Pitch! Can you effectively pitch your nonprofit in 180 seconds? May 21, 2013

 

Last fall (2012), I was lucky enough to participate in San Diego Social Venture Partners, Advance! San Diego 2012 where 10 San Diego nonprofits competed in an electrifying competition for $50,000 in cash and in-kind services. As a mentor, I was paired up with a nonprofit who needed to develop a 180-second pitch to effectively and concisely describe their nonprofit, services, impact and specific financial need.

Whoa! And with only 180-seconds, how did they do it?

Check it out (click on photo below).

As you can tell from the video, SuperFood Drive is an incredible local nonprofit and I was lucky to work with the organization’s founder, Ruthi Solari, a certified nutritionist who’s motto is: “The food we put in our bodies either promotes disease or prevents disease.”

So, do you think you can effectively pitch your nonprofit in 180 seconds?

I will give you the tricks and tips on how Ruthi was able to put together this incredible pitch on her nonprofit. Here is how to do it: 1.  Basics: You will need to cover the tangibles – what is the organization, the problem it addresses, and the solution you are pitching.

• Potential funders are looking for attention grabbing sound bites that can easily be understood. Example: “In San Diego County, 480,000 people visit food pantries each month. This is enough people to fill Qualcomm stadium – 7 times over.”

2.   Delivery: the intangibles – effectively present and convey your story, connect with the audience even if it is one person, deliver your pitch in an authentic and passionate manner. Make sure you have your pitch memorized and can deliver it in 180 second. So, it requires you to practice! practice! practice!

• Tell a success story of a real person or an example: “Imagine when someone is diagnosed with diabetes and is struggling to keep food on the table, they are able to visit a SuperFood Pantry where they are provided with not only healthy food but also the recipes and resources they need to manage their disease.”

3.    Impact: report on your organization’s measurable results to-date, how is your organization poised to make a meaningful difference in your San Diego community.

• Use hard numbers to show success to-date:
• Use hard numbers to show how many individuals you can help with additional funding: “Now, imagine the impact when we replicate our SuperFood Pantry program at Feeding America’s 35,000 food pantries across the U.S.”

4.   Ask for help. If appropriate, let your audience know how much you need and what the funds will allow you to do.

• Make a specific donation request: “To accomplish this we need your help.  A one-time investment of $25,000 will cover training costs for all 90 sites and  $250k will fund the entire self-sustaining SuperFood Pantry program here in San Diego.”

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Can you pitch your organization effectively to a room full of funders in 180-seconds?

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If you are interested in pitching your organization as part of San Diego Social Venture Partner’s Advance! San Diego 2013, click here.

Sample donation request letter and donation card May 7, 2013

When your hand is out asking for donations, it is always nice to have a beautiful letter to express why you need donations and how a donor can help your organization. These beautifully crafted letters take time and creativity to author. To give you a head start, I’m posting my sample donation letter to give you a format and outline so you can eloquently express your need. Check it out below and here: Sample Donation Letter and Sample Donation Card.

Gone Fundraiser. April 22, 2013

“We just can’t find good development directors, and when we do make a hire, they don’t perform well or they leave too soon!”

In the past six months, I have had a couple of nonprofits approach me to reconfigure their development departments. Both have had an absence of a Director of Development for over a year because they don’t feel that model works for them based on past performance: One nonprofit has had three director of developments in the span of as many years – by the time this person begins to build relationships with donors, they are gone. Or they are asked to leave because they are not effective after a year. The other nonprofit lost their development director to another nonprofit who could pay more. Do these scenarios sound familiar to you and your nonprofit?

Not surprisingly, this is a nation-wide phenomenon and it is a significant threat to the stability of nonprofit organizations.

CompassPoint just released a study about this occurrence in their “Underdeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising”. Here is an overview of the study’s findings.

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Gone Fundraiser. There is a lack of consistent leadership of fundraising programs across nonprofit organizations. Not only have Director of Development positions been vacant for a median of 6 months, half of the current Directors are planning to leave their position in the next two years or sooner – or the field all together. We know that when director of developments depart their position it affects more than just the organization, it disrupts the relationship building between the organization and its donors.

