May 22, 2019

Corporate partnerships have become a subject of increasing interest to both nonprofits and corporations alike, with many economic and business arguments being made for why a business should incorporate social elements into their business strategy.

Nowadays, most large nonprofits have their own corporate affairs department dedicated to the sole purpose of establishing such partnerships.

Today, we are happy to have with us long-time corporate partnerships consultant, Derry Deringer, to share more about how you can set up such corporate partnerships and what goes into making a successful partnership.

Elevate: Hi Derry, thanks for joining us today.

Derry: My pleasure.

Elevate: Perhaps to start off, could you tell us why corporate-nonprofit partnerships have become so popular. What sets these arrangements apart from other avenues for giving to a nonprofit?

Derry: Today more than ever, nonprofits are seeking to diversify revenue streams to assure long-term sustainability. Corporate partnerships provide that additional source of support since many nonprofits start off or have traditionally grown through foundation grants and individual donations. What sets these partnerships apart from other avenues is that a nonprofit can benefit from many sources of support from a single entity, for example: employee giving, executive level board placement and straight cash gifts.

Elevate: That makes sense – there’s definitely a lot more diversity with how to engage corporate donors as opposed to private foundations and individual donors. And how should a nonprofit prioritize or decide what it wants or should be getting out of nonprofit partnerships?

Derry: Prioritizing or deciding what you want from a corporate partnership is identified by a mixture of what the nonprofit needs in terms of cash, in-kind and service resources, what your corporate donor audience wants to give and what is realistic for the nonprofit staff to implement over the partnership period. I would gather information in that order and refine the list as you go. A better question to ask during this exercise is – what the nonprofit wants to get out of the partnership and what the partner wants to get out of the partnership as well.

A common mistake of a nonprofit is to look to the business to define the partnership. You take the lead with very large dose of curiosity and empathy for what the business wants and needs.

Elevate: So what you’re saying is that it is better to be clear on the partnership parameters or conditions that your nonprofit will offer before engaging in talks with a corporate partner. How narrowly would you define your partnership parameters?

Derry: I’m a big fan of first being clear on partnership parameters before officially pursuing partnerships. But you can certainly engage your corporate donors and community as you are identifying and creating your parameters. Just be clear about the purpose of the meeting or call. Also important to have beforehand is your gift acceptance policy.

For partnership parameters, I recommend a timeline, minimum cash support requirement and the large building block activities and benefits. How broad and narrow to get with the activity and benefit parameters has a lot to do with what staff can realistically implement and what partners see as the most valuable.

Elevate: In your experience as a corporate partnerships consultant, what are the top 3 ways that corporations like to give or partner with nonprofits?

Derry: Businesses want to give in ways that are aligned as closely as possible to their business needs and that provide benefits that they are not able to get by other means. So, I’ll share a top three in that context and in no particular order:

• Giving cash, in-kind or combination that allows product exposure with a new audience;
• Employee engagement that increases fulfillment, loyalty and meaning to their day job. Types can be a volunteer day, executive on the board or technical advisory role; and
• Long term (say 2-3 years) partnerships that blend a mixture of giving and benefits around a single nonprofit or cause that allows the company to get a deep and broad understanding and give a more meaningful contribution and impact over time.

One business may care a great deal for getting their employees involved in a cause. Another may only care about getting their product in front of a new audience. I start with my full inventory list of ways to give, then work on developing a good relationship with the right contact in order to ask open-ended and context questions until I get a clear view of what is most important to the business.

If you have a corporate partner program, you may only have a handful of partners. So we aren’t talking about dozens of business partners.

Elevate: That is very enlightening. Do you have any useful tools or resources for helping nonprofits to decide on these parameters?

Derry: I suggest the development director and Executive Director collaborate to do a brainstorming excise to develop a list of the most compelling and actionable partnership benefits the organization could provide within their gift acceptance policy. Consider having a facilitator lead a meeting to bring out the best from the group. Bring together select key staff and other stakeholders like donors and board members. Get 10 – 15 people together and have productive hour meeting to get down a solid list then refine it. I do have my own personal resources that I have developed that I am happy to share with nonprofits who approach me.

Make sure to read part 2 of this interview, where we’ll ask Derry for more on what corporations want out of a partnership, and how you can go about finding out these answers.

Derry Deringer is principal of Deringer Consulting which was launched in 2011. Previously, Derry was Director of Corporate Relations at WFP USA. He brings twenty-five years of experience with nonprofit, business and international organizations. Deringer Consulting helps executives and teams grow faster with better fundraising and better strategic planning. His favorite work is helping clients accelerate growth through a unique blend of coaching, consulting and facilitation methods. And the best place to start with every new client? … right where they are. Schedule a call with Derry today! 202.494.9170 | derry@deringerconsulting.com

March 21, 2019

In part one of this series, we talked about why building a successful grants program means playing the long game – one that requires patience, perseverance, and resilience.

This post breaks down exactly what it means to build resilience in your grants program and the specific steps you can take to start moving in the right direction.

