Celebrities have the ability to attract new donors to your organization. People feel a connection to celebrities they have seen in the media and will give their words much weight when it comes to hearing what they have to say.
You may be fortunate and find a celebrity with enough devotion to your cause to forgo any travel or management costs. However, most celebrity appearances will come with a charge. If a celebrity has made time for you for a day, or for a period of time, you will want to get the most from that experience. Here are a few ideas for maximizing celebrity impact:
• If she’s a star performer, build a program around her.
• If he’s outspoken about your issue, give him an audience. Invite him to be a keynote speaker.
If time and expenses are short, there are ways to benefit from celebrity connections without the travel:
• Some celebrities will happily sign items to be donated to charity for use in an auction or other fundraiser.
• Another approach could be to ask the celebrity for a few words that you can use on your website. If you know they already have an interest in your cause, this can be a good way of getting their face on your campaign without really needing too much involvement.
Have you been able to find a celebrity who will promote your organization?
As we approach the middle of the year,now is a good time to check in and see what’s going on with your major gift donors and determine whether anyone has been left behind. It doesn’t take much time to run a report and become acquainted with donors who have stopped donating.
The moment you notice that a donor has stopped giving,or is missing a cycle,your curiosity should be fully engaged with the WHY question:“Why have they stopped giving?”
Your next impulse should be to pick up the phone and get in touch. Reaching out shows that you care,allows you to inquire about the changes in a donors giving pattern,and to express support for any changes in that donors life. Now is not the time to be silent;there is a relationship to develop.
We are seven months away from the best giving part of the year. Do the additional analysis and planning to make sure that:
You are on track with your donors – every one of them.
You are reaching out to those who are “missing in action.”
Some people will argue that now is not the time to be putting funds into an endowment account that is designed as a savings or investment account that will grow to help your organization in the future. The economic crisis has forced many organizations to do all that they can to keep things going in the present. Endowment gifts usually come from planned gifts,which take very little time and effort. Opportunities are being missed that can build your future even as you focus on today.
Here are 3 reasons why you should continue to build your endowment,or start building one now:
1. Endowment giving provides alternatives for your loyal donors: Longtime supporters who are struggling to maintain their charitable interests are can be convinced to consider including your organization in their estate plans. Give your donors an alternative option that does not cost them anything now.
2. Your prospect pool is right in front of you and prime for the conversation: Now is the perfect time to inspire Boomers who are working with financial advisors to finalize their estate plans. Highlight those who have made planned gifts in your promotional materials.
3. If you’re not speaking with your donors,another organization will: Large institutions are putting even greater efforts into promoting planned gifts. Their thinking can apply to smaller organizations as well.
Does your organization have a strategy to build the future now?
Research shows that using data to visualize your organization’s mission can create connections,garner support and inspire action. Data visualizations are a powerful communications tool that can help tell your story.
Organizations are increasingly turning to data visualizations to communicate their messages. Charity:Water effectively uses data visualization to inspire action,generate monetary support for projects,and expand the reach of their programs.
In their promotional video,“Water Changes Everything,” data visualization tells Charity:Water’s story and why its mission is important and relevant now.
The organization has also created an interactive visualization for their mycharity:water project. This visualization tool allows donors to track how their donations have impacted communities across the globe.
Here are 6 tips to help your organization communicate its story using data visualizations:
Know your audience. This may seem obvious,but it’s important to think about whom you are you trying to reach. What are their needs? How will you connect this audience to your mission through data visualization?
Decide what you want your visualization to say about your organization. What is the purpose? How will your visualization connect to your organization’s mission? Why does the data matter? What reaction are you looking for?
Choose your data. Let the numbers speak for themselves,but also reveal a truth behind the situation or a change that is happening. Are you presenting a problem? A solution? Both? Your data should help you tell your organization’s story.
Design your visualization to appeal to the emotions and intellect of your audience to make it more compelling and inspire action.
Put your data into context. Look outside your own data set to find other data that makes your story more accessible to your audience. What is the bigger picture?
Select the vehicle to get your story out there. Include your visualization on your website,in your communications pieces such as newsletters,and on social media sites such as Pinterest,Facebook,Flickr,or YouTube.
