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Fundraising Consistency is Key to Donor Cultivation
What do 81% of major donors have in common?
It takes 6-24 months from prospect identification to gift close.
Yes, process that for a moment.
Imagine that the donor you met yesterday may not give until next Fiscal Year.
Right. Kinda feels like a sock in the gut.
So, what to do?
PIPELINE.
PIPELINE.
PIPELINE.
Today’s pipeline means YOU REACHING your revenue goals in two years.
There’s no quick fix.
Nonprofit Leaders: Is your fundraising team hiding?
Are your fundraising staff or board members hiding from your donors? To answer why it’s important to ask that question you’d have to ask my client, Emma whose $100 donor just gave $50,000.
Yep, you read that right.
That's a 500X gift size.
Back to this concept of hiding. There are lots of reasons we hide…here are examples:
🗨️ “First I’ve got to get my [insert: database, major donor pitch deck, annual appeal, leave-behinds or board] ready and THEN, I can go talk to that donor.”
🗨️ “What would I even say to them? What’s my reason for reaching out?”
🗨️”I don’t have time to go meet everyone in person, so let’s just send an email or letter.”
🗨️ “I hope they don’t ask me about the budget or percentages.”
🗨️ “Yes, we solicit our donors. We make asks at events.”
How to Use Your Website to Engage Supporters: 3 Tips
Your website is a core location where supporters will take action, whether they’re donating, signing petitions, or attending virtual events. Every single time someone lands on your site, it’s a conversion opportunity.
But is your website working as well as it can to meet your supporters’ online engagement expectations and to inspire them to take action for your cause?
In this guide, we’ll consider aspects of the supporter's digital experience, including finding your site, exploring engagement opportunities, and taking action. We’ll also cover the following tips for engaging supporters at each step in the process:
Use SEO strategies to help supporters find your content.
Share a variety of engagement opportunities.
Make it as easy as possible to take action.
The Importance of Time Allocation for your Fundraising Team
Imagine your Development Director just told you they only need to work 30 hours per week to reach their 7-figure annual goal.
Yep. That happened.
Why such a confident statement from my client I’ve been coaching for a few years?
Well, he’s consistently done it. He's exceeded his goal every year for the last three years.
How? He…
➡️learned how to be himself - led with his natural ability to be relational.
➡️realized the financial conversations followed pretty easily.
➡️allowed the top 50 relationships take.all.the.time.they need
➡️built trust which led to the donor comfortably discussing wealth
➡️perfected soliciting donors for their best gift and stopped leaving money on the table
➡️secures 5- and 6-figure gifts regularly
The biggest challenge I hear from fundraisers is that they don’t have enough time in their day to pivot into relational fundraising.
Can I be frank? We all have the same amount of time in our day. It’s the time allocation that needs to be fixed.
What Goes Into an Effective Nonprofit Branding Strategy?
Many people believe a nonprofit’s brand is simply their visual identity. Although visuals play a key part in your brand, it’s important to recognize that your branding strategy goes deeper. It impacts your fundraising strategy, internal and external communications, and overarching identity.
At its core, your nonprofit brand strategy plays a role in how your organisation expresses your purpose and values.
For example, on your nonprofit website, you’re likely making a conscious effort to use your brand to communicate with your audience about your mission and programs. But when you send an email to your coworker, you probably don’t notice how your brand is incorporated. The reality is that, no matter what channels or forms of outreach you use, your brand shines through everything you do because you are essential to the brand.
For those with a previously narrow view of nonprofit branding, this idea naturally leads to the question: What is a nonprofit brand?
What does a virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) do and why would you want one?
The Nonprofit vCIO
The term virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) has been around for well over a decade now, but even today, if you ask ten different people what a vCIO does you may well get ten different answers.
This article does not claim to be the definitive answer to the question of what a vCIO does, but we will do our best to explain:
How the vCIO role emerged
The kinds of things a vCIO does
What value a vCIO can provide to a nonprofit
Why a nonprofit might want to engage a vCIO
What qualities to look for in a potential vCIO
"Planning Where You Want to Go" with Stu Swineford
When someone leads with, “I hope you don’t take this personally…” it’s natural to brace for a blow.
How nice is it then when it turns out to be a compliment!
Someone recently said to me, “I hope you don’t take this personally but I feel like your approach is quite practical, it’s quite straightforward.”
It *is* practical. It’s not flashy, or sparkly, or “out there.” There’s no quick fix to fundraising - and there’s no expedited timeline for growth.