Step 1: Build resilience and put yourself in the right conditions

(Last wine analogy, I promise!) The pinot noir grape has a very thin skin, giving it a beautiful ruby color. Its transparency famously allows it to tell the truest story of the conditions it faced that year (i.e., the soil and the climate). It can survive in high heat and deep cooling (but only to an extent) and doesn’t do well in overcrowded plots.

The pinot noir grape can be resilient—but only if a winemaker understands its strengths and weaknesses and uses that information to put it in the best possible conditions.

And then it just sings.

As grant writers, we too have to learn how to put ourselves in the best possible conditions for building funder relationships and developing strong proposals. The trick I have learned, after surviving tons of declinations, is to learn from them and even lean into it.

First: request and honestly consider funder feedback. Funder feedback is one of the most valuable resources in a developing grants program. Thinking that, “Funders/foundations just don’t get it”, or, “We have zero chance of winning this,” will never result in improved cultivation or relationships—and certainly won’t help you win more grants. But seeking feedback and reflecting on what can be legitimately improved upon is key to your success.

Sometimes, asking once is not enough. After the initial declination, funders may say that they can’t or won’t provide feedback. But don’t give up. Wait a month or so and ask again. Respectfully request a conversation so that you can better understand how their funding priorities align with your work.

The worst that can happen is that they say “no.” I know this is not comforting, but hopefully it does give you a little bit of confidence that there are only so many outcomes. And you can’t control their decision-making—only your own preparation. For many funders, it can take more than one application to break through, and plenty of foundations do not have the human resources to speak with all potential applicants. 

Step 2: Lift up your genuine strengths and recognize your organizational challenges

Know what your strengths are and stick with them. To connect authentically with funders, maintain an awareness of trends, but do not bend to them. There is nothing more obvious to a funder than a proposal that includes a program or work-plan that was clearly designed specifically to match the available funding but does not actually portray the applicant’s authentic strengths or mission-aligned endeavors.

Be honest with yourself about your organizational challenges and liabilities. Is your grants program understaffed? Under-resourced? Do you have high-quality, evidence-based programs and evaluation measures in place to prove your effectiveness? Is your program sustainable? Answering these questions with honesty and clarity is critical to writing an application that speaks to funders.

Step 3: Focus on strategies that align with your priorities

Develop your internal capacity for strategies that work. First, plan and staff-up for the long-term. Understand that you should budget with the assumption that it will take 12-18 months to realize serious returns, in either funding or significant learning about what does or doesn’t work. Then, make sure you’re properly staffed to dedicate the time needed to conduct in-depth research and draft quality proposals. This could also mean outsourcing some of the work.

In your prospect research, choose quality over quantity. Learn to say “no” to external trends (what seems “hot” in funding, if it is not already what you do authentically) and internal pressures (boards, CEOs, etc.) Saying “no” is an art and can be incredibly difficult but is key to your success.

Seek opportunities to have conversations with internal stakeholders and decision-makers, and be prepared to justify the strategy you’ve developed. Explain that quality over quantity is going to result in fewer, but better and more sustainable outcomes.

Develop a strategy for your prospect research (i.e., coming up with keywords for your work, key fields you work in, peers in your field, etc.) and stay disciplined until you find your diamonds. Don’t waste your time with barely-aligned funders. There’s a fine balance between knowing when you have no shot and not leaving money on the table when there is a real chance. Learning to recognize this takes time and experience. Even then, you won’t always be right.

Once you have extensively researched well-aligned funders, invest in good cultivation to learn if you are well-aligned with their priorities. Write to them asking for clarification of funding priorities, expressing genuine interest in making the best of their time and your own. In these conversations, it is important to learn from what they have to say, as opposed to seeking validation for your programs.

If cultivation seems difficult, read up on how others get over their personal hurdles, and how organizations can best distribute fundraising responsibilities based on personalities. Keep a cultivation chart (an Excel sheet works great!) to track your progress with each funder, the stage you’re in with them, and historical notes so you can go back and remember what you spoke with them about.

How Will I Know if I’m on the Right Track?

Like the pinot noir grape, grants programs require cultivation and commitment. You will know that you’re on the right track when you start to have meaningful conversations and develop relationships with funders, knowing that this may take months or even a year. Most funders really want to help you—the reality is that they are just as busy as you are. So, you need to remain humble. Be grateful for their time and continue improving your conditions to put yourself in the best light for funding.

Follow these steps, and you can be very successful at fundraising through grants.

March 15, 2019

A few years ago, I was asking a winemaker about the process of winemaking. He was working at a relatively young winery in a developing wine region. He told me that it would take seven years before he would come to understand the outcome of his strategy and his gut feeling about what he had planted.

I keep this story in mind every time my clients and I begin feeling anxious about the results of a grant submission.

Having been on the other side of grantmaking, I know that it takes a significant amount of human resources to make funding decisions. It’s not uncommon to have to wait 6-8 months (or even up to a year) before hearing back about a funding decision. And, whether or not they ultimately fund your proposal, you want funders spending the time they need to make sure those precious dollars are going where they are needed most. Just like good winemaking, good grant writing takes time, patience, and perseverance. 

