The message is “MASSIVE injustice demands a MASSIVE response”, but if anything, I think the huge package does a disservice to the cause it calls the reader to support.

First, the recipient is addressed “Dear Friend”.  Amnesty International is asking me to take action, but it can only address me as Dear Friend?  They spent all this money on the contents of the package, which include a four page letter, two pages of petitions, address labels (that actually DO have my name on them) and a return envelope, but they can’t splurge on personalizing the greeting?

Second, I really wonder about the performance of a direct mail piece that has two asks – sign the petition and give money.  Yes, we all want to engage our donors in the work that we do.  But, I don’t think we should ever mix messages.  If you are asking for money, let’s hope it’s on the heels of true donor engagement, not stuffed into the solicitation package.

Third – and I thought this went out in the 1990’s – the offer is a free Amnesty International totebag with a gift of $25.  Do you really want donors that come in to the organization because of a tote bag?  Remember all the churn and burn we’ve seen throughout the years in direct mail?  Premiums may bring in donors, but how passionate are they about the mission of the organization?  Will they stay, become monthly donors, and leave bequests?

I find this piece to be very retro 1995 and it makes me wonder if the pendulum of  progress towards personalization, true donor engagement, and mission-driven direct mail has swung back the other way.  Is Amnesty International trying on the bell bottoms of direct mail fundraising and hoping they’ll come back in style?

One of the most disappointing things about the environmental movement has been the doomsday predictions about climate change, toxics, and deforestation.  If you’re an environmental donor, you can’t turn around without seeing a dying polar bear or a stump-covered mountain.

While I think it’s critical to state the problem as a part of making the case for any organization, it cannot be the centerpiece for the whole case for giving.  People need to see a vision for a possible, inspiring future.

So, I am really inspired by one of my clients, the WILD Foundation, who has created the inspiring vision of Nature Needs Half, which sees a future where at least half of the planet’s land and water is protected and interconnected.  This isn’t a tag line.  WILD is advocating, inspiring, and stewarding a movement of dozens of environmental organizations around the globe who buy into this surprisingly do-able goal.  Their goal is to get there within the next few generations.

What does that kind of goal translate into for an arts, human services, or health care?

But, when I sat down one evening and got out my pen, I botched it.  In fact, I wrote classically bad thank you notes.  I licked the last envelope and then I put my head down on my desk.  I knew they weren’t what I had really wanted to say.  They were stiff and formal and full of direct mail speak.

I hesitated to put them in the mail box the next day and as if a little guardian angel was hovering over me, I received in my e-mail box a post from Gail Perry about do’s and don’ts for thank you letters.  I’d broken lots of the rules.

So, I ripped them up and started again.  I wrote those thank you notes as if I was writing to a friend; a genuine hand-written note of thanks from a volunteer to a donor and I used Gail’s list as a guide.

A rather humbling experience for someone who has written many great thank you letters for other people to sign! But, we never stop learning, do we?

Take a look and see if your thank you notes might need some polishing and if you have volunteers writing notes, this is a great link to send them!

How to Craft a Killer Thank You Letter

I’ve been really inspired by Seth Godin’s blog.  He says some very thoughtful things in just a few sentences, so instead of laboring over my posts, I’m going to post quick, useful thoughts on fundraising and communications that I hope will make you think, explore, and possibly change the way you’re doing things.

So, starting off today, here is an interesting blog from Peter Bregman in the Harvard Business Review that asks, “Do People Really Want You to Be Honest?” I like this post because it really makes me think.  Yes, people appreciate honesty, but do they really want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly from the nonprofit organizations they support?  Should we be honest when a program doesn’t work? Or when an Executive Director hire doesn’t work out? Or when a fundraising campaign costs more than it makes?  How would our donors react?

Robert Egger, Founder, DC Central Kitchen

Last week, I went to the Colorado Nonprofit Association conference in Denver.  I went with the usual expectations.  I would see lots of friends and get some great tips from other consultants and nonprofit staff.  And mostly, that’s what happened.  Ann Goldman and I presented on mergers (if you’re interested, check out this blog about our presentation and the video we made) and I attended a couple of great sessions about board and staff relations.

I didn’t expect to have a major “aha” moment revelation.  But, I did in the form of a key note speech from Robert Egger.   When he took the podium, Robert said he was going to rise above all the clanking of dishes in the big banquet room, but he didn’t need to worry because as soon as he started talking, the room settled table by table into curious silence.  He had a message that isn’t heard enough at nonprofit conferences.

