Giving USA 2013

The latest Giving USA report is fairly encouraging. In 2012, $316 billion was given to charity. This means charitable giving showed a 3.5% increase over 2011. Here’s why Carlson sees this as promising:

• Third consecutive year of growth

  This is the 3rd consecutive year since the depths of the Great Recession that has seen charitable giving grow. This is a big deal because between 2007 and 2009, charitable giving in the USA dropped 15%! If you’re working in a nonprofit, that isn’t a surprise. But a drop in giving had only occurred one other time in the decades we’ve been studying it. And it wasn’t as steep as a 15% drop. Three years of growing shows we’re digging out of the hole.

• Faster recovery now predicted

  Although it will still be a very slow recovery, Carlson is now predicting it taking only 6-7 years to get back to pre-recession levels of giving. In the interview, he noted that last year he was expecting it to take much longer, over 10 years. Last year’s giving shows an acceleration that is encouraging.

Individuals still reign

As usual, individuals were the largest contributor to the overall giving. Individuals gave 72% of the overall $316 billion, an increase of 3.9%. And when you factor in bequests (which can only be made by individuals) and family foundations (an increasingly popular way for individuals to give) that number rises to 86%.

For nonprofits raising money, this is a good reminder to focus more time on asking individuals than foundations and corporations. The good news? Foundations and corporations are run by individuals! So your time with key individuals is time very well spent.

Giving to arts recovering; giving to religion slipping

Another interesting trend in the Giving USA report is that giving to arts and culture is increasing. In fact, with an increase of 7.8%, this sector had the largest increase. Carlson notes that giving to arts organizations is usually affected by the stock market. As the stock market grows, affluent donors tend to feel more comfortable and tend to be more generous.

On the other hand, giving to religious institutions decreased by another percent to 32% of all giving. Carlson notes that giving to religion used to account for over 50% of giving in the USA. He points to two primary forces at work here. First, increases in giving to religion tends to reflect increases in income. Since income has remained relatively flat, so has giving to religion. Carlson also refers to Pew studies indicating that overall attendance at faith services continues to decline in the USA. So flat incomes and less people showing up weekly both seem to be contributing to an overall decline in giving to faith based organizations.

Disaster relief isn’t as much a factor as anticipated

A final note, as a fundraising coach, I’m often asked by clients how to navigate fundraising around disasters like Hurricane Sandy. Even clients far from the regions affected seem nervous about the impact disaster relief will have on their own fundraising efforts.

Giving USA 2013 is the first look at fundraising for Hurricane Sandy. And the early numbers seem to indicate that the hundreds of millions raised for Sandy relief efforts was still less than 1% of all giving in 2013. Obviously this disproportionately impacts nonprofits in that region and with donors in the affected region. But as you look at your organization’s fundraising in the wake of a natural disaster, these numbers can arm you to reassure your board that donors will still give to causes like yours.

Two actions to take today

I’ve long been a fan of the reports. These help us as fundraisers get a big picture view on fundraising and historic trends going back for decades. As your coach, here’s what I’d like you to do:

1. Listen to the npVoices interview

   As a professional or board member for a nonprofit, you need to know the latest information in fundraising. These 10 minutes give you the highlights and can serve as a launching point for discussions with your board and executive team. The episode is available at: http://www.npengage.com/nonprofit-research/npvoices-episode-4/

2. Buy the report at the Giving USA Foundation site. This ongoing study is done by a nonprofit partially funded by the sale of the report. So go and get it, even if only the $15 edition of the charts. This is information you should be using to educate your staff and board. But please invest in this research by purchasing the report. A direct link to the store is at: http://store.givingusareports.org/2013-Products-C27.aspx

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

I’m creating a guide currently called “Developing Your Personal Giving Strategy” to help you and your donors give with confidence, avoid scams, and avoid well-meaning but bad recommendations by charity “rating” organizations.

To be among the first to know when this free guide is ready, sign up in the form below!

