Straight from the dugout, Pat McLaughlin shares how to “pitch” the right “ask” and “walks” you through his prized baseball collection and colloquialisms. Check out more answers to frequently asked fundraising questions in our “Pat Answers” Video Series.
Does your advancement team find it complicated to plan Fall & year-end donor solicitation appeals? What content should be sent out and when? Here’s your ultimate calendar and guide.
This top guide was created by TTG Consultant, Daniel A. DiDonato, FAHP.
April 1 began a new way of life for Pennsylvanians. Children, High School seniors, and college students had an unexpected ending to their school years. The unemployment numbers spiked—many left without jobs to support loved ones. Fear began to infiltrate homes, leaving many to ask the question, “Where do we go from here?” Or “How can I support my family?”
Keystone Mission identified those fears and quickly transitioned their resources to provide help and hope to the Northeast PA community.
The economic impact the stay-at-home order has on the community of Northeast PA will not define us. On March 23, the leadership of Keystone Mission began to rework its regular food distribution program to become a hub for all who were affected by COVID-19. The Mission started the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provided a bag of food: meats, produce, and other non-perishable items. Individuals from families, shut-in seniors, and those unable to provide for themselves received food once a week, for however long they needed it. CEO (Commission on Economic Operations), US Foods, and The Canning House stepped up to become reliable partners to the Mission. Their support to provide help and hope has made the most significant impact on the community.
Keystone Mission has seen an overwhelming response to the Emergency Food Assistance program since March 23, providing over 260,000 pounds of food to over 20,000 individuals. 7,173 of that 20,000 are families, and 8,261 are children. Help and hope are available to all who are in need.
The Emergency Food Assistance program is not the only support Keystone Mission is offering to the community. In April, the Mayor of Scranton, Paige Cognetti, and Keystone Mission CEO, Justin Behrens, partnered to provide emergency shelter to the homeless population until the end of the stay-at-home orders. The housing is at the Weston Field House (which is where Keystone Mission runs the Code Blue Shelter). The shelter allows 25 residents to receive a bed, food, showers, and case management with Keystone Mission staff.
Going through this community-wide crisis together has helped Keystone Mission refine, clarify, and better tell its “story.” This has resulted in astounding community response for support to Keystone Mission and the residents. We received a $20,000 grant through the Scranton Area Community Foundation and additional funds through the Mission to support the shelter. Due to the generous monetary gifts and donated meals from community members, seven guests have transitioned into permanent housing and are receiving social security cards and benefits, scheduled visits to local agencies for support, and additional help as needed. One group recently experienced a fire that displaced them in Scranton.
To date, 39 individuals have walked through West Field House doors. Examples of life transformation include an eighteen-year-old woman who is pregnant and using drugs. Through the relationships developed at the shelter, she is now dedicated to make a change. Keystone Mission staff worked to place her at a location where she will give birth to her child and she can start her life of transformation. Another amazing story is a 74-year-old guest who was homeless for most of his life and used a walker. Much like the eighteen-year-old, his life was changed because of the relationships developed. He now has his own home, the first one in thirty-five years, and life transformation can continue to happen.
The impact that Keystone Mission continues to have on the community of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties would not be possible without the incredible support of the surrounding communities and our God. Keystone Mission is looking to the future with excitement and hope. The leadership has used this time to re-think the organization’s impact in the community. It is in strategy to provide a more defined program to the homeless and low-income families. The Mission waits in excitement to share the vision for the future.
Please feel free to contact Justin to trade ideas or encourage and serve one another in Christ:
Justin Behrens, LSW
CEO/Executive Director
T. 570.871.4795 ext. 402
From his backyard, Ron answers this very important question on building donor capacity while beavers are building theirs as well! Could at any moment a crazed beaver take over Ron’s video? For more answers to frequently asked fundraising questions, take a look at our “Pat Answers/TTG Answers” Video Series.
Those not familiar with how fundraising works often offer simplistic solutions. Once I was consulting for a community-based ministry that desired to raise $3 million for a building expansion. In our campaign committee a well-intentioned person commented, “What you need to do is find 10,000 people who will each give us $100.” I thanked him for his suggestion but then replied, “Your idea sounds good. Ten thousand donors each giving $100 to raise $1 million is great math but presents two problems: 1) our campaign goal is $3 million, and 2) only 12,000 people live in this town.”
