1. Organizations are not entitled to support; they must earn it.
2. Successful fund-raising is not magic; it is simply hard work on the part of people who are thoroughly prepared.
3. Fund-raising is not raising money; it is raising friends.
4. You do not raise money by begging for it; you raise it by selling people on your organization.
5. People do not just reach for their checkbooks and give money to an organization; they have to be asked to give.
6. You do not wait for the "right" moment to ask; you ask now.
7. Successful fund-raising officers do not ask for money; they get others to ask for it.
8. You don't decide today to raise money and then ask for it tomorrow; it takes time, patience, and planning to raise money.
9. Prospects and donors are not cash crops waiting to be harvested; treat them as you would customers in a business.

The first step in setting the goal is to look at the resources you plan to tap and see if they can meet the stated need. Even organizations with modest contributed income needs will find the following example of this principle instructive. Once at a board meeting of The Cleveland Orchestra, an influential and highly respected trustee got up and said, “What we need is more endowment. We ought to have a $20 million endowment campaign.” Sitting there, hearing that declaration made with no justification, and no warning, I was in no position, as Director of Development, to show any reaction, however subtle—that we should and could raise that significant amount, or that such a goal was not possible. My inside emotions were another thing, as I said to myself, “Oh no!” But it was to be yes! The suggestion was made, after all, by a trustee of great influence and affluence, and all heads nodded in agreement with him as expected.

Not the Best Way to Set a Goal

In the end, the goal we decided on was $12 million, not $20 million. An assessment of our prospective donors, even when we put down the greatest amounts we could imagine receiving from our strongest benefactors, showed that $20 million was too ambitious. This was not a campaign which we had conducted before, and even to raise $12 million was a formidable challenge.

Would those of us who had the responsibility for managing the campaign rather have had a less intimidating number for our goal? You bet. But, how do you tell your boss that something his or her boss had decided is imperative can’t be done? You don’t, unless you are absolutely, one-hundred percent sure and have the evidence to back your argument. Even then, the risk is high. Development officers are paid to see to it that the money is raised, not to explain why it can’t be raised. So you look for ways to accomplish what you are asked to do, and then determine whether the goal needs to be modified.

Know Your Best Chances for Success

In the case of an annual campaign you look to last year’s results. Who were the major donors and at what level did they give? How many of them have died or left town? Will the ones who remain, give at the same level or higher? Do you have a list of prospects from which to draw new donors? Are there board members and volunteers ready to step forward and lead the campaign this year?

If the campaign—its purpose and plan—has not been executed previously, if it doesn’t have a history, you are starting from ground zero, and that’s tougher. Will people who have supported your other fund-raising efforts support this campaign with additional money? (It does no good to move money from one pocket to another.) Will the purpose of this campaign garner you support from new givers? Again, do you have the volunteer leadership in place to make this campaign a success?

Toughest of all is when your organization has absolutely no demonstrated base of support. We’re not talking about launching a new campaign, but about an organization that has never conducted a fund-raising campaign of any kind. Now you must base your assessment, not on your organization’s experience, but rather on the ways in which your community has supported other organizations. Most crucial of all, you must assess whether your board can be counted on for fund-raising leadership. Something you have never asked of them before.

Leadership is the key element in determining the goal or deciding whether you should even conduct a campaign. Be it this year’s edition of the annual campaign, a first-time attempt to raise endowment, or a first-ever fund-raising effort, leadership is what will make or break your campaign.

A Missed Opportunity

A new arts organization brought me in to design an annual fund-raising campaign that would support its exhibitions. I provided a plan and the tools (you’ll see many plans and tools on my website) to conduct a successful campaign. The board committed to the concept, even praised it. About halfway through the campaign the board members asked me to come to a special meeting. The meeting revolved around the fact that so far in the campaign they had failed to meet their goals, something we knew from ongoing progress meetings. They were going to have to postpone their inaugural exhibition, and they wanted me to know what was going wrong.

It was simple. The trustees had talked the talk, but hadn’t walked the walk. When left on their own, they had proved unready and unwilling to pick up the fund-raising tools they had praised and use them to execute a plan they had approved. Each board member was sitting back on his or her heels waiting for someone else to raise the money. All the ingredients were in place except one—leadership. A good plan, an agreed-upon plan, in a community known for giving to such causes had failed. In the end, everything hinged on leadership, and that leadership just did not come through.

Getting the Job Done

In another instance, I was consulted about eight months into a fund-raising campaign for a new building for a social service agency. The agency was well respected, well known, and trying to raise several million dollars. Here, there was a board ready and willing to provide the leadership for a campaign. I was there because the board realized that even with all their commitment they weren’t getting the job done. With groundbreaking already eight months behind them, they had only raised $500,000. Time was slipping away; they were losing the impetus and sense of immediacy that a construction project brings to prospective donors. My mission was to pull together a better working plan and provide the tools of a fund-raising campaign. I was being asked to build the engine of a campaign. I did, the board embraced it, they raised the money, and finished the building.

The Solution

In both these campaigns something had gone wrong. The social service agency had a committed leadership, but lacked the tools, while the arts organization had all the tools in front of it but had not used them. In both situations the solution was simple. The social service agency’s board needed only a workable plan and well-designed tools. The arts organization’s board needed to step forward and lead. Once a campaign has begun it is still possible for a development officer or consultant to provide better fund-raising tools, but if there is failure in leadership, the solution must come from within that leadership. The organization’s board has to reach into itself and find the will and commitment to lead a campaign.

It All Starts With the Board of Trustees

There is no greater strength in a fund-raising campaign than a board ready and willing to lead. There is no greater weakness than one which sees fund-raising as someone else’s responsibility.

So that’s where you start the process of a fund-raising campaign—with your board. You have to have their commitment to be fund-raisers and to recruit additional volunteer fund-raisers. (Do your board members have a job description which includes the words, “… will lead fund-raising campaigns and actively solicit gifts?”) It is their leadership that will make or break a campaign. They are the ones an organization will draw upon to establish a campaign committee and to make or find lead gifts.

When it comes to fund-raising campaigns you need an attainable goal, a plan for getting to that goal, and the tools to execute that plan. But in the end, the success or failure of a fund-raising campaign hinges on leadership, and that leadership starts on your board.

Remember That It’s More Than Money

We can all agree that fund-raising for non-profit organizations is more than money. We know that non-profit organizations are all about people saved and served, animals rescued and sheltered, the environment preserved and protected, and many other worthy causes. However, we can readily understand that the concern to raise the funds to sustain those organizations often has that effort become the front and center issue and talk is often mostly in dollars—much as was necessary for this article to be written. But, we must never let the need for money obscure, or put far into the background, our organization’s reason for being—its mission.

Myth 1: Face it, fund-raising is impossible and the process is a mystery. Anyone who has failed at it or has managed to avoid being held accountable for that failure knows this.

Myth 2: Everybody knows you need a proven track record if you are to raise money. If you doubt it, just look at all the help-wanted ads for development officers that list as a qualification “successful history of managing a major annual campaign or soliciting large donations.”

Myth 3: It’s common knowledge that corporations and foundations give most of the money. Just ask those who have never done any fund-raising or who would find a contribution of $50 a strain on their budget.

Those three “beliefs” have helped doom many a fund-raising campaign. On the other hand, there are some insights about fund-raising that successful fund-raisers have gained. These insights often fly in the face of the myths of conventional wisdom. They offer no shortcuts. They promise no instant results. However, they are not hard to understand, and nearly anyone can profit from them. They are The Nine Basic Truths Of Fund-Raising.

The Truths, The Whole Truths, And Nothing But The Truths

Sometimes in this world that showers us with new technology on what seems like an almost daily basis I think we can lose sight of the basics. It’s easy to get caught up in the newest tools and the hottest theories. As concepts are wrapped in bright new language and claimed as fresh discoveries, it’s easy to forget, that at its most basic, all fund-raising is an endeavor of people, trust, and mission. By our actions, we earn from people the trust that the money they give will be wisely used to carry out a mission they support.

To be sure, there are refinements and tweaks to this business of development that help ease the job of assuring a steady source of contributed income for our organizations. And yes, some approaches that worked 10, or 20, or 30 years ago, don’t deliver as well in the twenty-first century.

But the basics remain. Some things do not change. They are the bedrock upon which all fundraising efforts are anchored. They are the insights that have been gained through experience—through success and failure. These insights sometimes seem old fashioned to the gurus of leading-edge wisdom. They do not have the attractiveness of shortcuts and instant results. They do not offer a new paradigm. They are not the latest style. They are not quick fixes that can be employed to relieve the ever-increasing pressure to deliver more contributed income from fewer sources over shorter periods of time.

They are time-tested approaches. They are the basic truths that define successful fund-raising. And they are basic, not simply because they work, but because their absence yields failure. A development effort that ignores the basics dooms its organization to missed goals, shrinking income, and a spiral of diminishing possibilities.

When I talk to groups, the most important things I have to share from my more than three decades of fund-raising experience are The Nine Basic Truths of Fund-Raising. They come from hard-earned knowledge shared freely and enthusiastically with me by countless, gifted development professionals and volunteers over these many years.

Basic Truth 1: Organizations are not entitled to support; they must earn it.

No matter what an organization’s good works, it must prove to those who support it the value of those works to the community and the efficiency with which the organization delivers them. The primary key to fund-raising success is to have a first-class organization in every sense. There are no entitlements in the nonprofit world.

Basic Truth 2: Successful fund-raising is not magic; it is simply hard work on the part of people who are thoroughly prepared.

There are no magic wands, spells, or incantations. Whenever you hear that someone has the magic fund-raising touch, laugh. Otherwise, the joke is likely to be on you. No one pulls a rabbit—complete with its own lettuce farm—out of the fund-raising hat. No one!

Fund raising is simple in design and concept, but it is very hard work! It is planning, executing, and assessing. It is paying attention to detail. It is knowing your organization and what it needs. It is knowing who has the money, and how much they can give.

Basic Truth 3: Fund-raising is not raising money; it is raising friends.

People who don’t like you don’t give to you. People who know little about your organization give little at best. Only those people who know and like you will support you. Raise friends and you will raise money.

Basic Truth 4: You do not raise money by begging for it; you raise it by selling people on your organization.

No matter how good your organization, how valuable its services, how efficiently it delivers them, people will not give money unless they are convinced to do so. Fund-raisers function much as sales and marketing people do in the commercial world. So, be ready, willing, and able to “sell” your organization and the programs for which you are raising money.

Basic Truth 5: People do not just reach for their checkbooks and give money to an organization; they have to be asked to give.

No matter how well you sell people on your organization, no matter how much money they have, no matter how capable they are of giving it, they have to be asked to give. There comes a point when you have to ask for the money. And by the way, make sure that you are asking for a specific amount. Don’t leave it up to the donor to recommend how much to give. People with money to give are accustomed to being asked for it. The worst thing that will happen is that they will say no, and even then, they’re likely to be supportive, even apologetic.

Basic Truth 6: You don’t wait for the “right” moment to ask; you ask now.

If you are always looking for the right moment—the “perfect” time—to ask for the money, you will never find it. You have to be ready, willing, and able to close the solicitation at any time. You have to take the risk of hearing no.

If that happens, don’t take the rejection personally. They are saying no to the organization, not you. Once you have presented your case, ask for the money. Don’t wait. Either close the solicitation, find out what the objection to giving is and overcome it if possible, or get your turndown, and move on.

Basic Truth 7: Successful fund-raising officers do not ask for the money; they get others to ask for it.

The professional fund-raising officer is the last person who should ask prospects for money. The request should come from someone within the prospect’s peer group. It is the job of the professional development officer to design, put together, and manage the campaign. Volunteers who are themselves business executives, well-off individuals, community leaders, or board members, are the ones who should ask their counterparts for donations.

Basic Truth 8: You don’t decide today to raise money and then ask for it tomorrow; It takes time, patience, and planning to raise money.

Make the decision to initiate a fund-raising campaign before the need becomes dominant. It takes time to develop a campaign and its leadership. With each prospective donor the chances are you will get only one chance to present your case. Be prepared. If you present a poorly prepared case, you will be told no.

Basic Truth 9: Prospects and donors are not cash crops waiting to be harvested; treat them as you would customers in a business.

No successful businessperson deals with customers as if they had a responsibility to buy. Prospects and donors have to be courted as you would court a customer. They must be told how important they are, treated with courtesy and respect, and if you expect to do business with them again, thanked.