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

Last week, I was pleasantly surprised to look in my inbox and see this email subject line:

1. Email subject line: “You made this happen.”

   Isn’t that a great email subject line?! I couldn’t wait to figure out what “this” was! What did I make happen.

2. Then the email falls apart

   Unfortunately, Milton lost an opportunity. When I opened the email, this is what I saw:
   

   Crickets. There isn’t even a creative use of “alt” tags.

3. Remember: many of your donors don’t enable images. Be ready for that!

   Fortunately, when you click the “show images” button, you get to this is awesome image:
   

The importance of a strong email subject line

Do you see the importance of a strong email subject line? The line “You made this happen” aroused so much curiosity that I was willing to load images even after the school had fired a blank email to me. I knew the image must be really cool, so I did load it.

As you’re getting ready to finish your emails for the end of the year, please forget the awful “There’s still time” emails. Just because June 30 is the end of your fiscal year doesn’t mean it’s an important date to your donors. Your job is to inspire action, not naps!

Try something a little more creative. Like the great email subject line from Milton Academy’s email!

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

Keeping up with your own blog as well as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn can be daunting. Never mind trying to add Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and others that keep popping up!

Naturally, readers have asked if I had any examples of templates to help schedule your social media updates on your calendar. So I asked colleagues for their favorite samples. The suggestions below were helped by Julia Smith, Danielle Siembieda, John Haydon, Shai Coggins, and Susan Mooney.

5 Social Media Editorial Content Calendar Templates

• Here’s LightBox Collaborative’s template hosted on Google Docs. This is for all your media, not just social.
• The folks at DonorSnap offered this blog post on content calendaring, along with some calendaring examples.
• The folks at Vervely offer some great suggestions in creating your content calendar, including some plug-ins for WordPress.
• And here’s a post from ContentMarketingExperience.com about moving from spreadsheets to content collaboration including a review of a tool called DivvyHQ.
• This blog post from Hubspot has great ideas on scheduling and includes a link to a template too.

What do you use?

What tools do you find help you keep your story and timing coordinated? Tell us in the comments below!

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

Did you notice that last December? My inbox was flooded with nonprofit emails begging me to give. This is foolish because it’s confusing when donors give with when donors are approached to give. This is not the best way to do year end fundraising.

Generous year end giving isn’t merely the result of a barrage of appeals and emails in the last weeks of the year. Successful year end fundraising takes strategic planning. Here are 3 tips to help you jumpstart your fall fundraising.

1. Draft your fundraising letters

   Summer is the perfect time to get your fundraising letters ready! I’m still a big fan of regular mail. It gives people something physical to hold and use as a reminder. Snail mail is still a proven source for online giving too!

   I recommend sending three letters at these times:

   • Late August/early September
     People are getting back to the regular patterns of school and work so your letter is more likely to be received, read, and responded to.
   • Early to mid-November
     In the USA, this letter could be a Thanksgiving themed fundraising letter. “In this season of Thanksgiving, we are grateful for…”
   • Mid-December
     I like having one last letter hit mailboxes in mid-December. The holiday season gets busy. People won’t always remember the November letter. So get something in their hands that they can put in their bills-to-pay stack so they’ll be able to donate when at the end of December.

   As with anything you read about fundraising, you need to test this for your organization. But this has worked well for me and for my clients.

   My fundraising letters definitely evolved as I studied copywriting. You can see two examples on my fundraising letters page. While you’re there, sign up for the free 4-part fundraising letter e-course.

2. Look for ways to reinforce letters with social media

   Your donors don’t live solely online or off-line so your fundraising needs to be multichannel. You should be taking the opportunity to reinforce your fundraising letter themes in your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn updates. And using those sites to ask for money too.

   One way could be to simply tweet or post this to your social media accounts: “XYZ Nonprofit supporters: check your mailbox for our latest update!” and include a link to a donation page as well.

