4 Key Ingredients To Successfully Fundraise For Your Nonprofit.

Speaker 1: 0:02

Fundraising is like chili there's no one single way to make chili or to fundraise. If you're making chili, though, you probably need some tomatoes and some good ground beef beans and some chili powder. That's what you start with. Fundraising is no different. Today, we're going to talk about four key ingredients every nonprofit needs before they can maximize their fundraising.

Speaker 2: 0:28

That's right, tim, and we might be the only podcast out there that is using chili and fundraising in the same sentence, but today we're going to be talking about four key ingredients to successful fundraising, and those fall for our culture of philanthropy, vision, big, hairy, audacious goals and a mindset of abundance.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Welcome to episode 120 of the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership. I'm Tim Barnes.

Speaker 2: 1:07

And I'm Nathan Ruby. Well, the first thing that we're going to talk about, the first ingredient that you need for successful fundraising is a culture of philanthropy. And a culture of philanthropy means that everyone in the organization understands the importance of fundraising and that they have a role in fundraising. And by everyone I mean everyone. That means the board, the staff, volunteers, even other donors. Everyone has a place, everyone has a purpose when it comes to fundraising and for boards that you know, there's a lot of boards that were recruited to become a board member and no one ever said anything about fundraising. So there's a lot of boards out there that just don't help with fundraising because they weren't ever recruited to do that. But when you have a culture of philanthropy, your board does fundraising reports and updates at every board meeting. So that would be a first step. If your board is not, if you're not having a fundraising update at every board meeting, that is a simple thing that you can put in to start building that culture. Board members should attend fundraising events. You know, not every board member can attend every event. You know that's not. You know that's not a reasonable expectation, but most of your board should be at most of your events. If they're not, then you do not have a culture of philanthropy. And another thing for your board is 100% board member giving. Now, some organizations have a certain level or an expectation. Those typically tend to be the larger organizations that are a little bit more organized with their board. But even so, you could. You could just say something like hey, you know, we have an expectation that board members give and there's no minimum. Of course, there's no maximum either, but there's no minimum and we just want you to give at a level that is comfortable for you. It's a good way to start. So fundraising reports and updates at every board meeting, board members attendance at most fundraising events and 100% board member giving If you get those three things, then you've got a pretty good culture of philanthropy on your board. So next will be staff, and you know when we talk about staff, we're not just talking about staff leadership, we're not talking about the executive director, and if you're lucky enough to have a director development, you know we're not talking about those two, we're talking about everybody on staff. And some of that is just an understanding that that fundraising is critically important, and you know, and an understanding that if we don't have revenue, if we don't have money in the bank then we really don't get a whole lot done on the program side. But an easy way for staff to participate in the fundraising process is to have them be aware of identifying stories. What are the stories of how your programs are impacting people, how are you saving lives, how are you transforming lives, and how? And those real stories that take place in the, in the program areas and in the hallways and outside on the sidewalks, and these little things, little little events that take place that are that easily convey how the organization is making a difference. So that is a great way to get staff involved in a culture of philanthropy is helping you to identify stories. Volunteers yo, they've got a place in there too. You know what? As a volunteer, I would want my volunteers to you know who could they bring with them, either as a volunteer to also volunteer, or, if I'm coming to an event, who can I invite to come with me to events to introduce to this great organization that I'm part of. So volunteers are part of cultural philanthropy. And lastly, donors I want in a cultural philanthropy I want especially my major gift donors to be constantly looking for other funding partners. Who is out there that they could introduce to the organization that we think has a potential to become a donor. If you have your donors that are out intentionally looking for that, you would be amazed at some of the some of the donors that they would bring in so board staff, volunteers, even other donors. Culture philanthropy says that everybody understands the importance of fundraising and everybody is has a role in that.

Speaker 1: 5:49

It's so fun when people start to get a hold of that and I know recently I've just seen our board really step up. We did an annual fundraising event in November and almost every one of our board members were either presenting and sharing stories or they were greeting people when they came in. They had their boots all the way in the ground here making this thing happen and they were so excited. They were inviting their friends. Encouraging man, when you get them on board, it is so much energy and excitement there.

Speaker 2: 6:25

You know, tim, you've been at IFR since 2015. Is that right? 14, actually, Wow, 2014. So share with us Was the culture of the board, especially when it comes to philanthropy. That way, when you walked into your new role there, I don't think so.