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Good help is hard to find and afford. More than half of Executive Directors reported that there were an insufficient number of candidates with the right mix of skills and experience in their last search.

• 33% of Executive Directors are lukewarm or dissatisfied with their current director of development’s performance.
• 25% of executives fired their previous director of development for poor performance.
• 25% of executives report that their current development directors have no experience or are novice at “current and prospective donor research.”

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You pay for what you get and smaller organizations struggle to attract skilled development directors because they simply cannot compete with the salaries offered by larger organizations. The data confirms that the supply of qualified development directors is smaller than the demand for them across the nonprofit sector.

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Empty Tool Box. We know that it takes more than just one person – skilled or not – to effectively fundraise in a nonprofit organization. The lack of key fundraising tools and resources contributes to the lack of return on efforts.

• 23% of nonprofits have no fundraising plans compared with 97% of high performing organizations who do have a fundraising plan
• 75% of executives say that their board member engagement in fundraising is insufficient
• 25% of Executive Directors report that they lack the skills and knowledge to secure gifts
• Half of development directors do not have a strong partnership with their executive director in fundraising
• 59% of development directors do not have a lot of influence over staff participation in fund development or setting realistic financial goals (42%)
• 41% reported that their organization did not have a culture of philanthropy
• A large majority felt that fundraising activities overall were not effective or only somewhat effective

The report reveals that a surprising number of organizations lack the fundamental conditions for fund development success – basic tools such as a fundraising plan and database, essential board and executive leadership and development skills, and a shared culture of philanthropy across the organization.

So what are we to do given all of these facts? Go hide under our desks until scientists can build a “Stepford Fundraiser”?

Call to Action. The study calls for ten steps to break the vicious cycle in development offices across the nation.

1. Embrace Fund Development. Build a culture of philanthropy in your organization. This begins with education and inclusion of all staff, Board and volunteers in fundraising.
2. Elevate the field of fundraising. Bring “sexy back” to fundraising. Give respect to the position and the person in the position.
3. Strengthen and diversify the talent pool. Educate your fundraiser to increase his or her skills. Challenge them to fundraise in new and effective ways.
4. Train boards differently. Consider the Board a partner in fundraising. Give them the education and tools to work with you. And, for crying out loud, stop complaining about their lack of fundraising help!
5. Apply the transition management framework to the development director position. Hire as mindfully as you would a CEO of a Forbes 500 company. Utilize a search firm and other resources to conduct a thorough and careful search and hire.
6. Invest strategically in grantee fundraising capacity. Engage funders to invest in the capacity of your development department because the funds will return ten-fold on the development officers’ ability to sustain the organization’s programs with funding.
7. Leverage technological innovation – embrace creativity. Fundraisers today have more tools than ever like social media to engage donors online in cultivation, solicitation and stewardship. Use these tools often and wisely for sustained results.
8. Set realistic goals for development. This exact topic came up at recently came up at a meeting of senior fundraising professionals. The development directors at the table said that they have pushed back on their Executive Directors and Boards to stop raising the fundraising goal every year just to meet the gap in the budget. They are being conscious that they cannot continue to go back to their major donors with the “sky is falling” message every year and expect generosity. So, create a budget that allows you to live within your means and fundraising.
9. Share accountability for fundraising results. Expectations are everything. When Executive Directors and Director of Developments work closely together to set goal and expectations, the outcomes will be positive. It is also important to set the expectation that fundraising is a team sport – a Director of Development can not be successful without the engagement of the Executive Director, all staff and Boar din the process.
10. Exercise fundraising leadership. It is time for Director of Developments to step up their game. Fundraising is not easy in this economy and it requires more savvy and strategy. So, pull out your play book and start implementing all the strategies.

Do you have a witness to your life? April 9, 2013

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it,

does it make a sound?”

 

 

If I have a success in my life and no one is around to see it, hear about it or celebrate it with me, does this success resonate as much with me?

