Playing Well With Others

Posted on March 15, 2012 by

Most of the time, I feel like the luckiest person alive.  I love my work and 90% of my clients are nothing short of amazing.  But then there is that “some of the time,” and the 10% of my clients who are amazing in completely different ways.

It’s not that they are bad people or organizations in any way, shape or form.  It is just that they do not know what they want, how I can help them, and/or what their role in this whole consulting is.

Let’s start with that first.  Whether you are working with a consultant or not, before you tackle anything it really is a good idea to know what your expectations are.  What do you hope to accomplish?  What, at the end of all this (whatever this is) what will have occurred that will make you feel that you took the right path?  And let me give you a hint here, if you are thinking of hiring or have hired a consultant to help you define your fundraising program, the outcome will NOT be “raised millions of dollars.”  The outcome should be:  “have the foundation in place from which we can now go out and raise millions….”  Most consultants help to define best ways for YOU to accomplish something;  few actually do the work for you.

But even if you are not bringing outside help in, do think seriously about your desired outcomes.  While I would be the last person to turn my nose down at dollar goals, I do think that too often we focus on money rather than the really important stuff like building a strong donor pool, creating an awareness, developing a structure.

Always, when I start working with a new client, we develop a “scope of work.”  Indeed, generally that is the focus of my proposal and how I craft my approach.  Scopes do change in what I’ll call the “discovery” phase as we assess the landscape and see what is there, but typically it’s the details that get edited and not the plot.  However, every so often I find that the scope of work is so divorced from the reality on the ground it is almost breathtaking.  But again, most of the time, we talk it through, get grounded and move forward, albeit in a different direction than originally anticipated.

Once in a great while—and I am in one of those whiles with one of my clients right now—I am clearly in a different reality.  I am asked to create something viable out of whole cloth. Which I can do, but we are all going to be disappointed.

Which leads to the second issue, not understanding how I can help.

No consultant, no matter what some of us would like you to believe, can provide you with a magic bullet.  Fundraising, strategic planning, building a stronger, better board—all take a lot of work.  We can write a fantastic plan, but it will be the one that sits on the shelf unless it is (a) connected to your reality and (b) is something that you will use after it is written.

Honest, ongoing conversations about how to use your consultant will make it a better engagement for both of you.  In fact, honest, ongoing conversations with staff and, especially volunteers, about the same issues will make a world of difference.  Be very clear about your expectations—what you want them to do (and not to do) and—leading right into the next issue, what your role in all of this is.

If you want me to help you improve your fundraising capacity, for example, I need to have access to information and to people.  If you want a plan, I need to understand where you are and where you hope to get.  I can’t do this alone;  I need your time at the very least.  And if I ask for specific information, it’s really helpful to get it.

By the same token, I should be able to give you what you ask for.  It is—or should be–a partnership.  Again, it’s much how you need to work with your Board, or how your Board needs to work with you.  Too often, I go into an organization where staff tells me that the Board isn’t doing its job only to hear from the Board members that they are not getting the guidance and assistance they need to be successful (or even to get started!).

Clarity on both sides of what is expected, commitment to a timeframe, and sharing of knowledge is critical for success.

 

Janet Levine works collaboratively with nonprofit staff and board members to reach fundraising goals.  Learn more at http://janetlevineconsulting.com

 

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Online Overload

Posted on March 8, 2012 by

More than a decade ago, my friend and colleague Bo Morton and I created an online grants class.  The class, which is offered through a large online class provider  is very much of its time—all text and no moving parts.

In its heyday, we had over a hundred students in each section (new sections open monthly), and based on student comments, the course was well liked.  But things change, and text-based courses are no longer so popular.  Our students now number in the twenties per section, and quite a few of them find the presentation boring.  They want visuals, videos, sound and excitement.  The ones who flourish tend to be somewhat older, less inclined to look for distraction when they are trying to learn.

The students we are not getting are largely those who have discovered the wealth of webinars, seminars, podcasts, videocasts offered on the web—much of it free.

Daily, I get notified of this webinar, that free presentation, this one that isn’t but is a “Must!”  I feel overwhelmed by the marketing.  It’s beyond me to even consider taking advantage of all this bounty.  When I do, however, I am often dismayed.  It’s rarely information they are providing, but rather services and/or products that they are pitching.  New-age infomercials.  And when there is rich content, the bells and whistles often obscure the information rather than enhance.

Part of the problem is that the time and effort seems to be put into the slides (for webinars) or the production of visuals; much less into the writing of the script and even less into the performance.  I have dozed through most of the webinars I’ve attended, discovering early on that the droning voice was merely reading what was up on screen.