There are, of course, exceptions to each Basic Truth, but if you rely on the exceptions to support your organization, you will find them to be few and far between and dollars in short supply. In the end, we raise money from people who:

• Have it
• Can afford to give
• Are sold on the benefit of what we are doing
• Wouldn’t have given it to us unless we had asked
• Receive appreciation and respect for their gifts

It doesn’t take a genius to raise money. The process is a combination of common sense, hard work, preparation, courtesy, commitment, enthusiasm, understanding, and a belief in what you are asking others to support.

Those are The Nine Basic Truths of Fund-Raising, as I know them. Do they resonate with you? I welcome your comments.

Because such brevity suggests simplicity we could be led to conclude that the process required to create or to rewrite a mission statement is likewise a brief exercise. That is far from the truth. But take heart, while deliberate and comprehensive it must be, the mission statement development process is not incomprehensible. All you need in order to do the best job possible is to have a board of Trustees leading the way and working effectively together, as they take into account the core values and the outlook for their organization—which is subsequently distilled as the mission statement.

Your Nonprofit Organization’s Mission Statement:
The ‘Center’ Of It All

The Mission Statement declares ‘why’ an organization exists, and is the only foundation upon which a long-range strategic plan (the blueprint for carrying out the organization’s ‘business’) can be developed.

The long-range strategic plan, with its clearly stated and defensible programmatic initiatives and their respective costs, allows for the creation of the fund-raising plan from which specific fund-raising campaigns are organized and launched to secure annual, capital, endowment, sponsorship,and underwriting funds. An organization’s mission statement IS the center of it all.

Your Mission: It’s Not What You Do, But The Difference You Make

Because of its fundamental importance in the life of nonprofit organizations, volumes have been written on mission statements, and any library or bookstore with a strong business and management section will have more than a few feet of shelf space devoted to the subject. I urge you to develop an understanding of the mission statement development process and to make sure your organization has a clear mission statement which is reviewed regularly.

No matter what your position or role in your organization’s fund-raising efforts, the mission statement is the single most important thing you must understand. The mission statement outlines the organization’s values, purposes, hopes and dreams—its priorities. Printed on the back of a schedule, gracing the first page of an annual report or emblazoned on a lobby wall, it purports to delineate the whys and wherefores, explain the purpose, and elucidate both value to and uniqueness in the community. It is, or should be, a statement of an organization’s reason for being and its strengths. As such, it is the primary statement in the litany of fund-raising

The mission of a nonprofit organization comes from its core competitive advantages. The mission statement must be clearly articulated, fully understood, and completely embraced by all constituencies. It must demonstrate the difference an organization will make for those it serves, rather than merely describing what it does. And a mission statement needs to communicate all of this in as few words as possible.

Mission Statement Criteria

1. Establish boundaries—The “bounds” of the service delivered in reasonable terms regarding types and numbers of people and geographic limits. Describes WHY the organization exists, not what methods are used. Defines clearly the “business” the organization is in. Basically, the organization asks itself, “What is our reason for existence?”
2. Act to motivate board, staff, volunteers, and donors—In designing or revising the mission statement, all constituencies must have input. Changes come about because either the environment changes or the needs of one or more of the constituents change. Short enough to remember and easily communicate. Strong enough to inspire.
3. Help in the process of evaluation—The mission statement helps in the process of organizational evaluation. Unlike a commercial business, whose delivery and quality of its products and services can be readily judged, the measure of the value of a nonprofit’s service is often much harder to define. A non-profit’s end “product” value is mostly unmeasurable. They rely almost solely on reputation and trust. That is why mission statements are often unclear to the public at large, and argued among non profits themselves. It is a formidable challenge for an organization’s mission statement to serve as a measure against which results and benefits of the services provided can be evaluated.

And there are the inevitable differences of emphasis placed on those three separate mission statement criteria from organization to organization. That is why you should not arbitrarily compare your organization’s mission statement —either favorably or unfavorably—to the mission statement of another nonprofit organization, no matter the apparent similarities of the two organizations.

Mission Statement Checklist
(Adapted from The Center for Nonprofit Organizations)

Ends, not means

Does your mission statement address what difference your organization will make for those you serve, or does it merely describe what your organization does? Remember, your mission statement doesn’t relate how, but rather why. It should focus on the results your organization accomplishes through its programs and services.

Effort

Does the language used in your mission statement elevate effort to effect? (Words such as try, seek, influence, or encourage suggest staff organizes activities around righteous exertion rather than results.)

Verbs

Does a verb—any verb—figure prominently in your mission statement? Even when they don’t equivocate as the ones mentioned above, verbs ordinarily refer to something that is to “go on,” rather than the intended OUTCOME. Beware of your verbs!

Nouns embodying activities

Does your mission statement use nouns that signify a type of “means” rather than an outcome? Beware of words such as advocacy, education, program, and service.

The unidentifiable

Check carefully to make sure there is no technical language or jargon—meaningless to the outside world—in your mission statement.

Brevity

Is your mission statement too long? Does it ramble, making it difficult to locate the main point? Burying the mission in two or three padded paragraphs will be sure to weaken its power to guide and shape your organization.—Accuracy, not cosmetics. Is your mission accurate? Or does it embroider or glorify your organization’s intentions to make them SOUND better, loftier, more extensive, or more glamorous than they are?

Too broad or too narrow

Your mission statement should be broad enough to allow for growth and expansion, but narrow enough to keep the organization clearly and strongly focused. Does it allow for your organization to be “all things to all people,” or, on the other hand, restrict the organization from meeting changing needs?

Net value added

If your organization is a federation or another type of membership organization, or if your board has authority over other boards, does your mission statement deal with the additional result intended beyond what the members of subsidiaries would have produced themselves anyway?

Uniqueness

Does your mission statement focus on what is unique about your organization? It is important to consider your mission in light of other similarly situated organizations, and to ensure that your organization “stands out in the crowd.”

Creating a New Mission Statement Or Rewriting an Existing One

Comparing your mission statement to the Center For Nonprofit Organization’s checklist provided above, will help you with the evaluation of your present mission statement, or it will aid in the expeditious writing of a new one. You might have everything in order and be ready for writing or rewriting a mission statement, and you might need to engage an experienced writer who will fashion the document for you based on your input. You usually can find the right person by checking with nonprofit or for-profit consultants in your area who specialize in long-range—strategic planning. (In addition to strategic planning expertise, the “right” person will also have in-depth understanding of the fund raising process.) If there is a local Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) chapter in your area, ask their officials for leads to the right people.

If you do not have the background material necessary to write the statement yourself or to turn that information over to a writer, you will most likely need an expert consultant to facilitate the basic mission development process with you. The development process usually involves the following :

• Define your organization: What is the “end result” of your organization’s efforts? What value is the end result to your constituency—to those you serve? What value is the end result to the community?
• Seek “outside” opinions and impressions of why your organization exists and who it serves; likewise, seek evaluations of the quality and integrity of your programs and services. Undertake a “market” study among your clients, their families, and others of influence and affluence in the area you serve. Collect as much input as you can and use it to help define your organization’s reason for being.
• Convene a few board members to review the results. Identify the language used most frequently by different constituencies (and it will be there, I promise!) for use in the mission statement. Work to integrate the words into a “living and breathing” expression of passion and dedication rather than the stiff and formal language of a “document.” Be sure to work to ensure that the organizational expectations are not diminished as you strive to infuse them into the mission statement.

New and Forming Organizations Need to
Beware of Founder’s Syndrome

Founders who bring new ideas to the ‘table’ develop a mission statement for their new organizations as the embodiment of their own vision and ideas, usually based upon a personal experience or passion.

Quite often the organization’s clients/users, donors, volunteers and staff play largely a passive role, responding largely to the founder’s passion.

A Remedy for ‘Founder’s Syndrome’

To succeed in today’s nonprofit “marketplace,” a new organization must be able to attract board members, other volunteers, audience, donors, and staff. And it does that through a shared vision and imparting “ownership” of the organization to others. A shared vision that speaks to and appeals to a diverse constituency is critically important to success of any nonprofit organization.

Stay On The Mission Statement “Course”

Your mission statement is working at its best when it clearly and firmly guides the board in making effective decisions about the organization’s future. It motivates and challenges the staff to meet well-defined and shared goals. And it is the beacon of hope for the people the organization directly serves. It is the responsibility of leadership to see to it that the organization always operates within the confines of its mission.

Those are my views on the subject. What are yours? I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Addendum: Example of a Mission Statement

In the article you have just read, I pointed out that mission statements usually have three criteria working in varying degrees which

1. Establishes boundaries
2. Motivates board, staff, volunteers and donors
3. Helps in the process of evaluation.

There are the inevitable differences of emphasis, some very wide, placed on those three separate mission statement criteria from organization to organization. That is why we should not arbitrarily compare our organization’s mission statement—either favorably or unfavorably—to the mission statement of another non-profit organization, no matter the apparent similarities of the two organizations. That is why, being an outsider, and literally and figuratively distant, I do not attempt to evaluate mission statements. When I am asked by non-profit organizations to do so, I can only refer such requests to a reading my article so they can revise or construct their own mission statements as they should—from the inside—knowing fully the core values of their own organization as no one else would.

Nonetheless, with all of the above caveats in mind, consider these two versions of mission statements for application to the same organization. Use it as a rough guide.

The Mission Statement of The Golden Harvest Food Bank

1. We provide food to six area agencies. feeding programs which collectively serves over one-thousand meals per day to the hungry.
2. Our feeding program to the hungry sustains health, good nutrition, energy, human dignity, and the opportunity for individuals to meet their full potential.

If you were a donor to The Golden Harvest Food Bank, which mission statement example would give you the most satisfaction regarding the food bank’s use of your money?

The answer quite clear. You need only to observe that one merely provides the “means” for the GHFB to carry out its mission, while the second IS the mission, as it clearly proclaims the “ends”—the organization’s reason for being.

If you are the person running a campaign, you must make sure your solicitors have access to information about what the organization is, what it does, and why money is needed in the furtherance of what goals. If you are the person asking for the money, think about how you would go about making your request without that information. Yes, you will on occasion find people who will give because you ask rather than give to the cause, but that is the exception and –this can’t be said often enough—you cannot rely on the exception to support your organization.

New board members should be invited to attend a formal orientation session exposing them to what the organization does, how it is important to the community, why its services are necessary, and what their role will be. Volunteer solicitors in a campaign should be given the same information. Professional development officers need to steep themselves in the workings of the organization from their first day on the job.

Your Mission — It Is Not What You Do,
But the Difference You Make in the Lives Of People

No matter what your position or role in an organization’s fund-raising efforts, the mission statement is the single most important thing you must understand. The mission statement outlines the organization’s values and purposes, programs and services, and hopes and dreams — its priorities. Printed on the back of a schedule, gracing the first page of an annual report or emblazoned on a lobby wall, it purports to delineate the whys and wherefores, explain the purpose, and elucidate the value to the community of an organization. It is, or should be, a statement of an organization’s reason for being and its strengths. As such, it is the first statement in the litany of fund-raising.

Making the Case for Support

You can’t make the case for support unless you know your organization’s strengths. Neither can you expect to succeed without an understanding of its weaknesses and perceived negatives. I remember a campaign I worked on during my first year in fund-raising. A hospital was trying to raise money to build a new 200-bed facility to replace its existing 100 beds. Sounds reasonable at first blush. The problem was the hospital only had a 40 percent occupancy rate. Our job was to raise money to add 100 beds to a hospital which already had 60 empty beds. There goes the argument for needed expansion.

However, we understood that seeming weakness in our case and why it existed. As a result, we were able to to eliminate the perception of it as a negative argument against our campaign. The hospital was better than half empty because it was antiquated. Doctors didn’t want to send their patients there. The solution was to build a new hospital, and the community needed the additional 100 modern beds.

My point is this: If your organization has a weakness that can be perceived as a fund-raising negative, you don’t ignore it. You face it head on, take the offensive, and turn it into a fund-raising strength.

New and forming organizations are fraught with weaknesses and perceived fund-raising negatives. To begin with, the community got along without them in the past. How does a new organization know it is needed now? Has it done a market analysis? Is there a compelling reason for the organization to exist and for specific people to support it? The answer to those questions can be found by asking one question, and it is a question every organization new or old must ask at the onset of every fund-raising campaign. It needs to be asked about the organization in general and the specific purpose the campaign is supporting.

