What often turns up as "Founder-itis" later in a nonprofit's journey starts with the initial concept: "I can serve this need, I ought to serve this need, so therefore I will serve this need." Certainly a noble and self-giving sentiment; the kind of sentiment wea ll need more of in this world.
Why is this wrong? Isn't that the way all great projects for assisting and improving the human condition start? Isn't that the kind of personal initiative that allows "better mousetraps" to be invented?
It's not that the sentiment is "wrong," but that it is centered on the self. It is a way of discovering a method of controlling significant parts of one's universe. It does bring forth good works on behalf of humanity, but it also gives rise eventually to a kid of personal self-perpetuation, and can even have the effect of shutting out others from participation. This is when we see "Founder-itis" happening in the nonprofit organization. So, if we want to prevent that from happening somewhere down the road, we need to find a better basis on which to found a nonprofit organization.
Let's step back a bit. The reason a public charity in the U.S. works (back to Lawrence Lindsey's quote a few posts ago) is because a whole bunch of people come together to meet a community need. They all work on it; they volunteer for it; they give to it, they sustain it, they manage and govern it. It's a community effort; a team effort. People coming together, particularly in times of crisis, to meet a need; the community rallying around those of its members in need and helping ease pain or hardship or strife. That's the essence of the public charity: people coming together, forming a multi-faceted team, pooling resources of time, talent, skill and money.
What happens in a world where every Tom, Dick or Margaret is free to start up a "public charity" is that the founding person's individual idea (and ideology) forms the core of the new nonprofit. It isn't a community response at all; it's the response of one single individual, or one small group of like-minded souls who think they see a need, feel compelled to meet that need, and then want to try to get others involved in doing what the founder wants done the way the founder says it should be done. In my view, that's not a very "public" charity. It may turn out to be so legally, but it is not so in terms of functionality. Because what so often results is dysfunctionality. And that's what we euphemistically refer to as "Founder-itis."
So what we have here is a two-pronged problem:
First, what is ideally a community response to a crisis or need is now manifested as a single person's idea of what should be taking place in the community, regardless of what the wider community perceives or feels.
That's a "problem," because it results in the formation of an organization that purports to be a "public trust" that is in fact based solely on putting the individual's values, perception of need and drive for action ahead of actual publicly held values, publicly perceived need and publicly supported action. The true public charity is an efficient way to deliver services. The individual's charity is a relatively inefficient way to deliver services because it ends up in so much duplication of time, effort and use of financial resources.
Second, this results in a plethora of little charitable fiefdoms across the fabric of society, each one out there trying to arrest our attention and grab our cash to do what they want to do with it. So it becomes a kind of turf battle, with many smaller charities being set up in a community, each of which may be serving similar and overlapping populations. Actually, this is a sort of "bum's paradise," if you're in the temporary shelter business. It means you can go to multiple charities and receive multiple benefits and instances of personal assistance.
We will get into this further tomorrow.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Starting a Charity? Here's a Case Study, Part 2
So let's examine this case study a little more closely and see if we can identify some elements of founder-itis in nonprofits that might be avoidable with patience, thought and planning.
Before we do this, however, it must be said that this case is not that unusual. I can think of four other organizations with whom I have worked on similar problems where the essential ingredients were very nearly the same.
Here are some of the key ingredients found in this case study:
1. The charity is a one-person show: governed, managed, staffed and programmed by one person. Certainly there were volunteers, but they were recruited and trained by the founder to do her method of teaching her way. There were two staff persons who, again, were under the total control of the founder.
2. The Board of Directors was formed of persons loyal to and personal friends of the founder; they had little motivation other than the relationship, no training, experience or skills for nonprofit governance; they were willing to let the founder do whatever she needed to do. The Board was set up to satisfy the IRS rules and regulations that call for public charities to have a board of directors in order to be granted the 501-(c)-(3) designation.
3. Fundraising was limited to activities the founder approved and was able to carry out on her own. Her daily schedule was a whirl of crises and putting out fires. She had little or no time to spend on planning or careful, methodical execution. There were no resources that could be appropriated to enhance fundraising infrastructure. Grants, special events and one or two dear loyal friends plus the founder's own bank account were the key sources of revenue.
