How Many Ways Do I Thank Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Last time we met, I wrote about the art and craft of follow-up: things to keep in mind after a year-end appeal, following up with donors who "lapsed:" who did not give as yet to the fall-winter campaign.
Today, lets consider how we thank our donors. What's good protocol to follow to express our appreciation for financial support of our nonprofit organization's mission?
All donors should be thanked. I recommend that you use a post card for donors who contributed modest amounts via mail. If your budget allows, have an attractive card designed with some color and original art work that will get your donor's attention.
Donors in the $50+ or $100+ range should get a hand-written note. I recommend that the CEO sign these notes, which can be -pre-addressed if there are lots; hand-written is definitely preferred. Most folks, especially those in the baby-boomer cohort or older, appreciate the thought, the personal nature of such a note. Good thing to do.
Those who gave on line might receive an e-mail thank-you note. If you can, have something nicely designed so it's attention getting. Also, it should be sent from the CEO or a board leader, and not in a group mailing, but individual. You can do this in an economical (time) way by having all recipients appear in the "bcc" field.
Larger gifts ($100+, $250+, $1,000+ depending on how you define it at your organization) should receive a written note and a call. This can be a good way to engage your board of directors in the fundraising process. Some may be reluctant to ask. I hope they would not be reluctant to thank. A telephone thank-you at work during the day, at home in the evening can be very much appreciated. I hope you keep track in your database of the preference of your donors as to how they prefer to hear from you. Please do this in a manner consistent with your donor's wishes. This can be part of your relationship-building plan: a way to learn something about your donor. Whoever thanks the donor, should listen for cues: is someone sick at home? Are they indicating difficult financial times? Is the donor telling you something about why he or she loves and supports your mission? Are they leaving on vacation? Have a child coming home for college break? Listen for this information. It's not helpful to pry. It will be very helpful to you when you're working on a major gift campaign to know things about your donors should they volunteer it.
And don't be surprised if you're invited over for a visit. Friendliness invites friendliness. Your tone on the phone, your interest if personal information is offered are generally appreciated, particularly by older donors.
Do you have special techniques you use in thanking your donors? Please tell us. We all appreciate good ideas, things that can become best practice.
If I can be of service in planning, organizing your next fundraising effort, please let me know.
My company is It's The Results, LLC, based in Lynnfield, MA.
You can reach me via e-mail at s..99smith@gmail.com. Or by phone: 781-334-4915.
And I welcome new folks to follow on Twitter: @STEVENETWORK.
Facebook can be useful, cluttered with what appear to be stickers (are we back in elementary school?), but I haven't given up on it. How about you?
Steven P Smith, Principal, It's The Results, LLC

Follow-up: Best Fundraising Practice

I hope your 2010 is off to a good start.

Did your holiday season annual appeal do well? Was your 2009 campaign better than 2008? It's not to soon to start looking at the numbers, comparing your results for the past three years. Hopefully, your results are in a database and you can track particular donors, their response each year, and maybe even trends by age, sex other demographics. This is good information to have...and maybe you have someone on your staff who loves to analyze numbers who will look for trends and bring that information to the team to discuss and figure what the trend is telling you. Don't have such a geek on your team? Call me!
Database or no database, it's time to follow-up with non-responders. Count on the fact that some of your donors may have overlooked you back in November and December when they were swamped with appeals from every nonprofit in kingdom come. But please don't be discouraged! Following up on your year-end appeal is one of the best things you can do to generate additional income.
As you prepare this appeal to donors you haven't heard from, remember these tips:

• Remind them about your mission, and what your nonprofit is doing right now to serve the mission
• Thank them for their past support
• In a short paragraph, tell your donors about a recipient, or a member, or a subscriber to put a face on the value of your service

In your follow up, please do not make your nonprofit the focus. Shine the spotlight on your clients, the people who benefit from your purpose in life. Generally speaking, donors don't respond well to "help! we just had our worst deficit!!" nor to "we'll have to lay off staff". Even in bad times, donors hear this variety of message as "do I want to support a failing organization?"

So...get cracking on that follow up. And if you're ahead of the game and your appeal is already out the door, that's great! Please write a note below, telling us how you do your follow up and the return you get. We'd like to learn from your experience!

Thanks for your attention. If I can be of any help in advising you on your fundraising approach, I'm just an e-mail or phone call away!

Steve Smith, Principal, It's The Results, LLC. s.p.99smith@gmail.com. 781-334-4915.

All Aboard!