   Another could be to use the same theme as your letter. If you’re fundraising for land conservation, perhaps you build an “adopt-an-acre” campaign for your fundraising letters. In the fall, you could simply use the same “call to action” in social media and drive people to a specifically themed donation page.

   Now is the time to draft the landing pages. And even the updates and an editorial calendar for when you’ll publish those updates. Each platform allows a different amount of text (measured by characters), so planning now can save you lots of time later. According to Andy Crestodina in Content Chemistry: An Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing, here are the current character limits for updates and posts:

   • Google+: 100,000 characters
   • Facebook: 63,206 characters
   • LinkedIn: 700 characters
3. Twitter: 140 characters (but aiming for 120 characters allows people space to “retweet” it)

   You could create your own social media editorial calendar by plotting these out on a spreadsheet so all you’ll need to do is cut-and-paste them in the fall.

4. Harness the power of volunteers

   People expect us to promote our year end fundraising. But they often take it more seriously when one of their friends promotes our year end giving appeal.

   In their great book Content Rules authors C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley recommend taking note of the people that are always responding to your updates. These are the people liking your stuff on Facebook, retweeting it on Twitter, +1ing it on Google+, and even sharing it on LinkedIn, Pinterest, or whatever other network they’re active in.

   These can be called your “super fans.” This summer, take keep a post-it note on your desk and write down the name of people that regularly seem to share and interact with your content. Offline sharing too: include people that show up at your office or volunteer or seem to always be telling others about your nonprofit.

   You can tell them that you’re experimenting with putting together a “task force” or “advisory group” to help you shape your fall fundraising appeal. Ask them for their email address (if you don’t have it) so you can keep in touch with them. Then run your fundraising letter theme by them. Ask them if the social media plan that accompanies the letters makes sense. And ask them if they’d help share those messages when the time comes.

   Your goal is to make it ridiculously easy for them to help share your message. So as your letters get sent and your updates get posted, be sure to email them notifications and links to the respective updates.

If 2012 was any indication of what 2013 will look like, even more charities will be flooding people’s inboxes at the end of the year. But if you do these three simple steps this summer and you’ll be well on your way to benefiting from donors’ year end giving. When they see your communications, it will be tied to a story you’ve been telling them all fall!

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

Here is my letter.

An anonymous letter to a nonprofit board member

Dear Jane,

Thank you. Thank you so much for giving your time and money to make our world a better place by your work here.

You are more important for this organization than you know. I wish I could really make you believe it.

You are so thoughtful, kind, and considerate.

I know the fundraising solicitations we’re asking board members to help with has you tied in knots. We really aren’t asking you to become someone you’re not. You don’t need to be assertive like George. And we’re not asking you to become pushy like your crazy cousin.

And you don’t need to memorize all the facts about us or a sales script.

All you really need to do is tell your story. You’re already giving your time and money to us. You clearly value our work. All you need to do is share that with the people you’ve identified. You don’t even have to ask them for money. I’ll do that.

I know you well enough to know you won’t believe me. You’re just thinking I’m saying things to make you feel better. But I ran across a tool that might convince you. There’s a free asking styles profile I’d love you to take at http://AskingStylesProfile.com/.

Once you’ve taken it, I’d love to go over it with you.

I am so glad you’re on our board. Thank you.

What would you write?

If you could write an anonymous letter to your board, what would you say?

Ha! I just realized adding my name makes it not anonymous! Oops!

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

Social Animals: Connecting with Your Supporters

by Peter Genuardi, CEO
Strenth in Members

A few months ago, my phone rang. It was a board member from KUNC, one of my local public radio stations. He was calling me to say “thank you” for my first donation to the station. He just wanted to say hello, and ask if there was anything he could do to make programming better. I was impressed, really, that I received any call from the organization, nevermind someone on the board.

Little did he know that when he decided to call me that I would tell lots of my friends, write a Facebook update urging donation, and write this blog post about it. As a result, my friends have now been exposed to at least three messages from me reinforcing this station the next time they consider giving to public radio.