Why Grant Writing Feels Personal

I feel on a daily basis the justifiable stress and anxiety of all my nonprofit clients as they try to meet their revenue goals and get “in” with funders. It’s not uncommon to email funders and receive no response. Or, worse, to be emailing back and forth with funders and to suddenly be ghosted and never hear back from them again.

Not earning a response to a well-crafted and genuine note to a funder can feel like a personal rejection, or a rejection of the work you believe in. We all know what it feels like to put a ton of work into a complicated application, only to be declined with a very short and (often sweet) note that somehow, the awardees were more compelling or meritorious — but they regret that they can’t tell you why. (Always respectfully request feedback, anyway; read on to find out how.)

The more you apply, the more you lose. Sometimes it can feel like one (gleeful) step forward, just to then take 3-4 steps back.

It feels personal because the stakes are so high. You believe in your mission, and very likely, many people depend on you and your organization’s work; it’s hard to understand why someone else might not believe in it with the same enthusiasm that you have.

The (Semi-) Good News: You’re Not Alone

Grant writing is notoriously difficult. The national win rate (rate of success winning a grant applied for) is 17% A win rate of 30-40% on new funding (funders not familiar with your organization) and 50-60% on combined (existing programs and funders and new programs and funders) is considered   extraordinary.

Still, we understand the challenge. In addition to the odds seemingly being stacked against nonprofits when it comes to winning grants, one of the reasons so many nonprofit organizations struggle with their grant programs is because they lack the necessary resources. Research, cultivation (communicating with funders before applying), and writing proposals are all time-intensive and expensive processes. I’ve seen large organizations with multi-million-dollar budgets struggle to properly staff and efficiently manage the amount of time and coordination it takes among the development, program, and administrative staff to get a successful proposal out the door—even when the Elevate team adds writing and research capacity.

Just like wine-making, grant writing is experimental. You’re not going to be able to predict the success of your grants program until you have enough experience—and enough funder feedback to learn what will work for your organization. There’s a lot to fine tune – from your grant language, your programmatic strengths and weaknesses, what funders respond to, and beyond.

Just like some grapes grow and thrive best in certain climates or soil, your proposals and your programs will resonate with certain funders more than others. Further, just like in winemaking, your work is susceptible to external factors and trends beyond your control. Grapes are susceptible to the climate and wine production is usually responsive to market trends, just as grantmaking is susceptible to the economy and philanthropic trends.

Great. It’s Tough. What Now?

What exactly does all this mean for your organization?

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series, where we’ll break down exactly what it means to build up resilience in your grants program!

February 13, 2019

Program budgets are one of the most common attachment requests from funders, yet they are often one of the most confounding requests for even well-established nonprofit organizations.

However, having strong, fiscally-sound program budgets can not only improve your chances of winning a grant, but also support organizational budget planning and program management.

Below are our answers to four frequently asked questions, to help you begin to craft your own program budget:

1. Why are program budgets important to funders?

In short, funders want to know where their money is going. Organizational budgets often have lots of information rolled up into a handful of line items. And for multi-service organizations, in particular, it can be difficult to determine how much time and money any one program requires. A well-crafted program budget will complement your grant narrative, providing a more detailed picture of the inputs required to operate each program effectively and the need for the exact funding requested.

2. How do we create a program budget?

Creating program budgets should ideally be a collaborative process between your program, development, and finance teams, as each holds specific information needed to complete this task.

The program team should identify the inputs to the program: what staff members work on that particular program, what other contractors or vendors provide supports for this program, and what other direct costs are needed to execute the program (listed below).

The development team should identify the relevant revenue sources for the program: what current and prospective funding streams and/or particular funders support that program and determine what other financial resources are needed to match the program’s expenses.

The finance team should then take these inputs and calculate the exact revenue and expense for each program aligned to their internal accounting controls.

3. What do we include in a program budget?

Program budgets not only can but SHOULD include the salary and fringe benefits costs associated with the staff time relevant to this project. Other common direct expense line items that should be included in a program budget may include:

• Supplies
• Equipment
• Evaluation
• Client transportation
• Program staff transportation
• Recruitment and/or marketing
• Printing
• Curriculum
• Staff training and professional development
• Database fees
• Facilities costs or space rental fees
• Telecommunication costs

Note: if you are unsure of how to differentiate between Supplies and Equipment, the University of Arizona defines equipment as, “tangible personal property (including information technology systems) having a useful life of more than one year and an acquisition cost of $5,000 or more per unit.”

Don’t forget – you can and SHOULD include a 5-10% administrative cost to your program expenses! Administrative expenses help to cover the very necessary costs of running your organization—management and administrative salaries, annual audits, central office costs, etc. Once you have determined the direct costs to your program, add an additional 5-10% administrative expense to the budget total. However, be sure to check each funder’s guidelines to see if they have any specific restrictions on administrative costs.

4. How do we calculate how much to allocate to the program budget?

This will vary by organization and your exact accounting methods. However, two helpful rules of thumb are:

To calculate salary costs: you must determine which staff members support that program and what percent of each staff person’s time is dedicated to that program, then calculate this cost based on their full-time salary.