How is your organization using data visualizations to garner support for your mission and tell your story?
What do you say when someone asks,“What do you do?” Be prepared with an elevator speech and you can make friends for yourself,your organization,or your business. Here are five tips to help you perfect your elevator speech:
1. Find the sweet spot.
Instead of dealing in vague descriptions like,“I’m in IT” focus on the problems you solve…” I help people stay connected to their stakeholders.”
2. Speak like a human being.
Be aware that not everyone understands your industry’s jargon and acronyms.
3. Exude confidence
No matter how obscure your job,organization or company,begin with the assumption that the other person will be interested.
4. Ask questions.
The best way to be remembered is to build a connection.
5. Practice,practice,practice.
Very few people create a perfect pitch on the fly. Practice in your head,in front of the mirror,or a video camera. Then try it out on a group of friends or colleagues.
One of the most important things a person can do is learn how to speak about what they do.
This article was adapted from How to Perfect Your Elevator Speech,by Nellie Akalp https://mashable.com/2012/04/12/elevator-pitch-advice-tips/
Storytelling can be an effective tool to engage donors or empower volunteers,but finding the right way to collect and capture stories can be a challenge. In the short video,“Methods for Collecting and Using your Nonprofit’s Stories,” Zan McColloch-Lussier from Mixtape Communications,offers some simple,practical tips to help non-profit communicators collect and share stories.
The video reminds us that social media has changed the immediacy of telling our organization’s stories. Nonprofits no longer need to rely on monthly newsletters or annual reports to demonstrate the powerful work being done –it can be done in a tweet,a short video or a quick post on your website. The rise of social media makes it more important to collect and capture stories while they are fresh and to quickly re-package and convey them to your target audience.
To learn more about how to engage the community in the life of your organization through storytelling,watch the video.
How is your organization using stories to communicate with donors and volunteers?
Many of us have had the experience of thinking we have communicated a message clearly,only to have others misinterpret what we said. Such misunderstandings,whether between individuals or whole communities,can lead to a lack of trust and before we know it,no one is communicating and tensions build.
Communication can be improved by using the following prompts to address and resolve many common misunderstandings:
Verify: “What I understand you to mean is…Is that correct?”
Align:“Let me look at it from your point of view.”
Probe: “Tell me more about your concerns.”
Phrase: “How can we work it out so that…(describe your concerns and theirs)?”
Ask:“What will it take to…(describe your concerns and theirs)?”
The information revealed by using these techniques can be very enlightening and even surprising. Once the reasons behind a miscommunication are clarified,it will be much simpler for all parties to express their thoughts and to reach an agreement.
Giving contests are becoming an increasingly common tool for cities and regions to boost donations to nonprofits.
A recent report titled How Giving Contests can Strengthen Nonprofits and Communities suggests that “giving days“— one-day online fund-raising events that use widespread community promotion to prompt donors to donate to a range of causes— help nonprofits to garner donations that they would not otherwise receive,and often from brand-new supporters.
The Case and Razoo Foundations commissioned the report to provide an in-depth look at “Give to the Max Day:Greater Washington;” a giving contest held in November 2011 to strengthen the area’s nonprofit community. The report found that:
96% of donors said they were more likely to donate in the future to their nonprofits as a result of their participation in the day;
84% of nonprofits surveyed said the pre-event training day – which was a key component of the initiative – increased their ability to interact and fundraise online;and
$2 million was raised for 1,200 nonprofits from 18,000 donors on November 9,2011.
According to the report,nonprofits taking part in giving days should follow these important tips:
Plan to invest 10 to 30 hours of the staff’s time to design ways to spur giving.
Offer contests and prizes to create a sense of urgency that excites donors,volunteers,and advocates.
Incorporate giving days into larger fundraising efforts,such as annual campaigns.
The value of women’s money is difficult to ignore,although it is often overlooked when institutions are seeking major funding. There is the assumption that the wealth is in the hands of men and men only. Professional fundraisers first tend to look to corporate leaders as major gift prospects and then to the widows of wealthy men. While widows do indeed hold great philanthropic power,quite often the distribution of their estates already has been determined by the time they are noticed
Here are five profiles of philanthropic women who have transformed lives. They include those who inherited their wealth as well as those who are professionals,teachers,librarians,investors and more. The last was as laundress who frugally saved her money and used it to provide for others so they could have an opportunity she could not.
