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Development, Donor Relations, Fundraising

Successful Communications Start with Balance

Successful Communications Start with Balance
We’ve all heard these horror stories or experienced them ourselves. Nonprofits sending relentless email solicitations. Memorial gifts given online transition to an onslaught of mailers. The only mail you receive from your favorite nonprofit is solicitations. Obviously, none of us want to be that nonprofit. While there is certainly a case for nonprofits to make explicit appeals, with major nonprofits leveraging AI and algorithms to reach new donors, slapping together communications or just winging it won’t cut it anymore. To compete, your communications need to be targeted, compelling, and frequent. While it may seem overwhelming, ultimately, effective communications all come down to balance.

Balance by Audience
As my Marketing 101 professor once taught me “It’s all about the who.” Or put another way, it’s all about the audience. Regrettably, nonprofits struggling with communications almost always lean on one audience segment: All contacts. However, do you really want to solicit your major year-end giver for a $50 Giving Tuesday gift? Likely not.

Certainly, balancing multiple audiences can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Perhaps you can break your contacts into 2 or 3 audiences (i.e., general audience, online/credit card givers, and major donors). Create a tag or group in your CRM so when you run mailing lists, these segments are easy to identify. Likewise, integrate your donor database with your email marketing software (i.e., Mailchimp) to keep these segments across your communications platforms. Lastly, when creating your communications calendar, look at the communication diet from each audience’s perspective. Is each segment getting a balanced dose of A/I/S from various methods (more on those below)?

Balance by Type: Appreciation, Inspiration/Information, Solicitation
We all know over soliciting is a great way to burn out a donor. But we all need to make the ask at some point. So, how much is too much? How do you strike the balance? Simple, by having a solid balance of AIS: Appreciation, Inspiration/Information, Solicitation. Some people have even referred to this as the giving cycle (inspire, ask, appreciate, repeat).

Solicitations should be clear, infrequent, and follow a long line of other interactions. One of my first fundraising mentors instructed me to “never make half asks.” So, what might that look like? Do you put a small envelope in every mailing? A donate button at the bottom of every email? Are all of your in-person events fundraisers? If so, your audience may feel less like a ministry partner and more like an ATM.

Case in point, instead of half-asking with every email, try to make your recurring emails more informational/inspirational filled with donor-centric appreciative language. Then, once a quarter, send an email with a direct appeal tying back to the messages you have been sharing over the last quarter. Not only will your open rates increase for all emails (after all, they aren’t all solicitations anymore), your appeals should have a much higher response rate as a result.

Balance by Method
Donors are busy, and so are you. Case in point: do you have any unopened emails from your favorite nonprofit? Obviously, this doesn’t make you or your donor a bad person. However, it does mean quarterly emails, once a month social posts, and two annual solicitation mailers will not be enough. Nonprofits have never had more ways to communicate with their donors, yet many nonprofits lean their communications towards what they like to see and what is easiest for them to produce.

Important note: You are not the audience, and your communications shouldn’t be planned around your, or your board members’, communications preferences. As such, it doesn’t matter if you “don’t like mail,” or your board member “doesn’t like weekly emails.” Please try to take yourself out of the picture entirely and do what you can to use multiple avenues to share your ministries stories and impact.

If you don’t know where to start, check out the sample calendar below. While digital communication certainly has its cost and convenience advantages, mail needs to play a major role in any nonprofit’s communications. Need proof? Run a list of your top 20 donors and see how much engagement they have with your emails. While most will have some engagement level, there is a good chance a healthy number of them don’t open any of your emails. The same could be said of social media efforts. So, if you only mail solicitations, your “mail-only donors” are going to think your organization does one thing: ask for money.

Although there is a seemingly un-ending list of communications platforms out there, I believe most nonprofits can effectively communicate with their audiences through email, direct mail, Facebook, and Instagram. And there are certainly cases for using LinkedIn,

Strike the Right Balance
To assist you with improving your communications (by balancing your Audiences, AIS, and Methods) we’ve provided this example calendar below. Effective communications don’t have to be complicated. If you find the right balance, you’ll improve engagement and, most importantly, how much you raise.

About the Author: Jonathan Helder, CFRE, ECRF, Consultant

With over a decade of proven fundraising experience and a love for data, Jonathan is blessed to serve nonprofits and help bolster their impact on the community. Jon enjoys helping ministries implement data-based strategies and tools to improve fundraising and organizational effectiveness. Jonathan has written articles as well as presented to local and national organizations including the Association of Fundraising Professionals (West Michigan)Do More GoodNonprofit Hub and the Lakeshore Nonprofit Alliance.

 

 

Development

Success Can Be Hazardous to Your Spiritual Integrity

I was in the Army though not by choice. I was drafted. It wasn’t a good time to be a combat soldier. Fighting in Vietnam was at its peak. Fortunately, I did not have to serve in battle and I came home in one piece. But had I seen action, the government would have recognized the danger it placed me in and added what it called “hazardous duty pay” to my monthly paycheck. It was a response to sending soldiers into harm’s way. I was being exposed to danger.

In our profession as fundraisers, we confront hazards on a frequent basis. Not hazards to our health, but hazards to our spiritual integrity. I’m sure we all know Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.”

We also know our success as fundraisers is frequently measured by statistics. How much was raised? How long did it take? What was the largest gift? All those numbers can appear on a tally sheet. But consider how a good thing – the achievement of a goal – can become a bad thing for us when it becomes a ruling thing.

  • Achievement is a fulfilling thing; it’s also a vital thing.
  • Where in the past we may have been ambitious for what we want, we now must be ambitious to do the will of God.
  • As human beings we’re achievers, meant to build and rebuild, to grow and expand, to plant and to tear down, to dream and to achieve dreams.
  • But unchecked, ambition becomes a spiritual battleground.
  • We cannot allow ourselves to move from being humble, approachable kingdom servants to being rather proud and not-so-approachable institutional achievers.