Use the following formula to calculate staff costs:
(% of staff time spent on program) x (staff salary + benefits)

For example:
(0.4) X ($52,500+ $7,500) = $24,000 allocated to the program budget.

You can use a similar formula when calculating direct costs shared across multiple programs.

To determine direct costs that are shared by multiple programs across the organization: try your best to determine what share of the costs goes to each program and allocate accordingly. If, for example, you use a database to store information for all three of your programs, the total annual cost of your database fees should be divided by three across each program budget.

Proactively creating budgets for each of your programs not only avoids stress during the grant submission process, but can actually support organizational budgeting, strategy, and growth.

January 10, 2019

Translating your organization’s work into a comprehensive yet concise proposal is no easy task.

To make things easier, we have compiled a list of recommendations based on our staff’s interactions and surveys conducted with Foundation staff.  In this post, we share an insider’s scoop on tips and tricks to follow at every stage of the writing process from planning to proofreading.

Here are five strategies—straight from the nation’s leading funders—on how to write a grant proposal that stands out from the rest.

MAP IT OUT

• Outline your responses. Preparation is the most important stage in grant writing. It puts you on the right track for a strong draft—and saves a LOT of time in the long-run. Before drafting, use a few bullet points to identify the topics you want to cover in each section.
• Answer the question they’re asking—not the one you want them to ask. It’s simple enough, but funders frequently come across applications that do not answer the stipulated question, or attempt to use an answer that was tailored for a slightly different question. For example, a response to, “Describe the community need addressed by your program.” should only include the rationale behind your program—not the activities that are part of your program.
• Answer ALL parts of a question. It’s not uncommon to find multiple questions nested within a single section. For example, “Describe the outcomes that will be measured for each of the goals outlined above and whether evaluations will be internal or external.” is posed as a single question—but really requires you to discuss both outcomes and evaluation methodology. Pay close attention to these sections in your outline to avoid overlooking nested questions in your draft.

DON’T TAKE SHORTCUTS

• Write a unique answer for each section. Take advantage of the space you’re given to include as many details about your organization or project as possible. Using the same content to answer multiple questions signals to funders that you either didn’t understand the questions, or that your programs are not well-developed.   
• Never use an old application. Write a fresh proposal when applying for renewed funding or when applying for a grant that you were previously denied. Funders want to see the growth and evolution of your organization. 

…BUT DON’T TAKE THE SCENIC ROUTE EITHER

• Organize your thoughts: Each section of a response should serve a clear purpose. For example, if the first half of a paragraph is dedicated to describing the national scope of an issue, all information related to this topic should be included in that section—not scattered throughout the proposal.
• Condense your language: Funders don’t like reading unnecessarily long proposals. Keep your writing concise by replacing long phrases with one or two powerful words. For example:
  • To measure the effectiveness of our program… à To evaluate our program…
  • Students who are considering enrollment can… à Prospective students can…

KEEP IT SIMPLE

• Don’t overuse jargon. If you’re a nonprofit in the health sector and you’re writing to a small family foundation, phrases like “social determinants of health,” and “patient-centered outcomes” will likely fly over the funder’s head. Opt for simpler language. Or, simply limit your use of jargon and be sure to clearly define each term before introducing another.
• Don’t overuse abbreviations/acronyms. Let’s say you are writing a grant for the hypothetical nonprofit Future Markets for Tomorrow (FMFT). The sentence “Partnering with the ACLU advances FMFT’s BAA program.” can be confusing—especially if the full-form of each acronym was introduced several pages earlier. The sentence is more reader-friendly when re-written as, “Partnering with the ACLU advances our budget analysis and advocacy initiatives.”
• Never use the word funder. Grantmakers prefer to be referred to as partners, collaborators, allies, supporters, or investors. Referring to grantmakers as “funders” creates the impression that you see them as a piggy bank rather than a thought partner. 

REMEMBER THE LITTLE THINGS

• Remember to delete all copy placeholders (i. “XXX”). Limit your use of copy placeholders to one or two types. (I generally use either square brackets or XXX in all my placeholders.) This allows me to easily use the Ctrl+F search feature when I’m reviewing the final draft to find any stray placeholders.
• Never submit a proposal with another funder’s name in the copy. If you’re adapting language from one proposal to use in other funding applications, carefully proofread each application to ensure that you’re writing to the right organization. Using the same search tool can be helpful here to confirm that the old funder’s name is no longer in the application.
• Never write to the wrong person. Check the funder’s website or IRS Form 990 to verify that you have the correct name and title of the person you’re writing to.
• Clearly label your attachments. Funders prefer attachments to be labeled with both your organization’s name and the file type. (Example: United Way 2018 Audit).

November 26, 2018

THIS POST IS PART OF A SERIES.
YOU CAN READ PART 1 HERE AND PART 2 HERE.

As Giving Tuesday has become known as the global day of giving, it also needs to be viewed as the launch of an organization’s year-end fundraising campaign.