4. The founder's personal and management style was scattered and frenetic, one reminiscent of autism accompanied by attention deficit disorder; this became the style of doing business both at the staff level on a day-to-day basis and in the work of the board of directors. Consequently, there was little planning, few instances of deliberative thought, no consistent follow up on matters of business, and an inability to set even a meeting agenda without constant interruption.
5. The founder's word, preferences, style and scope of options became those of the organization, and everyone associated with that charity publicly avowed that essential posture.
So this was the set-up in our case study of founder-itis: a dysfunctional organization badly needing to have a productive fundraising effort, but unable to get a a process going.
Tomorrow we'll deal with some of these elements in more detail, looking for ways to advise new start-up clients and keep them from falling prey down the road to founder-itis
Before we do this, however, it must be said that this case is not that unusual. I can think of four other organizations with whom I have worked on similar problems where the essential ingredients were very nearly the same.
Here are some of the key ingredients found in this case study:
1. The charity is a one-person show: governed, managed, staffed and programmed by one person. Certainly there were volunteers, but they were recruited and trained by the founder to do her method of teaching her way. There were two staff persons who, again, were under the total control of the founder.
2. The Board of Directors was formed of persons loyal to and personal friends of the founder; they had little motivation other than the relationship, no training, experience or skills for nonprofit governance; they were willing to let the founder do whatever she needed to do. The Board was set up to satisfy the IRS rules and regulations that call for public charities to have a board of directors in order to be granted the 501-(c)-(3) designation.
3. Fundraising was limited to activities the founder approved and was able to carry out on her own. Her daily schedule was a whirl of crises and putting out fires. She had little or no time to spend on planning or careful, methodical execution. There were no resources that could be appropriated to enhance fundraising infrastructure. Grants, special events and one or two dear loyal friends plus the founder's own bank account were the key sources of revenue.
4. The founder's personal and management style was scattered and frenetic, one reminiscent of autism accompanied by attention deficit disorder; this became the style of doing business both at the staff level on a day-to-day basis and in the work of the board of directors. Consequently, there was little planning, few instances of deliberative thought, no consistent follow up on matters of business, and an inability to set even a meeting agenda without constant interruption.
5. The founder's word, preferences, style and scope of options became those of the organization, and everyone associated with that charity publicly avowed that essential posture.
So this was the set-up in our case study of founder-itis: a dysfunctional organization badly needing to have a productive fundraising effort, but unable to get a a process going.
Tomorrow we'll deal with some of these elements in more detail, looking for ways to advise new start-up clients and keep them from falling prey down the road to founder-itis
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Starting a Charity? Here's a Case Study
I am often approached by would-be start-up nonprofits. People come looking for whatever advice they need. Sometimes people seek fundraising advice, sometimes they come to find out what governance alternatives are available to them.
Other times they want to know how to set up the new charity with the IRS. But rarely, if ever, does someone come and say "I'm thinking about doing this kind of work. What are some of the blocks and barriers going to be, and do I stand a chance of surviving long term?"
Mostly people seem to want self-affirmation more than anything else; they want to know that their ideas about starting a new charity are, generally, in the right direction. They are rarely prepared to accept criticism or negative comments; they don't seem to like a cautious or conservative approach that asks too many hard questions, and they seem to have little tolerance for much analysis of their plans and ideas, particularly if it cuts across their grain of an idea about how things should be.
One case I worked with is typical enough that I'll lift it up as a case study. The charity's request for assistance in fundraising involved a long-time school teacher who had developed over the years a marvelously effective method of teaching youngsters to read. This woman has some of the highest scores available today in teaching kids to read, write and think. The results this nonprofit gets each year are unbeatable, and they do improve over time. This gives the organization a great case for support.
I was enlisted by the founder's board to assist them in fundraising, with the first step in the process being a development audit to determine past and current fundraising practices and results. In the process of the development audit, it quickly became apparent that the organization had a serious case of founder-itis.
The founder was the executive director, as well as an officer and voting member of the board. The board members were all long-time personal friends of the founder, pretty much ready to approve whatever she wanted to do. The organization's management pattern tended to follow the founder's personal pattern of disjointed, unfocused thinking and planning. No idea was acceptable unless it fit the founder's personal preferences.
Fundraising had come virtually to a halt after the first six years of operation. The board was allowed not to give; personal friends couldn't be solicited for major gifts, simply because of the "embarrassment" that would accrue to the personal relationship.
