The Extreme Fundraising Blog

Every once in a while you come a cross a blog post that takes your breath away.

Fundraising from older people, ie, fundraising by Jeff Brooks is one of those.

He quotes Mark Rovner as saying

“Boomers and Xers have different worldviews, cultural touchstones, and senses of humor. Not surprising given Xers’ tendency to define themselves primarily as “not Boomers.” And, while Xers arguably dominate among non-profit fundraisers and marketers, Boomers are undeniably the primary target audience. It’s just demographically the way it is right now.”
As Mark concludes, communications “designed by Xers to engage other Xers … miss the mark.”

This is such a great post. Go read it.

Let’s revisit the idea of clubs. In his article, Michael Masterson gives an example of a dining club. Summing up the example, he states:

The basic elements of a club that are at work in this example:

• Association with like-minded people
  This is the fraternal aspect of the club. If you sell gourmet food, for example, it makes perfect sense for your customers to share their similar interests with each other. You reinforce this camaraderie with a forum for your members to keep in contact.

• A sense of social advancement
  Clubs provide a sense of exclusivity, a sense that their members have more refined tastes than regular people. This only works if there is a natural way to provide a more sophisticated, not just more expensive, version of your product or service.

• Financial benefits
  Your club members are presumably your best buyers. You already know that 20 percent of your buyers contribute 80 percent of your profits. So your club should cater to that 20 percent. Your back-end sales increase when you accommodate those frequent and loyal customers.

• Hierarchy
  You can create different levels of exclusivity within your club. In other words, the more a club member is willing to spend, the higher level she can attain. (Think silver, gold, and platinum memberships.) You can create an incentive to move up in the club by setting up a visible hierarchy that is reinforced through well-advertised discounts for members at higher levels.

Read this list carefully and see if you can apply it to your donor categories.

Particularly in light of the 80/20 rule: 80% of your donations come from 20% of your donors. So how can you make those 20% feel “part of a club”?

At one school I worked at, I ran a report of the top 20% of donors since the school was founded. It turned out, anyone that had given $1000 or more at any point in the previous 60 years was in the top 20%. To my surprise, many current faculty were on the list.

In the past, we’d simply treated and solicited all faculty alike. We always had around a 99% participation rate so we thought we were doing fine. Now I knew that some of my colleagues would be considered “major donors” if they didn’t work at the school.

Armed with this information, I started treating them like the major donors they were. When we gave the $1000 donors a gift, I made sure the faculty members got it too.

It was a blast watching those teachers walking around campus with the special travel mug or whatever other gift. And it warmed my fundraising heart to know that other teachers would be asking them, “Hey, where’d you get that cool travel mug? How can I get one?”

So what about you? Can you work the club concept into your donor stewardship? This could be a very important step in creating donor evangelists!

This just in:

Vice President/Director of Development
Women’s Edge Coalition
Washington, D.C.

The Women’s Edge Coalition (Edge) is a cutting-edge, results-oriented policy organization working to make U.S. foreign assistance and trade policy improve the lives of women in poverty around the world. Founded in 1998, Edge has leveraged tens of millions of dollars in U.S. foreign assistance for women around the world, and has become the leading voice on global women’s issues in Washington, D.C. This year, the Women’s Edge Coalition was selected as one of Working Mother Magazine’s Best Small Companies and received InterAction’s Leet Award for its leadership in ensuring that millions of dollars of U.S. assistance reaches women.

(more…)

Would you recommend us to your friends?

On a recent teleclass, Jackie Huba says this is one of the best questions to help you identify your organization’s fans.

You should be able to listen to the podcast here.

The Don’t Tell the Donor Blog reports on three Red Sox’d themed wines:

• Wakefield’s “CaberKnuckle”
• Ramirez’s “Manny Being Merlot”
• Schilling Schardonnay

What’ll they think of next?!

Many of you are approaching the end of your fiscal year. The rest of us often experience a bit of a lull during the summer. (But the work seems to increase every year, doesn’t it?)

How are you going to spend the “down-time”? Author Robert W. Bly has a terrific list of “time fillers” in his book “Fool Proof Marketing.” Here’s the list with my comments.

1. Do pro-bono work. Bly’s writing for consultants but this can apply to us as well. I find people are much more interested in learning about my cause when they know I give my time, talent, and treasure to other causes.
2. If you work for yourself and things are slow, take a part-time job. Enough said.
3. Teach. This can be a lot of fun, a great way to give back to your community, and a way to make a little money too. In Hebrew, the word for “teach” is an intensified form of the word “to learn.” Teaching a subject, any subject, forces us to learn it even more.
4. Learn a new piece of software. Most of us only know enough about our software to simply get by. Many community colleges offer courses in Microsoft programs. Many vendors offer classes too. Time spent learning your programs can teach you shortcuts that will save you significant time in the future.
5. Clean out your files. All year you’ve been saying, “When I have time, I’m going to clean this up a bit.” Why not do it now?
6. Organize your office. Same as above.
7. Spend more time on each project. Do you have projects that get the short end of your time stick during the rest of the year. Now may be a great time to give them more time. I like drafting the year’s worth of annual fund letters now too.
8. Read. And read. And read. Even though I read 75+ books a year, even I find this hard to do. What will people think if they come to my office and see me reading? Honestly, it really doesn’t matter. The books and magazines you read on fundraising, marketing, self-help, etc. will help you be exponentially better at your job. You owe it to yourself to schedule in reading time this summer. If you need some ideas of what to read, check out the things I’ve written that are available at The Fundraising Coach Store.
9. Take a course. There are loads of great courses out there. Many are available digitally, so you can take them when it’s convenient for you. Check out CharityUniveristy.com and the programs available at The Fundraising Coach Store.
10. Be social with colleagues. Our network of colleagues is one of the greatest assetts we have. These are the people we go to when our bosses or board members or donors ask us questions we don’t have answers too. Now could be a great time to participate with colleagues and develop relationships on email lists like CharityChannel.com or on social networking sites like LinkedIn.com. (Feel free to add me to your network! My LinkedIn profile is http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcapitman.)
11. Do something nice for yourself. This is so important. If you’re like me, most of the time, you ride yourself really hard. You feel you need to do more, produce more, be more productive. Why not consider taking an hour to savor a cup of coffee or to walk on a rail trail or to pray?

This can also be a great time to dream about next year and to set goals. People are finding my MagnetGoals system to be incredibly helpful. The workbook with the process, blank worksheets, and even a step-by-step guide to mapping out each goal, is available in The Fundraising Coach Store.

Feel free to let me know what you’re committing to this summer!

The subscriptions continue to grow! So far more than 900 people have subscribed to the Extreme Fundraising Ezine.

Would you help me get to 1000 by inviting your colleagues to sign up?

People can subscribe at the bottom of: fundraisingcoach.com or send a blank email to extremeclass1@aweber.com.

Thanks!

Google Alerts just emailed me this announcement from Channel 5 News in Charleston, SC. I’m not sure I’ve ever been called “sensational” before…but it has a nice ring.

The Association of Fund raising Professionals Lowcountry Summer Institute will take place at the Charleston Riverview Hotel on June 29, 2007. This year’s Institute features a sensational keynote speaker – Marc Pitman – as well as several other exceptional sessions given by fund raising and non-profit experts from all over the country. You won’t want to miss the opportunity to take part in this great day of networking and learning. For more information check the SI website: www.afplowcountry.com

If you’ll be in the Charleston area later this month, this is an event you’ll definitely want to check out!