In my work as a development consultant, I caution organizations to not put all their eggs into one basket when it comes to Giving Tuesday. What I mean by this is that Giving Tuesday can be disappointing if an organization uses it as a one-day event to reach its fundraising goal.

Rather, your organization’s Giving Tuesday campaign should act as more of a kickoff than a standalone strategy, and work in conjunction with your end-of-year campaign. Using Giving Tuesday as a soft launch allows your organization to be strategic in its approach to raising funds to meet your end-of-year goals. By using the buzz and excitement around this special day to garner the first donations for your year-end campaign, you can build the social proof your campaign page needs to spur others to donate through the end of the year.

GIVING TUESDAY: PART OF A BIGGER STRATEGY

As you finalize your Giving Tuesday campaign, here are some Do’s and Don’ts to help you establish its role in your larger end-of-year fundraising strategy:

GIVING TUESDAY DON’TS

• Don’t think of Giving Tuesday as short term gain. Think of it instead as a long-term investment into a full end of the year fundraising campaign.
• Don’t view Giving Tuesday as being only about fundraising. It doesn’t have to be.  In fact, you don’t have to ask for money at all on Giving Tuesday. I suggest rather using it as a day to raise awareness of your organization and its mission. Highlight how money raised from supporters will increase the social impact of the organization.
• Don’t set a goal specific to Giving Tuesday, but rather an end of the year campaign goal.
• Don’t use Giving Tuesday as the benchmark for judging how your campaign will perform.  It’s only one tool in your campaign toolbox.

GIVING TUESDAY DO’S

• Do use Giving Tuesday as a way to enhance your relationships with your donors, prospects, corporate partners and sponsors.
• Do use Giving Tuesday as one (and only one) of your strategies to reach your end of year campaign goal. It’s a great way to launch and test new messaging about your organization’s mission and programs.
• Do use Giving Tuesday as an opportunity to tell the story of your organization and your mission. STORYTELLING is key on Giving Tuesday, and it is a perfect time to share compelling and interesting information about your organization.
• Do accompany your Giving Tuesday launch with a well thought out social media and mobile strategy. Share a variety of types of social posts including video (if possible), storytelling, interesting snippets of data about your programs, compelling metrics, and historical facts about your organization.  With every posting, be sure to include a prominent ‘Donate’ button.
• Do follow up after Giving Tuesday with your end of year campaign, in which you will ask for support throughout the duration of it.

Laura Tucker has more than 15 years of nonprofit fundraising experience with an expertise in donor cultivation and major gift development. Laura is a highly creative results-driven development strategist with entrepreneurial passion, drive and vision. Laura has many years of professional experience generating revenue and increasing support bases for expanding national nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Her experience includes executive and volunteer leadership roles particularly in the sciences and public safety sectors. Laura is very comfortable working with and re-organizing leadership Boards, gaining corporate philanthropic support and planning and executing consumer driven promotional fundraisers. Given Laura’s background in public relations, she can effectively articulate the mission of the organization she is representing.

October 31, 2018

THIS POST IS PART 2 OF A SERIES.
YOU CAN READ PART 1 HERE AND PART 3 HERE.

There are many different strategies that nonprofits use to increase their giving.

Whether your organization decides to set up an online profile on a giving platform or use traditional appeal letters to reach potential donors, a tried and tested way to increase donations is the use of tiered donation lists or suggested donation options to make a compelling ask.

With Giving Tuesday around the corner, we are taking a closer look at both how and why you should consider using a tiered donation list in your donation appeals.

Why set donations tiers?

Tiered donation lists and suggested donations are based on the social influence effect, which coerces an individual’s decision-making based on social norms or social information provided to them. In a study on the Impact of Social Influence on the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods, researchers Jen Shang and Rachel Croson found that suggesting donation levels increased average contributions by 12% for all donors by telling donors what is an ‘appropriate’ level to give. Furthermore, these increased donation levels were sustained with higher donor renewal rates in subsequent years!

Tiered donation lists take suggested donations a step further by providing context and impact for each donation level. This allows potential donors to understand how their money is making a difference. In their study on what they coined as the “identified intervention effect,” researchers found that highlighting details about the charity’s impact significantly increased a donor’s generosity.

By combining details about a nonprofit’s impact with suggested donation levels, tiered donation lists use a multiplier effect to increase the generosity and giving probability of potential donors.

Making Impact Goals: The SMART Approach

When creating fundraising or impact goals for your organization, a good way to make sure you are providing a compelling fundraising appeal is to use the SMART Approach. This approach was originally conceived for project management by George Doran in a 1981 article titled, There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives.

To put simply, your impact should be:

• Specific – Where is the impact taking place? Who is benefitting? What is the impact? How will the impact improve a beneficiary’s standard of living?
• Measurable – Number of people impacted? Number of units of aid provided?
• Attainable – Can the impact/fundraising target be achieved within the specified time frame?
• Relevant – Is the impact something donors can connect with?
• Time-Based – What timeline will create a sense of urgency while also being realistic?

