For many fundraisers closing out their fiscal years, the news isn’t great.  Foundations and corporations are returning, but not quite as quickly as they departed – and not back to their previous levels.  And some not at all.

When a long-time supporter – especially a major one – suddenly stops giving, it can be quite a blow.  This has happened (and is continuing) to many nonprofits as the economy shrinks the accounts of not only companies and foundations, but individual large donors as well.

“Not putting your eggs in one basket” takes on multiple meanings in development in times like these.  In addition to having a diversified campaign that seeks donations from a plethora of contributors – foundations, corporations, individuals, etc. – it’s also important within each campaign to conduct multiple campaigns.

For example, when pursuing foundations, expand your grant proposals to various types, including smaller family foundations, corporate foundations, etc.  Don’t limit yourself to the same kinds that have always funded you in the past.

Corporate sponsorships can be viewed in a similar fashion.  Have you always pursued national companies’ support?  There are many locally owned businesses that might welcome an opportunity to publicize their philanthropy.

With Annual Giving, think of the multiple channels that are now at your disposal to reach a vast audience of individuals.  Not only can you pursue more people with online giving, social media, mobile, etc., but studies show that integrated approaches raise the most money of all.

Consider the United Way campaign(s) and how they are affecting dozens (if not more) nonprofits across the entire country.  Because United Way decided at a national level to reprioritize its mission and refocus on several core funding strategies, agencies that received enormous amounts of funding are now finding it vastly reduced, if not eliminated outright.

This is happening all across the United States, including California, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming, and in Ontario as well.

While some articles are spun to promote it as a positive opportunity to “let new organizations apply” for funding, many others who have been supported by United Way for years don’t see it that way . . . particularly when their messaging appears to be inconsistent.

For example, their new mission’s focus loudly proclaims to be generally zoned in on three main areas:

•     education
•     self-sufficiency
•     health

Although these are the newly declared areas of funding targets, various inconsistencies in this newly mandated attempt at being consistent continue to appear.

In multiple states (CA, LA, OH, NC, VA), the local Red Cross chapters had their funding significantly cut, if not eliminated, although many tried to argue that their providing food, shelter, clothing, etc., during disasters offers “self-sufficiency,” in keeping with the mission.  In the Buffalo, NY area, that United Way chapter maintained their Red Cross funding, but eliminated funds for the Girl Scouts . . . even though educating youth is supposedly a priority.

Other organizations affected by the new policy, resulting in drastic cuts in funding include the Salvation Army, the YMCA, as well as the Boy Scouts and Big Brothers Big Sisters, which lost their funding entirely from United Way of Dallas.  Given that the new UW priorities are listed as being about educating children, it’s perplexing that these long-funded institutions were dropped altogether, particularly when one sees that another United Way chapter in Illinois gave Big Brothers Big Sisters their highest award.

Although “youth development” is specifically listed among United Way of Topeka’s goals, Boy and Girl Scouts were eliminated from agencies receiving funding!  They got only designated funds from donors . . . and these designated funds are “a practice that is under review and could be eliminated in the future because of changes to United Way’s funding process.”

Columbia, MO and Charleston, SC took issue with the new priorities not addressing issues of real concern to their local communities.  Namely, they felt that their senior population was being severely neglected and ignored by the newly declared priorities.  These citizens argued that a great deal of what the local United Way needed to address and solve were the problems of the local citizens . . . and that the issues sent from national weren’t keenly aware of what was happening in their neighborhoods.

One can see that the Reno, NV and Norman, OK chapters dealt with this more directly, anticipating these needs, and altered the mission to include more local concerns.

While in York, PA, the United Way Executive Director was “flabbergasted” that an agency would make public their disappointment over not getting funded, it seems to be catching on all over the country.  In fact, in Nebraska and Ohio, they’re appealing the funding decisions, and in Ontario, they’re convening a meeting to review the entire allocation procedure!