As I explored further into the organization's history, it was revealed that the founder had early on became embroiled in local school politics around the issue of the knowledge gap between white and African American students, advocating that the school system should be responsible for bringing minority students back into the literate mainstream.
At some point the frustration of dealing with the political and bureaucratic process became too much, and this woman made a precipitous decision to go out and start a literacy charity on her own, letting the schools stew in their own juices, but moving ahead to solve the problem on her own, at least for a few youngsters. Direct service to a few was preferred over an institutional solution.
Whether because of impatience, lack of political skill, lack of supporters or whatever, this charity was created to get action, now. And the resulting situation gives us a good case study in which to see the ingredients that eventually can lead to Founder-itis. More on this tomorrow.
Other times they want to know how to set up the new charity with the IRS. But rarely, if ever, does someone come and say "I'm thinking about doing this kind of work. What are some of the blocks and barriers going to be, and do I stand a chance of surviving long term?"
Mostly people seem to want self-affirmation more than anything else; they want to know that their ideas about starting a new charity are, generally, in the right direction. They are rarely prepared to accept criticism or negative comments; they don't seem to like a cautious or conservative approach that asks too many hard questions, and they seem to have little tolerance for much analysis of their plans and ideas, particularly if it cuts across their grain of an idea about how things should be.
One case I worked with is typical enough that I'll lift it up as a case study. The charity's request for assistance in fundraising involved a long-time school teacher who had developed over the years a marvelously effective method of teaching youngsters to read. This woman has some of the highest scores available today in teaching kids to read, write and think. The results this nonprofit gets each year are unbeatable, and they do improve over time. This gives the organization a great case for support.
I was enlisted by the founder's board to assist them in fundraising, with the first step in the process being a development audit to determine past and current fundraising practices and results. In the process of the development audit, it quickly became apparent that the organization had a serious case of founder-itis.
The founder was the executive director, as well as an officer and voting member of the board. The board members were all long-time personal friends of the founder, pretty much ready to approve whatever she wanted to do. The organization's management pattern tended to follow the founder's personal pattern of disjointed, unfocused thinking and planning. No idea was acceptable unless it fit the founder's personal preferences.
Fundraising had come virtually to a halt after the first six years of operation. The board was allowed not to give; personal friends couldn't be solicited for major gifts, simply because of the "embarrassment" that would accrue to the personal relationship.
As I explored further into the organization's history, it was revealed that the founder had early on became embroiled in local school politics around the issue of the knowledge gap between white and African American students, advocating that the school system should be responsible for bringing minority students back into the literate mainstream.
At some point the frustration of dealing with the political and bureaucratic process became too much, and this woman made a precipitous decision to go out and start a literacy charity on her own, letting the schools stew in their own juices, but moving ahead to solve the problem on her own, at least for a few youngsters. Direct service to a few was preferred over an institutional solution.
Whether because of impatience, lack of political skill, lack of supporters or whatever, this charity was created to get action, now. And the resulting situation gives us a good case study in which to see the ingredients that eventually can lead to Founder-itis. More on this tomorrow.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Starting a Charity? Why not a Business instead?
Today we start a series on nonprofit startups. There are some issues here that need to be addressed, the first of which is found in an email I received from M. McElroy of Brighton, MI, the other day that speaks to this examination of start-up charities that get into fundraising problems early in the game. She related the following story, in which the names have been changed or deleted to protect everybody concerned:
“When I first started my career [in another state], I worked as a clinician with adolescent boys and girls at a place [that] has been in business for over 35 years.... It grew from a halfway house into a major nonprofit which focused on drug and alcohol rehabilitation. The innovation of programs were fantastic ....
“The reason I left... was because the executive director/founder had a severe case of founder-itis. The board of directors were his friends, his entire family worked [there] and there was no oversight. Although his legacy will live on, he almost ran a great organization into the ground... Discussing founder-itis is very key because it can save nonprofits from possible destruction. [I witnessed] a tragic and severe example of founder-itis.”
In my practice, I see this kind of thing on a regular basis. It must be said that some of these nonprofits that develop founder-itis do manage to change, particularly when their boards seek help from a fundraising consultant. But it usually takes some kind of outside influence, working with the board and the founder/executive, to resolve and “fix” the strategic components of the situation that were ineptly put in place early on.