 

 

Lately, I’ve been mulling over this idea about people playing witness to my life. We traditionally think of a “witness” in the scenario of two people getting married. From the New York City Clerk’s Office:

“You and your prospective spouse must have at least one witness, who must be 18 years of age or over. The witness or witnesses must bring proper identification. We will not perform your Marriage Ceremony if you have not satisfied these requirements.”

You literally cannot get married if you do not have someone to witness your union. Occasionally, we need a witness to sign a contract to confirm that we did indeed sign the contract in the presence of another person who witnessed our act of signing.

These are legal reasons for needing a witness, but I think that we all need people to witness our lives. People who witness our success (and celebrate with us), failure (and offer a hand up), struggle (and offer a shoulder to cry on) and our everyday adventures (and join us). Witnesses ensure that your life will not go unnoticed.

For this blog, I pulled in my friend (and witness to my life), author and national public speaker, Jason Jaggard,  to chat about witnesses.

Seen and Be Seen. Having your spouse, partner, friends and family witness your life proves that you exist and are important. How do witnesses give your life value?

I’m reminded of quote from the film Into The Wild:  “Happiness is only real when shared.”  This echoes the ancient idea that we’re actually designed for community, that our successes are each other’s as well as our failures.  New York Times columnist David Brooks put it this way in his bestselling book The Social Animal:  “we become who we are in conjunction with other people becoming who they are.” 

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Traveling and speaking can be a lonely gig and you have to find ways to stay connected with your relationships, and sharing even meaningless moments. I’ve begun even a simple habit when I fly anywhere – when I land I text 3 or 4 friends of mine just to share that piece of my life with someone.  Before I speak or my friends speak somewhere we text each other a picture of an empty auditorium with the caption “LIFT HOUSES OFF THE GROUND.” It’s our way of reminding each other to knock it out of the park, to bring our best, and that we don’t go up there to speak on our own – we bring our friends with us in a very real and spiritual way.

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Witness Feedback. It’s important for people to witness our lives to give us encouragement and positive feedback. How have you received witness feedback?

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I’m pretty fortunate to work with some of my best friends like Ryan who came with me to Chicago to work with a nonprofit or my business manager and one of our executive coaches who joined me in San Jose to work with a statewide organization for physical health.  We don’t only give and receive feedback but we welcome it because we’ve earned each other’s trust over the years. That’s what I love about the “witness” concept: when we think too highly of ourselves it can bring us back down to earth, and when we think too lowly of ourselves it can lift us back into the sky. 

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Witnesses are Watching. It’s important for people to witness our lives to remind us that we live our life as an example and people are watching. How do you conduct yourself or hold yourself to a higher standard when you realize others are watching you or looking to you for leadership and direction?

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Honestly, I wish this wasn’t as true as it is.  I wish that I would behave the exact same way whether people were following me or not.  I wish that I would choose the same choices whether I was on stage or wrote books for a living or not.  I think it’s important for your character to flow from your heart and not your circumstances.  At the same time, I’m thankful that I get to be in a profession that – for the most part – expects the best from me.  It creates a demand for my character to keep pace with my career. 

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Be a Witness. Be a witness to other people’s lives. How are you a witness to other people’s lives?

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Since I love conversation or connecting with people over dinner or coffee or simply just hanging out, this is how I bare witness to my friends’ lives.  I call them, spend time with them and (sometimes) barrage them with questions – questions about their marriage, their work, their dreams.

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Part of being a witness is also actively engaging, not just watching or listening. Recently my friend Mark won a prestigious award at his work.  I was so proud of him.  I found out about it from his wife’s twitter feed.  I called him and we talked about it – and then I posted it on every social network known to man.  Sometimes it’s not enough for the player who scores to spike the ball.  It’s way more fun when we all spike the ball together.

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At the end of the day (and this blog), it is important to be surrounded by good friends and family who bare witness your life. Thank you to Jason Jaggard for providing insight for this blog. To learn more about JJ, check him out here: http://www.sparkgood.com/

Conquering the Fear of Asking March 19, 2013

I am reposting this blog from a colleague, Mark Fackler, who wrote a very candid and intriguing post about his personal fudnraising over a course of a year. The original post is here and below.