Yes, we want as many people as possible to partner with us in a campaign but starting from the grassroots usually is a recipe for failure. Campaigns are built from the top-down not the bottom-up. A successful $3 million campaign requires several significant lead gifts. That’s why it’s crucial to conduct a feasibility study before launching a campaign. Test your assumptions by asking your donors if your project is compelling to them, if the timing is right, if they would give, how much they would give, and would they volunteer to find others.
Here are some capital campaign metrics to guide your thoughts:
When we apply the 80/20 rule to fundraising, we discover that approximately 80% of the dollars received will come from about 20% of your donors. A strong major donor component sets the pace for a successful campaign. Major donors provide the momentum and confidence to other donors that your project will move forward. If your key major donor has the appetite to fund a significant portion of your project, you may not need any other donors. But if you plan to run a traditional campaign you should consider these donor metrics when determining your campaign goal.
While 80/20 is the rule of thumb, the trend is that five to ten percent of the donors will provide 80-90% of the goal with some campaigns showing numbers as high as 97% of the donations from three percent of the donors. At a minimum your lead gift should be ten percent of the goal (preferably twenty percent), and the next two gifts each should equal five percent of the goal.
Robert Pierpont, a faculty member with The Fundraising School at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, made the following observations on 1 Sequential fundraising (see attached document):
~ The ten largest gifts set the standard for the entire campaign.
~ Failure to adhere to the top-down pattern lowers giving sights across the board.
~ Extended solicitation and participation at lower levels will not offset major gaps in the upper ranges.
~ Once the big-gift-first sequence has been seriously violated, the entire program is in jeopardy.
Major donors are critical to your capital campaign success. If your top ten donors don’t give at the levels you projected, you will need to lower your campaign goal. You can’t extend your campaign long enough to replace a few top gifts that didn’t materialize. Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that your ministry is different. Instead, focus on identifying, cultivating, and soliciting major donors in your circles of influence. Once you’ve done the groundwork with your key supporters, you can then move forward with confidence.
1 Pierpont, R. (2002). Capital Campaigns. Retrieved from The Fundraising School.
Ron Haas, Vice President of The Timothy Group, has also served the Lord as a pastor, the vice president of advancement of a Bible college, a Christian foundation director, a board member and a fundraising consultant. He’s authored two books: Ask for a Fish – Bold Faith-Based Fundraising and Simply Share – Bold, Grace-Based Giving. He regularly presents fundraising workshops at ministry conferences and has written fundraising articles for At the Center magazine and Christian Leadership Alliance’s Outcomes magazine.
As we dealt with much of the U.S. economy grinding to a halt over the past three months, non-profits have felt the impact. Now, even as we begin to move forward, we continue to see an increase in what we refer to here at The Timothy Group as “The FUD Factor.”
What exactly is “FUD?” Well, Pat began referencing The FUD Factor in his first book, Major Donor Game Plan, in 2006. It was true then and still is today. FUD is an acronym for “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.” It plagues many good institutions and hinders many otherwise productive development teams.
As recent as this week, Pat and I had a discussion with one of our clients who is experiencing FUD. They were forced to put their capital campaign on pause back in March and are now struggling with when and how to re-engage. Their main question is, “Are our donors ready?” Ongoing discussions with them include many examples of FUD:
Will donors misunderstand our motives? Will we offend our donors by asking them for money now or in the near future?
Will our mission and case resonate as strongly today as it did a few months back?
How much should we worry if our donors have the resources to give during these times?
FUD can produce other obstacles as we move forward, including:
Momentum is a funny thing. When it is gone, it is sometimes hard to flip the switch back on. We have seen it derail good fundraising efforts with past clients.
We may lose some of our best volunteers through inactivity. If you don’t engage with them regularly, you may need to go back and recruit them a second time, or at worst, need to start afresh.
Your donors need romance and cultivation before actual solicitation. If FUD causes you to be afraid to romance or cultivate, it makes it even harder to actually ask for a gift.