But, when organizations put one foot in front of the other, and are consistent in using the tools we create (skills, knowledge, mindset shifts), that’s when transformation truly occurs.
“Take No Prisoners Fundraising Success” with Larry C. Johnson
I want to share a a bit of my recent conversation with Larry C. Johnson, founder of The Eight Principles and host of Oracle League Podcasts.
In our conversation, Larry shared this phrase with me when talking with nonprofit CEOs: Have you found your organization’s four-leaf clover?
We were talking about efficient and effective fundraising - which eludes so many organizations within the nonprofit sector. Executive directors and board members constantly grapple with:
❌ Not enough unrestricted gifts
❌ Lack of gen-ops revenue
❌ Heavy emphasis on project based gifts
❌ Little professional development in fundraising staff
❌ Feeling like they can’t take risks
I’m not telling you anything new here! These ARE the pervasive barriers within the sector.
But, they’re not impenetrable.
Do you HAVE to ask your nonprofit board?
I was listening to a personal finance podcast the other day. My favorite one right now is Ramit Sethi's podcast here. He interviews couples about how they manage (and fight about, disagree about, stress over) their finances. The other day he was talking about ‘the number’. You know, the highest dollar amount you each can spend without asking your partner…so interesting!
I love his podcast because it’s all about money mindset and money rules….and that’s where there’s TONS of overlap with my work.
These episodes totally resonate with me because I see multi-million dollar organizations who don’t have ‘the number’.
You know, the number you can spend without asking your board.
Nonprofit Revenue Growth: What does it take to grow from $2M to $10M annually?
I typically have lots of calls with nonprofit leaders at the end of the calendar year. This past year was at an all time high. Makes sense. You're thinking about climbing that revenue hill again and want to know what it looks like if I was at your side for those 12 months training you, your staff, and your board.
Well, I had an interesting day this past year during these calls. I had two potential client conversations scheduled on the same day.
There were a lot of similarities between the two nonprofits:
- Both leaders were running similar sized organizations
- Both knew they needed more unrestricted revenue for general-operating expenses.
- Both had reached out because they are experts in something other than fundraising.
- Both suspect their development teams and boards might be leaving money on the table.
But, here's where the similarities stopped . . .
I asked . . . What are your growth plans? How much money do you need?
Looking Forward: 4 Fundraising Tips for 2022
2022 is upon us! Everyone is working toward their New Year’s resolutions to make this year brighter and better than ever before. During this time, your team is also working hard to use the data you have on hand to create a strategic plan for a more successful year for your nonprofit.
It’s important to understand both where nonprofit professionals have been the last couple of years as well as how the nonprofit sector will evolve in order to be sure you’re making the most of the new opportunities the year can bring.
This year, you can expect to see both new and continuing fundraising trends from the last several years. By acknowledging these trends, your organization can raise more money and make the most of its fundraising efforts.
With that in mind, we recommend incorporating the following fundraising tips into your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy:
Plan hybrid fundraising events.
Develop new partnerships with for-profit businesses.
Leverage new connections through your board.
Focus on your mid-level donors.
Ready to learn more about the tips we’ve listed above and see how they’ll help your organization? Let’s get started.
Nonprofit Advocacy: How to Plan Your Next Campaign
Advocacy campaigns are effective tools for raising awareness about your organization’s mission and driving positive change. Plus, these campaigns have the added benefit of strengthening your nonprofit’s relationships with supporters, helping you to acquire new ambassadors for your cause, and ultimately empowering you to be more successful in all your efforts.
Advocacy campaigns require extensive forethought, planning, and the right tools in order to succeed and help you reach your goals. After all, they require the mobilization and organization of a broad range of people with different levels of experience in lobbying and advocacy.
Before you launch an advocacy campaign, it’s important that your organization has a clear idea of where you are, where you want to go, and how you’re going to get there.
Donation Page Optimization: Best Practices and Design Tips
Your donation page plays an important role in how successful your nonprofit is with online fundraising. This page is more than just a form for donors to input their financial information into. An optimized donation page can effectively increase donations, while one that’s visually overwhelming or difficult to complete can turn donors away.
Whether you’re setting up your nonprofit’s donation page for the first time or looking to revamp your current page to improve completion rates, your donation page can always be improved to maximize each supporter’s visit. Supporters who reach your donation page are likely already familiar with your nonprofit and are at a critical point in their engagement. Make the most of their attention to turn one-time donations into the beginning of long-lasting relationships.