Speaker 1: 6:43

I think it was. I mean, obviously we were smaller as an organization, we had a smaller board at that point too, and I think they were just trying to kind of let's keep going, moving forward. And I think it's been a combination of my boss, our executive director, and myself walking with them and beginning to put ideas in their mind as well, to say who do you know? And again, part of it comes back to we're going to talk about this a little bit, but part of it is I'm really capturing the vision too. If you have a good sense of the vision, then you're going to want to do whatever you can to make that vision happen, and finances is part of that. So that connects to that as well.

Speaker 2: 7:25

Well, and also, tim, I know in your story and how your board has evolved over time. The key word there is over time. I mean you can't change culture. You can't change that overnight or in a week or a month or six months and sometimes not even in a year. It takes long term, little steps, consistent efforts to transition a culture. And that is the same whether it's a board, your staff, volunteers, other donors. It just takes time and consistent effort.

Speaker 1: 7:55

For sure.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Okay. Well, before we get to our next one, which is going to be vision, tim and I have got a special update for you on some cool things that we're doing here at the podcast. Are you ready? Are you ready to go deeper? Are you ready to learn more? Are you ready to join a community of people who are walking the same path as you? Well, if you are, tim and I invite you to join the practice community. As a member of the practice community, you will have access to two things. First, you will have access to additional content. Tim and I will be recording additional shows that only members of the community can have access to. Second, you will be invited to our monthly office hours. Once a month, tim and I are going to be hanging out on a Zoom call and members will be invited to join us. There'll be time to ask questions and to get feedback, not only from the two of us, but also from other executive directors who are walking right alongside with you. All of this for just 10 bucks a month. When you divide that out, it's only 33 cents a day. That is a whopper of a bargain To join the group today. Go to the show notes and click on the link that says the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership, and it has a plus sign at the end of it That'll take you right to the sign up page. We are really excited to offer this opportunity and to be able to connect with you on an even deeper level. Please join us. You'll be glad you did All right. Well, we're back to our list here, and we just finished Culture of Philanthropy, and next on the list is Vision. Vision is a picture of a preferred future, and I'm telling you I'm telling you, don't doubt me on this one you cannot raise substantial amounts of money without vision. Vision is fundamental to a nonprofit's success. It paints a clear picture of the organization's desired future and the impact that it seeks to make. Vision not only drives all your strategic decisions and goals, but it also inspires and motivates staff, volunteers and yes, your donors. It is a rallying point that fosters unity and commitment, and without a clear, compelling vision, you're gonna struggle to engage your stakeholders and your donors. There is no question about it. So let's have an example here of what this might look like. So as I you may have heard on other episodes that I am a history major. That was my undergraduate degree. I love history, especially. I've always been interested in local history, and so let's say that you are the executive director of a county historical society. Now, typically in my experience the county historical societies that I've been connected with, they struggle to fundraise. That's just something that is part of that sector, I think. So we're gonna take a look here at how vision would impact fundraising. So you're leading an organization. We're gonna call it your county historical society. So whatever county you live in, it's your historical society. So we're in a conversation with donors and potential donors and somebody says well, what are you raising money for? What's going on? How are things going? And a typical answer from many historical society executive directors that I've been around it's something like this Well, we're raising money because we have our main office and it's also our museum and our main office together. Plus, we have two other historical homes in town that we manage, and you know it's expensive to do the upkeep on these three buildings and we don't really have enough money to hire staff, so we have to rely on volunteers. So sometimes we can't even open the doors because we don't have enough volunteers. But your gift is really important to us and we really need your support. I know that, for example, our building, our office building, we're gonna need a new roof pretty soon and we really need to get going on raising some money for that. You know we're really thinking of doing a golf outing. Would you like to be part of that? So that's a. That's almost. It's not verbatim, but it's pretty close to a conversation that I was part of once and it was, let's just say, the donor was not all that excited about being part of the of what the executive director was talking about. So, all right, now let's use that, or compare that to this, where we spend a little bit more time talking about vision of the organization. All right, so here we go. Well, our vision is to bring history to life for students, creating an immersive interactive experience that sparks curiosity and fosters a lifelong love of learning. We envision our museum to be where every exhibit tells a story, where history is not just read but experienced, and where students are not just mere spectators but active participants in their own education. You know we're actively looking for people to come alongside of us financially and help us impact the lives of students in our county. Would you be open to having a deeper conversation with me sometime about how you could be part of what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 13:54

I think I've reached it for my wallet, Nathan.

Speaker 2: 13:57

Well, you know, I just kind of made that up, tim. But the point is is that you have to have a vision. You have to have to get people excited about where the organization is going and before they write you a check, they have to get excited. They have to get on your train. Think of it as a train On a train, on train tracks. It is going one direction. It's going north, it's going south, it's going east, it's going west. It is now. It may wind around and curve around, but it's going one direction or another. You're not getting on a bus from New Orleans to Chicago and go west out of the station. It doesn't work that way. And vision for organizations is the same. Some people will want to get on your train, on your vision train, and others won't, and that's okay. You're looking for people who want to get on and go the direction that you're going. That's where vision comes in and you have to share that with donors to get them excited, and when they're excited is when they write bigger checks. So I know, tim, with man we're talking about IFR a lot today. But you know we you talked a little bit ago about vision, but your vision, I don't think the vision for the organization has really changed all that much, but how you present that vision and I think your understanding of what that vision means for the organization has changed dramatically over the last few years.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. We haven't changed what our vision is, but I think our belief in what our opportunities are, what we actually could do, I think, continues to grow as we build confidence in what's going on. I remember having a conversation one time early on about well, somebody came to us and said hey, I have $25,000. What would you want to do with it? We might go oh, I'm not sure We'd have to figure that one out, as opposed to say no. Now someone said we have $25,000. I think we know exactly what we would do. In fact, we would probably ask for more than that. We'd probably say, hey, here's the things we want to see happen. So the vision needs to capture people's hearts and you have to believe that you can actually see that vision fulfilled.

Speaker 2: 16:21

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point, tim, because you're taking us right into our next topic, which is Big Harry Audacious Goal. We call it a B-Hag and there's other names for this. But you've got to have some big project, some big goal in mind that you're trying to reach when you're fundraising. Every organization has a donor file full of people who have funded your organization for years. Mr and Mrs Anderson have given $250 to your organization every year for 20 years. Well, what do you think? The chances are that Mr and Mrs Anderson are going to give $250 this year. I think they're pretty good. I think you're going to get your $250. Another donor, mr and Mrs Cooper. They've also given $250 every year, not quite as long, for about five years, so not as many years, but if they've given $250 for five years, chances are they're going to give $250 again this year. The problem is, tim, you just found out that Mr and Mrs Cooper gave $20,000 to the local theater. Well, what the heck, Tim? Why are they giving those guys 20 grand and they're giving us 250 bucks? What's up with that? Well, here's the problem. If you have the same program output year after year after year, you can expect about the same level of gifts from your donors, year after year after year. You want larger gifts? Then the answer is the B-Hag your big, hairy, audacious goal. That's, tim. That's just what you were talking about. So how about this for a conversation? So we're still at the County Museum, so that's still our example. And you're the executive director and you run into Mrs and Mrs Cooper I don't know. You run into him wherever the grocery store, on the street, at an event, wherever You've got their attention for 45 seconds to a minute, you have your little bit of pleasantries. It's the weather, nice as you watched the big game last week, whatever. And then you get to Mr and Mrs Cooper. Thank you so much for your generous giving over the last few years. It has made such a tremendous difference at the museum and for our kids who come and experience it. We have been working on something that we're really excited about and I think maybe you might be interested in helping. Our vision is creating immersive interactive experiences that spark curiosity and fosters lifelong learning. We are working on purchasing a hologram exhibit designed to bring history alive for our junior high students who visit the museum. It is going to be so cool. Would you be open to a deeper conversation with me where I could share some of the more details on that and how it'll impact the lives of our students. We could explore this a little bit and then maybe we could see if it's the right project for you to help fund. Could we do that? So if you've got to give them something bigger and broader to grab ahold of, tell me what. Just like you were talking about where somebody said if I gave you $25,000, what would you do with it? And you didn't have an answer. I guarantee you you guys have an answer now, but you need to have that. If somebody walks up to you, if you're a $200,000 budget, and somebody walks up to you and says, yeah, we'd love to give 50,000, what do you do? What are you gonna do with it? You gotta have an answer, and you can't have that answer a month after the question comes up. You gotta have it now. And so if you have the same output year after year, your donors will give you the same amount year after year. You've gotta give them a B-Head, and here at FACO friends of the children of Haiti we're working on something and it is so cool we have. For those of you that don't know, faco is a primary healthcare facility in the south side of Haiti, right on the southern coast, and very rural. Very healthcare in Haiti is inaccessible to about 99% of the population, and so we have a dental program where, in the past, we've just run a teeth extraction and we got funding, and so over the last couple of years, we've increased it to a full blown dental program where we're cleaning teeth and doing fillings, which is just so cool in and of itself that we're doing fillings in southern Haiti at this clinic that's out in the middle of nowhere. What's really cool, tim, is we're gonna start being able to do root canals. Now, I don't want to root canal. I just had a root canal, so it's near and dear to my heart. It's very fresh in my mind. I don't want to do. I don't want to root canal, but when we do root canals, it means we don't have to pull the front teeth of 25 and 30 year olds who have never gone to see a dentist. It means we can save those front teeth for people that are young enough where they still got a lot of life left and losing their front teeth. Nobody wants to lose their front teeth, so how cool is that to be able to do root canals. But before we could do that, we need $10,000 to buy a specialized X-ray machine to do that. So that's what we're working on. So that is an example a real life example of a project that needs funding. That is super cool, that people are gonna get excited about.