What if instead of calling me, the board member called my friend Dave. Dave’s a nice guy who keeps to himself, isn’t on Facebook, and never ever writes blog posts. The call would have yielded some good will, but it would do little to grow the station’s base of supporters, who are critically important to the organization achieving its mission.

This call went far in solidifying my support for the station — but the board member could easily have done more to get me to bring others into the fold. Below are some thoughts on how board members who connect with supporters can capitalize on the “social” or “network” effect of each contact.

Reaching Out: The Personal Touch

A growing number of enlightened board members are trying hard to connect with their supporters (donors, advocates, volunteers). Given that there are generally way more supporters than hours in the day, their job would be easier (and more valuable) if board members could prioritize the supporters they reach out to in some way.

Influence: Prioritizing Beyond Simple Value

An obvious way to prioritize would be to call the most “valuable” ones — supporters who have given the most money, volunteered the most hours, or showed up at the greatest number of events. Prioritizing calls on the basis of supporters’ “value” to your organization is a great start — sure, seems obvious.

Now, what if you could take that further, and prioritize based on “influence”. Using a service (like Strength in Members) you can identify the people who are broadly and deeply connected to large networks of like-minded people — people most likely to actively support your cause. A call to one of these strategic “influencers” would be worth more than a call to, say, my friend Dave who’s just not wired to convince his friends and family to support organizations.

Even if you don’t prioritize outreach based on peoples’ “influence”, you can still structure your conversations with supporters in a way that gets them to expand your reach.

What to Ask For

Think about how you can tailor your conversation with supporters to encourage them to bring others into the fold. What you’ll need to do is craft a series of “social” asks without making it sound like you’re big brother or just being nosey.

Here are some ideas:

• Understand How They Decided to Donate, Volunteer, or Attend an Event

  Figure out if they chose to donate because someone else (like their spouse, friends, family) encouraged them to do so. This will tell you (relative to others) how connected this person is.

• Explore How Connected their Network is Connected to Your Organization

  Ask if they found out about your organization from friends or family. Assure them that their friends and family must be a lot like them – supportive of the issue that the organization works on.

• Increase How Connected the Person is to the Organization

  Ask if they’re on your email list, following you on FB, twitter, etc. Ask them to connect their friends to those.

• Ask them to Help with a Specific Promotion

  Specific Ask: Mention to them an upcoming event or campaign. See if they want to get on board. Even if they’re not, tell them to tell their friends and family.

• Follow Up Quickly

  Create a follow-up email ready with all these “asks” and links to events, your FB page, etc. Send it to the supporter the day after the call.

Try integrating these points into your conversations with supporters. At the very least they will believe that you’re genuinely interested in their support for your organization. And, at best, they will bring more supporters into the mix to share in the success of your cause.

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

In each I was asked various aspects of fundraising.

1. Ted Hart’s Nonprofit Radio

   On Ted’s show, about 15-20 minutes in, we talked about Ask Without Fear! and the ins and outs of major gift fundraising.

   You can listen in at:
   http://www.blogtalkradio.com/tedhart/2013/05/14/nonprofit-coach-marc-pitman-ask-without-fear–fundraising

2. Blackbaud’s npVOICES

   On this show, Steve MacLaughlin and I talk about trends we’re seeing in the nonprofit sector. Steve also interviewed Allyson Kapin from Rad Campaign and Brendan Kinney of Vermont Public Radio.
   http://www.npengage.com/nonprofit-research/npvoices-episode-2/

   Steve MacLaughlin and I talked about new trends we’re seeing in fundraising, including a trend to donors wanting to consolidate giving to one or two nonprofits and why that isn’t great for nonprofits.

3. I Can Haz Podcast

   And I got to be a guest of Sue Murphy and Stefan Haller on the I Can Haz Podcast. We talked nonprofit fundraising, social media, and crowdsourcing.

   http://www.icanhazpodcast.com/2013/05/marc-pitman-ep-94.html

Happy listening!