Consider this excerpt from Pat’s Major Donor Game Plan book (pages 97-98):
This is all-important. Many major-donor relationships are never consummated because of FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. We the solicitors suffer from the FUD syndrome, not the major donor. Overcoming this FUD obstacle will absolutely change your advancement office mentality, production, performance, and net gift income. Your capital campaigns will get funded. You will begin to lay a foundation for endowment funding. Overcoming the FUD syndrome will make an impact.
Fear grips all of us at different times in our lives. You know that nail-biting, worry-about-all-kinds-of-things fear. In most donor relationships, we fear the loss of relationship. We have carefully Researched and Romanced this particular donor and now we are afraid of making “the ___________ ask”, or making it in the wrong way, so fear takes over. “Oh my, what if we ask to high and offend them?
After all, a damaged relationship is very difficult to restore. “We have worked this hard to get them to this point with our organization, so perhaps we had better wait. We certainly do not want to offend them.” Perhaps they will even approach us and indicate somewhat out of the clear blue sky what they might be willing to invest. Remember a concept mentioned earlier: No heavenly hinting.
Most of all, we fear rejection. We fear the pain of hearing a NO! Sometimes we even fear hearing a NOT RIGHT NOW! We are uncertain how to craft material to take along on the call, or how to conduct a brief Request session. We begin to feed our fear, uncertainty, and doubt with statements like, “I doubt if they (the potential major donors) would have any interest in helping to fund this project.”
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are killers to any major-donor program.
You must begin to address and eliminate the FUD factor in your organization. Sit down as a fundraising team, an advancement team, with your trustee board, development team, or campaign committee and honestly evaluate the FUD factor that has limited your success to date. As you begin to honestly address the fear, uncertainty, and doubt, you are one more step closer to having an effective major donor program.
Article submitted by Kent Vanderwood and Pat McLaughlin.
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On occasion, The Timothy Group loves to share what Kingdom-inspiring things our friends are up to in hopes that it helps others clarify their “3 M” story – Ministry, Message, and Money. Here is what’s happening at Reaching Indians Ministries International, located in the USA and India.
RIMI is an international, interdenominational evangelical Christian missions agency established in 1993. RIMI is committed to glorifying Christ by training indigenous leaders who establish vibrant Christ-centered communities in South Asia and beyond to transform lives spiritually, socially, and economically. The three key program areas are: (1) Evangelism and Church Planting, (2) Leadership Development, and (3) Compassion Ministries.
RIMI’s mission is to help in nation-building through transformational community development programs in South Asia and around the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, especially the poor and marginalized.
RIMI’s goal is to reach Indians all over the world, not just in South Asia. Their model is to raise up indigenous leaders who will bring the Gospel message to their own people.
RIMI trustees have developed a visionary strategic plan that includes some exciting new projects that will position RIMI to transform lives for the future.
Of course, RIMI’s visionary planning comes with raising the necessary funds to match their Kingdom goals. Their hopes and plans include raising $500,000 for opening MI hospital with a starting nursing college, hire and deployment of recent graduates, COVID-19 relief, Seminary, and upgrade Alumni Network marketing.
The Timothy Group is supporting and praying for Reaching Indians Ministries International’s Kingdom accomplishments!
How ready are you? The decision to launch a capital campaign is dependent on your organization’s readiness and willingness to stretch your faith. SPECIAL BONUS: The 4 Phases of a Capital Campaign.
Why use a campaign consultant? Can you be just as successful by doing it yourself? Consider these 2 differing real-life scenarios along with five advantages of seeking outside counsel.
View the live recording of this crucial discussion “Yogi -N- Year-End Strategies” led by top development experts with 120 participants across the US! View the recording or download the documents shared during the call (see below).
FEATURED GUEST HOST PANELISTS:
Justin Behrens, LSW, CEO/Executive Director, Keystone Mission, Scranton PA
David Hoag, President, Warner University, Lake Wales, FL
Todd Toslma, Head of School Administration, NorthPointe Christian Schools, Grand Rapids, MI
Nate Vander Stelt, Executive Vice President, GACX/A Global Alliance For Church Multiplication
DOCUMENTS SHARED DURING THE CALL:
