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How Fundraising Systems Can Help Small Non-Profits Do More with Less

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We will get back to our series on great appeal letters next Tuesday. Today, think about fundraising systems with guest blogger Joe Garecht.

bandwidthWorking in development for a small non-profit can be tough.  Your organization is doing great work, and you’ve got lots of great ideas for raising more money… but there’s never enough time, staff, or money in the budget to do all of those things.

As a small non-profit, it is important that you honor the bandwidth of your organization.

“Bandwidth” is my term for the limited amount of time, money, and energy that your non-profit has to offer for development.  Every organization has a limited bandwidth… even large, national organizations that have 35 fundraisers on staff can’t focus on a plan that would require 50 fundraisers to implement.

Your non-profit has a limited amount of time and money to spend on fundraising, and that’s okay.  If you consistently try to spend more time, money, and energy on fundraising than what you have available, it will lead to burnout, excessive staff turnover, and a budget that is stretched razor thin.  So, honor your bandwidth.  Know what your resources are and develop a plan that can operate within the constraints of those resources.

There are lots of great ways to get more bang for your buck when it comes to those resources.  It is possible, with the right strategy, to get a higher return on investment for the time and money you spend on your fundraising programs.  In my experience, the best way to be able to do more with your limited resources is by building strong fundraising systems at your non-profit.

What is a Fundraising System?

When I talk about “fundraising systems” for your non-profit, I’m not talking about your donor database or any other technology that you use in fundraising.  Those systems can play a vital role in your fundraising program, but they’re not the type of systems we are talking about here.

Instead, I’m talking about donor fundraising systems: step-by-step processes for interacting with donors, building relationships with them, and asking them for money through things like personal meetings, appeal letters, events, and more.

Fundraising systems will help you do more, with less, because they help you avoid reinventing the wheel every time you deal with a new donor.  Instead of wondering how to cultivate a new prospect or follow-up from a stewardship event, you will have a system in place that you can use, with materials and scripts already prepared in advance.

While there are lots of different types of fundraising systems you can build at your non-profit, the most important are those that related directly to the donor life cycle: prospecting, cultivation, asking, and stewardship.  The systems you build should fit within the constraints of your non-profit’s fundraising bandwidth… meaning that you shouldn’t plan to do more than you really can in terms of budget, staff, time, and energy.

What Does a Good Fundraising System Look Like?

You may be wondering what a good fundraising system looks like.  Simply put, a good fundraising system is a path for your donors, based on where they are in the donor life cycle.  Your systems answer questions like:

  • What 2-4 ways are we going to find new prospects this year?
  • What 2-4 ways are we going to cultivate our prospects this year?
  • How are we going to ask donors for money this year?
  • What 2-4 ways are we going to steward our donors this year?

Notice that in the list above, you keep seeing the numbers “2-4.”  That’s important, because most small non-profits are trying to do too much when it comes to individual donor fundraising… and as a result, they aren’t doing any of those things well.

Instead of constantly adding new strategies for finding donors, cultivating, and asking them for money, focus on 2-4 ways to do each.  Then, commit your organization to executing on those 2-4 strategies to the best of your abilities this coming year.

Different Paths for Different Donors

In developing your fundraising systems, you’ll want to be sure to include different paths for your different donor segments.  For example, in your donor cultivation system, you may say that low-dollar donors will receive an e-mail newsletter once per month, and an invitation to your large summer cultivation picnic every year.

For mid-level donors, you may add a personal call from your staff twice per year and free tickets to annual holiday party.  For major donors, you may decide to add two in-person meetings per year plus a handwritten note during the holiday season.

Whatever systems you design, keep them simple, and then focus on implementing them.  After the year is over, go back and review those systems with your team.  What worked?  What didn’t?

If certain things aren’t working, cut them out of next year’s plan, and replace them with something new.  Keep testing, iterating, and improving, and your systems will get better and better every year.

About the Author

Joe Garecht is the President of Garecht Fundraising Associates, and the Editor of The Non-Profit Fundraising Digest.  He has almost twenty years’ experience in non-profit fundraising, and focuses his consulting work on helping small and mid-sized organizations build sustainable fundraising systems.

TY Thursday: Thank You, Donor–You’re Welcome!

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welcome buddy

What should you do when a donor gives to your nonprofit for the first time? The obvious answer: thank them. But take it another step, and welcome them, too.

The Donor Welcome Kit

Thanking a new donor is essential, if you’re going to make the donor feel like the hero of the story. Welcoming a new donor invites him or her to think of your story together as ongoing.

