell the event.

Lesson two: recognise and play to your strengths

Yes, it was a strength that the trustee of the children’s shelter had access to a rock band, but that was the only one. It is important to recognise what your strengths are and then plan an event around them. For a truly successful event, a charity may require multiple assets and resources. Don’t be put off if you don’t have them all right away, they can be built up over time.

Lesson three: collaborate

The best way to make up for a lack of resources or assets is to collaborate. If organising an event, finding sponsorship, or selling tickets aren’t your strong points then you could perhaps involve an event management company. While it does reduce the net proceeds, it will increase your chances of success and you will learn from the professionals, so that next time maybe you could try it on your own. You could also try collaborating with another charity with complementary strengths to your own. Or you could ask a corporate partner to buy the event exclusively for their staff. The important thing is to know what you are least good at and find a partner to fill the gap.

Lesson four: look for opportunities in your environment

There are event opportunities all around us. The most successful places where I have found a new opportunity are in the newspapers or on the radio. The opening of a new restaurant, a new shopping mall, a new product launch, a new company, a new store, an existing restaurant running a theme night, festival time, or a celebrity coming to town are all opportunities that could be converted into potential fundraising events. For example, a new restaurant might be persuaded to donate the proceeds of the first night or the first week to your charity if you are able to sell tables to your supporters and networks.

Lesson five: exploit existing opportunities

I believe that charities should never organise their own events unless they are building an idea that can be run for at least three to five years. For years, a large Indian charity has been hosting a corporate quiz night that has become very successful. However, it took them a long time to build the brand around the event. For smaller nonprofits, it is often easier and more successful to use existing platforms and exploit opportunities that are already there, the most successful being marathons, concerts, plays, or musicals.

Lesson six: create win-win propositions

Fundraising events are often not so much about supporting a cause as about creating a ‘wow’ experience for guests. If you are organising a rock concert, the main motivation for the majority of ticket buyers is the music. It is important to make sure they have a good time. Similarly the main motivation behind the participation of the rock band is probably the chance to play their music in front of 3000 fans, rather than your cause. Therefore, it is important to create a win-win event for everyone involved.

Lesson seven: know when to phase out

Most events have a life cycle and it’s important to recognise when the event has peaked and it is time to phase it out. It can either be stopped altogether, or it could be revamped or repackaged to suit new audiences. It is important to phase an event out before your target guests or audience feel tired of it – this will end up with a loss of revenue and a loss of good will, which may affect future events.

I’m sure there are many more mistakes that I could mention but I will finish here. Events can be a great source of funding for charities and they can be a lot of fun to organise and participate in. Choose them wisely to have more chance of success.

Happy fundraising!

Beat the statistics by falling in love with your donors.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:40:00 +0000

By Pamela Grow.

As a fundraising consultant I work primarily with smaller charities. Here in the US, over 50 per cent of our registered nonprofit organisations have assets of less than $1 million.

Fundraising in a one-person shop is tough enough to begin with and these days fundraisers are faced with a barrage of discouraging statistics every day. According to Blackbaud first year donor retention stands at a paltry 29.3 per cent. Email response rates are abysmal, individual donations are declining, foundation grants are drying up, yada yada yada.

You get the picture.

How do you keep your spirits – and funding – up in the face of such devastating statistics? Could the answer be as simple as falling in love with your donors?

Huh?

Bear with me on this.

We’re all accustomed to the culture of immediate payoffs. When we hear about the $30 million raised via text for the Haiti victims, we all want to jump on the text bandwagon. A friend tells us that their organisation raised $10,000 using Facebook Causes and we’re sold.

The truth is that sustainable fundraising is a nurturing process. You wouldn’t mix up some flour, yeast and water and throw it in the oven expecting bread would you? Of course not, you’re going to mix your ingredients, knead your dough, allow it to rise, punch it down and maybe even repeat the process, then bake it. It’s the same with fundraising – you’re creating a nurturing process with your donors and prospective donors.