On quite a few occasions, when people contact me about providing them assistance with start-up charities, during the course of the conversation I have asked them, "Why don't you just start up a business in this area and come at the problem from an entrepreneurial stance?"
Generally, the response is shock and disbelief that a fundraising consultant would ask that question. Shock, because they desperately want a charity, not a business; disbelief because they come to me for help in fundraising and here I'm implying by my question that they should be in a business where they sell a product or service rather than give it free to those who need it. Most of the people who come to see me cannot understand why such a question is relevant. Their immediate answer is: "We want to set this up as a nonprofit so that people can give to us and get a tax deduction for their gift. Why in the world would we ever want to go into business with this idea?"
Well, there's a perfectly logical reason why you might consider doing that. More on this tomorrow. We're getting down into the heart of the issue here.
“When I first started my career [in another state], I worked as a clinician with adolescent boys and girls at a place [that] has been in business for over 35 years.... It grew from a halfway house into a major nonprofit which focused on drug and alcohol rehabilitation. The innovation of programs were fantastic ....
“The reason I left... was because the executive director/founder had a severe case of founder-itis. The board of directors were his friends, his entire family worked [there] and there was no oversight. Although his legacy will live on, he almost ran a great organization into the ground... Discussing founder-itis is very key because it can save nonprofits from possible destruction. [I witnessed] a tragic and severe example of founder-itis.”
In my practice, I see this kind of thing on a regular basis. It must be said that some of these nonprofits that develop founder-itis do manage to change, particularly when their boards seek help from a fundraising consultant. But it usually takes some kind of outside influence, working with the board and the founder/executive, to resolve and “fix” the strategic components of the situation that were ineptly put in place early on.
On quite a few occasions, when people contact me about providing them assistance with start-up charities, during the course of the conversation I have asked them, "Why don't you just start up a business in this area and come at the problem from an entrepreneurial stance?"
Generally, the response is shock and disbelief that a fundraising consultant would ask that question. Shock, because they desperately want a charity, not a business; disbelief because they come to me for help in fundraising and here I'm implying by my question that they should be in a business where they sell a product or service rather than give it free to those who need it. Most of the people who come to see me cannot understand why such a question is relevant. Their immediate answer is: "We want to set this up as a nonprofit so that people can give to us and get a tax deduction for their gift. Why in the world would we ever want to go into business with this idea?"
Well, there's a perfectly logical reason why you might consider doing that. More on this tomorrow. We're getting down into the heart of the issue here.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Does a Bad Economy Hurt Fundraising? Part 4 of 4
A recent client of mine, R. Hatter, sent me an email asking what the appropriate response would be to a key donor who had expressed irritation at the increased number of requests for contributions and the steady flow of information from that charity to his mailbox in recent months. "What can I tell him when he complains that we send him too many appeals and too much information?"
My response was this: On the guy who says "too much" -- I suspect the reason he's saying this is because his commitment to your charity is faltering a bit. He sounds like he's out of touch, hopefully only temporarily. What I would suggest is that you get him directly back in touch with "the kids." Let him touch and feel the urgency that these young lives contain, let him get back in touch with the urgent realities of their situation. And the reality is that the reason we ask more often, ask more people, and ask for more money is that the costs of keeping these kids moving towards being fully participating citizens (in a society that otherwise would just dump 'em in the garbage) is getting more expensive each year.
Let him see a "life on the mend," so to speak. Let him see that while "God don't make no junk" it's really generous and self-giving human beings who provide sustenance for the lives of these abused and neglected kids. Let him see that little girl's face, let him read the poem she wrote or see the video or view the new invention that was born in that young child's mind as a result of his past gifts. He's out of touch. That's all. And you can fix that.
My further suggestion is that you really don't need to answer his more "obvious" objection, having to do with mailings, and asking too much. That's not where the issue is. And arguing the "facts of the case," such as the number of mailings, etc., in the terms in which he has couched the discussion, won't really get anywhere because he will just continually come back with the same answer. His question sets it up that way. The increased efforts of your staff in fundraising can only encounter objections among those who haven't seen, felt, touched the power of these young lives. Because, for any of the rest of us, there is only one answer -- "ask more, get more, use more, save more kids."
Another thing to consider is whether all those mailings he's receiving and objecting to have been written as creatively as possible; whether the way you state your case for support is truly compelling and motivating, and whether you have the ability to capture peoples' imagination in your fundraising letters. Maybe his eyes have glazed over once too often when receiving your letters, and maybe he's really telling you he doesn't like what you're writing.