In my mid-twenties, I developed a motto for my life that was “face your fear.” Over the years, after much self-reflection and many conversations with my wife, I changed this motto to “identify your fears and break through them.” This motto seems more appropriate, for facing your fear is great, but moving past your fear is even better.

Last year, I decided to tackle a fear of mine, the fear of asking for charitable donations. After three decades of supporting charities, I felt it was time to break through this fear. For me, this irrational fear was based on the following:

1) Being rejected.
2) Annoying the potential donor.
3) Sounding like a stereotypical used car salesman with high pressure tactics. I do apologize to great used car sales people.
4) Asking someone who could not afford a donation and embarrassing them.
5) Friends avoiding me because I am always asking for donations.
6) Setting up a quid pro quo expectation to give to their meaningful charity.

In full disclosure, I have read books and attended seminars on sales for both for profit and non-profit companies. I have worked with and even mentored great salespeople in both sectors. With all of this experience, my fear still prevented me from actually doing the work to become a successful fundraiser. Even stranger, I have a few friends who are excellent at asking for donations for their favorite charities. I have a ton of respect for them and would be proud to be like them. Yet, my fear still ruled me.

The Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF) is one of my favorite non-profit organizations. I have proudly worked with TKF for over ten years. Their vision is to create “a world free of youth violence.” The founder’s 20-year-old son was murdered by a 14-year-old boy. The founder realized that “there were victims at both ends of the gun” and created TKF as a solution to end youth violence. This organization does important and impactful work, so I was motivated to conquer my fear and help TKF and the kids we serve at the same time.

TKF created an email campaign that was based on a request for one dollar. The idea was to inspire one million people to each donate one dollar to TKF. However, a few months after the campaign started, TKF had less than one hundred donations, though one donation was for $25,000. That donation said a lot about what could happen when you ask someone for a dollar.

On the day I started my campaign, I had 1,117 contacts in my email list. I crafted a generic email with the help of a TKF board member who was the best at marketing. She and I drafted an email containing both a logical and emotional reason to give. I decided to personalize each email with a few sentences that made it clear to the recipient that I was speaking directly to them. The thought of personalization made my fear grow because the fear of reject would be more real for me. However, I believe that the path that produces the most fear is often the best path to take, so I continued with my effort.

I started with the A’s in my contact list and disaster struck immediately. My first contact was a fellow partner in San Diego Social Venture Partners (SDSVP) and there is an unwritten rule that partners are not supposed to ask each other for donations to their specific causes. I labored over this dilemma for literally days. I began rationalizing that fundraising was not for me and this was a sign from God that I was not supposed to do this work. As I looked through my contact list, there were hundreds of contacts that I had some rationale as to why I would not ask them for money. Clearly, this task was too difficult for me.

However, the quiet and persistent voice in the back of my head told me to press on. So, I looked at my contact list with a different perspective. I looked for contacts who I would feel comfortable asking for a donation. Much to my surprise, the majority of the people on the list were perfect for my ask. I was only asking for a dollar and that would probably not anger them. I skipped the second name on my list as I was courting her for SDSVP and did not want to court her for two charities. I went for the brass ring on the third name. I wrote her a nice couple of personal connection sentences, pasted in the generic ask and sent the email off. I was exhausted by the process, so I quit for the day.

Miracle of all miracles, this absolutely wonderful lady responded five days later with a $25 donation! I was beyond excited. I sent off a grateful thank you note and a few more requests for the one dollar donation. More money came in and, lo and behold, not a single person sent me a nasty email as my unrealistic fear had predicted. In fact, I received some incredibly nice responses about TKF and my efforts. I was actually getting energized by my work. Honestly, I was still mentally exhausted from my fear, but I was really excited every time I checked my email for donation notifications.