That relationship with your donors should be all encompassing: from personal contact to direct mail, to your web presence to email and to how people in your organisation answer the phone.

In everything that you do, you should be thinking about lifetime value.

Nonprofit marketing always takes place in a context of what we call – wait for it – a market. And when you consider your market, there is a line separating your potential donors (demographics, psychographics, etc of people that can or might give you money) and donors (people who have actually given you money). You may prefer to look at them as potential vs. proven. If you must ensure that your messages pay off, do you allocate your resources according to this model? Or do you favour your existing donors?

While on this topic – love your donors, not your mission. It is all too easy to get caught up in nonprofit marketing that is I/me based (we are so good because.... we are number one because...). By falling in love with your donors, you make them the focal point, you monitor their feedback (notice I didn't say ‘dictate’ the marketing as they’re not qualified to do so, but they are very qualified to vote with their dollars as to the effectiveness of a particular appeal), and you are aware of their preferred method of contact. Another word of caution on the meaning of ‘preferred’: just because people say they prefer tweets doesn't mean they respond best to tweets. It is important to test.

So, what are the most powerful ways to love your donors?

• Two words: thank you. One of the ways to show love is by showing appreciation. Make it a practice to say thank you not once but twice or even three times. Schedule 30 minutes in your daily routine to call a handful of recent donors to thank them personally for their gifts.

• Touching: you physically touch someone you love but you can also demonstrate touch by calling or writing to someone and saying, ‘You’re an important person in my life and I just wanted you to know that’. Or, ‘Hey, just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you’. I recommend a minimum of 12 touches a year. They could be a combination of three print newsletters, two direct mail appeals, six email newsletters and one postcard. A minimum of 12.

• Donor appreciation events: you get together with family and friends during the holidays...why not get together with donors (you love them, remember?) and celebrate with them?

• Gifts: do I really need to elaborate? They don’t need to be expensive; they just need to show your appreciation. You could use fun tokens such as a pack of chewing gum, a refrigerator magnet, or a stuffed animal. Not sure how to make this work? Get creative. Here's an example with gum:

‘Dear Dave Donor,

Are you wondering why I’ve enclosed a packet of gum with this letter?

Well, I just wanted to say thanks and I was thinking how 'sweet' you were to give a gift earlier this year and giving you something sweet seemed appropriate.

Enjoy! (These are the new Trident Rainbow flavoured ones so they are sugar free and won't cause cavities.)’

See what we’ve just accomplished? We made our interactions with this person fun (and you do have fun with your friends, don’t you?), it wasn't a 'give me money' communication, and it was most definitely memorable. Do you think they'll see us in a favourable light the next time we do ask for money?

Remember, now is not the time for emulating the majority of your peers when it comes to fundraising. Now is the time for creativity, boldness, a sense of joy and genuine love of your donors.

Social capital and fundraising: where is the connection?

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 15:24:00 +0000

By Kirsten Bullock

National Public Radio (NPR) published a story on their website earlier this week entitled: On TV we have friends. On the Internet we have friends. In real life we live alone. It really struck a chord with me and highlights a concern echoed by many that we, in the US, are becoming more and more isolated.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Robert Putnam speak about his research on social capital, which he outlined in his book Bowling Alone. It was fascinating to hear about the number of picnics we were having in the US and about all the other indicators of social capital. While there are many definitions of social media, the essence of it is all of the ways that we are connected to each other. These connections make it easier for us to relate to each other, and to be more forgiving in those areas we don’t agree on. The World English Dictionary provides a more formal definition: “the network of social connections that exist between people, and their shared values and norms of behavior, which enable and encourage mutually advantageous social cooperation.” There are five primary benefits that Dr. Putnam highlights:

· safer and more productive neighbourhoods

· increased economic prosperity

· improved quality of civic and democratic institutions

· improved education and economic production

· improved health and happiness

Unfortunately, the decline in social capital seems to be continuing (with a possible exception of involvement in politics). As related in a recent study reported in the Boston Globe, young Americans seem to care less about each other.