• Mary Lyon was educated Troy Female Seminary (now the Emma Willard School,) an institution which has had a long tradition of influencing young women to become philanthropic leaders. She became a teacher and never married. She raised the funds for the first women’s college,Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1837 (later Mt. Holyoke College),from donations. Mt. Holyoke was intended to provide an education equal to that available to men in that it included studies in mathematics and the sciences along with those domestic skills by which a woman could become self-sufficient.
• In 1871 Sophia Smith bequeathed $393,105 to create Smith College in Massachusetts. Her will called for “the establishment and maintenance of an institution for the higher education of young women,with the design to furnish for my own sex means and facilities for the education equal to those which are afforded now in our colleges to young men.”
• Mary Elizabeth Garrett played a major role in the establishment of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with her personal gift of $350,000 in 1889. Garrett used her gift to leverage three conditions that led to historic changes in medical education. The first condition of the gift was that women be admitted to the school on equal terms as men. The second condition stipulated that the Medical School should be exclusively a graduate school and that its four-year program lead to the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Finally Garrett stipulated that requirements for admission specify that applicants have a bachelor’s degree and proof that they have satisfactorily completed courses in physics,chemistry and biology,and have a “good reading knowledge of French and German.”Initially,the trustees turned down Garrett’s gift,but when they were unable to raise the amount needed to open the school they reluctantly accepted the funds.
• Dora Donner Ide,San Francisco steel heiress and collector who died in December 1998 at the age of 82,left more than $111 million to two dozen local and national charities. According to nonprofit experts,the bequest is an early example of the kind of gift that will become increasingly common as the aging World War II generation bequeaths trillions of dollars of accumulated wealth to its heirs and society. Ms. Ide stipulated that her gifts be earmarked for endowments,and that the organizations on the receiving end should already have an endowment at least twice the size of her donation. If they didn’t meet these criteria,the money would be held by the San Francisco Foundation until the organization could meet the requirement. The gift was described as “sophisticated”by San Francisco Foundation CEO Sandra Hernandez,who added,“She understood that if you give an endowment and they don’t know how to manage money it’s not a good gift.”
• Osceola McCarty left school in the sixth grade to support her family by working as a laundress. In 1994 she made a gift of $150,000 from money she had saved to the University of Southern Mississippi,a school she never attended,to provide scholarships for African American young women. She wanted to provide the education she could never receive for other young women.
I thought you might enjoy these stories of the impact of women’s philanthropy during Women’s History Month. To read more about the impact of donations made by women,go to http://www.women-philanthropy.umich.edu/donors/donors_nz.html
March is National Women’s Month. As we celebrate women and women’s history this month,we can also celebrate women’s growing role in philanthropy.
Philanthropy has changed in the last 20 years. Women are increasingly engaged in entrepreneurial giving,giving circles,global giving,faith-based giving,family and couple giving,and social change gifts. In effect,women’s philanthropy has changed the face of philanthropy and has ‘reinvented’ fundraising.
In nearly 90% of high-net-worth households,women are either the sole decision maker or equal partners in decisions on charitable giving,according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2011 Study of High Net Worth Women’s Philanthropy.
As you develop your fundraising messaging,you may want to adapt your strategies to appeal to women’s distinct charitable-giving behaviors and motivations. Most notably:
Women want to be far more engaged in philanthropy than men,as evidenced by the fact they spend more time than men on due diligence in making charitable decisions.
Women expect a deeper level of communication with the organizations they support—and want to know,specifically,what kind of an impact their gift will make.
Women want to be actively involved,and often volunteer,at the charitable organizations of their choice.
Women are more likely than men to stop donating to an organization they had previously supported if they do not feel a level of involvement,or if they feel they are being solicited too frequently or are asked for “inappropriate” sums. Men tend to support the same causes year after year.
Women’s philanthropy will continue to grow. What is your organization doing to appeal to women’s motivations to give?