Speaker 1: 22:04

I think the key is, Nathan, it's connected back to your vision, the vision that you have for FATCO. You don't just kind of make things up and go, hey, we're gonna throw up a circus tent and do a circus, but it really it's thinking bigger about what you can do with the mission that you have.

Speaker 2: 22:22

Yeah, healthcare and hope to the people of Haiti. That's the vision and that fits in that. So for you, whatever your organization is, you have to have similar things like that. You have to have big goals, even if you're little. Even if you're a $50,000 budget, it's all relative. If you have a $50,000 budget, well, maybe $2,500 would radically change your program for a year. Well then you better have a $2,500 thing. Whatever that is that you need to go fundraise on. So, all right. So that was BHAG. So we've done. What have we done? We've done culture, philanthropy. We've done vision. We just got done with Big Ahiriyah Audacious Goal. And the last one, or fourth one today is a mindset of abundance, and I saved this for last, not because it's the least important. Probably it's the most important, and an abundance mindset is crucial for fundraising. An abundance mindset believes there is sufficient resources and opportunities right now. So I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I don't know your donor base, I don't know your organization well, I know a lot of you because I've talked to you but I am here to tell you that whatever increase in budget, whatever increase in revenue this year, would make a dramatic change in your programming. Maybe it's $2,500, or 5,000, or 50,000, or 100,000. Whatever that is, whatever is, executive director, you're listening to me right now. You're driving in your car, you're doing the dishes, whatever you're doing, and you're saying you know what? X would make a huge difference in our program this year. Whatever that number is, I'm telling you that number is probably already in your donor base. You already know the people who could write you checks that would deliver you X to radically change your program for the year. And now, is there enough donors in your donor base to fund the entire vision? For the rest of the organizational future? Well, probably not. You're gonna have to grow, you're gonna have to get new donors, but right now, I'm telling you you'll probably be flabbergasted to find out how much wealth you already have in your current donor file. So when you have a mindset of abundance, you will find yourself thinking positively. You will embrace innovation, you'll be open a new possibility. You will have conversations with donors, more bold conversations with donors than you ever could have done in the past, because you believe it's there and all you need to do is talk to your donors, give them vision, give them excitement, give them B-ags and help them, to help you reach the goals that you've set. So all four of these are really important and I don't think anyone is less important than the other one. But I will say if you don't get your mindset right, if you're not thinking in abundance, the other three aren't gonna work. You have to do this and you have to do well at it.

Speaker 1: 25:29

I think that's so important, nathan, because sometimes we feel like it's competition. We don't want somebody to get that money because we want that money and back and forth. And a abundance mindset is you know what. There's enough out there for everyone to win. Let's go after our part, find out who's really excited about what we're doing and believe that the resources are there.

Speaker 2: 25:51

Yeah, because giving is, we'll have to do another. That might be one of our next episodes is why people give. But people give for their own reasons, and they also give to change lives and transform lives, and people have multiple organizations that they support, but they have their favorites. They have some that they support more than others, and so not every donor not every major donor gets excited about everything that's out there, and so you just have to find the people and if they're already giving to you, duh, they're already interested in what you're doing, otherwise they wouldn't be a donor, and so you just have to find out what they're passionate about and then connect to them in your programs with their connection. So what makes good chili? Well, you get to decide what makes good chili. Chili, what tastes good for chili is a personal thing, right? Well, it same goes with fundraising. As the executive director, you decide what strategies, you decide what tactics make sense for you and your organization. What is good for one organization in fundraising is not necessarily good for another, and, just like chili, there are a few key ingredients that every organization must have to maximize revenue. When you get these ingredients in place, you will be surprised at how much your revenue numbers will increase.

Speaker 1: 27:20

Thanks for listening today. We hope you'll take time to look at the practice community and consider joining us. You'll get extra content time with Nathan and I and be part of a community that are trying to change the world through their nonprofit. If you'd like to get in touch with us, our contact information can be found in the show notes, as well as the link to the practice community. That's all for today. Until next time, I'll see ya.