OK all you executive directors, board officers, volunteers who care and have a passion for the mission: It's 2010! Happy New Year! Have you made your New Year's resolutions? One of your resolutions should be: full steam ahead, we're bringing new energy to our board of directors.
Huh?
I think you know exactly what I mean. The board meetings have become dull. Or, they have become painful recitations about declining revenue and cutbacks in program service to our customers. (Do you prefer "clients"? Fine. You have my permission to call them "clients.")
You may be struggling to get a quorum to attend. And a reason for that may likely be that discussion is about the inconsequential, not the strategic.
Let's get some pep into the work of the board!
Here are some quick tips to keep in mind. Bring them to your next board meeting and have some open discussion (ixne on the Robers Rules for this):

• We have a job description for board members that's up-to-date and reflects where we want to go in the next three to five years
• Our strategic plan is updated, and our board agendas and discussion tie in to our articulated goals
• Our governance or nominating committee is tracking attendance and participation of our board, and has candidates-in-waiting to fill vacant slots when terms are over or non-producers rotate off
• Our senior staff and governance volunteers have learning opportunities for our board coordinated with our meeting schedule that brings us up-to-date on marketing and networking concepts that we can practice that expands the reach of our mission

If you're getting the kind of energetic and effective performance nonprofit organizations need to advance the mission, the board is in synergy with your work. That's great, and more power to you. Integrating activities that help ratchet performance up a notch or two is what the doctor ordered.

I welcome your comments: particularly, what you and your board are doing to get some energy in the tank to advance your mission.

You can follow my microblogs on Twitter @STEVENETWORK.

You can contact me to discuss how I can help you with a board development, strategic planning, or fundraising project. I'm good, and the price is right. s.p.99smith@gmail.com.

Check out my website www.itstheresults.com.

Welcome to the Age of the Builder

In a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review, Umair Haque wrote The Builder's Manifesto. He writes that we needed Leaders in the 20th Century: people who forged people and resources, like Jack Welch at General Electric. Jack made his shareholders a lot of money in his time, and organized and acquired a lot of businesses. Jack and GE defined success in the 1980's and 1990's. There was a certain cult of personality around him. At the same time, Jack developed leaders who went on to run many other companies when they reached the top of their career ladder at GE.
What's so different about the 21st century? In some respects, it's still too soon to know. We're only one decade in. But we have seen with the collapse of major banks and financial institutions that brought us to the edge of a Great Depression that a new kind of model for leadership is required. What were the leadership qualities that undermined Citibank, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, BankAmerica?
You can read more about the Builder's Manifesto at http://bit.ly/62rTQV.
Today, with a wave of senior nonprofit leaders preparing to retire after multi-decade careers, we need to find Builders to transform our organizations. It will be a mistake to recruit clones of the 20th century prototype to carry the banner of our 21st century mission, vision, goals.
How will we identify the Builders of the 21st century to replace the Leaders of the 20th?
Here are three comparitive pointers from Umair Haque:

The boss drives group members; the leader coaches them. The Builder learns from them.
The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The Builder is inspired — by changing the world.
The boss assigns the task, the leader sets the pace. The Builder sees the outcome.

Whether we're searching for our 21st century CEO, or members of our community to serve on our board, I think it's useful to keep the concept discussed by Umair Haque in mind. This is not a blueprint. It's another way of thinking to apply to our process of building effective nonprofit organizations.

A Choice Donors Can Believe In

How often have you seen a letter or e-mail from a nonprofit/community benefit organization giving you multiple choices of what you can support? I've seen lots of them, and early on in my career, I probably wrote lots of them, too.
Intutively, it makes sense, no? Give the prospect or donor lots of options to support. They'll gravitate to one, right? They'll pick their favorite from the list and write their check to support that program or service.
Unfortunately, that's not the way it works, according to principles of direct response research. Fact is, if you give most donors a laundry list of services, they won't be able to focus. In most instances, these donors or prospects will get confused by all the options. And when confusion sets in, the prospective donor will frequently opt out.
Barry Schwartz wrote Paradox of Choice for the Freakonomics column of the NY Times. @jhusson tweeted about this recently. The link: http://bit.ly/6k3SN5. The bottom line: too many choices discourages choice. The research shows, if you give a small number of options to consumers, this can work in your favor; if you give a wide array of choices, headache and decision-avoidance will follow. In my view: less is more.
So, when you're making your pitch for a donation, keep this in mind:

• Keep it simple and make the pitch direct and uncomplicated
• Limit the number of choices you're asking the donor to support
• If you're suggesting a gift amount and the donor has a history with you, indicate last year's gift as an option, and offer graduated increments upwards...with a ____ at the end
• Connect the appeal with people receiving your service
• A story about a person receiving the service is the best approach

By the way. A tip of the hat to Jim Husson, Senior Vice President of University Advancement at Boston College, for posting this on Twitter. Jim has a solid perspective on what makes donation work.