One way to structure your appeal is to list your SMART fundraising goal, followed by SMART tiered donation options that relate to your fundraising goal. For example:

There are a variety of ways to structure your tiered donation lists. The benefit of using different measurable impacts, as in the example above, is that it allows for donors to get a better idea of the different activities an organization is doing to make an impact.

Notice that in the example above, each donation option speaks to something that every person can identify with in pursuing an education – paying school tuition, having school uniform/supplies, and transportation to go to school. It is very important that the impacts you choose to highlight are relatable to your target audience. Additionally, setting a timeline is crucial to convince donors as to why donating now is necessary. In some cases, organizations provide matching donation incentives for donors to donate within a specific time frame. For #GivingTuesday, you should decide if you want to combine your giving campaign with the end of year holiday giving period.

Some organizations choose to use a specific measured impact goal and have all the options refer to the specific impact metric. The World Bicycle Relief is a great example of this where they use donation tiers to show that $150 would be the cost for one bicycle and countdown to their goal of providing 1,400 bicycles. The more specific your impact goal is, the easier it is to make a clear call to action for your potential donors.

For some ideas of other ways you could be structuring your donation tiers, check out CauseVox’s summary of the top five donation tier structures.

How to Set Donation Amounts

Now that you have some ideas of how to convey the impact in donation tiers, you’re probably thinking about what donation tiers work best to inspire giving. The short answer to this is that it depends.

While you can use the impact targets you feature to guide the amounts you choose for each tier, a more scientific approach would be to look at your past giving and giving within your sector to make your tiers. According to Nonprofit Source, the average online gift amount for #GivingTuesday in 2017 exceeded $134. Additionally, Blackbaud analyzed $1.9 billion in online gifts in 2016 from more than 4,000 nonprofit organizations in the United States to create a median gift amount for each sector. These figures can be combined with your organization’s past giving to come up with a good benchmark and giving tiers.

Use Anchoring to Your Advantage

To take things a step further, you could try adding a default option to your tiered donation list to leverage a marketing technique called anchoring. This technique relies on the brain’s tendency to heavily rely on the first piece of information (such as price) offered when making decisions. In the case of donations, it will cause people to tend to give closer to the anchored value than they otherwise might have.

Marketing researchers Indranil Goswami and Oleg Urminsky suggest that fundraisers might be overly apprehensive about using defaults in their donation campaigns. In their 2016 study, they found that setting donation defaults increased donation revenue in two ways: (1) by setting a lower default, it increased the number of smaller donors that gave to an organization; and (2) by setting higher defaults, it increased the average giving of each donor but reduced the total number of donors who gave.

The anchoring strategy you choose should be dependent on your priorities. If you want to enlarge your pool of donors to help increase your organization’s visibility and donor engagement, then going for a lower anchor or default may serve you better but may come at the expense of a reduced average giving amount across donors. A higher anchor may increase your average giving amongst current donors, but make it harder for you to attract newer donors.

Regardless of the approach you choose, keep in mind that this is an iterative process that requires experimentation to find the best strategy for your organization. Coming up with the best list takes practice, so try showing these lists to current donors and volunteers to get feedback as you find what works for you.

This is the second of three posts in our Giving Tuesday blog series. Check back next soon for our final post.

October 24, 2018

THIS POST IS PART OF A SERIES.
YOU CAN READ PART 2 HERE AND PART 3 HERE.

Giving Tuesday is a fundraising force to be reckoned with, with over $645 million raised over the past six years.

Nonprofits across the country are busy preparing their campaigns for this year’s Giving Tuesday, which is rapidly approaching on November 27. As such, we are excited to launch a series of Giving Tuesday blog posts to help you prepare to meet and exceed your fundraising and/or visibility goals for this day of global giving.

We are kicking off the series this week with an introduction to the history of this growing fundraising initiative, and the critical steps your organization should take now to participate this year.

History

Now in its seventh year, Giving Tuesday provides a data-proven occasion for organizations to enhance end-of-year giving. Created by New York’s 92^nd Street Y in partnership with the United Nations Foundation in 2012, Giving Tuesday has become a global movement, joining diverse groups of individuals, communities, and organizations for the common purpose of encouraging and celebrating giving and philanthropy. The idea was to create a day of giving on the Tuesday directly after Thanksgiving, intentionally following mega-consumer days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and is unique in that it brings together the collective power of nonprofits, civic organizations, businesses and corporations, and families and individuals.

Many thought leaders and influencers in social media, philanthropy, and grassroots social change became founding partners of the movement including Cisco, Mashable, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Groupon, UNICEF, Aldo, Sony, Unilever, Skype, Google, and Microsoft. In its first year, the day and concept was quickly popularized by news outlets such as the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and ABC News, and even made it to the official blog of the White House.

By the Numbers

Classy, a leading online and mobile fundraising platform for nonprofits found that nonprofits acquire 3 to 5 times more donors on Giving Tuesday than on a typical day. In 2017 alone, an estimated $300 million was raised online (up from $180 million in 2016) through more than 2.5 million total donations. Last year’s day of giving involved 150+ countries and saw an impressive 21.7 billion social media impressions and 1,010,045 social mentions.