We’ve all heard of death by PowerPoint—but really it is worse when you are alone with your monitor without the other people in the room to lend energy.  I tended to drift toward my email client and do that.  I use the past tense because I have for the most part given up on “attending” webinars, though I do occasionally present them.  When I do, I try to make them interactive—asking for feedback, questions, comments—anything to get some sort of communal learning going.  And I don’t read from my slides.

But with all that information that is offered, I sometimes wonder when anyone does the work.  I give (face-to-face) a “One-Person Development Office” workshop.  So far no one has copped to “professional development” as one of the barriers to actually going out and fundraising, but it’s a question I may have to begin to ask.

Dating myself here, I remember when listservs first came on the scene.  At the beginning, they seemed to provide a wealth of information and a terrific forum for sharing.  But soon, the questions got repetitive and the responders dwindled to a vociferous few.  Interestingly, all the industry specific listservs I trolled would feature the same names over and over—and I wondered how they got anything else done.

Social media is replicating that.  I get told from colleagues if only I would tweet regularly, I would have thousands of followers.  To what end? I ask.  I already blog and have a newsletter (sign up here), but to do the rest correctly would mean shortchanging something in my life—and I’m not willing to do that to my clients (or my husband).

I had started down this path because of 10 emails I had received, 4 were about webinars; two were free, one was not and one I would have had to clicked through to register to find out.  I did look up the people presenting these and was not surprised to find that only two of them had any real world experience in the field in which they were purporting to be experts.  There’s a lot of that in consulting, also.

And then, as so often happens when I write, I started being pulled in several similar but different directions.

The joy of blogging is that one doesn’t always have to make a particular point or wrap it all up nicely.  So today, I won’t.  But I would be interested in your thoughts on all these online courses.

I have to confess that for me, the value of the many conferences I attended when I worked on staff was the people I met and the relationships I built.  Some of the sessions were really good; many were mediocre.  Some—we won’t go there because I am notorious for walking out when something doesn’t please me.  But I did always get an idea or two, got jazzed to revisit something I had forgotten all about and to this day still count as colleagues (and mentors!) people I met at conferences.  I just don’t think you get that online.

So do share your thoughts; tell me what you love/hate about online courses, and if they’ve replaced conferences and face-to-face trainings for you.

 

Janet Levine works with nonprofit organizations, helping them to wrap their development programs up nicely and profitably.  She also is a regular trainer at the Center for Nonprofit Management in Los Angeles and offers workshops less regularly in other venues.  Find out more at http://janetlevineconsulting.com

 

 

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Keeping An Open Mind

Posted on February 29, 2012 by

I am not an event person. I don’t like gala dinners, carnivals, poker nights.  And I especially don’t like them as fundraisers.  I think they are ineffective and costly.  I believe that there are so many better ways to raise money.  In fact, I think that the best way to fundraise is to get out in front of people and have individual meetings.

But my likes and dislikes aren’t always the best indicators of what an organization should do.

I just finished a retreat with an all-volunteer group. Their fundraising nut isn’t large, but it is greater than the sum the board members can collectively give.  So the focus was on fundraising and, specifically, the barriers to fundraising for them.

For starters, the organization doesn’t have a database of prospects and prior donors.  How would they begin to identify people who might support their organization?

Time was another big issue.  They all have day jobs, families, other things in which they are involved.  And, to be honest, fundraising can be a real slog.

With no identified prospects, do you resort to asking your friends?  If they say yes, are you going to have to return the favor and support their nonprofit?  If they say no, does it put a crimp in your friendship?  But if not your friends, who?

For this group, maybe events are the best way to fundraise—especially if they didn’t do huge galas but focused on small gatherings and even larger parties.  This way they could have fun—something that was identified as important to them—and they could raise awareness of their organization.

The point, of course, is to always remember that one size does not fit all, and that something that you think isn’t a good idea may be in certain circumstances.  Keeping an open mind may allow your organization to get places you never thought it could go.  It can also open up new doors that will lead to new opportunities.

 

Janet Levine works with nonprofits and educational organizations, helping them to identify the best opportunities for them.  Learn more at http://janetlevineconsulting.com  and while there, sign up for her monthly newsletter.

 

 

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Getting Where You Want to Go

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

One thing I’ve learned after more than 30 years working in and around development is that while it may not be rocket science, it isn’t a no-brainer activity.  Just do it may work well for exercise (though, as a long-time gym rat I can tell you about the dangers of that), but fundraising does require thought and yes, planning.

I’m not talking about the once-a-year (or every few years) major effort to build a strategic development plan, though that can be an important piece.  No, the planning I’m talking about is the one you should be doing for every single action you take and every single donor you speak with.

These plans don’t always have to be formal, but they should be concrete and complete.  Before you take an action ask yourself:  Why am I doing this?  What is it that I hope to achieve?