What would your response have been to this question, dear reader? Let us hear from you! Get in on the dialogue.
My response was this: On the guy who says "too much" -- I suspect the reason he's saying this is because his commitment to your charity is faltering a bit. He sounds like he's out of touch, hopefully only temporarily. What I would suggest is that you get him directly back in touch with "the kids." Let him touch and feel the urgency that these young lives contain, let him get back in touch with the urgent realities of their situation. And the reality is that the reason we ask more often, ask more people, and ask for more money is that the costs of keeping these kids moving towards being fully participating citizens (in a society that otherwise would just dump 'em in the garbage) is getting more expensive each year.
Let him see a "life on the mend," so to speak. Let him see that while "God don't make no junk" it's really generous and self-giving human beings who provide sustenance for the lives of these abused and neglected kids. Let him see that little girl's face, let him read the poem she wrote or see the video or view the new invention that was born in that young child's mind as a result of his past gifts. He's out of touch. That's all. And you can fix that.
My further suggestion is that you really don't need to answer his more "obvious" objection, having to do with mailings, and asking too much. That's not where the issue is. And arguing the "facts of the case," such as the number of mailings, etc., in the terms in which he has couched the discussion, won't really get anywhere because he will just continually come back with the same answer. His question sets it up that way. The increased efforts of your staff in fundraising can only encounter objections among those who haven't seen, felt, touched the power of these young lives. Because, for any of the rest of us, there is only one answer -- "ask more, get more, use more, save more kids."
Another thing to consider is whether all those mailings he's receiving and objecting to have been written as creatively as possible; whether the way you state your case for support is truly compelling and motivating, and whether you have the ability to capture peoples' imagination in your fundraising letters. Maybe his eyes have glazed over once too often when receiving your letters, and maybe he's really telling you he doesn't like what you're writing.
What would your response have been to this question, dear reader? Let us hear from you! Get in on the dialogue.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Does a Bad Economy Hurt Fundraising? Part 3 of 4
We've been discussing this problem with the economy and charitable giving, and I think we need to take a look at the donor's or prospect's view of this situation.
It seems to me that in a down economy it's pretty easy to get into a mode (or maybe it's just a mood) of "scarcity," as opposed to a mood of "plenty." Resources seem scarce, rather than plentiful. Whether this is reality or in the mind, mostly depends on the particular donor.
On the home front, for example, there's all the defensive budgeting we have to do to meet our decreased income level – tightening the belt and depriving ourselves of those expenditures we'd really like to make to achieve our various materialistic goals or obtain the kind of gadgets, environment or accoutrements we need to bolster our self image.
And then there are the cuts we experience in our places of work in both budget and programs, the re-prioritizing of objectives and the re-directing of scarce resources to the "things that count."
Together, on the home front and in the workplace, this begins to look like a wonderfully perfect excuse to also deal with those nonprofits that bug us for contributions but don't give us anything to be excited about. Now we can just tell them we simply don't have the cash to help them. And we can feel good inside about doing that because, after all, isn't that really the case? I can't afford to give to charity because I have to eat, right?
For example, for several years now, I've been giving to what in other times has been a favorite charity, my alma mater, in central Pennsylvania. Great place. They dealt with me, didn't they? Took a rough, provincial kid and drummed an education into his brain? This MUST be a great place. And they continue to take hundreds of central PA's rural and small-town, provincial, unfocused kids and make thinking, discerning, creative adults out of them. With what more laudable program could you ply a vision for our world's betterment?
But, truth to tell, in tight financial times, my giving there goes down. Why? Well, frankly, it's an excuse to save a little money for something else. Either that new computer I want, or maybe to get involved with a new charity that has captured my imagination. But what is really happening is that when I read the letters, when I read the bulletin, when I get on the website to see what's happening, and even though there's a whale of a lot happening there in terms of the type and quality of education you can get at this institution, the fact is that the way they describe it in the letters that ask for money make my eyes glaze over; it just wipes away all motivation to keep giving there.
So, does the economy affect fundraising? I think it does: it allows donors, and some of the people we think could be our best prospects, the perfect excuse to use the economy as a reason to give elsewhere or to use resources for things they want when we cannot come up with anything that sparks their continued interest, meets their needs, matches their values. Sure the economy affects fundraising….. or does it!? We take on another example tomorrow.