Who Cares Enough about Our Organization to Give Us Money?

Remember the TV detective Kojak, played by the late Telly Savalas, who was always asking, “Who loves ya, baby?” Well, the question fund-raisers need to ask of their organizations is the same, although it is more likely to be phrased, Who cares about us and why?

Let’s go back to the mission statement for a moment. If an organization’s mission statement is truly in sync with what the organization is doing, it provides a way to help identify who cares about it and why. Or put another way, it explains who benefits from the existence of the organization.

For nearly all community organizations there are two primary beneficiary groups:

1. People who directly avail themselves of its services.
2. A much larger grouping of people who, while they do not avail themselves of its services, nevertheless indirectly benefit because of what the organization does for the community.

That latter group benefits because of its geographic proximity. For example, an arts education organization obviously benefits those who enroll in its classes. They and their families would therefore be high on its list of donor prospects. However, all of those who live within the area from which it draws students also benefit because of the value such an organization has to the community. The availability of arts classes makes the community a better place to live and arguably has an effect on property values and the desirability of the community as a place to do business. Therefore, all of those persons living within the organization’s service area are logically also prospective donors. Business and civic leaders likewise may never take a class, but they too benefit—even more strongly than the pubic at large, it can be argued—because of the positive effect the organization has on a community in which they are even larger stakeholders than the average resident.

Don’t Look To Distant Benefactors

When it comes to the solicitation of corporate contributions, area of service and geography are often important deciding factors. A company rarely gives to a community organization that does not provide service to an area in which a substantial number of its employees either live or work. To put it bluntly, a corporation usually must have a facility or business connection in an area if it is to be successfully solicited.

It is possible for your organization to have a unique quality that would cause people with no stake in your geographic area to care about it enough to provide support. An inner-city housing initiative, for example, might draw the interest of national foundations and philanthropists from other communities because of its potential for replication. But you shouldn’t count on distant benefactors. That would be the exception, and you can’t rely upon the exception for support.

Money usually stays close to home, and conversely when it moves out of your area, don’t expect it to come back for regular visits. Once a big donor, one who may have supported you for years, leaves town, his sense of philanthropic responsibility will be transferred to his new community. While he may remember you fondly and treasure his years of affiliation, he may no longer benefit from your services and therefore may no longer care about you in the same way.

Why Do You Need To Raise Money?

How your organization raises and spends money is knowledge a successful fund-raiser must also have at his or her fingertips. You need to know and understand your organization’s budget so that you can delineate the cost of operation and how the money to cover that cost is to be generated. Nearly all non-profits are, by their nature, limited in their capacity to increase earned revenues, and many are unable to produce any earned income because they serve groups that cannot afford to pay.

The inability to produce enough earned income to cover the cost of doing business is why non-profit organizations must be fund-raisers. However, understanding your organization’s capacity to produce earned income, knowing where such income comes or could come from, and maximizing it, are essential to developing a successful fund-raising campaign. If your prospective donors believe you could be producing more earned income, they will be far less likely to give of their limited philanthropic resources.

No matter what your role in a fund-raising campaign—be it organization director, development director, campaign chairperson, or solicitor—to operate at optimum effectiveness you need to be convinced your organization is maximizing its potential to produce earned income—within the confines of its mission. That last part is very important. There are things non-profit organizations simply cannot do which are second nature to businesses seeking to improve their bottom line.

At the Cleveland Orchestra, when we were subjected to questions regarding our profit-making capabilities, we responded half-jokingly that we could not increase our productivity even if we played a Beethoven symphony faster than it was played 200 years ago. We could not speed up our assembly line, nor could we reduce the number of violinists required through automation. If the “widget” we produced was symphonic music, we could not cut costs by turning ourselves into a chamber orchestra and still produce our symphonic-music “widget.”

On the other hand, we did need to demonstrate constantly improving efficiency in other areas of our operations. For a non-profit, being perceived as a lean, mean fighting machine is critical to optimizing the results of a fund-raising campaign. But budget cuts must not come at the expense of maintaining and improving service to the community and program quality. A non-profit that cuts back on the quality of its services will diminish its fund-raising appeal.

Before You Ask For Money, Know Your Organization

To summarize: If you are to raise money, you need to know your organization. There is no faster way to lose prospective donors than by being unable to answer questions and remove objections to giving. You need to know the organization’s reason for being, its goals and objectives, its beneficiaries, and its operational and financial efficiencies. Know those things, and you know the organization. That knowledge will do more than prepare you to answer questions. It will give you the confidence and composure to pick up the telephone or knock on a door, and ultimately to sit in someone’s office or living room and ask for money.

Knowing the organization is crucial to fund-raising, but without commitment, knowledge is worthless. There is a terribly hollow ring to words spoken in support of a cause in which the speaker does not believe. Volunteers occasionally find themselves pressed into service for an organization that their company or their boss supports but to which they have no real commitment. Keep in mind that, while these people can be effective fund-raisers, they do it by forcing themselves to “meet their quota.” High on their list of priorities is figuring out a way to avoid the assignment next time. You will not be developing a pool of volunteers from which you can draw to staff future campaigns if your solicitors have been forced into service.

Knowledge and commitment are the two strongest tools a fund-raiser can have. Without knowledge, you cannot present your case to prospective donors. Without true commitment, you will not maximize the results of your efforts. If you are to raise money for an organization, know that organization and be committed to its cause.

Check Out How Well You Know Your Organization

• We have a clearly defined, fully understood, and completely accepted mission statement that addresses the difference our organization will make for those it serves, rather than merely describing what it does.
• We are certain that our services are different from others, are not duplicated in the same service area, and that they are needed. If we are planning a new organization, we should conduct a “market study” to be certain our services are, in fact, needed.
• We take advantage of our strengths as we make our case for support, letting none of the good things we do be “well kept secrets.”
• We turn our weaknesses into strengths by first identifying those we are handling in a defensive way or ignoring, and then developing a plan of action to change them.
• We have full access to information about what our organization is, what it does, and why money is needed in the furtherance of what goals. We have a “full disclosure” policy in effect at all times.
• We can readily identify our principal support base from those personally touched, inspired, or motivated by what we do, and from those not directly involved, but who are influenced and impressed by what we do.
• We know exactly what our operational budget numbers are. When it comes to raising money, if we do not know our expenses, we can neither set fund-raising goals, nor let prospects know our needs.
• We can demonstrate constantly improving efficiency in all our areas of operation. But, we don’t make budget cuts at the expense of maintaining and improving our service to the community and program quality.
• We maximize earned income and constantly assess whether more can be obtained by increasing charges for services in order to lessen fund-raising pressure.

Those are my views on the subject. What are yours? I welcome your comments and suggestions.

I have presented fund-raising workshops in many countries outside North America during a professional career of more than 35 years. I have also presented fund-raising workshops to numerous foreign visitors in the United States who were representing charities in their respective countries. In every case, the people who attended my workshops came from nations in which there was neither a tradition nor an established process of individual or corporate philanthropy toward charitable and cultural agencies or non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Yet despite such challenges, people from around the world sought advice and guidance regarding the U.S. philanthropic-style of fund-raising. They did so because they recognized that government support of charities, cultural bodies and NGOs in their countries was rapidly eroding and in danger of disappearing altogether. As a result, they were both willing and eager to learn how to fund-raise in the American style.

“Just show us how to do it,” they told me. “We will find a way to make the process work for us.”

Many of them succeeded in dramatic fashion. And this article is intended to convey the message that you can make it work, too.

A Heritage of Giving

The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom share a long-standing tradition of philanthropy. Fund-raising for charitable organizations that promote human welfare—as well as for such cultural entities as art museums and orchestras, and for NGOs that do good works—is, therefore, both accepted and encouraged in our societies.

While the U.S. and some other countries enjoy a long heritage of private support for charitable organizations, individuals in other countries are just as caring and supportive as Americans, Canadians and Britons. Until now, however, the philanthropic process of raising money has been entirely unknown to them or, at best, only recently introduced.

But the fund-raising process should be the same no matter where it is practiced. The only element missing in countries with young or newly emerging non-profit and NGO charitable organizations is the philanthropic system itself and the habit of fund-raising. These are, of course, formidable challenges. But I know from experience that they can be overcome.

Where Do You Stand?

First, let’s determine exactly what challenges you may face by reviewing the following questions:

1. Is there little or no tradition or habit of fund-raising in your country?
2. Are there few, if any, favorable tax provisions or other incentives in place to encourage charitable giving by individuals and corporations?
3. Is there a long-standing tradition of parents bequeathing all, or most, of their assets to their children?
4. When government funding of non-profit organizations and NGOs is cut, do non-profit organizations in your country turn first to the international community for support, rather than developing fund-raising capabilities at home?
5. Regarding the seeking of funds from the international community, on the other hand, does your government inhibit foreign funding from coming into your country?
6. Do some in your government discourage the work of charities for selfish gain? Do they themselves secure funding which they directly apply to the public’s needs so they can make their constituents beholden to them, thus helping those officials retain their positions in the government?
7. Are your government’s laws, regulations, and its general oversight of charities operated through a maze of bureaucracy whose red tape makes it harder for charitable organizations to be established in the first place and to freely function later?

If you answered “Yes” to even one of these questions, you already know that change will be difficult to initiate. But the charitable impulse is alive in everyone, no matter where they live. And it is your job as a fund-raiser to introduce in your country or to your charitable organization the successful philanthropic fund-raising system we use in the U.S.

Growing the Philanthropic “Habit” in Your Country

It is likely that you will need to start a new philanthropic “habit” where none exists. This can be accomplished by patiently and politely introducing people to the process of fund-raising and explaining why it is necessary. You should also explain that such expressions of charity and compassion can be just as rewarding to the individual as helping a neighbor in need.

To assist non-profit organizations in building the philanthropic spirit and the habit of giving in your country, you must show potential donors that all contributions will be used in exactly the way each organization promises. Openness, honesty and reliability are key issues if you wish to build trust among potential donors, so you must prove not only the value of an organization’s work, but also the efficiency and honesty with which it delivers its programs and services. Only then are you ready to begin real fund-raising.

Understanding the Fundamentals of Fund-Raising

I can tell you from my own experience that the American process of fund-raising will work as well for your non-profits and NGOs as it does in the United States. First, however, you need to understand the process yourself before you can convey it to others.

Many people think of fund-raising as the essence of myth and magic: What mere mortal can expect to succeed? But this is merely an excuse for a failed fund-raising effort. The truth is that successful fund-raising is simply the product of hard work by dedicated people who are thoroughly prepared for the job.

A successful fund-raising campaign is not magic. It is a straightforward process of executing well-defined tasks that are arranged in a step-by-step progression. I know this to be so because I have seen it done over and over again. In fact, I have never found a fund-raising campaign to be an impossible task—inside or outside the United States—if it is well-planned and well-executed.

The best way for you to begin your fund-raising campaign is to explain each of its components individually and in their proper order to your organization and to prospective donors. Taking these early steps helps you to establish your overall goals, divide responsibilities for tasks and gain a measure of acceptance from people who may later be asked to provide you with funding.

The very first task you should undertake is to lead the organization itself through an evaluation of its own capability to raise money. To that end, I suggest you  “Check Out Your Organization’s Fund-Raising Readiness And Learn The Secret Of Fund-Raising Success.” There you will find a checklist that can be used to evaluate your organization’s fund-raising readiness:

On the list, check each statement that you can honestly claim to be true for your organization. When you have gone through the entire list, I suggest that you reread it to make sure you understand each affirmation. Don’t let their brevity get in the way of developing a full understanding of what they represent. You should evaluate their relevance to your particular situation, look for ways to maximize their effectiveness and value for you, and consider adaptations and adjustments that better tune them to your organization.

Of those forty-one campaign-readiness affirmations, you may find a number of them missing from your plan. You may have others in place, but not to the degree they should be working. What can you do to install the new components and improve the others? Below you will find links to my “Libraries” of fund-raising material. An examination of the table of contents of my “Fund-Raising Forum Library,” will point the way to articles which specifically address each of the affirmations in working detail for you to follow, step by step to meet your goal to develop, produce and implement the best fund-raising campaign possible to meet your needs.

