February, 2004 -by Peter C. Brinckerhoff

This Month's topic: Fund Raising

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Websites of the Month

This section includes sites of interest on this month's topic. I urge you to give each a look, as they often cover different areas or have a different focus on the topic area..

Helpful Websites for Fund Raising
Fund Raising sites-a complete listing	This is a great place to start. Provided by the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, it provides links to all kinds of development resources for both faith-based and secular organizations.
The Association of Fund Raising Professionals	AFP is the association of people who focus on fund raising, either as employees or consultants. Use this site to find a chapter close to you--and join.
Council on Foundations	The COF is all about responsible philanthropy. I particularly like their Accountability and Standards area.
Grants.gov	You paid for this with your tax dollars, so check it out. A great site for those seeking government funding.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy	The Chronicle of Philanthropy is THE newsletter for anyone interested in fund-raising. A bi-weekly publication, I find it useful, and I don't even specialize in development. Check the website out for resources, what's covered in the current issue, and to see whether it is a good investment for you.

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Fund Raising in a Mission-Based Organization:

I know what I don't know, and I want to be completely frank with you: I don't know fund-raising, I don't consult on fund raising, it is not an area of even minor competence of mine, to say nothing about a core competence. Truth in advertising.

That having been said, I want to start this issue on fund-raising by giving you my management perspective on the area. Fund raising is very important for most not-for-profits, increasingly so as government, corporation, and foundation funding fall behind the community needs curve. For many organizations the ability to wring funds out of their community is essential to providing any services at all. Ask yourself this: Is fund raising more important to your organization or less important than it was five years ago? If the answer is more (and it probably is), imagine what most of your not-for-profit peers answered. Probably the same thing: more important. This means that more organizations are chasing the same money as five years ago.

And this means... you ask? This means that to successfully compete in fund raising you have to look at fund raising like any other service - you need to focus on what you do well, and do LOTS of that. You need to evaluate the market in which you are fund raising, and accommodate to that market's wants (see the Marketing Tip below for more on this). You need to invest in turning one or more kinds of fund raising (direct mail, charity auctions, etc.) into a core competency. But most importantly, you need to weigh your fund-raising efforts on the same two return-on-investment scales that I have discussed here so many times.

To quickly refresh your memory, and for people who are new to this publication, I strongly believe that expenses in not-for-profits should be thought of as investments in mission, and thus weighed with a return on investment analysis in two areas: How much mission did I get from this investment, this service, this activity, and what was the financial return? Thus, if I have a very high mission return from a service, I may well choose to provide the service even though it just breaks even or loses money. Obviously the more I do that, the more I need to have one or more services that make money, to balance everything out.

For many organizations, the services that is supposed to balance the books is fund raising. Here is the truth about fund-raising for nearly every reader's organization: Fund raising does NO mission. It doesn't heal, feed, teach, cloth, or house anyone. I know, I know, the results of fund raising does lots of mission--but the activity itself, with rare exceptions, does not. And here's the management key: since there is no mission return, there must be a financial return. In other words fund raising must make money.

As you consider your fund raising efforts and weigh your income and your expenses in this area, be sure to include staff and volunteer time. These are real expenses-time spent on fund raising cannot be spent on other important needs. If you find you are making money overall, great! Now, how can you be more focussed, more successful, more profitable in your development efforts?

If you are not making money, the time to make changes is now. In both cases, investment in fund raising education, training, and developing a fund raising strategy for your organization is crucial. The remainder of this issue has some starting places to look for publications, websites, software and some marketing ideas for you.

I understand how important every single dollar, pound, or peso is to your organization. But don't feel you have had a fund raising success if you spend 200 staff and volunteer hours putting on a chili supper that raises $300. That's poor stewardship. Fund raising in its best form is an ongoing, well thought out effort of the organization, done with as much emphasis on quality as every other service you provide.

If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Here are my recommendations for your review in the area of fund raising. There are literally hundreds of good books covering issues in development. Start with a general one, but remember to focus on the kind of fund raising you do most and develop a core competence in that one..

My recommendations in the fund raising area are these:

If you want more information on these recommendations, click on the cover image and you will go the page about the book on Amazon.com. There, you can look at more info about the book, and read some reviews before you decide whether or not to purchase or look for this book at your local library.

Note: If you want more recommendations on publications in a wide variety of areas, including fund raising, go to the publications section of my website: www.missionbased.com/publications.htm

If you don't find enough choices there, type fund raising in the Amazon.com search box on the left hand side of the page and you'll have more choices than you probably want!