It seems to me that in a down economy it's pretty easy to get into a mode (or maybe it's just a mood) of "scarcity," as opposed to a mood of "plenty." Resources seem scarce, rather than plentiful. Whether this is reality or in the mind, mostly depends on the particular donor.
On the home front, for example, there's all the defensive budgeting we have to do to meet our decreased income level – tightening the belt and depriving ourselves of those expenditures we'd really like to make to achieve our various materialistic goals or obtain the kind of gadgets, environment or accoutrements we need to bolster our self image.
And then there are the cuts we experience in our places of work in both budget and programs, the re-prioritizing of objectives and the re-directing of scarce resources to the "things that count."
Together, on the home front and in the workplace, this begins to look like a wonderfully perfect excuse to also deal with those nonprofits that bug us for contributions but don't give us anything to be excited about. Now we can just tell them we simply don't have the cash to help them. And we can feel good inside about doing that because, after all, isn't that really the case? I can't afford to give to charity because I have to eat, right?
For example, for several years now, I've been giving to what in other times has been a favorite charity, my alma mater, in central Pennsylvania. Great place. They dealt with me, didn't they? Took a rough, provincial kid and drummed an education into his brain? This MUST be a great place. And they continue to take hundreds of central PA's rural and small-town, provincial, unfocused kids and make thinking, discerning, creative adults out of them. With what more laudable program could you ply a vision for our world's betterment?
But, truth to tell, in tight financial times, my giving there goes down. Why? Well, frankly, it's an excuse to save a little money for something else. Either that new computer I want, or maybe to get involved with a new charity that has captured my imagination. But what is really happening is that when I read the letters, when I read the bulletin, when I get on the website to see what's happening, and even though there's a whale of a lot happening there in terms of the type and quality of education you can get at this institution, the fact is that the way they describe it in the letters that ask for money make my eyes glaze over; it just wipes away all motivation to keep giving there.
So, does the economy affect fundraising? I think it does: it allows donors, and some of the people we think could be our best prospects, the perfect excuse to use the economy as a reason to give elsewhere or to use resources for things they want when we cannot come up with anything that sparks their continued interest, meets their needs, matches their values. Sure the economy affects fundraising….. or does it!? We take on another example tomorrow.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Does a Bad Economy Hurt Fundraising? Part 2 of 4
I well remember Robert F. Sharpe, Sr., who said to us back in about 1984, as we were in training to become major and planned gift officers in our respective nonprofits, that "giving follows compelling ideas."
Just as in business and industry the money tends to follow the leading edge of ideas that make what we euphemistically refer to as "better mousetraps." If Google comes up with a better search engine, the money to develop that comes their way, then followed by hugely increasing use of that engine when developed, and then followed by the ad dollars as advertisers finally catch on. Better ideas lead to better products, lead to booming economy. Right?
Can we apply that to charities? I think we can. But from what I've seen, the boards and staffs of nonprofit organizations don't seem to share that point of view. For example, I've started collecting fundraising letters again this year. From the ones I've received so far, it's pretty obvious there are not too many compelling ideas for fundraising letters out there in the southeast Michigan philanthropic marketplace.
-- Over here we have another gala – "please give to our cause and come to our gala."
-- Over there we have another human service agency that writes a letter two pages long giving a long diatribe on all the aspects of their many-faceted program.
-- Then we have the dogs and cats that need homes, and the "gee-whiz" statistics that show what the organization is doing. Makes my eyes glaze over after the first paragraph!
-- Then we have the hospital campaign – they're short and sweet: never mind what we're doing with your money, just pay up! Your pledge is past due.
The case for support for most of these can be reduced to: "We do this, we do that, we do the other thing." or "We need, please give."
During last year's holiday season I racked up 57 fundraising letters that I got in the mail. I can't complain about this. Comparatively, not all that many have my name and address, in light of the fact that there are over 4000 agencies in southeastern Michigan that have the 501-c-3 IRS designation! But of the 57 letters, only 3 of them had any real appeal at all, to my way of thinking. The rest just didn't have the ideas, the program, or the way of describing their efforts or success that appealed to me as a donor.
So I gave to those three. I could have given to all 57, and would have, IF any of the other 54 had shown a spark of creativity about them, or presented their case for support in some way that was involving, compelling, motivating.