Year over year, Giving Tuesday goals have exceeded expectations. In 2017, Cave Canem Foundation raised well beyond its goal of $5,000, raising about $18,000 in support of African-American poets. The United Way of metropolitan Dallas raised more than $22 million for 92 organizations and logged more than 484,445 volunteer hours. And JPMorgan Chase increased its employee giving 23 percent, generating $4.7 million.

In 2016, DonorsChoose.org had then, their single biggest day in the organization’s history, reporting 17,000 donors, 3,210 completed projects, and $1.8 million raised for classrooms. Also in 2016, the University of Michigan raised $5.5 million and acquired 2,000 new donors.

How Organizations Participate

While Giving Tuesday is a sure bet to increase dollars, the entire day encourages holistic giving in all forms. By harnessing the potential of social media, Giving Tuesday encourages the donation of time, resources, and talents to address local challenges. In 2016, enough toys were collected to break a Guinness world record, and even more notable, one organ-donor registration drive was so successful that someone donated a kidney. The donation of time is also encouraged either day-of or through campaigns and in-person volunteer events that encourage people to sign up to volunteer. Other popular days of service include dance-a-thons, blood drives, and meal and toiletry preparation. Some organizations also encourage or let their stakeholders know how they can hold personal fundraisers on Giving Tuesday with the intent to donate money to their organization.

Last year, the top five issue areas discussed were public and societal benefit, human services, education, health, and the environment and animals. In a survey conducted by Classy, results found that donors feel the number one cause needing the most support this Giving Tuesday 2018 is disaster relief (48 percent) followed by health issues (37 percent) and environmental causes and/or animal issues (36 percent.).

Get Involved!

This year, Giving Tuesday will take place on Tuesday, November 27^th, 2018 but organizations should be planning their approach well in advance in order to truly leverage the day.

In order to get started, organizations need to join the movement by registering on Giving Tuesday’s website. The official Giving Tuesday site also provides a downloadable toolkit that provides resources to getting started with a Giving Tuesday campaign along with ideas and case studies on how other organizations  creatively found ways to get their stakeholders involved as well as reach new audiences with their campaigns.

Whole Whale, a social-impact-focused digital agency, predicts that $331 million will be raised on Giving Tuesday 2018.

The potential of Giving Tuesday is immense. Check out our next post in the series where we discuss ways in which organizations can make a compelling wish list to encourage individual donors to give.

This is the first of three posts in our Giving Tuesday blog series. Stay tuned next week for our next post.

September 28, 2018

For students around the country, September marks the end of summer and the start of Back to School season.

In celebration of this time of year, we’d like to take this opportunity to highlight the great work that nonprofits throughout the sector are doing in the Education space.

Many nonprofit organizations around the country are working from different angles using a variety of program models to ensure education in the U.S. is effective, accessible, and equitable. At Elevate, we believe that progress is possible through the important work that nonprofits do, and we see proof of this every day through the work and dedication of our education-focused clients.

Below are just a few examples of the work our clients are doing to better their communities and ensure high quality education for all.

DC Scholars Community Schools

DC Scholars Community Schools inspires and empowers school leaders through expert thought partnership, operational support, and programmatic strategy — ensuring a stable, high-impact, well-resourced environment in which scholars and families of Southeast DC succeed. Its work embodies its belief that in order to truly prepare scholars for success in college and beyond, they must create schools that not only deliver rigorous instruction, but also serve as communities of joy where students thrive. DC Scholars Community Schools’ vision is for each of its schools to become a true community school that offers supports and opportunities for students, their families, and their communities.

Edcamp Foundation

The Edcamp Foundation builds and supports communities of empowered educators across the United States through peer-led, participant-driven professional learning opportunities. They provide an organizational platform for educators to engage in local learning events using an “unconference” model, while building a nationwide network of teachers to share best practices. The end result of an Edcamp event is engaged, empowered, and prepared teachers who adopt effective methods in their classrooms and become leaders and change agents in their schools.

The Literacy Lab

The Literacy Lab’s mission is to provide low-income children with individualized reading instruction to improve their literacy skills, leading to greater success in school and increased opportunities in life. The Literacy Lab recognizes that many high-need schools are faced with the challenge of both an achievement gap and a resource gap; their approach to this challenge is to provide schools with evidence-based literacy intervention and assessment tools, rigorously trained full-time tutors to implement the model, and a coaching and support structure that ensures the success of the program and students. In the 2017-18 school year alone, over 220 full-time Literacy Lab tutors helped over 4,000 students in over 100 schools every day. This year, The Literacy Lab is going back-to-school with partners in Washington, DC, Kansas City, Missouri, Richmond, Virginia, Baltimore, Maryland, Springfield, Massachusetts, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

pHiladelphia Education Fund

The Philadelphia Education Fund (Ed Fund) has been working to move the needle on public education in Philadelphia for more than three decades. They work to remove barriers to college and career success for students by offering a full complement of research-based programs and services. Through their experienced and committed staff, the Philadelphia Education Fund continues to address the ever-changing academic standards, emerging educational trends, and shifting regional workforce needs through college advising, scholarships, and STEM career exposure. The Ed Fund currently serves 17,000 students across Philadelphia, with programs in 27 schools.