A welcome kit (also called a packet or package) tells the donor, “You matter to us. You’re not just a cash cow. We’re in this together for the long haul.”

What should go into a welcome kit?

Pamela Grow suggests:

Typically your welcome package would go beyond a mere thank you letter to include items such as photographs, surveys, a benefits brochure, even a small gift such as a bookmark. Send them in an oversized envelope marked with a bold “Welcome!”

You can download a  kit that Pamela likes, from Mercy Corps, for an example.

How do you sound welcoming?

When you’re welcoming a donor, avoid any hint of a business transaction. The welcome kit is not an item they’ve purchased. It’s not a premium, or even a gift to a customer. It’s  a warm smile and a hug, delivered through the mail.

Nancy Schwartz advises, “Imagine you’re welcoming a new member of the family, perhaps your sister’s husband to be. You want to make him feel like a part of the family.”

breadAnother way to think about it: Rebecca H. Davis says you want your new donor to feel  “like you’ve just handed them a loaf of warm, homemade bread and told them you are really glad they showed up on a cold, rainy Sunday morning.” Mmm, yummy!

 

How soon should you send your welcome kit?

Everything moves faster today than it did only a few years ago. You probably have heard that donors should get a thank-you letter within a week of sending their gift. Within two days of the time you receive it is even better…and if you call them on the phone within those two days (according to Tom Ahern), first-time donors who get a personal thank you within 48 hours are 4x more likely to give a second gift.

The same applies to the welcome kit: the sooner, the better.

“Mail the welcome pack out right after you receive the gift,” Nancy Schwartz advises. “Send it first class if you can swing it. Your donor has to receive it within two weeks of making their gift for full impact.”

Welcome by mail and email too

Happily, a lot of donors are giving online these days. Your nonprofit gets their gift almost instantaneously. That makes it easier for you to thank them, and then to welcome then, as soon after they donate as possible.

It also poses a problem. You may not receive the donor’s physical mailing address. At first, all you may have for them is an email address. Does that keep you from sending a welcome kit?

Don’t let it stop you. Here are three steps you can take to welcome online donors:

  1. Create a welcome series of emails. You can gradually share more information that makes your donor feel happy they decided to give.
  2. Interact online. In your welcome series, invite your donor to follow you on social media. Be sure to post content that they will like and share. Take good note of when they do, and which posts of yours grab their attention. That tells you what they really care about–and if you send them more content just like that, they will feel listened to.
  3. Ask for their mailing address. In your welcome series, tell your first-time donor why it will be worthwhile for them to get something from you through the mail. Not “we want to send you this.” Rather, “Because you care about ___, this is something you’ll want to see.”

Thanking your first-time donor is vital, but really, it’s the least you can do. Making them feel like an essential part of the cause you both care about: now, that’s really laying out the welcome mat!

Fundraising Tuesday: Greetings and Salutations

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no recyclingWhen you’re sending an appeal letter to a donor, you want them to take the time to read it. Your biggest enemy? The recycling bin. Your biggest ally (once they open the envelope)? The salutation.

Call the donor by name if you want them to read on.

 

Salutations: “Dear Friend” Won’t Do

I was happy to see that out of the 72 nonprofits who sent me appeal letters in November or December 2017, 52 of them–70%–called me by name.

The names varied. Some used “Dear Dennis,” while others said “Dear Mr. Fischman.” Some addressed themselves to both my wife and me. Very few of them asked me what I preferred to be called, which is what I consider best practice. But all 52 started off on the right foot, because they wrote to me personally.

That means that the 15 nonprofits that wrote to “Dear Friend” fell behind, from the opening line of their appeal letter.

How to Create a Personal Salutation

I forgot your nameAs fundraising expert Gail Perry points out, “Your donor expects that you know her name and who she is, since she’s been sending you money for a while!” To meet that expectation, you have to ask what she or he or they like to be called (and you could find out their preferred pronoun at the same time).

Once you’ve asked, of course, you have to remember. You can use the greeting the donor prefers only if you keep good records.

This is where a donor database, or even better, a constituent relationship management system (CRM), is worth every penny you spend on it. It is time-consuming to use spreadsheets and merge fields to call people by name, but if you have a CRM, it’s simple.

Our friends at Capterra have published reviews of many of the best fundraising software, including CRM systems. It would be worth your while to make 2018 the year you get a tool that will let you be more personal with your donor. Keep your appeal letter out of the recycling bin!

 

This is the second of a series about improving your nonprofit’s fundraising appeal letters that will appear on Communicate! throughout the next two months. Next up: postscripts.

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