Over the course of a year, I asked 671 out of my 1,117 original contacts for a dollar. I decided to not ask 446 contacts for a few reasons. As I said before, anyone associated with SDSVP was a no ask. Some contacts I did not know well enough to personalize an email, and others I felt would be inappropriate due to my close relationship with them. On my best days, I made ten asks. At times, I went weeks in between asks and even took a break from November to January in order to not compete with year-end asks from other charities.

There were many highlights from my involvement in this campaign effort. I reconnected with old friends and they were as grateful as I was. One man gave me money even though I had only seen him twice a few years back. A few donations came in from friends who were unemployed. They were grateful to contribute even though money was tight. One person donated five months after receiving my email. He was a salesperson in a slump, but he donated when things brightened up for him. One donation came from a former coach of mine who I had not had contact with for eight years.

All in all, a third of the emails I sent resulted in a donation. Twenty-two donations came from friends of my contacts and the average gift size was $71.52. I raised just over $16,000 for TKF. Twelve donations were for a dollar and five donations were for $500. One of the $500 donations came from someone I did not even know. All of the donations were exciting to receive and they inspired me to send out more requests.

Interestingly after getting through 80% of my contact list, my views of asking changed from feeling bad to feeling obliged. I started to realize that the recipient is an adult and has the right to choose. Without my ask, I would have denied people the opportunity to decide for themselves due to my fearful assumptions. I was always kind and sincere in my ask, so why should I feel bad? When I get asked and the ask is sincere and not too frequent, I appreciate it. I am capable of saying yes or no to an ask, so I now assume the people I ask are also capable.

Overall, I am grateful for all of the donations that were generated for TKF and opportunity to break through my fear. The fear is not gone, but it no longer rules me. TKF’s email campaign was a great first step and there are more steps for me to take, specifically with asking for donations face-to-face and over the phone. TKF needs my help and there are other great charities out there that need your help. Are you ready to take a step to break through your fears?

Dating Your Donors: The Courtship of Cultivation March 11, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Blog Post: The Erosion of Trust March 6, 2013

Trust is eroding. Public figures are more public than they ever have been, due to the expanding nature of social media and the news cycles. Everything they do is shared, documented, questioned, discussed. And they’re lying. Blatantly.

I’m not talking about political rhetoric or grand, un-achievable promises. I’m talking about specific actions that are knowingly and willingly taken in order to protect ego, power, and money.

“I have never taken performance enhancing drugs.”
Thanks, Lance. Thanks, Bonds. So much for pro-athlete role models.

“Your money is safe with us, we have sufficient capital to guarantee all deposits.”
Thanks, bankers.

“I did not cheat on my spouse.”
Thanks, well, a ton of politicians and celebrities. At least they probably (hopefully) weren’t role models.

Want to bring it closer to home?

“The California State Parks system is broke. Please donate!”
Or, not.

“We raised $7.5 billion to rebuild Haiti.”
Or, not.

It’s not philanthropy’s fault (mostly), but I can’t see how it’s not going to affect our sector. This is a worrying trend for nonprofits as they struggle to build relationships with funders, and with each other. Erosion is a slow process, but this phase of distrust is being propelled to a new level.

• What’s your budget? “$800,000.”
• How many kids did you help last year? “247.”
• How many volunteers do you have? “173.”
• Really? Should I believe you? Why?

What you say is no longer going to be taken at face value. Your audience may even assume that you aren’t telling the truth. The more people accept – and believe – that public figures are blatantly lying, the more pervasive that assumption will be. If a senator or state governor can lie, certainly the head of a state agency could be lying – or a small local agency. There are more watchdogs showing up (like our local voiceofsandiego.org), more data-wonks (follow @p2173). Your data will be questioned or ignored. Maybe that’s the way it should be, but it isn’t going to make the job of bringing donors to your cause any easier.

So in the face of this trend, what’s an organization to do?

• Try to be as transparent, open, communicative, and responsive as possible.
• Be honest and try to avoid spin.
• Publish what you do in a way that an independent party could see and understand that you are doing what you say you are doing.

And stop lying. Please.

David Lynn, founder of Mission Edge, investment manager, data systems wonk, philanthropic life focus.