You will be in position to plan and execute your fund-raising campaign with a command and control of each and every one of those components in their operating progression. For example, to touch on just a few of those steps in the fund-raising process, you will learn how to:

• Develop a mission statement.
• Be certain that you have effective and fully engaged leadership from a Board of Trustees.
• Know how important it is for your organization to have a written and reliable long range strategic plan.
• Identify potential donors who care about what you do, or who could care.
• Ensure that you get your financial house in order to know exactly what it costs to operate your organization.
• Develop and set fund-raising goals.
• Write a compelling case for support of your mission.
• Rate and evaluate your prospective donors in order to allow them to know what you would like from them.
• Recruit the fund-raising campaign’s volunteer leadership and solicitation team.
• Produce effective campaign communications and publicity plans.
• Learn how to ask for the money
• Manage and produce campaign progress reports.

and much more.

At the same time, of course, you must ensure that the organization’s leaders embrace and will use the U.S.-style fund-raising process. Once those tasks are accomplished, you must introduce the process to your constituents and to the public with a campaign that accelerates their acceptance of the concept by increasing their awareness and building their trust.

Long-Distance Personal Mentoring

Additional information and guidance about almost every other aspect of the fund-raising process can also be found on my Web site. Just click the links below to reach the Table of Contents of my current Fund-Raising Forum Library of feature articles, as well as my Worksheets and Forms Library. Of course, there is no charge, nor any obligation of any kind, for your free use of the material at any time.

All of these written materials are based on the hundreds of fund-raising workshops I have presented over the years and from my scores of consulting engagements. When you read them you will find that the experience is almost the same as if we were discussing your fund-raising questions, challenges and opportunities face-to-face.

I encourage you to review as many articles, exhibits and documents as you can. I hope that you will find them to be of value and support as you develop and conduct the successful fund-raising campaigns your organization needs and deserves to thrive in your country.

What are your comments and questions? I would be happy to hear from you.

Addendum

Raising Money In The United States
To Support Charities In Other Countries

The following are examples of often-asked questions regarding the raising of funds in the United States for use to directly support charities in other countries:

“A group of us here in the US care deeply about the plight of orphans in (Country). We know of a specific orphanage there in a village, and we want to raise funds in the US to directly support that organization. Can we start our own non-profit to do so? Or can we find an existing non-profit based in the US with a similar mission to ours, which could act as a “Sponsor” of sorts so we can raise funds which will go to the orphanage?

Conversely, many times those who operate charities in countries other than the United States, themselves inquire and search in the US for such “Friends” who would take their organization under their care and work to raise funds in the ways described above.

Unfortunately, neither option will work very well, and it is necessary to turn from the idealism of achieving such admirable humanitarian goals, to the realities of real and quite formidable laws and regulations. This is a complex area of tax law that should be reviewed with legal and tax counsel based on the foreign and US specific situations. Anyone seeking to work to either option, must consult the IRS.

While it is OK to form a 501(c)(3) charity to help foreign orphans, it is not OK to form a 501(c)(3) charity to support a named foreign orphanage. Thus, in the example above, tax-deductible funds could be raised in the US, but they would need to be distributed to orphanages in general. New rules have been put in place that will make supporting the operations of organizations based outside the US even more difficult. This in addition to the efforts by the Treasury and other federal agencies to prevent passing funds to terrorist organizations.

Although an organization formed in a foreign country can be recognized under section 501(c) (3), U. S. Federal tax law generally does not allow tax deductions for contributions to foreign charities. Sometimes donations are deductible, however, by reason of a specific treaty between the US and the foreign country. The fact that contributions are not tax deductible for U. S. donors may make it hard to find willing donors.

Regarding the question posed above for some to form a US affiliate, unfortunately, it is IRS policy to deny a 501(c)(3) application from a group formed to support a named charity in another country. Giving 501(c)(3) status to these organizations would make it too easy for taxpayers to skirt the law. If anyone decides to form a US group to make grants to foreign charitable organizations, they will have to show the IRS that the organization is not controlled by, or otherwise obligated, to transfer donations to any specific foreign entity.

Caveat: I am not an attorney, nor am I giving legal advice. The broad picture presented is intended to help focus the desires of those in the US who are sympathetic with a charitable cause in another country, and those who are operating charitable organizations in foreign lands, to take great care to follow every legal and regulatory path to satisfy their intentions before they go about raising money.

Are you working on a fund-raising plan—or planning to?

When seeking to construct a plan for a fund-raising campaign, the persons charged by their non-profit organizations with that responsibility often ask for a plan “boilerplate,” or a “template,” thinking that such models could be directly and wholly adapted to their situation.

However, it is not that simple. Since each campaign plan should be determined by the objectives, costs, resources, priorities, responsibilities and timelines emanating from the long-range, strategic plan, it is obvious that a “one-size-fits-all” fund-raising campaign plan document can only be used in a broad and general way. Refinement, flexibility, and consensus, are but a few of the components which each plan must accommodate and they are unique from one organization to another.

This article can help you to adapt the guides and outlines provided so that you can develop your own general development plan and specific fund-raising campaign plans.

Planning Is Everything

A fund-raising campaign must be:

• A plan,
• Within a plan,
• Within a plan.

Each campaign plan works within the general development plan, which in turn must fit into the organization’s strategic plan—with the Mission Statement being the “center of it all.”

Deviate from this hierarchy of plans and you invite chaos. A campaign plan that is not in accord with the general development plan may make its goal, but it may also “poison the well” for other fund-raising efforts. A general development plan that has not been created within the context of an organization’s strategic plan may outline a valid theory for acquiring contributed income, but it will probably lack the content necessary for successful implementation.

The Road Map To Success

A strategic plan is an organization’s blueprint for carrying out its mission statement. It is initiated, implemented, and periodically reviewed by an organization’s staff and board. The process of strategic planning, although it is out of the purview of this article, is a critically important element of successful management. Volumes have been written on the topic and any bookstore with a strong business and management section will have more than a few feet of shelf space devoted to the subject. I urge you to develop an understanding of the process and to make sure your organization has a strategic plan which it revisits annually.

A strategic plan, which should cover at least three years, is a prerequisite for establishing, first, a general development plan effort and, subsequently, specific fund-raising campaigns. It identifies institutional priorities, plots a course for achieving goals and objectives, lays out performance assessment, and provides for mid-course corrections.

It is the first step in establishing an organization’s budget. Knowing what is to be done and how it will be accomplished allows cost to be determined. Then, income can be balanced against expenses. The shortfall—the amount you plan to spend minus anticipated income—is the operational deficit. It represents the money the organization will have to raise, usually through contributed income, to balance its budget.

A general development plan identifies how and from what sources an organization will acquire and maximize contributed income. It encompasses all potential sources, identifies the tactics which will be used, and communicates that information to the organization’s staff, volunteers, and influential supporters. Like the strategic plan, it is a living document subject to periodic review and updating. Usually, the person charged with the responsibility for managing the process of achieving contributed income will write the plan, in collaboration with the organization’s director and the board development committee—if one has been established. If a standing development committee has not yet been named, the board as a whole or a temporary committee will have to exercise oversight responsibility. The general development plan is applicable to any organization, although each of the points would need to be adapted and augmented to fit a specific organization.

Developing Your Own Fund-Raising Plan

You can construct your fund-raising plan by reviewing several plan outlines and articles from my website which I feel confident can be adapted to your needs.

• Worksheets and Forms Library There in the Planning For Fund-Raising section you will see several specific outlines of plans.

• While termed a “contract,” the following document can be adjusted to simply change the consultant’s duties to those of staff or volunteers. And while related to an Annual Fund, the document can be revised to develop any type of campaign plan. Consulting Agreement For An Annual Fund Campaign

• As well, a good way to “coarse-tune” your plan, is to review your capabilities to the components cited in my article: Check Out Your Organization’s Fund-Raising Readiness And Learn The Secret Of Fund-Raising Success. The checklist contains 41 key affirmations I believe a non-profit organization must be able to make before planning and conducting a fund-raising campaign. How many will you able to claim as true for your organization? When you have gone through the entire list, I suggest that you reread it to make sure you understand each affirmation. The points on the checklist are synopses. Don’t let their brevity get in the way of developing a full understanding of what they represent. On top of that you should evaluate their relevance to your particular situation, look for ways to maximize their effectiveness and value for you, and consider adaptations and adjustments that better tune them to your organization. That will be the substance of your fund-raising plan.

• With Major Gifts Campaign Checklist, you can amplify and adapt each of the “nuts & bolts” affirmations to aid in the construction of your plan.

Building Consensus

Well thought-out plans are necessary for successful fund-raising, but the best-laid plans will come to naught if an organization’s leaders have not arrived at a consensus to raise money. The paid head of the organization, the board chairperson, key staff members, trustees, other volunteers, and advisory group members all need to agree with fund-raising goals and the plan for achieving those goals.

This is not the place to explore the techniques of consensus building. It is one of the hotter topics in the management community, and a trip to your local bookstore or library will turn up a plethora of books on the subject. Suffice it to say, consensus building is involvement. Consensus for any program of action is rarely achieved without involving in the program’s design those from whom you are seeking the consensus.

Successful fund-raising relies heavily on trustee involvement. Trustees should be a fundraising campaign’s donors and solicitors of first resort. They must be an active part of the consensus-building process. Use your trustee development committee to develop overall fund-raising strategy, tactics, and initiatives and to plan specific campaigns. Key staff members should also be involved in formulating general fund-raising strategy and tactics. If the people in charge of delivering the programs and services of an organization are not in agreement with the process of soliciting contributed income, they will not be effective advocates for fund-raising efforts.

Then there are those, such as volunteer solicitors, who sign on for a fund-raising campaign. They play important roles, but by choice limit their involvement. A solicitor is not as fully engaged in a campaign as the campaign chairperson. It is unlikely that solicitors would take part in the formulation of campaign plans. However, you must win their consensus to carry out the campaign.

Hold Nothing Back

Two words describe what I have found to be the key in achieving consensus among volunteers, staff, and others involved in designing, executing or supporting fund-raising efforts: full disclosure.

If you are the person putting a campaign together, inform everyone about its goals, how it will be carried out, and the roles, responsibilities, and relationships of all involved, and do it early in the process as possible. Never, ever think in terms of managing a person’s need to know.

If you are a staff member, trustee, or volunteer, demand to know the fund-raising plan in its entirety from the beginning. Never, ever accept the answer, “That’s something you won’t be working on. You don’t need to worry about it.” If you are expending the time and effort to work on a fund-raising campaign, you want it to have every opportunity for success. An organization that doles out fund-raising information on a need-to-know basis is an organization that is severely hampering its own efforts. Frequent and detailed reports need to be issued to everyone involved in a fundraising campaign.

Addendum: Your Campaigns:

• Fitting Annual, Endowment, Capital, and Sponsorship & Underwriting Campaigns Into Your Organization’s Plans and Making Them “Sing”
• Annual Campaigns: Once a Year Every Year
• Endowment Funds Go On Forever — An Endowment Campaign Should Not
• Capital Campaigns: Building For Now
• Sponsorships And Underwriting Campaigns: Would You Please Fund Our …?



What we’ll be talking about here is not an organization’s overall communications strategy – how and what it does to present itself to the public at large.

Rather we’re talking about an organization’s development communications strategy—how and what it does to communicate its fundraising needs and efforts to donors, prospects, and those able to influence them.

The Context of a Development Communications Strategy

A development communications strategy starts with the organization’s overall communications plan. Whatever is done to communicate, as part of the fundraising effort, must be done in the context of how the organization has decided to present itself to the public.

The need for a specialized development communications strategy does not give a development department the license to work outside the organization’s communications department. It is crucially important that the development department work with the communications department. Approval must be sought from the communications department for the development communication strategy and its major components.

I cannot stress this point strongly enough. A development communications strategy crosses functional lines within an organization. It must be true to both the development and the communications departments’ guidelines, practices, and policies. Failure to work closely with the communications department in this area can result in damage to the organization, its fundraising efforts, collegial harmony, and your career.

There is another thing to which any development communications strategy must also be true – the organization’s mission. No one should ever construct a development plan or the communications strategy to support it without reviewing the organization’s mission statement, its goals and objectives, and its long-term strategic plan. Those who are charged with fundraising for an organization have a responsibility not only to bring in the contributed income it needs, but to do so within the context of the organization.

It is possible to attempt to raise money, even to actually raise it, in a way that damages the organization’s survival. Misleading statements, promises that cannot be kept, misrepresented facts, and negative presentation of information can yield short-term results that constrain an organization’s ability to raise money in the future.