If you can’t answer those questions, then maybe this is something you shouldn’t be doing.  Now, I admit, that for many of our actions the answer is, “Because my boss or the board told me to” and “to keep said boss or board off my back.”  It may not raise any money, but then again, doing it will probably keep you off the unemployment roles.

More to the point, when you are considering visiting with a prospect or donor, do yourself a big favor.  Take some time to consider the purpose(s) of the visit.  If you don’t know much about the person and his or her relationship to your organization, find out.  Yes, it is good form to ask the person to speak to their interest in your organization, but the more you can focus the conversation, the more productive it will be—and the more comfortable the prospect/donor will feel.  So yes, if you must: “Tell me about your relationship with us.”  But think how much more interested and informed you’ll sound if you can say, “I notice that three years ago you made a wonderful gift to our mentoring program, could you tell me more about that?”

Unless the person comes back at you with a horror story, it’s an easy leap to “That’s wonderful.  It’s been so important to the success of that program.”

Or perhaps they haven’t made a gift to your organization, but they have to something similar.  Find out about that relationship and then connect the dots to yours.

Planning will allow you to navigate pathways that will help to bring your prospect or donor closer to you.  And closer is always the direction you want them to take.

It goes beyond knowing about the person (or organization) you are visiting.  What do you hope to accomplish?  And that’s a larger question than “accomplish for this visit?”

Is this a get to know you meeting?  Or a pass on more information one?  Do you want to take the prospect’s pulse or move him or her further along the path toward a gift?  Or perhaps the gift has recently been made and you want to tell the donor what is happening?  Before you go, be very clear about what it is that will make you feel that the meeting was a success.

And then, make sure you think about next steps.  This is the piece where we too often fall down.  We’ve gone, we met, we’re done.  Not.  Every meeting has a next step, just as every step leads to another.

Make it a habit to think about next steps before you embark on your meeting, make that phone, send that piece of correspondence.  Once you’ve done whatever it is that is immediately to be done, look at the next step you’ve considered.  Does it still make sense?  What changed, if anything, to make a different next step more viable?  And then, as you are taking whatever next step you’ve decided upon, think about the step after that.

Make sure, however, that as you are thinking about individual steps you are not losing sight of the rest of the landscape.  One misstep and you can find yourself down the proverbial rabbit hole—which is definitely not where you want to go.

Janet Levine works with nonprofits and educational organizations helping them to get their development programs where they want to go.  Learn more at http://janetlevineconsulting.com.

 

 

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Attitude Adjustment

Posted on February 16, 2012 by

“Oh no,” said the ED.  “We can’t ask the committee members to donate—they are already giving of their time.”

I hear that kind of comment a lot and, frankly, it concerns me.

Who would be more willing to support your organization than the people who are already involved with you?  Who better knows the importance of the work you do?

Asking—even expecting—someone to support your nonprofit organization is not a bad thing.  You are not “hitting on” or “begging” someone to do something shameful or evil.  You are, rather giving that person an opportunity to be (more) involved with something important.  You are asking them to take ownership in the work that you do.  You are, in short, providing something that will make them proud and help them to achieve something that matters to them.  This is the true meaning of “donor-centered fundraising.”

Deciding you won’t ask—because “we already ask so much of them” or, even worse “they don’t have the money to support us”—is, frankly, insulting.  If someone in fact does not have the wherewithal, or feels that they are already giving (in any way) to their max, they will tell you.  And mostly they won’t be insulted you asked.  In fact, most people will be flattered—especially if you have really thought about what you are asking for and connected the dots between the needs of the organization and the hopes and dreams of your donor.

So many of my clients tell me that their clients could never make a charitable gift—they are too financially stretched.  Yet those who do ask their clients to be part of a solution they, more than anyone, know is important, the response is overwhelmingly positive.  It may not result in much money but it sure creates buckets of pride.  Clients are now part of their own solutions and that means almost as much as what they are already receiving from the nonprofit.

Sometimes, of course, the sense that we “keep going back to the well,” is accurate.  A nonprofit finds one or several “angels” and doesn’t look any further for supporters.  The usual suspects become the only prospects, and this does not bode well for the future.  Attitudes must be changed so that the door is opened and more people are invited to the table.

Organizations with successful fundraising programs know that fundraising is a partnership.  People who give do so because they value what you do and want to help ensure that the work continues.  Consider the synonyms for partner:  colleague, companion, cohort, equal.  If you think about your donors in this way, you will approach them in a different way—not so much with your hands held up but with your arms outstretched.

Change from asking them to do something for you to embracing them and inviting them to do something with you.   It’s an attitude adjust that will change your world—and your outlook on what fundraising really, truly is.

 

Janet Levine works with nonprofits and educational organizations helping them to increase their fundraising capacity.  Changing attitudes is a big part of her work.  Learn more at http://janetlevineconsulting.com

 

Posted in development, donor centered fundraising, fundraising, relationships | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment