The Extreme Fundraising Blog

Greetings and welcome back to the Extreme Fundraising Ezine!

In our last issue, we gave an overview of the Pareto Principle. In last week’s teleclass, we looked at Vilfred Pareto in depth and explored how his 80:20 observation could be applied to various aspects of our day-to-day life. In this issue and the next, we’ll explore a “branding” rule called “The Rule of Threes.” I think you’ll agree that this is a natural extension of a practical application of the Pareto Principle.

****THE RULE OF THREES****
The Pareto Principle tells us that we can expect to get 80% of our results from 20% of our effort. What if there were a way to apply this to communication? It’s scary to think that such a small percent of our communication would be responsible for so much of our results. Wouldn’t it be a good use of time and effort to figure out how to leverage that 20%? What if there were an approach simple enough that anyone could remember but powerful enough to get the lion share of the results? The Rule of Threes is one such approach.

I first heard of the Rule of Threes from Molly Gordon (http://mollygordon.com). She first heard of it from Kim Krisco’s now out-of-print book Leadership and the Art of Conversation. In brief, the Rule of Threes is:
* identify 3 AUTHENTIC attributes about you or your organization
* identify 3 natural channels of communication
* feed the 3 attributes into those 3 channels 3 times within a 3 month period.

3 ATTRIBUTES
Go to most nonprofit websites and you’ll see a grocery list of phrases they use to describe themselves. “Catalyst,” “life-changing,” “responsible,” “mission/vision driven,” “grassroots,” etc. If all nonprofits are describing themselves with this long list of characteristics, they’re not really that effective in making themselves stand out, are they?

To identify the three attributes you’ll use in your fundraising communication, consider who you want as a donor. What does your ideal donor look like? It may be helpful to name her and give her a personality. Now that you know who you’re trying to communicate to, think of the attributes of your organization that would appeal to her. It’s crucial that these be attributes that are already true…not one’s you hope will be some day. What are people already saying about your organization and how it lives out its mission? What three would most likely attract your perfect donor?

3 COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
Now identify three ways you can use to get that message out. Do you already print a periodical? Is your organization sending out an e-newsletter? What about the personal visits your staff makes to your constituents? The variety of communication channels is virtually inexhaustible. Your objective is to choose to focus on three of them for the next three months.

3 ATTRIBUTES, 3 CHANNELS, 3 TIMES, 3 MONTHS
Once you’ve identified 3 attributes already true of your organization and the 3 communication channels, feed those attributes into the channels three times each over the next three months.

Be patient and submit to the process. You’re like a farmer sowing seed. The harvest will come—and it will be incredible. You’re intentional focus is like planting hybrid seed. But don’t expect to see results until the fourth month. Seeds need time to grow before they can be harvested.

****WHAT ABOUT YOU?****
What about you? Why not block out some time this week to brainstorm with your staff and donors about the three attributes you should use to identify your organization?

****TELECLASS REMINDER****
The next Extreme Fundraising Teleclass will be on Tuesday, November 18 at 1:30 p.m. There will be no teleclass on November 4 as I’ll be on my way to APC’s East Coast Fall Conference in Philadelphia. If you’re attending the conference, let’s get together! I’ll be giving three seminars there; one will be on The Rule of Threes and the Independent School Advocacy Initiative. It should be great!

That’s enough for this issue. In the next issue, we’ll explore how a school might put The Rule of Threes to use. Until then, let me know what attributes you’re finding out about your organization. I can be reached at marc@fundraisingcoach.com.

“The Pareto Principle and the Fundraiser”

Greetings and “welcome!” to our new subscribers!

I’m committed to bringing you the coolest (although hopefully not merely “faddish”) ideas that you can immediately put into practice.

We all have lots of competing priorities. In isolation, all of them seem like “top” priorities, don’t they? It reminds me of the studies that show 90% of US executives rate themselves as “above average” in their job performance. Obviously, that can’t be true.

Neither can it be true that all the tasks we’re asked to do are “top priority.” So how do we figure out what matters most?

****THE PARETO PRINCIPLE****
In fundraising, we’re very familiar with the Pareto Principle, otherwise known as the 80:20 Rule. 20% of our donors give us 80% of our donations. It’s very possible that the ratio is becoming closer to 90:10 or 95:5, but the ratio still exists.

What might it look like if we applied this to other areas of our work and life?
* 20% of the desk work we do accomplishes 80% of the results we seek.
* Therefore 80% of the desk work only produces 20%!
* We wear 20% of our clothing 80% of the time. That means 80% of our clothes stay hanging in the closet!
* 20% of our activities give us 80% of the energy and motivation we need each day—evidently to carry us through the other 80% of our activities!

What if we applied the Pareto Principle to time? Say we work a 10 hour day. 2 hours of that day produces 80% of the day’s results! The rest of the day (8 hours) only produces 20% of the results. Those 8 hours seem quite a waste of time, don’t they?

****WHAT ABOUT YOU?****
Does this resonate with you? What would happen if you spent the next couple of weeks becoming aware of which tasks seem to produce the greatest results?

It needs to be said that in order to do this, you must know what results you’re looking for. That could be an interesting talk with your boss or the board of directors. If there are multiple desired results, try to group them into some sort of prioritized list. One way to think of this is to ask, “What will be graded on my report card at the end of the fiscal year?”

For example your organization simply measuring the dollars coming in? Or is it also tracking how many donors it retains year-to-year? It takes a lot more money and effort to get a person to give the first gift to an organization than it does to get a repeat donor to give again.

Perhaps 80% of your results this week could come from working with this group of repeat donors or developing retention strategies to increase this group.

Well, I think that’s enough to chew on for now. Wrestle with it and let me know what you think: marc@fundraisingcoach.com