These potentially damaging approaches are easy to spot in the context of one-on-one solicitation. We wouldn’t want a solicitor to make any of the following statements unless we were sure they were true, had been approved in advance, and had a pretty darn good idea what the response to them would be.

“I’m sure we reach more children at need than any other organization. I think there was a newspaper article a while back that said so.”

“Mrs. Jones, I have no doubt the board would be willing to look at naming the new wing after your husband.”

“If we don’t get your gift,” Mr. Smith, “we will be forced to discontinue this program.”

When it comes to a communication strategy, potential negatives are more subtle. When we focus too narrowly on the need to raise money, they can creep in to the very fabric of what we do. We must always remember that a development operation, a development plan, and a development communications strategy exist so that the organization can better carry out its mission, according to the policies and practices it has set, in order to serve the constituencies it has identified.

Let’s take a look at what we need to do to construct a development communications strategy that:

1. Works within the context of an organization’s mission
2. Functions in harmony with an organization’s overall communications plan
3. Leverages fundraising efforts

We’ll start with a description of the communication process. When we communicate, we deliver a relevant message to previously identified recipients using chosen media in order to obtain predetermined action. The four governing elements of the communication process are

1. Message: What we want to say.
2. Recipients: Those to whom we want to say it.
3. Results: The action we want them to take.
4. Media: The vehicles we choose to deliver messages.

Message

Every message an organization sends is in some way a representation of that organization. The view people hold of an organization is a combination of those representations and the messages others disseminated about.

In short, an organization’s image is the sum total of the messages it and others send about it. While an organization cannot exercise direct control over the messages of others, it can and should manage carefully the ones it sends. And nowhere is that more true than in the messages about fundraising.

A message is made up of content and articulation. The content of a message consists of its facts and persuasions. The articulation is the way we state a message—its voice, tone, and style. Together, content and articulation combine to create a complete message. Effective messages are clear and consistent.

Clarity

The content of a clear message is obvious. It is hard to misunderstand a clear message. It consists of statements of fact and persuasive arguments that are as complete and absolute as possible. A clear message has one main point. If you have two equally important points that need to be communicated, you probably need to send two messages.

The articulation of a clear message is equally unambiguous. A clear message is not the place to employ the literary techniques your college English professors taught you. Nor is it where you should strive to impress with your vocabulary. The words that make up its facts and persuasions should be part of common, everyday language. Sentences are simple, straightforward, and for the most part declarative. Language is active not passive.

A clear message does not rely on technical or bureaucratic jargon. It contains only the information a recipient needs to understand its main point. Everything in it can be understood with one, very quick reading.

Clear messages are best written in a journalistic style called inverted pyramid in which the most important information is put at the beginning. This is not the place to build suspense or to hit the reader with a surprise ending. You never know when someone is going to stop reading. Your first sentence must catch the reader’s attention and the gist of the message needs to be conveyed in the first paragraph.

Consistency

Messages need to be consistent on two levels. First, everything in a fund-raising message must be consistent with every other message the organization sends. Secondly, fund-raising messages must be consistent in their arguments for support.

We have already stressed the importance for a development communications strategy to operate according to an organization’s overall communications plan. The tactics of carrying out this imperative must be consistent with the way in which the organization communicates.

An organization with a coherent communication approach develops a voice. Some organizations will be very conservative in how they speak while others exhibit a stridency of tone in their communications. People expect to hear the voice an organization has established. If an organization speaks of fundraising in a voice different from that which it uses in its other communications efforts, people will be confused.

For example, let’s say there is an organization that habitually describes itself as providing programs to protect latchkey children. But in a fund-raising campaign, that organization asks people to give so that programs can be developed to get kids off the streets in order to lessen juvenile crime. The result is likely to be confusion. The tone of the two statements is different. The fund-raising statement creates an image in conflict with the organization’s traditional presentation of itself. The organization is speaking with different voices.

Carrying this example further, let’s say the organization stresses protect latchkey children in one annual campaign and lessen juvenile crime in the next. The organization is then sending inconsistent fundraising messages and is likely to pay the price in the second year by receiving fewer gifts from people who responded to the latchkey children appeal.

A prospect who is confused about what an organization does or why it does it is not likely to support that organization.

Message Clarity and Consistency Checklist

1. Does the message have a single main point?
2. Is it constructed with common, everyday words?
3. Are the sentences simple, straightforward declarations?
4. Is the most important part of the message in the first paragraph?
5. Does the fund-raising message speak in a voice consistent with how the organization speaks about other topics?
6. Is this fund-raising message consistent with the organization’s other fundraising messages?

Recipients

No part of a development communications strategy is more important than determining who will be the recipients of your messages. You can neither craft the content of messages nor pick the vehicles to carry them until you know who will be receiving them. The question you should ask yourself over and over again is: Whom do I want to influence?

Donors & Prospects

At first blush, the answer seems easy—donors, of course. Would that it were that simple.

Different messages need to be crafted for different groups of donors. It is doubtful an organization would want to send the same message to someone who has given $100 as they would to someone whose past giving totals $100,000. Then there are the prospects who have yet to make a gift to the organization or who have not given to a specific type of campaign before.

One of the goals of a development communication strategy should be to target as tightly as possible an organization’s fund-raising messages. Messages should be created for and delivered to the narrowest feasible group. This is not a situation where you aim for the lowest common denominator.

The largest donors should receive most of their information in messages tailored to appeal to big givers and delivered one-on-one. Yes, they will be recipients of other messages through the various channels the organization has chosen to use, but the information they will rely upon to make a decision should come from a person speaking to them in their home or office and be backed up by personal letters from peers.

A large part of the process of identifying recipients for specific sets of messages will be accomplished through the rating and evaluating of prospects.

Others

An organization will also want to get its fund-raising messages out to recipients other than donors. For this purpose the news media offer the most cost effective channel. To inform the public at large, you generate publicity about a fund-raising campaign in order to create a climate favorable to the organization’s development efforts.

With that end in mind, it is important to think of the media not only as a communication channel or vehicle (we’ll be exploring them in that vein later), but also as an audience – a group of message recipients. The messages you craft for the media, like those for any other group of recipients, need to be tailored to their needs.

Another group that shouldn’t be overlooked in a development communications strategy is the staff of the organization. In this case, staff doesn’t mean just employees. Volunteers and paid staff can be an important group because of their ability to influence the giving of others. Too many organizations forget about non-development staff when it comes time to mount a campaign. Don’t. Well-informed staff members can function as an informal cadre of image builders for an organization. If an organization has a fund-raising campaign underway every staff person should be able to present the case for support.

Recipients Checklist

1. Have we divided the people we want to communicate with into the smallest feasible groups?
2. Having identified differing message content needs are we prepared to craft messages aimed at each group?
3. Have we developed a program for communicating with the news media?
4. Do we have a program in place for communicating with staff – paid and volunteer – about development needs and plans?

Results

No communication effort—large or small—should be undertaken unless there is an intended result for that effort. We communicate in order to generate action, and we had better be able to describe that action before we begin sending messages to recipients.

It isn’t enough for a message sent as part of a development communication strategy to have the intend action of getting someone to make a donation. That intention is playing to the lowest common denominator.

In a campaign, we segment prospects by their ability to give, and then design specific messages to go to those different segmentations. We go to that trouble because we want them to take different actions. Some we want to give $10,000. Others will be asked for $100. The messages for people capable of giving gifts of dramatically differing sizes will not be the same.

A development communications strategy will also plan for different messages to be sent to the same group of recipients. A monthly newsletter sent to an existing base of smaller donors may have the intended result of getting the recipients to think favorably about an organization. A solicitation letter sent to the same group as part of a direct mail campaign seeks to get the recipients to take the action of writing a check. Same audience, but different intended results.

Always identify the result you want from every communication effort, and for each effort there should be a single result. For example, an organization with a monthly newsletter to donors might want to use that vehicle to tell about how the funds raised in a recent campaign were spent on a specific program. It also might want to announce that the same program has received a statewide award. It’s tempting to cover both subjects in a single story. But let’s take a look at the result we want to derive from communicating about each subject.

My intended result for telling donors how their contributions were spent would be to let them feel a direct connection to the program. On the other hand, I want them to know about the award in order to have them feel positively about the organization and the quality of its efforts.

Where I come from, those are two different results, and I would deliver the information intended to elicit each result in a separate message.

Results Checklist

1. Do we have a defined intended result for each message we will send?
2. Does each message have one and only one intended result?

Media

We’ve talked about the messages we want to deliver, the recipients to whom we want to send them, and the actions we want recipients to take as a result of those messages. Now let’s look at the variety of ways we have of delivering messages. We’ll begin by breaking down our media into two groups:

1. Internal and
2. External

For the sake of this discussion, we’ll define internal media as every message delivery vehicle over which the organization is able to exercise some degree of direct control. External will be those over which we have no direct control.

General Internal Media

Obviously, any development communications strategy will plan to take advantage of an organization’s existing general internal media—that managed by the communications department. Falling into this category are:

1. Newsletters
2. The annual report
3. The annual meeting
4. Speeches delivered by staff
5. Relationships with media/press outlets that accept public service announcements – TV, radio, magazines, newspapers
6. The organization’s website

At specific times during the fund-raising cycle the development department will want to use these media to deliver messages that support its fund-raising efforts. The trick is to use them in a planned, ongoing way.

Newsletters

Any newsletter the communications department puts out should cover events, successes, and plans of the development department in the same way it does those of other departments. Donors should receive recognition in these newsletters. Campaign kickoffs should be announced.

Annual Report

The annual report is an organization’s communication vehicle of record. Every donor who wishes should have her/his name listed here. Large gifts received should be touted. Fund-raising successes should be recorded.

Annual Meeting

The annual meeting is an organization’s celebration of its year’s efforts. Large donors, if they wish, should be recognized. Fund-raising successes should be called to the attention of all assembled. Fund-raising needs for the upcoming year should be stated. A call to action should be issued for the upcoming year’s annual campaign and any other scheduled fund-raising effort.

Speeches

Every time a staff member speaks publicly a portion of the speech should call attention to the organization’s good works and how it relies upon contributed income to continue it efforts. I know that it is sometimes hard to get everyone to adhere to this policy. But it should be included as part of the development communications strategy and every effort made to make it happen.

News Media Relationships

The communications department will have relationships with the community’s news media. The development communications strategy should include a plan for using those relationships to promote fund-raising efforts.

Website

It is becoming increasingly rare for a nonprofit organization not to have a website. The development department needs to have a section on the website that provides:

1. Information on the organization’s fund-raising needs
2. A persuasive argument for giving
3. The opportunity to give
4. The opportunity for visitors to add their names to any email or snail mail lists
5. The names, areas of responsibility, and contact information for all development staff

This last point is particularly important, yet often overlooked. People are more likely to make contact with an organization if they have a name of someone to email, call, or write. Websites that fail to list a nonprofit’s development staff limit the possibility of potential new donors making contact. And sometimes, the person trying to make contact will be an existing donor who has forgotten the name of a person he/she talked to previously. Make it easy for donors and prospects to reach out to you.

General Internal Media Checklist

1. Is there a plan in place to make use of the organization’s regular newsletters?
2. In the next annual report, will donors be recognized, large gifts singled out for praise, and fund-raising successes recorded?
3. At the next annual meeting, will successful fund-raising efforts be celebrated and upcoming campaigns called to attention?
4. Is there a policy in place to identify the organization’s good works and cite its need for contributed income in all speeches made by staff?
5. Is the development department working with the communications department to take advantage of the latter’s relationships with the news media?
6. Is there a well functioning development section on the organization’s website?

Development Department Internal Media

A large part of a development communications strategy will be devoted to the various communication vehicles the development department creates and then controls in an effort to support fund-raising programs. These vehicles come in many forms. Lets make a list of some of the possibilities and then discuss them in greater detail.

1. Brochures
2. Newsletters
3. Direct mail
4. Telephone
5. Email
6. Public service announcements

I’m not going to get into the detailed how-to of these various media. In the time we have available, I’d rather discuss how they fit into a development communications strategy and where their use is most effective.

Brochures

Brochures are where you can layout a campaign’s case for giving and cite positive outcomes that will result from a successful campaign. A brochure gives the development office something to send when they get a request for information. It also serves as a study guide for those who are making the campaign case to prospects. It is the document of first resort when fund-raising questions come up, and as such can be invaluable to all staff members. And it is the one thing that is left with every prospective donor.

Brochures are important, and their content must be agreed upon early in the planning process. No campaign should begin without a brochure outlining need and the case for giving.

Newsletters

Newsletters are publication sent out at specific intervals. Monthly is probably the most common. A newsletter can keep a fund-raising campaign fresh in the minds of prospective donors by announcing progress and major gifts. Every edition of a fund-raising newsletter should include an opportunity to give through return envelopes, phone numbers at which charge-card gifts can be accepted, and, if the organization has the capability, reference to a page on the website where gifts can be made.

Newsletters need to be short and sweet. Their articles need to be concise and to the point. Photographs help communicate. And statements from donors about why they gave can help move a fence sitter. A campaign newsletter should be two to four pages long, and it probably should be issued at least monthly.

Newsletters are really the quick and dirty of publishing, and they do not have to last forever. It’s okay to publish a newsletter during a campaign and then close it down. On the other hand, it’s a good idea for a development communications strategy to include an ongoing newsletter from the development department to donors of record and likely prospects. You can have more than one newsletter.

Direct Mail

Direct mail is a tried and true medium of fund-raising. It is used over and over again because it works, especially when smaller gifts are being solicited from a large number of people. Think annual campaigns.

There are a lot of good books and articles on how to use direct mail. It is a somewhat arcane science with all sorts of theories. Many tests have been done on the number of pieces to include in a mailing, their color, the writing style, response rates, and just about any other variable you can imagine. Do a search on the Web for “direct mail” and the return will be in the millions. Don’t let that intimidate you. Search for the words “nonprofit direct mail” and the return is less than a hundred.

Telephone

Sometimes we forget that the telephone is a communication medium. It is so ubiquitous to everyday life that its “communication” function becomes invisible. However, every time you get a solicitation call at suppertime, your memory is jogged.

I dislike being on the receiving end of phone campaigns as much as the next person, but that doesn’t mean we should rule telephones out of a development communications strategy. Phone campaigns, like direct mail, work when it comes to soliciting smaller gifts, and phone surveys are a great way to pretest how receptive the community is to the case for a particular campaign.

Email

Email is the new kid on the block in communication vehicles, and it is so versatile that we can expect to see its use increase rapidly. It is the least expensive directed communication medium available and it has the ability to deliver everything from newsletters to direct-mail solicitations.

Email has the added advantage of being near instantaneous communication. There is no faster way to get a message out in the middle of a campaign that by emailing it to your intended recipients. Of course in order to do this you need email addresses.

Every nonprofit organization should be collecting the email addresses of its donors and prospects. At the same time, it should be getting permission to email them with information about the organization. You should never send fundraising email to people without first getting their permission to so.

Another advantage of email is that it is good at drawing return comments and correspondence. It is a great dialoging tool.

There are some really amazing tracking and data-collecting capabilities inherent in email. Used ethically they can be a great help in profiling donors. See the article Building Donor Loyalty, Chapter 7: Tools for Donor Cultivation

Public Service Announcements

A public service announcement (PSA) is something of a hybrid. While you control its content, it is actually placed in external media such as radio and television programming and newspaper and magazine pages. But because you control what PSAs say, I consider them to be an internal medium. They are first cousins of paid advertising. In fact the only difference is whether or not you pay. Since most nonprofits operate under the strictest of budgetary constraints, I’m holding our discussion to PSAs and will not get into the merits of buying advertising.

A public service announcement can reach a very large audience. After all it is delivered by what we call the mass media. An organization should take advantage of every chance it gets to make its fundraising pitch in well-placed PSAs. They give the opportunity to make a strong emotional argument for donations.

One of the best ways to get good PSAs is to talk an advertising agency into producing them for you as a gift-in-kind. Most agencies are willing to do this pro bono work for the recognition it earns them.

There are many other communication media that could be part of a development communications strategy – everything from promotional items you give away to video presentations to be shown at meetings. But what we have looked at here are the most commonly used vehicles and the ones that are likely to return the most bang for the buck. In one way, shape, or form, they should be available to even the smallest of organizations.

Development Department Internal Media Checklist

1. Have we prepared a campaign or fund-raising brochure?
2. Have we developed a newsletter or newsletters to support our fund-raising efforts?
3. Is direct mail appropriate for this campaign?
4. Is there an effective way to use telephones as a communication media?
5. Have we explored the possibilities of email for fund-raising communications?
6. Are we ready to deliver PSAs to news media who have agreed to use them?

External Media

External media are principally the news media that will be covering an organization and its fund-raising campaigns. The size of the organization and its perceived importance to the community will affect how hard or easy that coverage is to come by. External media include:

1. Daily newspapers
2. Weekly newspapers
3. Television stations
4. Radio stations
5. Magazines

The two most common ways we communicate with external media are by issuing press releases and talking to writers, editors, or reporters. We also communicate with them by holding press conferences.

Keep in mind that you will have virtually no control over what an external medium says about the organization and its fund-raising efforts. You can issue press releases until you are blue in the face and still find the facts and information published or aired contrary to what you gave out.

External media can be important to a fund-raising campaign and consideration of them should be included in any development communications strategy. I urge you to rely on the expertise of the organization’s communications department. The communications director should know which external media representatives are likely to view the organization favorably, and which ones to stay away from. Also there are rules about how information should be released that govern among other things the best time of day and day of the week. The communications department is where you will find the experts. Use them.

Because you have so little control over what ends up in print or on the radio or TV, external media should be used carefully and sparingly. A campaign-kickoff press conference is worthwhile if the campaign is significant enough to the community to warrant it. If not, have the communications department issue a press release and contact the appropriate people. You can follow up with milestones-reached updates and finally with the announcement of successful conclusion of the campaign.

Keep in mind that the news media covering a story will not, for the most part, simply use your press releases. They will want to put their own spin on things and do some reporting. They will also want someone at the top of the organization or the campaign to give them a quote. Be prepared for all of this, and leave the execution of it in the hands of the communications department.

External Media Checklist

1. Do we have a list of media contacts ready?
2. Do we have people from the communications department assigned to make those contacts?
3. Do we have people willing to be quoted and are they briefed on what to say?
4. Do we have a timetable for external media contact?

Two Final Words

Budget: No development communication strategy can be carried out successfully unless in has been budgeted for. You will need to determine the amount of staff time it will take and how much money will be needed to carry it out. Budget for it the way you would any other operation and then stick to the budget.

Schedule: Develop a schedule for executing the components of your development communications strategy and then stick to it. If your strategy is to work, it can’t be treated as an afterthought. Communication has to be given the same respect and attention to detail that every other aspect of fund-raising gets.

Additional Reading

Designing a Communications Plan to Enhance your Fund Raising Campaign

An assessment of the feasibility of a campaign can be conducted by the organization itself or by outside professional counsel. If the organization is very well prepared (more about that later), it should be capable of making an internal assessment of feasibility. However, if a full-blown feasibility study is needed, then that study is best conducted by outside counsel having no ties to the organization. The reasons for this will be delineated later in this article.

At one time, a feasibility study for a capital or endowment campaign was little more than a process of identifying where the money was—who had it and how much they might be willing to give.

No longer. In today’s donor-centric world, an organization needs to assess the:

1. Community’s perception of the importance of the need for which
   money is to be raised.
2. Feelings, both positive and negative, about the organization and
   its mission.
3. Size of the potential donor base and its ability to give.
4. Availability of strong campaign leadership and effective volunteers.
5. Internal resources available for the campaign and the preparedness
   of the organization to undertake it.
6. External factors that could influence the outcome of the campaign.

Let’s take a look at these six points, each of which is critical to a campaign’s success.

Community’s Perception of the Importance of the Identified Need

While we may understand and believe deeply in the importance of the cause for which we wish to raise money, the community at large, potential donors, or those who influence the views of others may not. A “Statement of Intention” for the proposed project must be prepared and presented. Don’t confuse this Statement of Intention with the proposed campaign’s Case for Support, which is a document developed from the knowledge gained from a feasibility study. The Case for Support is then used to recruit volunteers and solicit contributions. It is the reasoned argument for support.

A Statement of Intention is not an argument for support. It is a description of an identified need and the organization’s intention to fill that need. It is a hypothesis. We hope that others will see the “obvious” relative importance of this need, but that is not guaranteed. That’s why we must trot out our Statement of Intention and have people say, “Yeah, something needs to be done about that now,” or, “There are too many other things far more important that this community must address first.”

Feelings about the Organization

If we’re going to ask people for money, it sure helps if they think highly of both our organization and its mission. Do they see our mission as vital and valid? Are we perceived as being successful at carrying out that mission? Has our organization earned and maintained trust and respect? Have we been efficient stewards of donations and resources? Has any controversy been associated with us? Have questions about any of our leaders arisen? Do people believe we are the right organization to address what we describe in our Statement of Intention? And finally, do they know enough about us to have formed any deeply held opinions?

Donor Base

This is the part about where the money is. Given the fund-raising goal we are likely to set, is there a large enough group of potential donors for us to reach that goal, and how will we reach it? Can we identify a pool of lead donors? Will we be able to find the 20 percent who give 80 percent of the money?

Campaign Leadership

Maybe there is a belief in the importance of the need, a feeling that we are the right organization to address it, and a base of donors able and likely to give at levels that make it probable we will reach our campaign goal. All that tells us is that we have the potential for a successful campaign. If strong campaign leadership and volunteers cannot be found, the campaign has no chance to succeed. That’s the reality.

We need to assess our likelihood of attracting a campaign chairperson capable of putting together a winning leadership team and a cadre of engaged volunteers. Without these people, our campaign is simply not feasible.

Internal Resources and Preparedness

Is our organization ready to take on this campaign? Do we have the staff needed? Do we have the money to invest to get the campaign off the ground? Do we have the know-how? Can the organization continue to carry out its everyday activities and simultaneously manage the campaign? If things go wrong, will we be able to recover? In a fund-raising campaign, like a military campaign, if our resources are stretched so thin that we have no reserves, we will not be able to overcome additional adversity.

External Factors

Okay, everything that we can control is right for the campaign, but what about the things over which we have no control? Are other organizations about to kickoff campaigns that will draw from the same donor and volunteer base? What’s the economy in our community like? Is unemployment up or down?

There are other questions. Has any non-profit organization in the community been involved in a major scandal? If so, it is possible that public confidence in all non-profits will be lessened? Is local government turmoil great enough to distract attention from positive initiatives such as our campaign? Is it an election year? I could go on, but you get the idea.

External factors that can influence a fund-raising campaign will always exist. Some will be positive. Most of the negative ones will require nothing more than that we grit our teeth and charge ahead. We face them head on, take a positive position, and turn them into fund-raising strengths.

However, there are things that have the potential to be so strongly negative that a campaign may need to be postponed or even canceled. All external factors capable of influencing a campaign must be assessed. Their impact on the feasibility of our campaign must be analyzed individually and in the aggregate.

Can You Assess Campaign Feasibility Yourself?

In-house feasibility assessments can often be the just the ticket. Many organizations are well positioned to determine for themselves the feasibility of a campaign. These organizations know which of their donors can give how much money. They have a well-developed case for support of the organization based on its mission statement and core values.

Is your organization one that should undertake its own in-house feasibility assessment? The answer may be yes if you have the following key elements in place:

1. A dedicated, committed board of trustees ready and willing to lead,
   give money, ask for major gifts, and help provide access to persons
   of affluence or influence.
2. A compelling Case For Support of the project to be funded,
   emanating from a clearly defined, fully understood, and completely
   accepted organizational mission statement and compatible with the
   long-range strategic plan.
3. Rated and evaluated prospects sufficient to provide enough gifts
   in the needed amounts to raise the most money from the fewest
   sources in the least amount of time.
4. Timing that assures the new endowment or capital campaign is
   spaced so that any major givers who are still making pledge
   payments from an earlier campaign need not be solicited.
5. A written campaign plan that includes leadership, volunteer, and
   staff job descriptions.
6. A realistic and compressed campaign time line.
7. An unvarnished view of the organization’s fund-raising track record
   and the community’s history of providing support to it.
8. The necessary staff and clerical resources to fully serve the
   campaign’s needs, including generating lists, letters, proposals,
   meetings, progress reports, and posting and acknowledging gifts.
9. Assurance that the new fund-raising campaign will in no way defer,
   deter, or interfere with any other fund-raising activity, especially the
   annual fund.
10. Knowledge of other organizations’ current and planned major
    capital and endowment campaigns and what timing conflicts might
    arise, especially those involving availability of top leadership and
    other volunteers.
11. A budget for the proposed project the campaign will support
    showing as accurately as possible all line-item expenses, including
    direct fund-raising expense. The budget must be realistic and
    defensible.