Robert is the Executive Director of the DC Central Kitchen, which he founded about 25 years ago, but these days he speaks around the country about the potential power of the nonprofit sector.  No, not just the power to feed people, transform individual lives, and make social change, but the economic engine that is the nonprofit sector, so little recognized or respected for the financial power it represents.  The jobs, the collective revenue, the money we nonprofit organizations bring to a city or town is a footnote at best.

To be honest, although I have an MBA, I never really bought the “nonprofits are just like businesses” thing.  I don’t think the sectors are as alike as many business people think.  But when Robert talked about nonprofits as a business, in the way that we as Americans revere and want businesses in our community, I thought yes, we are business.  In fact, we are business on steroids.  We bring jobs and create social change!

Some quick stats on our collective power from Robert’s political action committee, the V3 Campaign:

• Nonprofits produce 7% of the national GDP
• 14 million people work for nonprofits in this country
• $3 trillion in assets held by nonprofits
• $300 billion is collected in donations annually
• 80 million people devote volunteer time to nonprofits annually

And we should have the clout of business with these stats, but instead we get squeezed by increasing oversight and threats to the charitable tax deduction.  We get pressure to lower our salaries and reduce investment in our organizations.  We don’t get any politicians courting us, but if we bound together and pressured them to speak to our interest, they would have to take notice.

And for me, this was a mind bomb.  I’ve worked in nonprofits all my professional life and I always thought of how different we were from business – that’s what I liked about working for a nonprofit.  But now, I think nonprofits have to work together to get recognized as the economic force we are.  We’re not charity – we are a business force to be reckoned with.

So, check out the V3 campaign and let’s start to yell from the roof tops about the power of nonprofits.  I know it’s a mind shift, but how better attract the best talent, build stronger organizations, and protect the men, women, children, and creatures we serve?

I recently went to Costa Rica for a great family trip.  No business – not even any wireless where we were in the Osa Peninsula – but loads of amazing wildlife, warm people, great food.

But when I was looking through the photos, I chuckled as I saw one of myself coming off the zip line near the Arenal Volcano.  The wire had been 600 feet above the ground and we were flying through the canopy at speeds of 45 miles per hour.  What was I thinking?

But zip lining is like fundraising.  You’ve got to have faith, jump off that platform, and ride it out.  (I yell along the way).  If you hesitate or stop yourself on the zip line, you may not make it to the next platform.  And so it is with fundraising.  Once you’ve made your plan, you have to just go for it.  As my father was fond of saying, “He who hesitates is lost.”

So, with the right equipment, a dose of courage, and a determination to get to the next platform, I zip lined my way to the end.

Don’t you get caught on the platform.  Try something new today in your fundraising program and soar!

A few days ago, I returned from a trip to South Africa.  My head is still buzzing.  Not only did the meeting I attended there far surpass my expectations, but my mind continues to drift back to the country even as I get back to my daily life here in Boulder.

I’m a member of the Board of Directors of ActionAid, a large development organization based in Johannesburg.  About 10 years ago, ActionAid was an organization based in London that raised money in Europe to give to local efforts in the Global South.  The organization decided that it wanted to break that paradigm and put a plan in place to build a federation where power was distributed to the countries where it worked as well as to those where it raised money.  It moved its international staff – including the CEO – to Johannesburg a few years ago and has continued to build boards and fundraising capacity throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

I went to Johannesburg to attend a strategic planning session for the next five year cycle (2012 – 21017) as a representative from the US board.  I knew there were going to be 120 people there.  I had very little hope for a meeting that would produce any actionable results.  How wrong I was.  I’m still amazed at what a fulfilling experience it was and how we actually put the outline of a strategy together.

How did it happen?  Three things made the difference:

1.  The meeting planners kept us inspired.  The venue changed every day, but the locations were a secret until we got on the bus in the morning .  Every day we went to some other inspiring place in Johannesburg.  Each place kept you thinking about greatness: the Apartheid Museum, the Constitutional Court (build on top of an old prison), and the World Cup Soccer Stadium.

2.  There was room for airing ideas, but not too much room.  One day was called the Marketplace of Ideas.  People who wanted to put ideas forward for the new strategy – what we should work on, where, and how – were given 4 minutes to make their pitch and were then spread out throughout a large space where “shoppers” could wander and ask questions about the ideas being proposed.  This allowed ideas to get out and be discussed, but nothing was allowed to dominate.

3.  Scenario planning was used very effectively.  There were three scenarios that the meeting planners created that were completely different visions of what ActionAid would be five years from now.  And it was done so creatively!  One was a game show, where a staff member answered questions about the organization; one was a conversation between a campaigner and a supporter; and one was a news interview with a future CEO.  They were engaging, funny, and they made us think – what do we want to look like in 2017?

And it worked!  At the end of the five days, we had the outline of a strategy that nearly everyone at the meeting agreed was a good start.  There were still questions about finances and the nuances of our priorities, but there was something there to work from – and agreed to by 120 staff and board members!  I found the process amazing and the result extremely gratifying.

And then there is South Africa itself.  What an amazing place!  What an incredible story.  The journey from apartheid is inspiring, and ongoing.  There is still an incredible division of the races, but the intention is there and the story is so alive that it gives you hope and a vision for what it could be like.  Indeed, South Africa doesn’t seem to need scenario planning.  It has a clear view of itself, an ideal scenario for five, twenty five, and a hundred years from now.  The path may be full of turns and twists, but the promise of South Africa is awesome to witness.  I’m so grateful I got to be a part of it.

I went to the conference to make a presentation about major gifts and planned giving on-line with a partner consultant, Melissa Wyers, of Breakthrough Strategies.  We’ve been working together to create on-line communications that bring in prospects for larger gifts.

Amongst the many technical sessions, ours stood out.  Sure, we all know e-mail is a numbers game.  You’ve got to build a big list to get anything but minimal returns.  But, once you have a nice size list, how do you try to find the golden needle in the hay stack?

Melissa and I have been working with clients to help them to use e-mail to identify and cultivate major and planned gifts.   Regardless of the size of the organization, identifying major and planned giving prospects is crucial.  But, it can also be very expensive, coming in the form of wealth screenings, mailings, and staff travel.

But what if you could send out e-mail communication to capture the attention of people that want to make these kinds of gifts?  A lot less expensive, right?  But, are these people on-line?  Would they ever respond?  The answer is yes!

People 55-85 (the age of the majority of major and planned givers) are now spending double the amount of time on-line that they were spending eight years ago.  Unlike the Silent Generation before them, this age cohort is responding to e-communication.

The key is to make the e-communication engaging and to encourage the prospect to make a more personal connection through the phone, and eventually in-person.  We recognize that the larger major and planned gifts are really best sealed in person, but we’ve proven that e-mail can whet the appetite for big gifts and encourage prospects to jump channels to learn more.  Using this kind of e-mail cultivation plan, we’ve helped organizations secure five and six figure gifts from people that weren’t even on their radar screens before!

This is all in the experimental stages, but if you’re interested in hearing more, drop me a line!  I’d love to talk to you.

Last Friday, I had a great fundraising day.  In the morning, Ann and I taught our first Front Range Source workshop on year end fundraising.  We had nine wonderful participants and more than enough great experience in the room to fill hours.  It was fantastic to see fundraising, board members, and volunteers all connect with each other.  Ann wrote a blog post on the things we learned together, which you can check out at the Front Range Source site:

http://www.frontrangesource.com/area-fundraisers-get-ready-for-the-fall-fundraising-season

Then 5 hours later, I was living the life of a fundraising director as I helped The Carriage House Community Table (CHCT) with a “friendraising” party to introduce new prospects to the organization. We asked several board members and contacts to invite people they knew that might be good donors, volunteers, board members, or connectors for the cause.  The hostess organized a lovely – and delicious! – event with music for nearly 100 people.  A couple of things we did right:

• We collected names and addresses of prospects so that we could send them an invitation, thank you notes, and other cultivation pieces
• We kept CHCT front of mind during the event, but we made it fun.  There was a raffle of a beautiful piece of artwork, donated by a local gallery.  Volunteers worked the crowd to get raffle donations – they also collected addresses and phone numbers!
• We invited questions.  Each staff and board member wore a name tag so that people could ask them questions.
• We kept the CHCT pitch to a minimum.  The hostess welcomed the guests, the Executive Director told a story, and a board member let people know how they could get involved.  The whole thing took 12 minutes.
• We wrote thank you notes.  We sent personal notes to as many people who attended as we could.

It was great.  People had a good time and they connected with the organization in a fun and personal way that we hope they will remember.

It was a bit surreal, honestly, to be talking one moment about how to do a house party and then doing it that night!  But, it keeps me learning, and that’s what I love about fundraising.  Never a dull moment, right?

We’ve gotten a great response.  Over 60 people have subscribed so far in the last few weeks and we’ve started signing people up for workshops we’re offering as well.

I’m really hoping from this effort that we can create a community for those of us involved in raising money in this area.  There have been times in my career where I have felt very isolated as a fundraiser.  In some environments the competition is fierce and collaboration is rare.  But here in the Front Range, people are excited to share and learn from each other – we just need a place of our own to make it happen.

So, if you haven’t yet checked out Front Range Source and would like to be connected, follow this link:

http://www.frontrangesource.com/

Hope to see you there!