Oh. And the more you practice, the more you look at what "the competition" is doing, the more you meet colleagues in this business and share ideas, the more effective you'll be. And your board will love you!

Should Our NPO Get Into Social Media?

Twitter (the 140-character micro-blog) and Facebook (the cool communication tool loved by the Millenials) are two social media platforms that nonprofit (community benefit) organizations are playing with, applying, checking out. I recommend you get into the act.
Yes, you run the risk of getting hooked...addicted to the wealth of people, blogs, ideas out there on the internet. The cool thing is that Twitter helps you find interesting stuff quickly, and Facebook helps provide a low-cost platform to communicate if you have lots of volunteers, members, special event participants, clients who are comfortable being "out there."
And today, the Gen X and Gen Y folks particularly ave very comfortable being out there.
I'm a pre-boomer, so I'm a bit out of my element, using all these tools.
But when I jumped into Twitter last spring, I was hooked. I now follow over 700 people and organizations, and have 750 following me. And I'm just getting started! I use the new Twitter list feature to help me organize folks: Social Media Mavens, Nonprofit Gurus, Boston, Food, Travel, Nonprofit Orgs are just a few of the groups. This helps me focus in when I visit Twitter for one or two 45-minute sessions each day to see what folks are saying, send a few Direct Messages when the spirit moves, and post ideas that I'm working with...interesting things I'm reading.
I follow @johnhaydon, a social web strategist. He comments on and finds interesting social media users. He gets way over my head when he advises webmasters and other techies on things like Facebook Connect. Social Media Developers get a lot from John.
Also like to read @afine...Allison Fine...who describes herself as a "social media guide. She finds links to stuff NPO leaders like to know.
@gatesfoundation is always interesting. They are the biggest foundation out there. I'm interested in knowing what they're interested in.
@nonprofitorgs is a great Twitter micro-blogger. They have 236,000 followers! They recently blogged on 'how to raise social media ROI" at http://bit.ly/8mFgzH.
There is so much to learn out there, and so little time.
I met Joanna Rothman at the Mass Nonprofit Net conference last month. She's the Volunteer and Marketing Manager at WGBH and is using Facebook to keep her volunteer crew communicating. She'll be speaking at the Nonprofit Consultants Network (Boston) March 26 panel I'll chair on social media.
Please feel free to contact me for more neat folks to follow. I like to learn by example. And there are some great people out there helping make the case why the answer is YES: Your Nonprofit should Get Into Social Media!

Steve Smith
Principal
It's The Results, LLC
Board Development. Strategic Planning. Fundraising

Help Your Supporters Get in the Spirit!

Donors like the idea of making Hope possible.

If you've been procrastinating about sending your annual holiday appeal to supporters and friends, take some time to craft a request that communicates the ways you extend Hope to your clients. And get that request out by December 11.

Thanksgiving is behind us, and people across the USA have lots on their minds. Tonight, they will hear from their President about the necessity of more troops to Afghanistan. President Obama will have to search long and hard for support from politicians. But I'll bet when the polls are taken in the following days, most Americans will be behind our commander-in-chief. I look forward to listening to him tonight. And learning where he sees Hope for the Afghan people, to overcome the theocratic tendencies alive and well in their country that had them tied in knots when the Taliban were in charge. Not to mention the ascendency of al Queda and the threat they pose to peace-loving people everywhere. Right here.

Our President will gain public support to the extent he can share a vision of Hope for people in Afghanistan. And then the extent we agree (or not) with how this connects with our Homeland Security.

Asking people for money when they have economic hardship and fear of international dis-ease, seems counter-intuitive. Actually, No. Asking for financial support right now is exactly the right thing to do.

Because we all need Hope. We can't buy it. We know we can't go to the store and purchase something that'll provide Hope. But most of us have the idea that whatever we have, we are fortunate. And that right near us are other folks who are unfortunate: they've lost their homes, they're dealing with a crippling disease, they've lost a job, they've been reduced in their hours.
Yet, in spite of it all, it's true that most of us know deep down that there are others who struggle more than we do.

We want to help.

And this is where you come in. You will help your supporters get in the spirit.

Your holiday appeal should be off to homes via regular mail or e-mail or Twitter or Facebook by December 11. Whatever way(s) work best for you.

But remember: you are asking for support of the mission. For support of the people who benefit from your mission. You are not asking donors to help the nonprofit as an end in itself.

Communicate Hope, and you will shine a path through you to those you serve.

Happiest of holidays to each of you.

And thank you for making life better. At home. Abroad.

I count your efforts among my blessings.