At the same time, organisations are finding it not only difficult to find new donors, but also to keep them. To address this, many have suggested that it is time to reinvent the donor pyramid. Instead of starting the first level with donors acquired through traditional methods (direct mail, events, telemarketing), there should be a new level that includes people involved with the organisation in any way, for example subscribing to our e-newsletters, taking part in online dialogue, introducing their friends via social media, volunteering, advocacy, etc.

Perhaps we in the nonprofit sector have an opportunity to engage people in the work we do (helping our

organisations become more stable financially), while also creating more social connections and thereby increasing a sense of responsibility for each other.

So the questioon becomes, how do we do a better job at involving people in our work?

I suggest that we take at look at some large, recent campaigns and look for similarities. Specifically, I’ll look at three organisa

tions here, Charity:water, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and Kiva, which have four similarities that stand out:

1) Persistence

In Kiva’s case, the founders, Matt and Jessica Flannery, were persistent in the face of naysayers, who included their friends as well as heads of foundations.

2) Transparency

Both Kiva and Charity:water keep donors updated about how their loans and donations are being used. A few weeks ago, when a well they were drilling ran into serious problems, Charity:Water sent an email to donors to tell them about that particular challenge. They treated donors as partners and investors in the project.

3) Focused

Instead of trying to have several different strategies to work on, the Obama campaign chose just one. Instead of trying to solve all of the problems facing a community, Charity:water chooses to focus on water, Kiva focuses on microloans.

4) Use of technology

Social media is prevalent for each of these organisations. In 2008, when Charity:water was approached by Twestival (or Twitter Festival), at that time, the largest global grassroots social media fundraising event, they embraced the partnership and raised over USD 250,000 for their cause in 2009. In March 2010 over $460,000 was raised through Twestival events. Kiva have developed their own social network to connect lenders with entrepreneurs.

All of the causes listed above are connecting people to causes that are bigger than them. They are in many ways increasing social capital, and social media is a large part of developing that. Here are a few of the opportunities that are made easier through the use of social media:

· Meaningful dialogue with others who are passionate about your cause.

· Give early feedback about the impact a new programme will have.

· Educate people about the complexity of the cause you are addressing.

· Target messages to those who are interested in your cause.

· Allow others to easily share information about you to their friends and family.

· ‘Listen’ online to feeds/posts about your organisation.

There are several online resources that provide the technical details you need to get started. Network for Good, Mashable, SocialBrite, Beth’s Blog, TechSoup, and John Haydon are a few of my favourites. So in this forum, instead of getting technical, I’ll close with three thoughts on social media as it relates to social capital.

First, it’s a relationship. We don’t have to control it.

Second, it’s a relationship. We should be open to a two-way dialogue.

Third, it’s a relationship. Let’s simply help people connect with a cause they are already interested in , find methods to engage them in ways that are meaningful to them, and invite them to participate with us as together we change the world (one relationship at a time).

Social trysumers and the free experience era.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 06:42:00 +0000

By Marcelo Iniarra

I was contacted by SOFII a couple of weeks ago to write a regular blog on interesting fundraising trends and innovations. I have been scratching my head fairly consistently ever since about how best to begin a series of posts on one of my favourite elements of fundraising, and indeed the primary focus of my career as a consultant, innovation.

Those of you that know me through work, or have attended one of the workshops or seminars that I give at various fundraising events around the world will probably be aware of my philosophy that innovation should be a primary focus within all social organisations. In this post I will be focusing primarily on innovation within the area of fundraising.

After more than a decade promoting this philosophy, firstly from within Greenpeace and later as a creative strategist at my own company, www.marceloiniarra.com, with clients such as UNICEF, UNHCR, Action Aid and SOS Kinderdorf, I began to notice a pattern emerging regarding supporter needs.