So my question on this is, does an economy in the tank mean, then, that all the creativity and all the good ideas suddenly vanish from the minds of those in charge of our nonprofits? Is the economy to blame for the fact that dull fundraising letters keep being produced? Does the economy dictate whether or not a given nonprofit thinks up a compelling, tantalizing or creative twist to its case for support?
I don't think so, because this stuff happens – the dull fundraising letters, the lackluster descriptions of program, the failure to talk about exciting results people are having with their program – these all happen in GOOD economic times as well as in bad. Somehow I don't think creativity and compelling cases for support are tied that much to the economy. I'll bet an agency head could come up with a creative and compelling way to capture a donor's heart in any kind of economic circumstance. What do you think, dear reader? Have you been reading the fundraising letters you get in the mail? Do your eyes glaze over after the first paragraph?
Bob Sharpe Sr. also said that there was never such a time of economic difficulty that someone couldn't raise a dollar, and there was never such a time of economic well-being and abundance that some nonprofit or other wasn't required to close its doors because of lack of contributions. And I'd like to add to that the comment that the most likely reason any nonprofit has to close its doors would be that it failed to create a compelling, motivating case for support that attracted resources to its cause.
We'll explore the donor's response to the economy tomorrow.
Just as in business and industry the money tends to follow the leading edge of ideas that make what we euphemistically refer to as "better mousetraps." If Google comes up with a better search engine, the money to develop that comes their way, then followed by hugely increasing use of that engine when developed, and then followed by the ad dollars as advertisers finally catch on. Better ideas lead to better products, lead to booming economy. Right?
Can we apply that to charities? I think we can. But from what I've seen, the boards and staffs of nonprofit organizations don't seem to share that point of view. For example, I've started collecting fundraising letters again this year. From the ones I've received so far, it's pretty obvious there are not too many compelling ideas for fundraising letters out there in the southeast Michigan philanthropic marketplace.
-- Over here we have another gala – "please give to our cause and come to our gala."
-- Over there we have another human service agency that writes a letter two pages long giving a long diatribe on all the aspects of their many-faceted program.
-- Then we have the dogs and cats that need homes, and the "gee-whiz" statistics that show what the organization is doing. Makes my eyes glaze over after the first paragraph!
-- Then we have the hospital campaign – they're short and sweet: never mind what we're doing with your money, just pay up! Your pledge is past due.
The case for support for most of these can be reduced to: "We do this, we do that, we do the other thing." or "We need, please give."
During last year's holiday season I racked up 57 fundraising letters that I got in the mail. I can't complain about this. Comparatively, not all that many have my name and address, in light of the fact that there are over 4000 agencies in southeastern Michigan that have the 501-c-3 IRS designation! But of the 57 letters, only 3 of them had any real appeal at all, to my way of thinking. The rest just didn't have the ideas, the program, or the way of describing their efforts or success that appealed to me as a donor.
So I gave to those three. I could have given to all 57, and would have, IF any of the other 54 had shown a spark of creativity about them, or presented their case for support in some way that was involving, compelling, motivating.
So my question on this is, does an economy in the tank mean, then, that all the creativity and all the good ideas suddenly vanish from the minds of those in charge of our nonprofits? Is the economy to blame for the fact that dull fundraising letters keep being produced? Does the economy dictate whether or not a given nonprofit thinks up a compelling, tantalizing or creative twist to its case for support?
I don't think so, because this stuff happens – the dull fundraising letters, the lackluster descriptions of program, the failure to talk about exciting results people are having with their program – these all happen in GOOD economic times as well as in bad. Somehow I don't think creativity and compelling cases for support are tied that much to the economy. I'll bet an agency head could come up with a creative and compelling way to capture a donor's heart in any kind of economic circumstance. What do you think, dear reader? Have you been reading the fundraising letters you get in the mail? Do your eyes glaze over after the first paragraph?
Bob Sharpe Sr. also said that there was never such a time of economic difficulty that someone couldn't raise a dollar, and there was never such a time of economic well-being and abundance that some nonprofit or other wasn't required to close its doors because of lack of contributions. And I'd like to add to that the comment that the most likely reason any nonprofit has to close its doors would be that it failed to create a compelling, motivating case for support that attracted resources to its cause.
We'll explore the donor's response to the economy tomorrow.
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