The Education Law Center

The Education Law Center’s mission is to ensure access to a quality public education for all children in Pennsylvania. They pursue this mission by advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable students — children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English Language Learners, LGBTQ students, and children experiencing homelessness. ELC employs a broad range of strategies to accomplish this mission, including direct legal representation, impact litigation, educating parents and students about their legal rights, supporting community-based groups, and policy advocacy at the local, state, and federal levels.

September 12, 2018

As nonprofit organizations rely on financial donations as their primary source of funding, so too must they rely on their Chief Executive Officers (CEO) to be their primary fundraiser.

For a nonprofit organization to reach its full fundraising potential, its CEO must understand the role of fundraising and be a true partner to the development team in the fundraising process.

As development professionals it can be difficult to know how to effectively engage your CEO in your fundraising activities and goals. In this blog post, I’ve shared  7 strategies for doing just that and provided an example of how this has worked for me in the past.

What is the CEO’s role in fundraising?

I like to think of CEOs as Networkers in Chief. Usually, they have reached the position of CEO after years spent at various management levels in their industries, and they are almost always very connected in their field.  In addition to being Chief Executive Officer, the CEO is also chief strategic thinker, thought leader of the company and advocate for the organizational vision of a better world. The CEO manages, inspires and excites the board, staff, and donors about the mission and the work of the nonprofit. Community leaders, business leaders, and stakeholders will look to the CEO to set the tone for the organization.  Because of the role the CEO plays, he/she will have access to the highest level of leadership in the community which is critical for spreading the organization’s message and building relationships that can lead to significant financial support.

The Development Director/CEO Relationship

It is the job of the development professional to not only explain to the CEO as to why he/she needs to be a fundraising partner but to help him/her understand how powerful a role he/she can play. Development professionals need to work to understand their CEO’s strengths so that they can leverage those strengths in the fundraising process. They also need to work with the CEO closely to understand his/her working style and limitations.

Strategies for Leveraging your Networker in Chief:

I lean on seven tools when encouraging CEOs to be more engaged in the fundraising process:

1. Create a strategic fundraising plan. Provide the CEO with a simple, thoughtful, strategic fundraising plan and review it with him/her so they understand the goals and deliverables
2. 2. Hold strategy sessions. Set time aside to speak to the CEO about the fundraising process and explain what his/her role is.
3. Set calendar appointments to review contacts. Set up scheduled meetings with the CEO to review his/her network of colleagues and friends. This is the beginning of a major gift donor prospect list.
4. Share success stories. Share stories of other nonprofit CEO’s achieving fundraising success.
5. Have coaching sessions. Make sure the CEO is comfortable asking donors for money and knows how to do it properly. Do role-playing exercises. Help the CEO feel good about his/her role in the ask.
6. Utilize the CEO’s strengths. If the CEO is a great writer, ask him/her to partner with you in writing a targeted appeal letter or white paper. If he/she is better at speaking publicly have him/her shoot an appeal video to use for social media posts.
7. Lead. Don’t be afraid to tell the CEO to get back on track and hold him/her accountable to a promise. CEOs want development staff to hold them accountable. It is usually the development professional who is uncomfortable playing this role, but that must be overcome to achieve success. A CEO is waiting for you to lead them!

Case Study

I had a recent experience working with an Association in which the CEO had access to many high net worth colleagues and friends who I wanted to cultivate as donor prospects.  However, the CEO was very reluctant to reach out to his friend base and ask for money because he felt as if it was a form of begging.

I knew that to get the CEO to open his contact list and start to cultivate his network that we’d have to come up with a specific strategic vision. So, I worked with other executive staff members to identify one important programmatic area in which they wanted to raise money for, and we set up a plan to achieve our fundraising goals.  I then set a meeting with our CEO to review our fundraising plan with the specific target.  He started feeling more comfortable with the idea of asking his network of colleagues and friends for money for a specific agenda item rather than money for general organizational support.

After getting to know this CEO’s style and comfort zone, I suggested I reach out to his contacts using his name as an introduction in my email.  He was supportive of this as it took the burden of solicitation away from him and helped me to form relationships of my own with his network.  Once my CEO saw donations from his network of friends and colleagues coming in he felt much more relaxed and confident about fundraising in general.

Laura Tucker has more than 15 years of nonprofit fundraising experience with an expertise in donor cultivation and major gift development. Laura is a highly creative results-driven development strategist with entrepreneurial passion, drive and vision. Laura has many years of professional experience generating revenue and increasing support bases for expanding national nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Her experience includes executive and volunteer leadership roles particularly in the sciences and public safety sectors. Laura is very comfortable working with and re-organizing leadership Boards, gaining corporate philanthropic support and planning and executing consumer driven promotional fundraisers. Given Laura’s background in public relations, she can effectively articulate the mission of the organization she is representing.