Most organizations possessing these capabilities, resources, and knowledge will find internally developed campaign feasibility assessments sufficient. They will be just about as ready as possible to enter directly into a fund-raising mode.

Why Would You Turn To Outside Professional Counsel?

Organizations lacking the resources and the know-how described above are not in a position to evaluate the feasibility of a capital or endowment campaign. In addition, a number of external issues may need to be addressed. These can include problems with name and mission recognition in the community, or harmful misperceptions about the organization or proposed project. Many such organizations will find it necessary and practical to engage outside professional fund-raising counsel to conduct a feasibility study.

A feasibility study conducted by an experienced, competent professional can reveal a great deal. Properly planned and executed it is in reality a survey of the philanthropic “market” and an organization’s place within that market. By asking affluent and influential persons the right questions, an organization can get information that has direct and positive bearing on its mission, governance, staffing, and the quality and delivery of its services.

I am a strong believer in using feasibility studies to explore an organization’s place in the community and the perceptions that community holds of everything from the organization’s fiscal responsibility to the value of its existence.

Perhaps the principal value of having outside counsel perform a campaign feasibility study is the opportunity to obtain candid answers to tough questions. A consultant is not part of the organization’s “family,” and that means the responses from study subjects will be more candid and complete.

An outside interviewer will not be placed in the position of having to respond to interviewee questions about why the organization does this or that. The interviewer should tell interviewees that their questions will be raised in the final report given to the organization’s management. Also, the interviewer can offer to pass along an interviewee’s specific questions, and request that the organization provide a direct response to the interviewee. In order to operate at this safe, arms-length distance, consultant interviewers must strictly adhere to three important rules.

1. Never speak for the organization or comment on it.
2. Never compromise the confidentiality of an interviewee without the
   interviewee’s permission.
3. Never treat an interviewee as a peer or friend.

What Should You Expect From A Consultant?

If an organization chooses to use outside counsel for a campaign feasibility study, several proven and competent professional fund-raising firms should be considered. Key volunteers and staff should meet with representatives from each firm and apprise them of the organization’s intended project, its purpose, the preliminary fund-raising need, and other relevant information.

The consultants should then present the organization with written assessments and proposals. Included in these should be a description of study methodology and process, a working schedule, and total cost. Careful review of the proposals should identify the best consultant for the job.

Once a contract is entered into, the consultant will prepare a plan for the feasibility study that fleshes out the methodology, process, and schedule. The contract should be contingent upon acceptance of the plan.

How Should A Feasibility Study Be Conducted?

Focus groups, mail surveys, and telephone surveys can be useful, but I believe the best way to gather information is to conduct one-on-one interviews with individuals of affluence or influence. For these interviews to be of optimum value they need to be candid and frank. That means interviewees need to be guaranteed confidentiality. In order to do that the interviewer must be someone who is neither a staff member nor a volunteer leader of the organization.

Whether comprehensive one-on-one interviews, or a mix of other information gathering methods is used, feasibility study planning must take into account:

1. Size and make-up of the constituency to be surveyed.
2. Complexity of the study subject matter.
3. Study timeline.
4. Adequacy of resources to perform the study.
5. Budgetary considerations.

What Should A Feasibility Study Plan Include?

Any plan needs to state what will be done, how it will be done, and who will do it. It is crucial that the consultant and organization agree in writing to what each is responsible for. A typical plan should be developed along the following lines.

Interviews: Consultant will conduct one-on-one, in person interviews with 25 to 30 individuals taken from a list of 40 to 60 of candidates supplied by the organization. These candidates will be key area stakeholders of affluence and influence identified by the organization as important to it. The goal of these interviews will be to discover:

1. The best candidates for campaign leadership.
2. Top donor prospects.
3. Effective donor-focused language upon which the case for support
   will be built.
4. Challenges, opportunities, and barriers that may be encountered.

All interviews will be completed as quickly as possible over a period of seven to ten workdays.

Candidates For Interviews: The organization will categorize and rank candidates for interviews as:

1. Must be interviewed.
2. Should be interviewed.
3. Could be interviewed.

A cross section of those whose support (financial as well as philosophical) is considered vital to the success of the campaign must be interviewed. Potential interviewees include:

1. Major donors to the organization past and present.
2. Corporate, business, financial, foundation, and government leaders.
3. Major donors to other organizations.
4. Current and former board members.
5. Civic leaders.

Statement of Intention: Consultant will develop a Statement of Intention from information provided by the organization’s staff and board. The Statement will be no longer than two single-spaced pages. It will describe how the project will meet documented consensus needs and cite its benefit to the organization and community. The organization will review and approve the Statement.

The Statement of Intention will apprise, enlighten, and interest persons of affluence or influence about the organization and the proposed project. It is not the Case For Support. That document will be developed later to entice campaign leadership and to solicit major contributions.

Letter of Introduction: Consultant will write a Letter of Introduction for the organization’s board president to send to interview prospects. Included with the Letter of Introduction will be the Statement of Intention and a proposed budget for the project and campaign. The Letter will:

1. Ask its recipient to participate in the study.
2. Explain the role of the interviewer.
3. State that a follow-up phone call will be made to confirm willingness
   to participate and set up an appointment.
4. Assure that information collected will be confidential and not linked
   to specific interviewees.
5. Assure anonymity of interviewee.
6. Assure that no solicitation will be made during the interview.

The Letter and Statement will be sent in waves to the must-be, should-be, and could-be interviewees until a sufficient number have agreed to participate.

Scheduling Phone Calls: Consultant will provide a script and checklist for use by the organization to make the phone calls and obtain appointments. The checklist reiterates what was said in the letter of introduction. The script should include a request that the potential interviewee examine all materials received and be prepared to discuss the proposed project and campaign. These calls are best made by either the organization’s board president or CEO and should again assure that no solicitation will be made during the interview. Great care must be taken to avoid scheduling conflicts. Interviews should be at least one hour apart to allow for travel. Interviewees should be asked to set aside one hour for the interview. One person should control scheduling. Assuming no unduly long travel time, at least four interviews per day should be scheduled when possible.

Appointment and Profile Form: The organization will develop a profile of each person who agrees to be an interviewee by collecting pertinent information about that individual and combining it with data from the organization’s records. The organization will put each profile together with the time and place of the appointment to create an Appointment and Profile Form for every interviewee. These forms will be provided to the consultant for interview preparation.

Interview Questionnaire: Consultant will produce a series of questions to elicit information from interviewees in order to determine the feasibility of the campaign. These questions will be developed from the Statement of Intention and other information supplied by the organization. The organization will review and approve the questions.

Gift Table: Consultant will prepare a chart of gifts delineating size and number likely to be needed at each level of giving to achieve the campaign goal.

Interview: Consultant will conduct all interviews. The interviews will elicit important information relative to the proposed project and the campaign. Interviewees will not be asked to rule for or against the project. They will be asked for their opinions, not their recommendations. We can act or not act on opinions without a problem, but we cannot risk the alienation of individuals giving directives we cannot follow.

The campaign go or no-go decision is up to the organization’s board and senior staff. Asking outsiders to recommend for or against a proposed campaign could hamstring the organization’s ability to make the correct decision. No organization should be placed in the position of having to go back to a person of affluence or influence and explain why that person’s advice was not followed.

Final Study Report: Consultant will produce a final report on the feasibility of the proposed campaign. The report will include:

1. A statement of methodology and process including the number of
   interviews conducted and the time span of the interviews.
2. Findings about perceptions of the project, feelings about the
   organization, size of a likely donor base, availability of campaign
   leadership, and factors external to the organization.
3. Conclusions and recommendations based on the study findings
   and the consultant’s expertise and experience. Most important of
   all will be a recommendation to proceed with the campaign at this
   time, forego it altogether, or postpone it until the organization is
   better ready and/or the climate more receptive. If a campaign is
   determined to be feasible, included in the study will be
   recommended goals, timeline, volunteer organization, leadership,
   public relations approaches, staffing, budgeting, and the potential
   role of outside counsel during the campaign.

What Are Some Of The Pitfalls For Feasibility Studies?

Don’t withhold information.

People must readily understand why they are being asked to participate in the survey. Confusion will breed more confusion and even ill will.

Don’t compromise the process.

Interviewees who doubt the anonymity of their responses are less likely to respond candidly. An interviewee will not trust a promise of anonymity if the interviewer is an employee or volunteer leader of the organization. Anonymity cannot be assured too early or too emphatically.

Don’t mask your intentions.

A campaign feasibility interview is not the place to make a solicitation. In fact, the interviewee should be assured that you will not be asking him or her to take on a role in the campaign or to make a gift. The interview invitation letter even makes that promise. An interviewee who believes that he or she is being “softened up” for the campaign is less likely to be candid – and could be offended. However, if the interviewee initiates a willingness to take part should there be a campaign, then the organization must respond later with an invitation.

Don’t forget who helped you.

After the feasibility study has been completed, an organization should provide at least a summary of the final report to all persons who were interviewed. If they cared enough to take part, they care about the results.

A Further Word On Having The Interviewer-Consultant
Ask For A Gift:
NEVER!

• Why would you want someone who does not have in-depth knowledge of your organization, and who is not a peer volunteer, to ask a potential donor for a gift? First of all, the consultant is there to conduct interviews—to gather opinions and impressions. He or she is not there to solicit contributions.
• You do not ask for money for a campaign when you are trying to determine the feasibility of the campaign in the first place.
• A contribution made through the suggestion of an outside consultant during a pre-campaign interview is likely to be far lower than that achieved by a peer asking for the right amount at the right time.
• Any commitment made so early in a pre-campaign study would likely be useless later. What was discussed months before, would be dulled or forgotten by the passage of time—as are most verbal promises or intimations.
• An organization might well have but one “golden opportunity” to obtain its one significant gift from its best and most promising prospect. Why risk losing the gift, or greatly diminishing it, by having the completely wrong person asking for it?

If You Can’t Ask Interviewees To Give Or Lead,
How Do You Get Them Involved In The Campaign?

Let’s face it, some of your feasibility-study interviewees are likely to be people you will want to solicit for large gifts and ask to take on leadership roles in the campaign.

It may seem like that leaves you in a quandary. I’ve said you absolutely must not ask interviewees for money or to step forward and lead—but that’s only during the interview. It’s a matter of timing.

Remember, each person interviewed for the feasibility study is asked to list his
or her OWN recommendations for:

1. The best candidates for campaign leadership.
2. Top donor prospects.

You ask each interviewee for the names of the persons THEY believe have the potential to give money to the proposed campaign in say, seven, six, or five figures—relative to the gift table presented to them during the interview at the appropriate time in the review of the questionnaire. You also ask for the names of the persons THEY believe possess the required qualities to be the best leader for the campaign.

The aggregate responses will, at best, identify the same individual or individuals who were recommended the most number of times by the interviewees as potential donors in the top giving categories. You can then organize a  table of prospective donors with recommendations for gift size. And the same would hold with a hoped-for consensus recommendation for the potential leader of the campaign.

If a number of interviewees cite other interviewees in these lists, of course you add those people to your list. After the study has been completed, and should you go forward with the campaign, you go back to those recommended interviewees, and ask them for their support as you would anyone else. Just let them know that the feasibility study process identified them as prime candidates. They’ll understand. After all, they went through the process themselves.

What if the Feasibility Study Tells You What You Don’t Want to Hear?

Once a campaign feasibility study has been completed and you’ve received a report of its findings, conclusions, and recommendations, you’re ready to start the toughest part of the process. Now, you have to listen and pay attention. It’s the rare feasibility study that tells you only what you want to hear. The study could tell you that:

1. The proposed project is not something for which the community
   perceives a need or is willing to support.
2. The community doesn’t believe the organization should take on the
   project even though it’s worthwhile.
3. Campaigns being conducted by other organizations are perceived
   as having a higher priority than yours and the community cannot
   support both.
4. You will not be able to attract the quality of campaign leadership
   and volunteers you need.
5. You will not be able to raise the money you need in the timeframe of
   the campaign.
6. The organization needs to do specific things to get its house in order before undertaking the campaign.

Make sure that you take the time to go over every aspect of the campaign feasibility study. Don’t skip over negative things that on first reading seem minor. Be even tougher than the person who wrote the study’s report when it comes to deciding whether or not to go ahead with the campaign.

It is folly to take the time to conduct a study, spend the money on it, and then risk alienating people important to the organization by ignoring the study’s recommendations. An organization that ignores some or all of a study’s findings is making a mistake that can fatally damage the campaign, the project, and even the organization.

The study might recommend against proceeding with the campaign until the organization first repairs or installs new elements of its basic infrastructure – an updated strategic plan, a better defined mission, a strengthened board, or a myriad other things. Such recommendations should be diligently carried out.

If a feasibility study tells you what you don’t want to hear, don’t blame the people who conducted the study and don’t try to hide the results. I am still awaiting the final payment for a feasibility study from an organization that didn’t like what the 25 people they chose and I interviewed had to say. In another instance, I had to fight tooth and nail to get an organization’s executive director and president to share the results of a study with the board. The more negative a study’s results the more important that you heed them.

It is far better not to start a campaign, even if it means postponing or giving up on a project, than to begin a campaign that fails. The decision whether or not to go ahead with a project and a campaign is one that the organization makes in relative privacy. A failed campaign is a public event that reflects negatively on:

1. Campaign leadership.
2. Campaign volunteers.
3. The organization’s board.
4. The organization’s staff.
5. The organization’s image.

A failed campaign makes it harder for future campaigns to succeed. People give to organizations they perceive to be competent. The best volunteer leadership for both fund-raising endeavors and governance is drawn to organizations that are perceived to be winners.

What Does a Feasibility Study Cost?

The fee will be based on the amount of time the consultant expends to prepare materials for the interviews, write the Statement of Intention and all other communication pieces, conduct personal interviews with 25 to 30 subjects, compile the results, cite the findings, make recommendations, and write the final report.

From my experience, the typical study will take place over a period of six to eight weeks. Total billable time spent on the project is usually around 200 hours (25 eight-hour days). At the prevailing industry rate of about $1,000 per day, the consultant’s fee would be in the neighborhood of $25,000 plus expenses.

Make sure that you keep the feasibility study process separate from whether or not you use fund-raising counsel for the campaign. These are two different functions and should be conducted separately even if you use the same consultant for both. In fact, you should never even imply that the firm doing the feasibility study will also be employed to assist in the fund-raising. Make that a separate decision to be arrived at after the study results have been assessed. You do not want the outcome of the feasibility study to be influenced by the prospect of a contract to consult on the fund raising campaign.

What’s the Final Word?

Once the study has been received, any corrective preparatory action has been taken, and the campaign is given the green light, it should be started with as little delay as possible. If a period of some months elapses between the completion of the study and the start of the campaign, you run the risk of the study’s findings becoming out of date. This can be particularly true for the findings about external factors and for recommendations of volunteer leadership.

So, the final word is time. Take the time to assess the feasibility of any campaign before you enter into it. Some organizations will be able to do this without engaging outside counsel. For others, a knowledgeable, effective consultant is absolutely what is needed. Take the time to figure out which way your organization should go. Once a feasibility study is completed, take the time to pay attention to what it tells you.

And finally, don’t let time slip by between the completion of the study and the beginning of the campaign. In the end, a feasibility study is about whether the time is right to enter into a campaign.

Those are my views on the subject of campaign feasibility studies. What are yours?

“If,” goes the justification, “running a successful fund-raising campaign is an endeavor comparable to dredging the river Styx, and soliciting large gifts equivalent to pulling Excalibur from the stone, what mere mortal can be expected to succeed?” Given that attitude, let me add a corollary: “Why bother to develop a goal or start a campaign?” The answer to those questions is, because we have to, and because the myth of fund-raising doom can’t measure up to the basic truth that fund-raising success is simply hard work on the part of people who are thoroughly prepared.

A successful fund-raising campaign is not magic. It is a straightforward, concise process of executing well-defined components arranged in a step-by-step progression. I know this to be so because I have seen it done over and over again–starting at A and working through to Z, successfully carrying out campaign after campaign and achieving goal after goal. I’ve never found a well planned fund-raising campaign to be a Herculean task.

Looking at the nuts and bolts of a fund-raising campaign is the best way I know to make its success probable and its process understandable. Breaking down a campaign step-by-step, point-by-point, lets you present it to staff and volunteers of a non-profit organization in a way calculated to increase acceptance of over-all goals and individual responsibilities.

However, if successful fund-raising is simply hard work on the part of the thoroughly prepared, then that preparation must begin before a campaign is planned. An organization contemplating a campaign needs first to assess and evaluate its readiness to raise money. To that end, I suggest that the checklist below be used to self-evaluate your organization’s fund-raising readiness at a special board meeting, at a staff retreat, or as a one-on-one survey of trustees and staff.

Try it yourself and see if it changes your own understanding of your organization’s readiness to raise money. It’s easy to do. Just check each statement that you can honestly claim to be true for your organization.

Knowing Your Organization

___We have a clearly defined, fully understood, and completely accepted mission statement that addresses the difference our organization will make for those it serves, rather than merely describing what it does.

___We take advantage of our strengths as we make our case for support, letting none of the good things we do be well kept secrets.

___We turn our weaknesses into strengths by first identifying those we are handling in a defensive way or ignoring, and then developing a plan of action to change them.

___We can readily identify our principal support base from those personally touched, inspired, or motivated by what we do, and from those not directly involved with, but nevertheless influenced and impressed by what we do.

___We know exactly what our operational budget numbers are. When it comes to raising money, if we do not know our expenses, we can neither set fund-raising goals, nor let prospects know our needs.

___We maximize earned income and constantly assess whether more can be obtained by increasing charges for services in order to lessen fund-raising pressure.

___We are guided and directed by a long-range strategic plan, which we revisit annually. This “blueprint” of our organization is a prerequisite for establishing, first, a general fund-raising effort and, subsequently, specific fund-raising campaigns.

Planning For Fund-Raising & Achieving Consensus

___We work from a written General Development Plan which has been created within the context of our organization’s strategic plan, and avoid “quiet,” or out of context fund-raising campaigns that often strain our main fund-raising campaigns and merely take money from one pocket and put it into another.

___We produce annual, endowment, capital and sponsorship campaigns as needed and assure resources are in place to take them to their fullest potential.

___We have a Board of Trustees committed to leading our organization and raising funds, and all fund-raising campaigns begin with those trustees.

___Our fund-raising efforts are guided by a development committee comprised of trustees and other volunteer leadership and which has a mission statement outlining the committee’s duties and describing the policies to be implemented.

___We always develop achievable goals for a campaign before asking for the first gift, either making sure our fund-raising prospects are capable of meeting those goals or lowering the goals so that they are in line with our fund-raising potential.

___We always present compelling cases for support that not only state the amounts we need, but present the reasons our organization merits support.

___We always inform and involve all of our organization’s departments and personnel in campaigns, recognizing that they are important members of our fund-raising team.

___We produce for every campaign a fund-raising budget projection with clear, defensible reasons for what we propose to spend in order to complete the campaign.

Funding Sources & Prospects

___We solicit our trustees for contributions at or near their potential to give, rating and evaluating them in the same way we do other prospective donors.

___We always follow the steps of major prospect cultivation—identification, information, interest, and involvement—because successful fund-raising is based upon relationships, relationships, and more relationships.

___We first prospect those we serve—those who care about us—as potential donors and base our solicitation to them on an emotive appeal.

___We have assembled a database of contributions managers at foundations, corporations, and government agencies, and because they are stewards of others’ money required to justify their recommended donations, we base our solicitation of them on rational grounds, rather than emotive appeal.

___We prioritize individuals, corporations, and foundations for best funding potential, understanding that real wealth lies in the hands of individuals and that corporations and foundations are not usually the best source-of-first-choice for our organization’s needs.

___We always rigorously rate and evaluate the giving potential of prospects because this is the key to fund-raising success. Just as we must set a goal for each fund-raising campaign, we must set a goal for each prospective donor. Campaign goal achievement is based upon prospect goal achievement.

___We always determine how many gifts of what size we need to meet campaign goals and begin our solicitations with the largest gifts working down to the smallest.

Organizing A Campaign

___We never assume our solicitors know our organization, the purpose of the campaign, or how to ask for money, and we always equip them with easy-to-use solicitation kits that provide needed information and instill confidence.

___We always develop campaign timelines for campaign leaders and solicitors, realizing that long-running campaigns diminish enthusiasm.

___We always provide job descriptions that clarify lines of accountability and responsibility as well as duties for both campaign leadership and solicitors.

___We always seek the best possible solicitor-prospect assignments, especially taking advantage of solicitors’ peer contacts, friendships, and leverage. Prospects are more likely to give when solicitation comes from the ‘right’ person—someone they respect and who can make a strongly credible, personal case for support.

___We have staff in place to provide all needed campaign resources, including letters, lists, proposals, support data, and meeting arrangements, because the support provided to our volunteers and the information provided to our prospects will make the difference between campaign success and failure.

Managing A Campaign

___We always suggest a specific gift amount to every prospect, and while we know the dollar amount we want, we suggest donors contribute it, rather than tell them they should give it.

___We use challenge and matching gifts as a tool to attract and maximize the gifts of others in annual fund, sponsorship and underwriting campaigns, as well as capital and endowment campaigns.

___We efficiently use one-on-one, mail, telephone, door-to-door, and other solicitation methods, employing those that truly are best for a campaign rather than what is easiest or fastest.

___We use membership and named gift opportunities, set at publicly identified contribution levels, to promote giving. These programs allow solicitors to more easily suggest specific contribution amounts, and they help create subtle peer pressure on a donor to give at an appropriate level.

___We always provide campaign leadership and solicitors, organization staff, and other interested parties with regular, periodic progress reports and campaign updates during the campaign.

___We are always in a position to get a troubled campaign back on track by readily identifying problems and taking timely corrective action, including covering unexpected shortfalls by instituting a plan to increase the prospect base and/or average gift size.

___We always record gifts and collect money in a timely fashion following required practices of our finance department and auditors. This can greatly relieve problems with disputed or canceled pledges.

___We promptly deposit checks, acknowledge gifts, and apprise solicitors of receipts of those gifts. We never want to hear, “I sent my check in two months ago, but still don’t know if you received it.”

Post Campaign Activity

___We announce results, give recognition, and thank donors and volunteers, giving credit where it’s due and oft times where it’s not, so that as many volunteers as possible feel a sense of accomplishment for our success.

___We promptly provide donors the special benefits and privileges, memberships, and named-gift opportunities offered to them when they were solicited, remembering that our promptness in fulfilling promises is as important to them as their promptness in fulfilling pledges is to us.

___We cultivate donors and prospects by inviting them to events, annual meetings, and site visits and issuing newsletters and other communications, making sure that they hear from us at times other than when we are asking for money.

___We always evaluate the effectiveness of solicitation kit materials, the campaign kickoff, and progress reports and meetings by reviewing our ongoing campaign notes and debriefing campaign leadership and solicitors.

___We always evaluate effectiveness of the development office in providing all necessary and desired resources to campaign leadership, solicitors, prospects, and donors with an eye toward changing and improving for the next campaign.

___We always write a no-holds-barred final report of the campaign and share it on a confidential basis with the campaign chair, chair of the development committee, president of the board, and the organization’s CEO.

This checklist contains 41 key affirmations I believe a non-profit organization must be able to make before planning and conducting a fund-raising campaign. How many were you able to claim as true for your organization?

Now that you have gone through the entire list, I suggest that you reread it to make sure you understand each affirmation. The points on this checklist are synopses. Please don’t let their brevity get in the way of developing a full understanding of what they represent. On top of that you should evaluate their relevance to your particular situation, look for ways to maximize their effectiveness and value for you, and consider adaptations and adjustments that better tune them to your organization.

You accomplish those objectives by employing your own experiences and resources at hand, and by accessing the wealth of fund-raising knowledge available from books, articles, workshops, and on scores of internet sites.

I would be delighted to hear the results of your analysis, because if there is one thing I have learned from nearly 30 years as a fund-raising development professional, it is that there is something to be learned every day. I hope that what you have learned today, if you didn’t already know it, is to demythologize the fund-raising process. There are no gods of fund-raising success. And, oh yes, the secret of fund-raising success?
Hard work and preparedness.

Those are my views on the subject. What are yours? I welcome your comments and suggestions.