As some of you may be aware, during my time at Greenpeace, I was one of the pioneers of digital media within the social sector. While promoting digital innovation within the organisation, I began to notice more and more people getting involved as cyber activists, e-newsletter subscribers, mobile phone donors and through other means of digital participation, even though many of them had never actually donated money.

A pressing question began to emerge in my mind. What if we started to consider these people not just as mere contacts in our databases but as people with a new access to the organisation, people who are interested in the cause and might one day go on to make a donation so long as their free experience of our organisation turned out to be a favourable one?

During a time when digital media is enabling us to have so many experiences for free – we can consult encyclopaedias, listen to music, watch television, read newspapers, all without spending a single penny, social organisations must also join the free experience era and involve people in their work before asking for a donation.

The term that I invented for these supporters, ‘social trysumers’ is probably best explained in the chapter Social Trysumers and the Hidden Gate in the Pyramid , that I co-wrote with my former Greenpeace colleague and friend Alfredo Botti, which appears in the book, Internet Management for Non-profits.

‘Social trysumers is based on a concept that first appeared on the www.trendwatching.com website in March 2007. Trysumers, simply put, refers to a new breed of consumer who wants to ‘try before they buy’. In my opinion, supporters of our social organisations are certainly no different and, largely thanks to the boom in digital media, there has been an in

creasing emergence of non-financial supporters in search of new and creative proposals for social change.

As a result of this new door, we then discovered that changes must be made to the traditional fundraising pyramid in order to bring it up to date with this new free experience era. The traditional fundraising pyramid only permitted access to the organisation by making a donation. Entry could be gained by making a one-time donation, by becoming a monthly donor, or by leaving a legacy, but it always involved an initial financial contribution.

The new fundraising pyramid includes a new entrance – a non-financial, digital entrance – as well as a whole new level from which millions of people can potentially begin their journey of commitment to an organisation.

In my experience, there are two kinds of people that inhabit this new level of the fundraising pyramid. The first kind, the ‘social trysumers’, wants to experience the social sector via new media, without incurring any costs. Maybe they will like what they find and go on to support the organisation financially, or maybe they won’t...

The second group consists of a more traditional sort of social participant who wants to become part of a digital movement, activism or community and enters the new pyramid that way. These kinds of people already want to form part of the organisation but do not want to commit to a donation right away.

Some examples of successfully implemented social trysumer programmes include several campaigns developed by Greenpeace and Avaaz.org, which encourage people who want to help a cause or individual to get involved, say bu signing a petition or calling a government into account. The hope is that this experience will make the trysumers think, ‘Hey, I love doing things for this organisation’. Then, when there is a financial appeal, these people will respond by saying, ‘Sure, I’ll support your cause financially because I know how important it is to fight for, how difficult it is to achieve certain goals, and I know that you’ll make the most out of my donation’.

Of course, the issue of sustainability is vital for social organisations and it is therefore important that we obtain as much contact data for our social trysumer databases as possible, in order to persuade them to cross the line into a financial relationship with the organisation at a later date.

As a result of these dramatic changes to the very foundation of fundraising, the question also arises as to whether fundraising itself should change in order to accommodate this new breed of supporter. Which department should be in charge of managing the social trysumer database? Should the communications area manage the email or SMS information? Should the campaign area take charge of involving the trysumers in digital action? Must the fundraising area invite the trysumers to donate in order to achieve its organisational objectives?

I believe that now, more than ever, there should be public mobilisation or supporter mobilisation departments, integrally leading non-financial relationships with the organisation. This would constitute a significant change in fundraising. Given the new paradigms introduced by electronic media, perhaps the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who lived more than 2,000 years ago and could not possibly have imagined that his wise advice would still apply today, was very right in stating, ‘There is nothing permanent except change’.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:02:00 +0000

Why are we afraid of success?

By Damian O'Broin

It was interesting to read Christiana’s article here two weeks ago on failure and how talking about it builds trust with supporters. I’ve been thinking a lot about success recently and how many of us seem afraid to talk about how successful we are.