It’s clear that you can’t control many factors about your funding sources:  the economy, funders’ changing priorities, how slow the post office delivers, cost of postage, etc.  Rather than spending a great deal of time altering an ever-changing strategy (and filing multiple appeals), a better overall campaign strategy is one that includes multiple funding sources, so that if one of them is drastically reduced, it doesn’t sting too badly during the period it takes to replace it with another channel of income.

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Keep the base of the pyramid strong

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I’ve never been an advocate of “selling widgets on the side,” to bolster a nonprofit’s income.  On the one hand, it detracts from the mission in a glaring way.  On the other, it steals valuable staff time from what we should be focusing on.

This is all too common, such as the Snowflake Animal Rescue website, which encourages not only online giving, but that you shop for Amazon and Food Lion via their site.  What do books, music and groceries have to do with animal rescue, though?

Even more conspicuous is the Ectodermal Dysplasia Society, where the ads for Amazon and buy.at are nearly more significant than the [Donate] button. Clicking the buy.at button then opens up into another entire world of retailers, waiting to take the constituents’ money and throw a small slice back at the charity.

A new study has come out, soon to be released in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, which shows that cause marketing actually leads to lower charitable donations.  This shouldn’t be surprising, actually.  First of all, when said actions or purchases are made, the consumer is led to believe that they have completed their philanthropic duty, which lessens further acts that they might have otherwise taken (of greater amounts).

In addition, many people donate to nonprofits out of a sense of giving to others, rather than receiving tangible goods in return.  The messaging changes from one of selflessness to more “selfish” giving, when there are always goods associated with donating.

I witnessed this phenomenon while tracking fundraising statistics at PBS years ago.  The average gift during phonathon hovered just below $100 – and then Suze Orman, financial whiz, came on the scene.  Stations everywhere were pitching her programs very successfully:  “And if you donate $___, you can get the Suze Orman DVD, or for $___, the CD, or for $___, the VHS …”

It was an undeniable correlation!  Almost in synch, as Suze Orman shows broadcast on PBS, the average gift skyrocketed above $100, systemwide.  Suze renewed with PBS for a few years . . . then she signed with QVC, to make real money.  When PBS stopped airing her specials, the average gift dropped below $100 once again.

It became all too clear that the mission of public broadcasting hadn’t been pitched nearly as much as Orman DVDs, CDs and tapes, and now that they were gone, it was a tougher sell, falling back on what hadn’t been spotlighted for some time.

Perhaps selling t-shirts, posters, mugs, hats, etc. with your mission, logo and so forth works well with your branding and interests your constituents, but if it doesn’t, why are you hawking and peddling someone else’s wares for a mere slice of the proceeds?

Even if it is part of your mission, however, take care that you continue incorporating that mission with every pitch.

I recall one state public broadcaster who presented a session at the PBS Development Conference, during the Suze Orman frenzy.  He explained that, although they could start their pitch at the higher (DVD) end, they always made a point to open pledge drives by asking people to join at the basic membership level, followed by, “. . . and if you can afford to support us at the $___ level, we’d like to send you this thank you gift of ____,” and so on, up the ask ladder.

He explained that, as a state licensee, it was important that, when they went to ask for state funding, they could demonstrate as wide a market penetration (support base) as possible throughout the state.  Therefore, it was more important that the station bring on more people as members first, regardless of their giving level.  Once people made the decision to donate, the station would work on cultivating them to contribute at increased levels over time.

The reverse is also possible, even if transactional sales are a significant part of your mission.  I achieved this years ago when managing my daughter’s troop’s Girl Scout cookie booth sales.

I taught the girls to assess the customer.  If s/he said, “No,” why did they think the customer didn’t want to purchase cookies?  Perhaps they scowled as they hurried past with their groceries.  In that case, move on to the next customer.

However, many people expressed “No” with regret, such as, “I’m diabetic,” or “My (grand)daughter is selling them, too,” or “I’ve already bought ___ boxes.”

In this case, we clearly had a supporter – of the mission – who simply didn’t want more boxes of cookies, and I instructed the girls to immediately follow these remarks with, “Would you like to make a donation to our troop?”  This frequently yielded a substantial amount of funds, which always more than offset the cost of the free samples we gave out to passersby.  In turn, of course, the girls giving out free samples generated more cookie sales.

Regardless of your mission and its various aspects, it always helps to assess when you take on a new project:  Who is this helping?  Is it mission related?  If it’s not obvious to the donor why you’re doing it and someone else is benefitting more than your organization, odds are, you’re getting the short end of the stick.

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Keep the base of the pyramid strong

Most fundraisers know not to rely on only one source of income, whether it’s grants, mail, events, etc. The same applies with social media and marketing. While Facebook is a valuable tool, it’s essential to expand your reach as much as possible.

Facebook is where many organizations ventured into social media initially, and some learned the hard way that if you don’t follow its rules, your account can be suspended or terminated for various violations, including:

•     adding/inviting too many friends at once
•     exporting your friends’ emails out of Facebook
•     exceeding the 500 “limit” on the number of fans (groups – prior to pages)
•     creating duplicate accounts (many people made a “personal” and a separate “business” account)

Policies have existed that stopped service for other fundraising or marketing efforts as well. Some have been temporary, such as when Verizon made a unilateral decision to block text messages sent by a single nonprofit that they deemed “controversial or unsavory,” despite the fact that they were being sent to constituents who had subscribed to receive them. This represented a significant market share of recipients who were blocked, but enough voices protested that Verizon soon reversed their decision.

Other decisions are not so temporary, such as the Girl Scouts’ continuing refusal to allow girls to sell cookies online, which leaves a large part of the market out of reach, despite protests to the contrary. In cases like this, it’s all the more important that an organization diversify to compensate.

A more recent decision announced about Delicious deciding to end operations of its site was met with a swift and immediate reaction by its many users, to the point of starting a petition in an attempt to buy it from Yahoo so that it could continue operating.

Further information was later revealed – although Yahoo took days to respond – that Delicious will continue to exist, and Yahoo appears to be seeking a buyer. This prompted discussion on the Chronicle of Philanthropy about how to compensate for Delicious and other social media tools that might disappear one day.

It is essential to have a backup plan for each one of your tools and applications, just as you would for your staff if a member of your team was out on vacation or sick.

For example, your social media manager no doubt schedules your posts to your Facebook page(s), Twitter account(s) and other channels via a dashboard, such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck or some other platform, as well as using a preferred URL shortener like bit.ly or ow.ly.

Although your staff has become accustomed to whichever you are currently using, what if service were down on that application/platform? If your organization had an account with at least one other company already in place, then your service to your constituents would be more likely to go uninterrupted. (Some of these companies recently altered terms for what types of service they would provide for free vs. what would now cost a monthly or annual fee, so many organizations had to alter or expand their accounts anyway.)

Another unexpected change to your marketing plan could be that you might even find part of your logo, slogan or color challenged and have to alter or remove it – at least for a while, as you fight it out in court.

It’s important to remember that all of your social media and marketing efforts should be viewed as supplemental to your organization’s website, and all roads should lead back here, where you have ultimate control over your message. Driving traffic home should be your overall goal with online endeavors.

As you make plans and navigate your 2011marketing, social media and fundraising campaigns, track them the best that you can, in order to measure your areas of difficulty as well as your successes. You also want to understand which channels are getting the best response rates, and much more.

Analytics don’t have to be as difficult as they might seem, and when done correctly, they will help you to modify your website and overall strategy so that they are working for you, instead of the other way around.

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Keep the base of the pyramid strong

An important aspect in volunteer management – board, committee or basic volunteer – is getting other evangelists to act on your behalf . . . and this should include fund raising.  The greater one’s commitment to the cause, the greater their devotion should be not only to donate, but also to solicit.

It’s a common story I hear all too often:

•     My board/committee members expect me to do all the fund raising for the campaign/event
•     The Finance Committee Chair asks me what should go into her/his report each month
•     At every meeting, when the subject of our goal comes up, all eyes turn to me – nobody else has anything to say or contribute – even when asked.
•     It’s taken years just to get us close to 100% giving . . . I don’t see how I could move it up another notch to 100% soliciting . . .

Of course, ideally, this begins with board, committee and volunteer recruitment, but most of us inherit these and make the best with what we have.  There are a variety of options that can improve even the most difficult situations:

•     Job Descriptions  –  If your officers, board members, committee chairs and committee members don’t all have job descriptions, sit down NOW and write them!  These will no doubt be subject to editing and approval by several sets of eyes, but not only will the various individuals be accountable for something, you may find that they are quite relieved to have them outlined.  It will also help during future recruiting, having a one-sheet available, when the prospect asks, “What do I need to do?”  Fund raising will obviously be part of this description, along with donating at a level that is appropriate to their circumstances.  (Many grant applications specifically ask “What is the percentage of your board that donates?”)

•     Term Limits – Term limits is a good idea, so that people’s various talents can be rotated.  While this is a good tactic for moving dead weight off of a board or committee, that’s not its only purpose.  Even if all of your people are very talented, you constantly need to cultivate and groom new talent.  A fresh perspective is vital to keeping your organization or event innovative.

•     Orientation – ALL board/committee members should attend your orientation – new and old – so that they can meet one another and become acquainted.  While the new members are learning more about the history and mission of your organization or event in greater detail, everyone can bond over deciding upon your future goals.

•     Fund Raising Training – Specific training session(s) for soliciting should be scheduled separately from the orientation, for several reasons.  First of all, some people won’t feel the need, while others view asking people for money as the most despicable act that can be perpetrated.  Mostly what is behind this attitude is a combination of lack of skill and fear of solicitors themselves.  Give them greater skills, and the overall fear will diminish.  As people realize that there are many ways to ask for support – and that they are promoting something that they believe in – the last fear to be conquered isn’t really soliciting . . . it’s typically public speaking, which can be helped with practice, such as role playing.

•     Provide a Tangible Goal – Just as with donors, offer a reason or incentive to your volunteers for why they should do this.  If you’re telling a donor that “$100 will feed a child for ___ days” or “$250 will provide ___ hours of tutoring,” then translate this to your volunteers the same way:  “Reaching our goal of $___ raised per person, for a total of $___ will allow us to build the new _____ Burn Unit, where we can treat 1,200 patients a day.”

Keep in mind that if you don’t demand more from your current volunteers, not only are you preventing yourself from moving forward with the current individuals who refuse to act, but you are also warding off the potentially talented evangelists who support you but refuse to sit in do-nothing meetings.

Previously, I worked for an organization that cooperated with a soup kitchen, but they wouldn’t let me bring my pre-teen daughter, because there had been a problem in the past with a homeless child being identified by a schoolmate volunteer.  It embarrassed the child to be seen in the soup kitchen by a peer.  I understood, and although I wanted my daughter to see the end-users firsthand, instead we worked in one of the food pantries that prepared and delivered the food.

When we arrived, we learned that the volunteer who was bringing the main ingredient – the meat – was running late.  He ended up being over an hour late, while a dozen people waited, and in the meantime, it was discovered that we didn’t have enough of the tomato sauce base that would be required for the recipe as well.  I volunteered to go get it, and bought more than I was told, just in case.

We finally got started at our various stations, cooking, cutting, measuring, stirring, and so forth.  As some of us finished our first stations and moved to do other jobs or take a small break, I overheard one person tell a very off-color joke to another . . . in front of my 12 year-old, and was relieved when I saw the confused look on her face.  She didn’t understand the profanity just uttered in front of her.

Later, during clean up, one gentleman in charge was instructing people to cut the bottoms off of the very large (now empty) cans of sauce I’d purchased, along with all the other cans, to prepare them for recycling.  This puzzled me – and others – and I asked him why this was necessary.  He replied (totally seriously), “That’s how we did it in World War II.”  Uh huh.

Needless to say, that was my first – and last – time volunteering at that organization.  I was, however, a Girl Scout cookie manager for seven years.  There’s a saying: If you want something done, ask a busy person.  But be prepared to give them specific instructions and make the most of their time, or you won’t see them again.

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Keep the base of the pyramid strong