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

He’s probably not interested.

I’m probably bugging her.

They get “hit” by everyone so they won’t want to talk to me.

When we say things like that, we think we’re being “honest” or “realistic.” But we’re actually creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. These thoughts often physically affect us, causing our shoulders to sag a little and our voice to lose some enthusiasm.

Just trying to help us

In his classic book Psycho-Cybernetics, Dr. Maxwell Maltz calls our brains “goal seeking mechanisms.” Our brain wants us to be successful at the goals we set. When we say, “Oh this will never work,” our brains go to business pulling together all the reasons why we’re right, why it will never work.

Another author, Dr. David Schwartz (who wrote The Magic of Thinking Big), says that our subconscious is like a file clerk. When we make a statement, its job is to pull all the files from our memories and experiences that support our conclusion.

It still takes work

Don’t write this off as hocus-pocus, blab-it-and-grab-it, snake oil stuff. If you’ve read any of my writings or been to any of my fundraising seminars, you know I’m all about doing the hard work. Fundraising is hard work. Rewarding, but often difficult.

We simply aren’t going to just speak our way to fully funding our program. We need to actually ask people for money.

But what I am saying is that our perceptions color reality. Fundraising is hard enough, why would we actively make it harder on ourselves by assuming the worst?

A 90-day experiment

This summer (or winter for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere), why not make a game of trying to imagine the possible positive outcome?

He just might be interested.

I’m probably reaching her at a great time.

They get approached by everyone so they are probably generous. I can’t wait to talk to them.

Just do it from now through mid-August. Thinking about positive outcomes takes practice. It might help to put a post-it note on your phone to remind you. Even just a simple smiley face.

Try it now

Go ahead, try it now. Reach out to the nearest phone as though you were going to make a call and say to yourself, “I’m probably catching them at a great time.”

Do you feel it? Most times I see people do this,

• they smile
• their voice becomes more energized
• and they sit up straighter or stand taller.

You won’t know it, but you’ll start training your brain to remember the times when your call was great timing, when that important person was really interested, when people were genuinely excited to give to your cause.

As you keep asking your file clerk to pull those files, you’ll find they are easier and easier to find.

Start now! Instead of saying, “Nobody gives in the summer” say “Some people make gifts in the summer. And I’m really good at finding those people!”

Here’s to a productive three months of fundraising!

Body Language

I recently attended a training by Amy Glass for a team of Graham-Pelton consultants. During her talk, she referenced the work of Dr. Amy Cuddy, particularly how your body language shapes your experience.

If you want to put your 90-day experience on a fast track, check out her Ted talk on “power posing.” It turns out, even our posture can change our body chemistry and the way people experience us!

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!

The people they coach are raising their own ministry support. They don’t have time to mess around, wasting time. But they aren’t often the most eager fundraisers. They know they have to ask for money, but they got into their position to do “ministry,” not raise support.

Sounds like most people that start nonprofits, doesn’t it? They just want to do mission, not have to deal with the funding.

So these coaches get to help people see that fundraising is ministry. They were a wonderful bunch. They asked me to speak on:

• The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Fundraisers

• Helping Others Succeed at Fundraising (This much I know is true)

• Overcoming Discouragment in Fundraising

Since they graciously recorded my talks, I’m offering them for free on my site. Go to the Symposium page here at http://fundraisingcoach.com/symposium/ to get the complete audio files, links to the PowerPoints, and links to any tools I shared.

If you’re fundraising for a faith-based cause, particularly for a Christian ministry, I’m sure you’ll benefit from these talks.

I also recommend you check out Scott Morton’s Funding Your Ministry. It’s simply the best book I’ve read for helping people raise their own ministry support.

(c) The Fundraising Coach, LLC

Get 100 donors in the next 12 weeks? Learn how: 100 Donors in 90 Days!