I’ll give you an example. On two different occasions recently, I’ve found myself debating with clients on whether or not to tell donors how successful previous fundraising appeals have been. As it happens, both appeals were for specific parts of their work and both had exceeded the stated target – by quite a margin.

I wanted to shout this from the rooftops and tell donors exactly how much had been raised. This was great news, wasn’t it? But our clients were more reluctant. Basically, their concern was that if we told donors how much was raised we would de-motivate them to give in the future. That it would decrease the need in their eyes.

I think this is wrong for several reasons.

First of all, it misunderstands the nature of influence. One of the six principles of influence identified by Robert Cialdini is the notion of social proof – when we are unsure of what to do, we look around to see what others are doing and take our lead from them.

This is why sit-coms use canned laughter – it tells us when we should laugh. And it’s what lies behind the phenomenon of ‘pluralistic ignorance’, when a group of bystanders can watch a life-threatening event – a mugging, a heart attack – and fail to act. Each is looking to the others for a cue as to how to behave and, as they’re not sure how to react, they don’t act.

Social proof is a very powerful lever of influence and clearly it’s in our interests as fundraisers to have it working for us rather than against us. If we constantly talk about need, without sharing our successes, we are implicitly suggesting to a donor that other people don’t support us.

Whereas, when we demonstrate, in clear and specific ways, that lots of other people are also donating to our cause then we tip the scales of social proof in our direction.

In essence, by telling our donors just how successful we’ve been at raising money, we are providing them with social proof that their decision to support us is correct.

It’s also well known that people like being associated with success. Post election opinion polls are a good example of this. After elections, polls tend to show that the winning party or candidate performed better than they actually did, as respondents associate themselves with success.

And there are other reasons why it’s good to tell donors exactly how much you’ve raised.

It shows that you’re good at what you do. It demonstrates that your fundraising is effective, efficient and well run. Exceeding your target gives you a better fundraising ratio.

It provides clear, tangible evidence that what you’re asking for in your appeals is both realistic and achievable. If your donors know that, between them, they’ve managed to give €100,000, when you go back to them with a target of €125,000 they’ll know that it’s within reach.

The converse of this is important to bear in mind. If you set a target that your donors don’t believe is achievable, they are much less likely to make a gift.

Let me give you an example. Bullying UK – an organisation that I admire – faced a funding crisis over the summer. They needed to raise £50,000 by the end of August to avoid closing down. When I heard, I immediately went to make a donation. But I hesitated. As I thought about it, I realised that I wasn’t convinced that they would be able to raise the money and, therefore, my small gift would be wasted. I never made the donation. (As it happens, the appeal fell short, but Bullying UK struggles on.)

Another important reason to share the detail of your success in this way is simply because it’s true. Telling donors about it is genuine feedback.

We’re gradually entering an era where complete openness and transparency is becoming the norm that is expected of nonprofits by their donors. I believe that the only way to respond to this is with radical honesty. Not just giving donors answers to the questions they ask, but by making available information on everything that they might ask about (with the usual caveats about the privacy of those a nonprofit helps or supports).

Radical openness of this sort will inevitably build trust between donors and charities and help to dispel the myths about inefficiencies and exorbitant administration costs.

And, on a smaller scale, being truthful and sharing information about the detail of your fundraising successes will help to build trust, loyalty and commitment with your donors.

But perhaps you’re still looking at the brass tacks. ‘We asked for €50,000 for project X and we raised €100,000. Surely if we tell donors this, when we go back and ask them for €50,000 for ‘project Y, they won’t donate.’

Again, I think this is wrong. Donors aren’t stupid. They know that the costs of running a nonprofit or charity are extensive and far greater than one appeal will ever meet. They’ll feel positive that you’re raising so much money to help the cause that they support and believe in. I don’t think sharing your success will reduce future income. I think it will increase it, as donors see just how far their donations can go.