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It should be no surprise to you that tech has a lot to offer in fund raising. All you have to do is to go to Google and type in "fundraising".

Software: There is some great fund-raising software out there, and some that is really poor-that takes more time to use than a pencil and paper would. How do you tell what would be good for you?

First, check websites of the vendor. Most reputable vendors will allow you to download and try a sample version. Look at the features. Does the software track the things you need tracked, does it have the capacity for the number of donors or number of events, or types of fund raising you'll be doing?

Talk to peers about what they are using. Talk to your state and national trade association, and see if they recommend certain products or, better yet, can provide you with discounts on purchase.

Finally, make very, very, very sure about the level of tech support that the vendor provides. Are there local tech experts who are certified by the manufacturer that can help? Does the manufacturer provide an online chat option for support? Ask other users of the product how they have found support.

Here's a great listing of twenty-five different fund raising packages, with general costs, some reviews, and other good information: www.tfraise.com/listings.aspx

If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Below you'll see the date, location, and topics of training I'm scheduled to do in the next few weeks. For more information on a particular speaking engagement, get in touch with the contact person listed in the right hand column, or email me.

For more information on my availability throughout the next 12-18 months, available topics, sample agendas, and fees go to www.missionbased.com/training.htm

Date	City	Topic	Contact
2/10/04	Chicago	The Mission-Based Board Member	Liz Livingston-Howard liz-howard@kellogg.northwestern.edu www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/nonprofitexeced
2/18-19/04	San Diego	Introduction to Marketing	NISH Deborah Atkinson datkinson@nish.org
3/07/04	Chicago	Financial Empowerment	Liz Livingston-Howard liz-howard@kellogg.northwestern.edu www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/nonprofitexeced
3/22/04, 3/24/04	London, U.K.	Passion, Mission, & Vision	Tesse Akpeki National Council of Voluntary Organisations tesse.akpeki@ncvo-vol.org.uk

Marketing and fund raising; a perfect match

If you want to see more about this in detail, take a look at more about my book Mission-Based Marketing; Second Edition

Marketing and fund raising are a natural match. Unfortunately, many organizations simply assume marketing is sales, or public relations. It's not, and if you don't use the standard marketing cycle for your fund raising efforts, you will not be as successful as you should be. Let's go through the marketing cycle and see how it can apply to your fund raising efforts.

Marketing Step	Fund Raising Application
1. Identify Your Markets	Remember that the key in any service is to focus on a target market. In fund raising, it might be current patrons, or families of those you have helped, or people of a certain age or gender. Focus, Focus, Focus.
2. Identify Your Markets' Wants	You may think that everyone gives for the same reason: they don't. Go, talk, ask, survey, evaluate. Find out why people are giving to you now, and why they aren't. Most importantly here, remember that markets are incredibly fickle. Their wants change in a heartbeat. So ask regularly, and pay attention to what other not-for-profits are doing.
3. Develop Your Product or Service	Once you know what your chosen market wants, then you can develop your approach. Perhaps the funder wants hands-on involvement, or their heart strings tugged, or just their name on a list of donors (or perhaps NOT on any list at all). Once you find out what they want, give it to them if you can.
4. Develop a Reasonable Price	Price? For fund raising? Sure. You have to establish the price of your lottery ticket, your special event per plate fee, your entry fee into the golf outing. Remember that the point of this is to MAKE MONEY, not just to break even. Balancing that has to be the market's ability to pay the price, and what your competition is doing. And, remember my pricing maxim: it's never about the cost, it's always about the value. If you have found out what your market wants and are giving it to them, your prices can go up.
5. Promote your Product or Service	Now you need to do the PR push. You may use written materials, email, your website, personal visits, or all of the above. But remember to connect with your markets' wants.
6. Distribute your Product or Service	You gotta go where the market is. Again, you may do this by email, snailmail, in person, attached to regular newsletters. Whatever works for your target markets.
7. Evaluate	Don't be reckless: evaluate your efforts and do more of what works, and less of what doesn't. Be very hard-nosed about this. Too many organizations continue to do fund raising events that no longer connect with their community, and no longer make money. Why do they? Because "it's a great tradition" . Well, it may be a great tradition, but it's not good stewardship.

If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Future Topics in 2004 for the Mission-Based Management Newsletter....

March	Volunteers
April	Financial Management
May	Online Marketing
June	Transparency
July	Start-up
August	Governance
September	Political Activities
October
November
December
Send me your topic suggestions at peter@missionbased.com

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