The prophet Hosea offered a caution to the Jews in the Northern Kingdom when he warned about remembering why the people felt satisfied.

I cared for you in the wilderness,
in the land of burning heat.
When I fed them, they were satisfied;
when they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me. (Hosea 13:5-6).

  • Has our quest for fundraising success become our dominant motive?
  • Ultimately God is the achiever; our calling is to be usable tools in His powerful hands.
  • Remember, we have no ability on our own to meet financial goals.
  • Are there areas where we have become more focused on doing rather than on being?
  • In Christ-centered fundraising, success and failure are not a matter of results but are defined by faithfulness.

We can fall victim to a fatal flaw if we think we are able to raise multiple millions of dollars. Bottom line, we do not raise the money. We obediently follow God’s guidance leading to where He deposited the money with generous givers. God leads us to success.

Christian author and conference speaker Paul David Tripp has said “Leaders are easily tempted to take credit for what only God, in his presence, power, and grace could produce.”

A favorable response to a six-figure ask can be a temptation. Surpassing a campaign goal can allow pride to trump the real reason for success – the obedient stewardship of God’s faithful people. If we take credit instead of acknowledging the one who sent us and who alone produces fruit out of our labors, we will praise less, we will pray less, and we will plan more. No doubt all of us acknowledge who is ultimately responsible for our success. Still, we can never be reminded too often who we serve.

When we take credit for what we could not have produced on our own, we assign to ourselves a wisdom, a power, and a righteousness we don’t have. We begin to see ourselves as capable rather than needy, as strong rather than weak, and as self-sufficient rather than dependent.

You wouldn’t think success could be a hazard in our profession, but success can lead to complacency and undeserved self-confidence. If we forget who called us into the field, who equipped us to serve, and who brought about the victory, then we may have won a small battle, but lost touch with our supreme commander.

Author: Denny Bender, Consultant
Before joining The Timothy Group, Denny served as Executive Director of Union Rescue Mission in Wichita, Kansas, a 114-bed emergency housing shelter for homeless men that also provides addiction recovery, a residential life-change and re-engagement program, as well as food assistance and infant care items for women and needy families.

Donor Relations, Development, Major Donors

Tailored Fundraising

Have you ever wondered about the role of a tailor? Well, they work their magic to ensure that everything fits just right. From adjusting sleeves and inseams to tailoring the waist and jacket of a suit, they strive for that perfect fit. Interestingly, a similar concept applies to fundraising, especially when dealing with mid-level, major, and mega donors.

Achieving success in fundraising is all about finding the right fit. It involves thorough research, building strong relationships, making personalized requests, expressing gratitude and recognition, engaging in donor recruitment, and providing comprehensive reporting back to donors. Just like a tailor creates a custom plan for each customer, crafting individualized strategies for donor prospects and suspects will lead to a remarkable alignment between your organization and its valued partners. The results will be a perfect fit for you and your ministry partners.

Individualized donor engagement plans are crucial for successful major gift fundraising. By taking the time to understand each donor’s unique interests, motivations, and giving capacities, you can build stronger relationships and cultivate more meaningful support.

Here are the steps involved in creating an effective donor engagement plan:

  1. Gather data. Collect comprehensive information about your donors, including their giving history, interests, and contact details. This information will help you to understand their needs and motivations, and to tailor your outreach and engagement strategies accordingly.
  2. Segment donors. Categorize your donors based on their giving potential and interests. This will allow you to focus your resources on the donors who are most likely to be receptive to your appeals.
  3. Set goals. Establish realistic goals for each donor segment. This will help you to track your progress and to ensure that your efforts are aligned with your overall fundraising goals.
  4. Plan communications. Determine the types, frequency, and content of communications that you will use to engage with your donors. This could include personal letters, phone calls, email updates, or invitations to special events.
  5. Track progress. Regularly assess the effectiveness of your donor engagement plan. This will help you to identify areas for improvement and to make necessary adjustments.

Here are some of the benefits of strategic planning for major gift fundraising:

  • Increased giving: Tailored approaches and personalized engagement lead to higher donation amounts.
  • Improved donor relationships: Individualized plans foster stronger connections, trust, and loyalty among major donors.
  • Increased donor engagement: Effective engagement strategies deepen donor involvement and commitment.
  • Improved donor satisfaction: Personalized approaches demonstrate care for donor interests, enhancing their satisfaction.
  • Increased donor retention: Stronger relationships and personalized experiences encourage repeat donations and ongoing support.

By following the steps outlined above, you can develop a donor engagement plan that will help you to build stronger relationships with major donors and to secure more meaningful support for your organization.

Here are some additional tips for effective major donor strategic planning:

  • Get to know your donors on a personal level. Learn about their interests, passions, and goals. This will help you to connect with them on a deeper level and to tailor your appeals accordingly.
  • Be responsive to your donors’ needs. Make sure that you are always available to answer their questions and to address their concerns. This will help to build trust and confidence, and it will encourage them to continue supporting your organization.
  • Show your appreciation for your donors. Let them know how much you value their support. This could be done through handwritten notes, personalized gifts, or invitations to special events.
  • Be patient. It takes time to build strong relationships with major donors. Don’t expect to see results overnight. Just keep working hard and being genuine, and you will eventually start to see the fruits of your labor.

By following these tips, you can create a donor engagement plan that will help you to build a strong and lasting relationship with your major donors.

About the Author: Pat McLaughlin President/Founder – Pat started The Timothy Group in 1990 to serve Christian ministries as they raise money to advance their missions. TTG has assisted more 1,800 Christian organizations around the world with capital, annual, and endowment campaigns. More than 25,000 of Pat’s books, Major Donor Game Plan, The C Factor: The Common Cure for your Capital Campaign Conundrums, and Haggai & Friends have helped fundraisers understand the art and science of major donor engagement. Pat makes more than one hundred major donor visits annually and provides counsel to multiple capital campaigns.

Capital Campaigns, Development, Donor Relations, Fundraising, Uncategorized

Using Metrics to Boost Your Fundraising

Are you looking at a map or the rearview mirror?

As a fellow fundraiser, let me begin by giving you my congratulations on completing an unprecedented fundraising year. I hope you can spend some time in the next few weeks to take a break and carry out some much-deserved self-care. Be sure to take time to appreciate your team members who contributed to your organization’s fundraising success.

Although the end of a fiscal year can bring a sense of relief, the start of a new year can understandably cause anxiety. The beginning of the fundraising year often leads to fundraisers asking themselves some age-old questions: What initiatives are working? Should we eliminate the golf outing? How can I measure and track our overall fundraising program?

Sadly, often before fundraisers can start to address these questions, they are quickly distracted by the next fundraising initiative. So, most nonprofit fundraising plans aren’t supported by data, but rather stem from inertia and intuition. Thankfully, 2023 provides an opportunity to determine how to improve our fundraising efforts.

So, how successful was your organization’s fundraising last year?
You might answer this question with metrics like the amount raised, the number of new donors or the number of donations. While these basic figures can be informative from a year-over-year trend perspective, they do a poor job answering questions like: Why did these metrics change? What are the weaknesses in my fundraising plan? Where should we focus our efforts this new fundraising year?

I consider those basic metrics to be “rearview mirror” metrics as they only tell you what has happened in the past. “Rearview mirror” metrics don’t point your organization to where you would like to head. What you really need are metrics that provide you with a plan of action, or a map, to help bolster your fundraising efforts.

Map Metrics
Although the topic of fundraising metrics isn’t very sexy, the payoff from a data-based fundraising plan will be. Fifteen years ago, I worked for a healthcare consulting firm with the motto: “you can’t move it if you don’t measure it.” I believe the same is true with fundraising. You need a detailed analysis to make an actionable plan to improve your fundraising efforts. Luckily, you can achieve a thorough analysis with these 10 key data points from either your CRM or accounting software.

10 Key Data Points
To start, you will need to compile the following data points. For simplicity’s sake, assume all data points are for 2022 unless otherwise noted.

  • Actual Fundraising Expense (include your best guess of the salary costs associated with employee’s time spent fundraising)
  • Organizational Expenses
  • Number of Contributions Received
  • Number of Contributions Received
  • 2021 Total Number of Donors
  • 2022 Total Number of Donors
  • The Number of New Donors This Year in 2022 (i.e. gave in 2022, but not in 2021)
  • 2022 Number of Retained Donors (i.e. gave in both 2022 & 2021)
  • The Number of Lapsed Donors in 2022 (i.e. did not give in 2022 but did give in 2021)
  • 2022 Total Amount of Contributions from Top 5 Donors

Obviously, to determine trends over time, you will need to obtain this information for multiple years. However, much can be learned from analyzing even a single year and comparing yourself to industry benchmarks.

Map Worthy Metrics
Because they are easy to understand, simple to calculate, and they efficiently measure the key drivers of a productive fundraising plan, I consider these metrics to be “map worthy”. Many of these can be applied to separate fundraising initiatives. But this article will focus primarily on how they can be used to assess your overall fundraising program. Also, I’ve provided several great tools toward the end of this article to help you with this process.

Donor Retention Rate
2022 Number of Retained Donors/2021 Total Number of Donors

Without question, your donor retention rate is one of the most important fundraising metrics. It’s possible to increase your giving in years where you lose more donors than you retain. But, it’s nearly impossible for a nonprofit to survive prolonged episodes of poor donor retention.

The closer your retention rate is to 100%, the better.  Currently, the average nonprofit has a retention rate of about ~45% which means that nonprofits are losing more donors than they can retain.

So why is donor retention such a big deal? According to preeminent fundraising scholar, Dr. Adrian Sargeant, a 10% improvement in donor retention rate can double the lifetime value of donors in your database. If you could only track one metric annually to monitor your fundraising, it should be donor retention.

Donor Attrition Rate
2022 Number of Lapsed Donors/2021 Total Number of Donors

In addition to using this formula, you can also calculate the donor attrition rate by subtracting the donor retention rate from 1. So, for example, if your retention rate last year was 55%, your attrition rate would be 45%. The closer your attrition rate is to 0%, the better.

Churn
2022 New Donors – 2022 Lapsed Donors

Churn is a great way to assess the net result of your donor retention and donor recruitment efforts. It helps you quickly identify whether your organization is experiencing a net inflow or outflow of donors. Often new donor counts and retention are measured separately and can feel disparate from each other. Churn eliminates any noise in the data, telling you if your active donor counts are heading in the right direction.

Donation Frequency
Number of 2022 donations / Number of 2022 Donors

Donor frequency helps distill how efficiently you’re increasing the number of donations per donor. The higher your frequency, the better. A large onslaught of single gifts would lower your frequency (a great problem for any nonprofit). But, a higher donation frequency means that your average donor is giving more frequently. For example, transitioning a large group of donors from an annual gift to monthly donations would drastically improve your donation frequency. There are two major reasons why that matters. One, the higher your frequency, the more likely your donations are evenly spread throughout the calendar year. Second, and perhaps more importantly, research shows that, on average, donors who give more than once a year give a greater amount each year, are more loyal to the organization, have higher retention rates, and as result, significantly improve your organization’s average Donor Lifetime Value.

Donor Lifetime Value (DLV)
Average Annual Gift / Attrition Rate

Perhaps self-explanatory, DLV shows the lifetime value of your average donor based on your Average Annual Gift. The Average Annual Gift is simply your Total amount of Contributions divided by the total number of donations. While there are multiple ways that DLV is calculated, most require you to calculate the average amount of time your donor is active with your organization (aka Donor Lifespan). As someone who has struggled through the process of calculating the average donor’s lifespan, I would recommend the above formula instead. In addition to being incredibly easy to calculate, I find it to be a perfectly adequate way to assess trends over time. Your goal is to always be increasing your DLV as that means you are retaining more donors and/or getting more donations per donor.

Lost Potential
Donor Lifetime Value x 2022 Number of Lapsed Donors

This number should be the core motivation for you to work on donor retention. If your DLV is $1000 and you lost 100 donors last year, the lifetime value of those donors would be $100,000. I
f you are looking for a bit of encouragement after calculating Lost Potential, I recommend calculating your Retained Value (DLV x # of your retained donors). Retained Value gives you a clear sense of the “true worth” of the active donors in your database.

Bonus Tip
As the old saying goes, “You’re likely to raise more money from existing donors than by acquiring new donors.” If you can determine the attrition rate of the average first-time donor vs. your retained donors, you will likely affirm the merits of this saying. Such data can be helpful to share with board members or bosses that are pushing for “more new donors” when you would rather prioritize untapped opportunities within your existing donor group.

Return on Investment (ROI)
(Total contributions – Fundraising Expenses)/ Fundraising Expenses

Cost to Raise a Dollar (CRD)
Fundraising Expenses / (Total contributions – Fundraising Expenses)

ROI and CRD help measure how efficiently your investments (aka fundraising expenses) lead to funds raised.  While ROI and CRD can be calculated to assess your overall fundraising program, these same metrics are excellent at assessing individual fundraising initiatives and trends over time. Most nonprofits assess their initiatives by net income (initiative revenue – initiative expenses). However, they may be surprised to learn that once staff time is included in the expenses, many of their initiatives have a negative ROI. Your goal with ROI is to be positive and the higher the number, the better.

CRD is a slightly more accessible way to communicate the success of your fundraising efforts and is simply the inverse of the ROI calculation. Basically, CRD is the amount you have to spend to raise $1. Your primary CRD goal is to be below $1. The lower your CRD, the better. Conversely, should your cost go above $1, you are losing money.

Dependency Quotient (DQ)
Total Amount of Contributions from Top 5 Donors/ Total Organizational Expenses

It is always good for organizations to assess their overall dependency on their top donors. As you can see, the DQ determines the share of your overall organizational expenses that rely on your top 5 donors’ donations. Perhaps obvious, your goal is to decrease your dependency quotient over time as that means that you are diversifying your contribution sources.

Dependency Quotient vs. Cost to Raise a Dollar
The interplay between these two metrics can provide a lot of insight as to where you should focus your efforts in the year ahead. If you are doing things correctly, you should be moving from High to Low in both DQ & CRD.

As someone who is always happy to borrow great ideas, the content to create the following table is from a  great Bloomerang article: 3 Metrics to Help Measure Fundraising Effectiveness. The article also provides helpful real-life examples of how organizations can move in the right direction.

  High Cost to Raise a Dollar Low Cost to Raise a Dollar
High Dependency Quotient You are investing heavily in many different strategies but are still highly dependent on just a few sources of funding. This is common for organizations who rely on just one big event a year for the majority of their funds. You are likely receiving big donations from a handful of donors but are at risk if you lose just one donor. Do you have a safety net that would continue to fund your mission?
Low Dependency Quotient You are likely investing heavily in fundraising programs that provide a diverse group of funders, but you’re spending a lot to make that happen. Are you missing opportunities to go after major gifts? Keep up the good work! This is the ideal scenario.

Is your head spinning yet?
While this all may seem overwhelming, much of the math above could be accomplished by the average third grader. The only thing keeping you from obtaining a clearer picture of your organization’s fundraising is a bit of time and some elbow grease. Luckily, I am happy to report that there are several resources available to help calculate the metrics you need to guide your fundraising plan:

Free Resources from The Timothy Group
We have created a simple, yet effective spreadsheet that calculates all the above metrics by simply providing the top 10 data points above. The spreadsheet also produces 13 graphs & charts to provide visuals for your organization’s past fundraising trends which are great for copying and pasting into your next board fundraising report. Also, for those of you that are interested in assessing your fundraising initiatives at a more granular level, we’ve added a bonus Initiative ROI Cheat Sheet that will quickly show you where your organization is getting its biggest bang for the buck, and perhaps more importantly, which initiatives should be discontinued. If you are interested in obtaining the spreadsheet, download it free here:


Metric Tools


Fundraising Metrics Slides


Your current CRM
While not every CRM has amazing reporting functionality, most do calculate many of the above metrics. I suggest that you try diving into the CRM’s dashboards or searching one of the above metrics or data points in their help/resources section. 

FundraisingReportCard.com (FRC)

By simply importing your organization’s gift dates, gift amounts, and profile ID (most systems have an anonymized alphanumeric ID available), FRC will not only calculate many of the metrics above, but it also quickly produces beautiful graphs, trend lines, and segmentations that make analysis a snap. If you are lucky enough to be using Kindful or Little Green Light as your CRM, they have a very simple integration that will do all the heavy lifting for you. Even if you don’t use their dashboards, be sure to check out their benchmarks page as it provides nonprofit sector-specific benchmarks that instantly help you see how you are doing compared to your sector. 

Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP)

The Association for Fundraising Professionals has created a set of free downloadable spreadsheets that will help you calculate many of the top metrics. 

You can do this! (and we’re here to help)

With no obligation, I would be happy to provide 30 minutes of my time to help you through this process. Whether it be helping you obtain your key data points, using one of the above tools, or analyzing your results, The Timothy Group is here to help. We have worked with many nonprofits to assess their programs and I promise it will be worth the effort. Let’s leave intuition and inertia in the review mirror and make 2023 the year you implement a data-driven fundraising plan!

Note: The above article is intended to provide quality actionable content for the reader. Jonathan Helder and the Timothy Group do not receive any compensation for the referral links to the article and/or fundraising tools listed above. 

About the Author: Jonathan Helder, CFRE, ECRF, Consultant

With over a decade of proven fundraising experience and a love for data, Jonathan is blessed to serve nonprofits and help bolster their impact on the community. Jon enjoys helping ministries implement data-based strategies and tools to improve fundraising and organizational effectiveness. Jonathan has written articles as well as presented to local and national organizations including the Association of Fundraising Professionals (West Michigan)Do More GoodNonprofit Hub and the Lakeshore Nonprofit Alliance.

 

 

Donor Relations, Client Impact, Development, Fundraising

Jehovah Jireh and Stewardship

The Bible shares many different names for God describing his character and attributes. Jehovah Jireh has always stood out to me. It means, “The Lord Will Provide.” The Message says it this way, “God sees to it.” Jehovah Jireh speaks of God’s awesome provision for followers of Christ who call him Lord and Savior. How should Christians, for us personally, as well as the ministries we serve, respond to God’s provision?

In the account of Abraham’s sacrificing of Isaac (Gen. 22), God intervened at the last minute and provided a ram to be offered as a sacrifice. God was testing Abraham’s obedience, and as a result, Abraham called that place “Jehovah-Jireh” because GOD PROVIDED. God’s ultimate test (of Abraham) resulted in His ultimate provision – God spared his son. Isaac is a picture of when God would GIVE HIS only son on the cross, as our ultimate provision for sin.

Once we believe and appropriate God’s forgiveness, what more can we do as Christ followers? How do we respond to this gift? I believe that exercising biblical stewardship is an important part of our response.

“The starting point in the journey of the Christian steward is—must be—a realization of the reality of God’s love. Yes, it is just that—a starting point, not an ending point. Accompanying the steward’s recognition of God’s love is an awareness that God’s love is a joyful love and that the steward is called to participate in that joy. As God’s love becomes known, it is clear that God longs for a response from each person.”
-Ronald Vallet, from “Stepping Stones of the Steward”

“From the moment He imparted life to mankind to the climactic gift of salvation through the death of His son Jesus Christ, God has set the supreme example of radical, sacrificial giving for His followers.”
                          -Gordon MacDonald, from “Generosity”

We are called to biblical stewardship as a response to God’s love and provision for us. Have you heard this expression, “We give because God first gave to us?” The simple truth is this, “stewardship is management of resources.” As stewards, we are called to manage God’s resources. We are responsible to the owner (God) who is the creator and owner of ALL things. This means everything you currently have or ever will have: our physical possessions, our talents, our family, our work… everything. It is nothing less than a complete lifestyle.

For those of us in Christian service or ministry this has several ramifications. First, ask yourself, “How will I steward what my master has placed in my care?” Another way to ask the question is, “How am I personally using my time, talent, and treasure to further God’s kingdom? Before we can teach others about biblical stewardship, or ask a donor to support our organization, or deliver a message on the topic, we should examine our own life. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “When we give to God, we are just taking our hands off what already belongs to Him.” Are we practicing stewardship in a way pleasing to God? Then and only then can we ask others to consider supporting our ministry or project.

I started with a question, “What does Jehovah-Jireh have to do with stewardship?” The answer is everything. As God provides for us, we have no choice but to respond with a heart of joy, adoration, and worship. In the Parable of the Talents Jesus taught, “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things’” (Matt. 25:14-30). May that be our prayer.

About the Author: Kent offers clients over 35 years of non-profit experience including teaching, administrative, consulting, and directorships. Through his work as Development Director for The Potter’s House, Gospel Communications International, and Mel Trotter Ministries, Kent brings a wealth of experience in fundraising and development. He currently serves as a board member for the West Michigan chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). His passion for seeing Christian stewardship principles applied in a systematic way helps the non-profit organization or ministry be successful in fulfilling its mission.

Donor Relations, Client Impact, Development, Fundraising

Development Dashboard

Your friendly mechanic uses an automotive scan tool to discover how well your engine is performing. You also need tools to evaluate and adjust your development efforts for better fundraising performance.

Last time, we stressed the importance of using a simple report to track basic fundraising accomplishments. A standard weekly scorecard will tell you where you’ve been. But how do you keep your eyes on the road ahead?

The most common solution is a dashboard that monitors KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and displays them in dynamic visualizations. A fundraising dashboard is akin to the instrumentation on your car. Only, instead of items like a speedometer or a gear indicator, it uses charts, graphs, and status signals to convey point-in-time results. In short, a dashboard is a great way to summarize data and share it in an easily understood manner.

With a dashboard, you not only can report outcomes, but you can also contrast them against budgets and work plans. Variances trigger alerts.

So which KPIs should you track in your Development Dashboard? Some suggestions would be:

  • Monthly Contributions (annual, rolling 12 months, actual vs. forecast, current year vs. prior)
  • Source of Contributions (direct mail, general donations, credit card/ACH, major gifts, tuition/fees, planned gifts, capital campaign, earned income such as a social enterprise)
  • Website Traffic (visits per month, pages visited, donations)
  • New Donors/Lapsed Donors
  • Cultivation Visits/Calls
  • Ask to Close Ratio

Each of these KPIs can be further divided by drilling deeper into the data. Don’t make things so detailed that the compilation takes inordinate amounts of time.

A dashboard gauge only becomes useful when it has context and meaning. They must help the development professional determine what, if any, action is succeeding and where a course correction is required.

The first dashboard I ever built was rather simple but required a good deal of time and effort to update regularly. Since it was a basic way to get started in outcome measurement, I’ll explain how it functioned.

It was driven by two Microsoft products – Excel and PowerPoint. Since I didn’t have an interface between our CRM software (Blackbaud in our case) or QuickBooks, the data had to be retrieved each month and manually posted to an Excel worksheet. The date was then copied into a cell for the corresponding month. A separate cell housed the annual or a running 12-month cumulative total. Parallel rows contained either the budgeted amount for the period, or a comparative matrix such as prior year results.

Using the standard Excel chart tool, a visual depiction was created within the Worksheet for the type of chart that was appropriate for the KPI being measured. For example, Revenue by Month was displayed in a line graph. Revenue by Source was a stack chart. A pie chart was used for Website Pages Visited.

The chart was then copied and pasted into a PowerPoint slide template. Each slide had space for the visual representation of the KPI (the chart), plus various symbols and text to provide background and context.

In the next “What’s New…”, I’ll include sample slides so you can better visualize what I’ve described. This is what my standard dashboard slide contained:

  • Title of the Gauge
  • Description of what was being measured and the source of the data (QuickBooks report, CRM query, etc.).
  • Evaluation Criteria (outcomes versus budget, a monthly standard, what formed a favorable/unfavorable variance)
  • Trend Line (usually depicted by a traffic signal where green represented “on pace,” yellow a variance requiring “vigilance” and “red” indicating corrective action necessary.
  • Champion (the staff member responsible for generating the report).

Once the monthly dashboard was built, it was posted to the agency’s internal network. 11” x 17” copies of the gauges (the PowerPoint slides) were posted on an office bulletin board with a large scorecard listing each gauge and its corresponding Trend Line (traffic signal) for the month. I would also review the dashboard, in summary form, at our quarterly all-staff meetings so everyone in the organization knew how development was performing.

After a while, I created some shortcuts and workarounds for the monthly process of updating the dashboard. Fortunately, there now are powerful tools like Microsoft’s Power Bi, and commercial software that will do most of the heavy lifting for you. That will be part of the next installment in this series.

Until then, treasure what you measure.

Author: Denny Bender, Consultant
Before joining The Timothy Group, Denny served as Executive Director of Union Rescue Mission in Wichita, Kansas, a 114-bed emergency housing shelter for homeless men that also provides addiction recovery, a residential life-change and re-engagement program, as well as food assistance and infant care items for women and needy families.

Donor Relations, Client Impact, Development, Fundraising

Development Wayfinding

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” This oft-cited but not-quite-accurate quote is from the Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s tale, Alice in Wonderland.

Throughout recorded time, man has searched for wayfinding aids that would ensure a safe arrival or a profitable outcome. If you ask Google, the Chinese, as early as the 12th Century, used magnetic compasses as navigational aids. In the 1990’s, the Global Position System, or GPS, became an indispensable part of society supporting everything from oil exploration to package delivery.

But the fundraising profession hasn’t been quite as quick to embrace the principles of measurement to make day-to-day decisions. To the CEO or the Director of Development, data should serve as a bedrock for corrective actions and in the formation of future strategies.

If your school or non-profit isn’t using metrics daily, especially to further your fundraising objectives, you are operating with self-imposed limitations. A discipline that tracks something that has already occurred may not sound like forward thinking. But if you monitor even simple data, you will be able to spot trends or shortfalls that may require future action.

You don’t need sophisticated (and often expensive) software or glitzy dashboards to help you navigate your fundraising year. The objective is to focus on the right things, the critical measurements that will reveal where you have succeeded and what next steps are appropriate.

There is no single set of right things that every organization should measure. For example, if you depend largely on annual campaign fundraising, you’ll want to monitor donor contacts and major gift close ratios. If your support base is more direct mail responsive, tracking average gift income and lapsed donors could be priority metrics. Regardless, you need to consider the effort and cost involved with gathering the data you track. And the outcomes you measure must be essential to the achievement of your mission.

It may be nice to know how many visits were made to your “About Us” website page, but a more important statistic may be how frequently visitors navigated to your donation page but left without making a gift.

If you are a small nonprofit, or new to data analysis, you might want to start with the basics – a simple weekly scorecard. I’ve attached a sample that uses key indicators like income dollars, donor activity and number of gifts received. These are values that should be easily and quickly retrieved from a CRM or financial tool. Review this data during your weekly one-on-one with leadership as well as with your development colleagues.

Statistics can be the scaffolding that supports your fundraising efforts. Use them to build strong practices and grow your income.

NEXT ISSUE: How to design, populate and share a Fundraising Scorecard built specifically for your organization.

Author: Denny Bender, Consultant
Before joining The Timothy Group, Denny served as Executive Director of Union Rescue Mission in Wichita, Kansas, a 114-bed emergency housing shelter for homeless men that also provides addiction recovery, a residential life-change and re-engagement program, as well as food assistance and infant care items for women and needy families.

Donor Relations, Client Impact, Development, Fundraising

The Last 12 Days of Giving

Here it is, the middle of December and so much to do. Have you met your year-end goals? What can you do in this last 12 days of 2021 to increase or maximize charitable giving to your organizations? One statistic says, “Approximately 31% of all annual giving occurs in December and approximately 12% of all annual giving occurs in the last three days of December. 28% of nonprofits raise between 26 – 50% of their annual funds from their year-end ask.”

Donors give to your ministry for three reasons: (1) they believe in your mission, (2) they trust you and how you will use their gifts, and (3) they like your vision for the future. Donors give a year-end gift for at least three more reasons: (1) the holidays inspire generosity, (2) donors seek last-minute tax deductions, and (3) donors have money left in their annual giving budget. Here are 12 time-tested ideas from our clients on how they make the most of their final 12 fundraising days of the year.

1.  Start Early… Stay Late. Development work is not a nine-to-five job. If you thought that, you chose the wrong career. Be prepared to work long and hard at year-end. Your organization needs you to burn the midnight oil to make sure every donor is contacted and presented with a year-end giving opportunity. Be willing to set aside all the other stuff you do and make this your priority. Be the first person in the door in the morning and the last person to leave the office.

2.  Visit your top 10 donors. This is critical. Personal contact is especially important with your top donors. If you cannot see them in person, schedule a virtual call with them. Do not just send a generic mail appeal; include a personalize, handwritten note on nice stationary or note card.

3.  Hand-deliver Christmas cards and gifts. This is a practice that many development officers and CEO’s have implemented over the years with great results. Imagine the joy on your donor’s face when you ring the doorbell and deliver a gift or a card. Find a gift that has local charm like a specialty coffee or food item. Recruit board members to help deliver gifts.

4.  Burn up the phone lines calling donors. For those donors you cannot meet personally, call them. Thank them for their faithful support. Ask them why they gave to you this past year and what your organization does that resonates with their heart. A personal phone call to ask for their support will make a significant difference. One ministry has assigned four team members to each make 50 donor calls per day for three days (December 28, 29, & 30) with the goal of completing 600 donor touches before year end.

5.  Focus on LYBUNTs fist, then call SYBUNTS. A LYBUNT is someone who gave “last year but unfortunately not this year.” Pay special attention to those who gave in November or December of 2020, but not yet this year. That would indicate they are a year-end giver. Some just need an encouraging reminder. SYBUNTS have given “some year but unfortunately not this year.” Share impact stories. Perhaps your call will reignite their interest in your ministry.

6.  Share matching gift opportunities. The year-end giving season is an excellent time to talk to your donors about a matching gift. Donors love to feel like they are part of something bigger and this allows them to double or triple their impact.

7.  Involve board members. We mentioned this above with hand-delivery of cards or gifts, but year-end “thank you” calls are also an excellent way to involve your board. Board members who are somewhat reluctant to roll up their sleeves throughout the year will agree to a small, manageable list of “thank you” calls. Make sure to provide them with a good script.

8.  Test your DONATE button. Hopefully, you are sending out e-newsletters or electronic fund appeals with a donate button to make it easy for your donors to give. Make your donate button prominent on your website and include a link in all your correspondence. There is nothing more frustrating to a donor who tries to give online but cannot get it to work. One donor recently tried for 10 minutes and just gave up. He eventually called the ministry who took his gift over the phone instead. Test your online giving process to sure it works properly.

9.  Promote the Charitable IRA Rollover. It is likely that your mature donors who qualify are already aware of this option which produces tax advantages for them. But do not assume everyone knows. Include this information in your direct mail and every conversation with donors in this age category. Many organizations neglect to promote this opportunity.

10.   Remind donors to apply for matching gifts. Many companies offer matching gift opportunities to their employees. If you already know your donor’s employer offers matching gift opportunities, remind them. If they do not know, have them ask the corporate or HR office where they work. Some will be surprised to find out they have been leaving donation dollars on the table.

11.   Send eye-catching emails. Because everyone is raising money at year-end, your emails need to stand out. Consider something that shows impact. Make sure your subject line grabs their attention. A quick message that links to a short 60-second thank you video can be powerful. One school we worked with used a “count-down” clock to convey urgency.

12.   Do not forget gifts of appreciated assets. All your year-end giving will not be cash, check, online with a credit card, or by electronic funds transfer. Some donors will decide to transfer a stock gift or other asset and you need to be prepared to handle these right up to December 31. You do not want to be unprepared.

Happy fund raising in December, the most wonderful season of all.


About the Author: Kent offers clients over 35 years of non-profit experience including teaching, administrative, consulting, and directorships. Through his work as Development Director for The Potter’s House, Gospel Communications International, and Mel Trotter Ministries, Kent brings a wealth of experience in fundraising and development. He currently serves as a board member for the West Michigan chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). His passion for seeing Christian stewardship principles applied in a systematic way helps the non-profit organization or ministry be successful in fulfilling its mission.

Development, Fundraising

Grow Your Monthly Giving Program: Part 2

Last month, we explored the importance of a strong monthly giving program for your non-profit organization. We compared it to planting seeds. Just like any crop, it will not grow until it is planted, and it will not be planted unless you get started.

For purposes of review, we defined monthly giving this way: “A program that cultivates an ongoing, committed giving relationship between a donor and your organization. Monthly donors are those donors in your database who have agreed to support your organization with a determined amount each month.” They are also called systematic donors or “sustaining” gifts.

Last month we focused on “WHY.” This month, we will focus on “HOW.” What are some best practices you can implement in establishing a monthly giving program? What are the critical steps for success?

Seek buy-in from leadership.
To succeed, we must first believe we can. Make sure your CEO or Board understands the ins and outs. Set a budget for your giving program. Like any fundraising strategy, it will take money to raise money. Remember, you are “planting.” The harvest will come later. Monthly giving is all about long-term dollars.

Target who you hope to reach.
Your monthly donor program will not appeal to all your donors. Take your major donors off the list. They should continue to receive personal cultivation but are unlikely to donate on a monthly timeline. Donors who are on a fixed income are excellent prospects, as are millennials who are showing a lot of interest in systematic giving.

Give your program a name.
People like to belong to something. Donors are no different. Assign your giving program a name: Champion’s Club, Circle of Friends, Legacy Society, Faith Partners, or some other catchy name that ties in with your brand or mission. Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” started in 1960 and still airs on cable TV. Here is what you may not know. In 1962, the station suffered financially and almost closed. To keep the station on the air, they set a goal of signing up 700 members each contributing $10 a month, which was enough to support their operating budget. Robertson referred to these “members” as the “700 Club” and the name stuck. (By the way, the $10 gift from 1962 would equal close to $80 in today’s economy.)

Send a welcome packet.
When a donor signs on to give monthly, acknowledge it. Say thank you and “welcome to the club.” An automated response is best, if not, a thank you post card works great. Mail a welcome packet especially designed for them. Use plenty of pictures. Make it warm and fuzzy. If there is a small gift or premium involved, send it to them in the first month after they join.

Include in regular appeals.
When you send out your regular appeals, make mention of your monthly giving program. Stress the ease and convenience of giving in this manner. Show the benefits, to both them and your organization. Once a year, you may even consider a phone campaign to recruit and sign-up monthly donors.

Show what the monthly gift provides!
Donors want to know their giving is making a difference. What does their $50 gift accomplish each moth? What does their $100 gift “buy” for the organization. A good example is a missions organization that distributes solar powered audio bibles to unreached people groups. As a Champion Club member, the $50 will purchase and distribute one Bible each month. Donors know that their gifts are making a difference.

Now is the time to grow, enhance, or start your monthly giving program. There are plenty of resources available help you. The Timothy Group can help guide you with some practical steps to design an effective program.


About the Author: Kent Vanderwood, Vice President – Kent offers clients over 35 years of non-profit experience including teaching, administrative, consulting, and directorships. Through his work as Development Director for The Potter’s House, Gospel Communications International, and Mel Trotter Ministries, Kent brings a wealth of experience in fundraising and development. He currently serves as a board member for the West Michigan chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). His passion for seeing Christian stewardship principles applied in a systematic way helps the non-profit organization or ministry be successful in fulfilling its mission.

Development, Fundraising

Grow Your Monthly Giving Program: Part 1

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.” (Mark Victor Hansen)

Building a strong monthly giving program is like planting seeds. Just like any crop, it will not grow until it is planted, and it will not be planted unless you get started. Today may be the right time for your organization to start planting a monthly giving program.

But first, a definition: “Monthly giving is a program that cultivates an ongoing, committed giving relationship between a donor and your organization. Monthly donors are those donors in your database who have agreed to support your organization with a determined amount each month.” They are also called systematic donors or “sustaining” gifts. An organization will often name their monthly giving program, such as the Champion’s Club, Circle of Friends, Faith Partners, Foundation Builders, or some other name that ties in with their brand or mission. For example, a local Christian school calls their monthly giving plan the “Partner Program.”

If you look at a typical giving pyramid for an organization, monthly donors are usually sandwiched somewhere between “major” and “occasional” (or sporadic) donors. These are the wonderful and committed donors who can make a difference in a recession or other downturn. They are NOT generally your major donors. Having just emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations reported their giving was stable or, in some cases, even increased over the prior year. Much of this can be attributed to monthly givers. Organizations without a program are more susceptible to spikes in their contributions during trying times or change.

One good thing about monthly donors is they will typically stay with you through thick and thin. Ten years or more is not unheard of for a monthly donor life cycle. Retention rate industry wide for monthly giving is close to 50%. And the even better news, with a little bit of work and some investment, these monthly donors will perhaps leave you the ultimate gift—a bequest or planned gift.

Here is a real-life example1:

“Beginning with a single $25 gift in 1983, a generous individual made a total of 279 monthly gifts of $25 or $30 each over a 22-year period ending in 2005. Unfortunately, that is when the donor passed away. One year later, the organization received a $25,000 bequest from its former, loyal donor. The total value of these 280 gifts: $31,250.”

Harvey McKinnon, President of McKinnon & Associates, British Columbia, discovered that “monthly giving appeals not only to younger donors who find it convenient and easy, but also to older donors, who are more likely to live on a budget. But, regardless of their age, monthly donors will often give for decades, are more loyal than even the most consistent annual donors and are far more likely to leave bequests.”

Twenty-one percent of Baby boomers (50-67 years of age) give monthly. Fifty-two percent of millennials are “interested” in monthly giving. Some organizations have difficulty converting even 1% of their active donors to monthly givers; others convert the average of 5% to 10%. Some have even reported 50% plus. These are unique organizations whose mission and services lend themselves greatly to this approach, such as an international relief organization where you can give $35 a month and cover a single child’s basic life needs.

So, is it time to grow, enhance, or start you monthly giving program? There are plenty of resources available help you. The Timothy Group can help guide you with some practical steps to take. Other professional organizations, such as Association of Fundraising Professionals, can also help you design an effective program.

Next month we will share some pointers and “best practices.”

Resource: 1Warwick, Mal. January 2008. Email newsletter.


About the Author: Kent Vanderwood, Vice President – Kent offers clients over 35 years of non-profit experience including teaching, administrative, consulting, and directorships. Through his work as Development Director for The Potter’s House, Gospel Communications International, and Mel Trotter Ministries, Kent brings a wealth of experience in fundraising and development. He currently serves as a board member for the West Michigan chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). His passion for seeing Christian stewardship principles applied in a systematic way helps the non-profit organization or ministry be successful in fulfilling its mission.

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