At a time when there’s such scepticism about ‘professional’ fundraising and a widespread belief that most of the money doesn't go to the end user, to be able to say that not just the money we asked for, but far more is going to help the end user is a fantastic opportunity: one that shouldn’t be passed up.

What can fundraisers learn from Innocent? by Lucy Gower.

noreply@blogger.com (SOFII) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:15:00 +0000

Innocent is a UK company that was set up in 1998 by three friends, Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright. Bored of their day jobs (well they were management consultants), they wanted to do something completely different. So one weekend they went to a music festival in London with £500 worth of fruit and a blender to make and sell smoothies. They put up a big sign asking, ‘Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?’ They also put out a bin saying ‘yes’ and another saying ‘no’ and asked people to put their empty bottles in one of the bins.

At the end of the weekend the ‘yes’ bin was full, so they went into work the next day and resigned.

That’s the story and they are sticking to it. Since those humble beginnings Innocent has gone from strength to strength and today has a 79 per cent share of a £169 million smoothie market. The original ethos behind Innocent was to keep ‘innocent’ with no artificial colours, flavours, or preservatives. They were about helping people with a work hard and play hard lifestyle to be healthier and to make it easier for them to get their five-a-day fruit and veg. The message was simple: just buy a smoothie a day.

Since its first smoothie, Innocent has developed a strong brand, with excellent marketing and communications.

They’ve won masses of awards, continue to build on their original ‘innocent’ ethos, were the first company to develop 100 per cent recycled packaging and they have changed the business of making smoothies.

Based in West London in Fruit Towers, Innocent’s offices are quirky and relaxed. The floor is covered with Astro turf and the staff work in a casual open plan space with regular desk moves to help teams share information and avoid silos. They are involved with their customers and are accountable to them, they ask for advice onnew recipes, write great newsletters and have held some superb and extremely successful summer fetes in London. Their customer service line is called the ‘banana phone’. I called it once and someone actually said, ‘Hello, the banana phone’ when he answered. Brilliant.

Innocent’s strong brand, its passion to be a leader in its market, commitment to customer involvement, insight, prototyping and testing new recipes, and being brave enough to challenge the status quo are all the qualities of a typically innovative culture. Oh and they have also delivered some excellent and original charity campaigns.

The Innocent Foundation

The grant-making arm of the Innocent business works with NGOs to deliver their vision of sustainable farming for a secure future. They currently have 12 partners working on projects primarily in countries where they buy the fruit. There is nothing amazing about this; however, the way they link the purchase of a smoothie to the work of the foundation and highlight the difference the customer has made is excellent. The engagement mechanism varies from campaign to campaign. I planted a tree for a friend through the ‘grow me a tree’ campaign – all I had to do was enter the special code, which was on the carton I bought, on their website and they donated money on my behalf to grow trees in India. Well, actually on behalf of my behalf of my friend, who was delighted to be able to see the location on a special map on the website. Now Innocent can tell me about my friend’s tree whenever they like.

The National Trust and Federation of Irish Beekeepers

I’m a big fan of the National Trust, a conservation charity that protects special places in England. In 2010, part of their ‘forever, for everyone’ appeal has been concerned with the plight of the honeybee and this summer Innocent teamed up with the National Trust to save the bees.

Innocent have simple messaging and packaging and an excellent landing page on the website. The smoothie is delicious and you get the opportunity to make a difference by planting your own seeds. You can sign up for bee blogs and the winner of the online competition gets to visit one of the hives and meet Tim the beekeeper.Innocent developed a limited edition lemon, honey and ginger smoothie and for every bottle sold a donation went to the National Trust. Tied to the top of the bottle was a packet of seeds for you to plant to help encourage local bees. The aim of the ‘buy one get one bee’ campaign was to build 40 traditional hives in National Trust properties, provide beekeeping equipment to look after the bees and to encourage two million bees back into the UK.

This was part of a bigger campaign. The National Trust introduced 45 colonies of honeybees in the UK. Every hive was adopted by a local radio station, which told the story of their hive throughout the summer and gave away free flower seeds for listeners to sow in their gardens. Local radio websites had everything about bees from key facts about them to advice on bee-friendly planting at home. The National Trust even installed a special ‘beecam’ at one of their hives.

I learnt that bees are very important. Did you know that:

Bees are worth £200 million to the British economy alone.
Forty per cent of the food we eat depends on plants being pollinated by insects, including bees.
One in three mouthfuls of food is produced with the help of bees.

Why is this innovative?

It’s a partnership with a benefit for all sides: the National Trust raises awareness for their campaign and encourages footfall; Innocent sells more smoothies and tests a new recipe; and the bees get more flowers to pollinate. There are tangible outcomes; you have helped build a hive, you can visit your local hive and you are given a personal responsibility to plant some seeds. Its fun and eye catching, online and offline communications work together, it’s seasonal and time limited.

How successful was it? It’s hard to tell – the hives have been built but the two million bees are still being counted.

The big knit 2010 – Age UK

The big Knit is a partnership between Innocent and Age UK that aims to raise £200,000 to make winter warmer for thousands of old people across the UK. The big knit has been running since 2003 and has raised over £800,000 to date.

Innocent ask people to knit little hats for their smoothie bottles, which are then sold with the bottles and for every bottle sold with a hat 25 pence goes to Age UK. There have been some weird and wonderful creations and it certainly makes a visit to the chiller cabinet a bit more interesting – and apparently boosts sales for Innocent.

Again, the big knit has an excellent landing page and information packs, which include instructions on how to knit, patterns for all levels, ideas on how to form your own knitting group and a ‘hatometer’. You can also upload your hats photos to a dedicated Flickr page.

Your hat knitting helps provide old people in the UK with physical warmth, in the way of clothing, electric blankets and warm food for the winter. It also helps to combat isolation and loneliness by bringing older people together with people in their community through everyday activities, such as knitting.

Why is this innovative?

It has many of the same qualities as buy one get one bee: it’s original, it links to the cause using knitting for warmth and building communities and creates sales for Innocent. Online and offline communication is well integrated, providing a range of ways for people to get involved. It’s tangible: you will help keep people warm in winter. Its time specific to help old people during cold winter months.

Peace One Day campaign

The 21st of September was Peace Day, the only annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence in the world. Peace One Day is a nonprofit organisation, founded by British filmmaker Jeremy Gilley that aims to introduce Peace Day to three billion people by September 2012. Innocent are helping to raise awareness via a limited edition recipe and by promoting a live concert webcast; as well as encouraging customers to help spread the word by signing up to a peace wall and telling their friends. You can sign up via email, Facebook, or Twitter.

Why is this innovative?

It’s a great use of social media to sign people up. Check out the peace wall. How can you use the same mechanism for your charity’s fundraising or campaigning work?

What can we learn from Innocent?

A lot I reckon, especially about deliberately developing an innovative culture. These, I think, are the key elements.

Remain true to your core mission and values.
Be passionate about what you do and encourage that in your colleagues.
Dare to be different; capture your audience’s imagination.
Ask your customers/donors for their ideas and feedback – make it easy with competitions and incentives.
Get great at telling stories.
Give things a go, prototype, test, refine.
Really join up your on and offline communications and make them relevant to your audience.
Don’t settle for mediocrity – strive for excellence – change the world.
It’s OK – in fact it’s important – to have fun in the process

New ideas and innovation don’t have to be brand new. Look for bright sparks of excellence in other sectors, identify the key factors of that excellence and replicate them for your purpose. For the next challenge that you face, why not ask yourself ‘What would Innocent do?’; you never know, thinking from a fresh perspective could lead to your breakthrough fundraising idea.

@lucyinnovation

http://lucyinnovation.wordpress.com/

P.S. I don’t work for innocent – and I’m not on commission - really.

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Lucy Gower is the innovation and development manager in the NSPCC's child protection and consultancy team.