Great and amusing fundraising presentation from a volunteer running the NY Marathon a few years back in aid of the Heart Foundation.
Worth flicking through the 16 pages or so. It is hard to get humour to work in fundraising, and he has done a good job. I have asked Inspired Adventures to let me know if he made his target! (The presentation is on their blog, they organise fundraising events like this).
Monday, March 12, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Non fundraisers leap to Aussie fundraisers' defence
A great article on Hootville with very specific advice on what charities should do after the silly story in the 'paper yesterday.
"99% of nonprofit CEOs we’ve met fear an unscrupulous, unfair, unexpected media hikacking. Only 1% ever experience such a thing. One such CEO is Fundraising Institute of Australia’s Rob Edwards...
Read the whole article here....Especially if you are an Australian charity worker thinking what to do next; Hootville give you a great guide.
New line of attack on charities
A journalist attended the recent FIA conference at the Gold Coast and wrote lots of stuff about charities and how they do their fundraising.
To be honest, he is bloody good at his job - he has managed to get front page of one of Australia's best selling tabloids and syndicate the story across the nation and it has been picked up by other media.
It is easy to knock him, or accuse him of doing a hatchet job, ignoring the good stuff and spinning amazing stories out of nothing - but that after all, is his job. And he will be looking for the next angle.
But our bosses will be worried, some charities are specifically named (but not really accused of anything) and it is easy to panic and do something silly. Some donors will maybe get a little worried about it, but overall it shouldn't make much difference to our ability to fundraise - unless we do something daft in response.
The very worst things we can do, as a sector, are give any credence to the nonsense printed, or give the press examples of conflict between charities which will act as an accelerant. Approaching the journo or his employers is not going to help. He is, after all, not stupid - he knows that his story is completely out of context, but it is a great career boost.
Please, charity media departments, think it through before you release your media statements but don't add any credence to what he wrote by saying things like:
* We would never pay professional fundraisers to work for us (kind of cuts future options for you)
* We only target people already supporting us (where will you get new supporters?)
* Apologizing for salaries
* Undermining fundraising techniques that you may not use, but others do very succesfully.
Put up a public statement, complain to the newspaper and talk to your key stakeholders; defend your good practice but do not knock other charities - even if just by implication.
The two areas specifically attacked were bequests and face to face. Here are some facts you can use when talking to people - even if you don't use these methods. The data is taken from looking at 41 Australian and New Zealand charities in the Pareto Benchmarking program.
* About half of all individual donations from 2001-2011 came from bequests
* In 2011 bequests accounted for about a third - because other methods are growing
* Regular giving is one of those areas growing (also accounts for about a third of individual donations) and by far and away the largest source of regular givers is face to face
* Generally speaking, people don't give unless asked, and asking costs money
All the way through - focus on the outcome; start with a case study "Little David had cancer but...." and then point out how many little David's were helped as a consequence of your fundraising.
And don't knock Richard's training techniques (he got attacked for making jokes about raising money from the dead): It is well established that shock, unexpected comments and humour improve learning. If any of you know nurses, care assistants and ambulance workers you will know they deal with stressful situations with humour which is appropriate at the time but sounds terrible when re-told out of context.
For a great summary of the story, don't bother looking at the paper - there is a brilliant summary from fundraising database supplier AppiChar 'Journalist targets Australian population with Dumb Story'.
To be honest, he is bloody good at his job - he has managed to get front page of one of Australia's best selling tabloids and syndicate the story across the nation and it has been picked up by other media.
It is easy to knock him, or accuse him of doing a hatchet job, ignoring the good stuff and spinning amazing stories out of nothing - but that after all, is his job. And he will be looking for the next angle.
But our bosses will be worried, some charities are specifically named (but not really accused of anything) and it is easy to panic and do something silly. Some donors will maybe get a little worried about it, but overall it shouldn't make much difference to our ability to fundraise - unless we do something daft in response.
The very worst things we can do, as a sector, are give any credence to the nonsense printed, or give the press examples of conflict between charities which will act as an accelerant. Approaching the journo or his employers is not going to help. He is, after all, not stupid - he knows that his story is completely out of context, but it is a great career boost.
Please, charity media departments, think it through before you release your media statements but don't add any credence to what he wrote by saying things like:
* We would never pay professional fundraisers to work for us (kind of cuts future options for you)
* We only target people already supporting us (where will you get new supporters?)
* Apologizing for salaries
* Undermining fundraising techniques that you may not use, but others do very succesfully.
Put up a public statement, complain to the newspaper and talk to your key stakeholders; defend your good practice but do not knock other charities - even if just by implication.
The two areas specifically attacked were bequests and face to face. Here are some facts you can use when talking to people - even if you don't use these methods. The data is taken from looking at 41 Australian and New Zealand charities in the Pareto Benchmarking program.
* About half of all individual donations from 2001-2011 came from bequests
* In 2011 bequests accounted for about a third - because other methods are growing
* Regular giving is one of those areas growing (also accounts for about a third of individual donations) and by far and away the largest source of regular givers is face to face
* Generally speaking, people don't give unless asked, and asking costs money
All the way through - focus on the outcome; start with a case study "Little David had cancer but...." and then point out how many little David's were helped as a consequence of your fundraising.
And don't knock Richard's training techniques (he got attacked for making jokes about raising money from the dead): It is well established that shock, unexpected comments and humour improve learning. If any of you know nurses, care assistants and ambulance workers you will know they deal with stressful situations with humour which is appropriate at the time but sounds terrible when re-told out of context.
For a great summary of the story, don't bother looking at the paper - there is a brilliant summary from fundraising database supplier AppiChar 'Journalist targets Australian population with Dumb Story'.
"Charities target the elderly and dying for bequest dollars.
In a shocking turn of events, it was discovered via the undercover reporting ...that organisations across Australia, many providing some of the most important services to the country were:
- Taking a strategic view of their funding requirements
- Doing everything they can to make sure they tell their story in the most efficient manner to the right people in order for those people to make an informed choice about the money they spend
- Were sharing knowledge on best practise to help make sure they weren’t wasting time and money..."
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The cost of fundraising question
Dan Pallotta presented a great, energetic and motivating session today arguing that charities are put on an unfair playing field for competing for people's hearts, minds and wallets. He argues that we pay our people too little, aren't allowed to advertise (fundraise) by spending money, can't take a long term view and must not take a risk, since failure of a campaign in the charity world is not acceptable. None of these restrictions apply to companies.
The issue of most interest to the fundraising conference attendees seems to be cost of fundraising. The simplicity of the question 'how much of my dollar goes straight to the cause?' is tempting and easy for journalists to pick up on. If a lot of thought is not put into it, it is a fair enough question. But it doesn't take emuch thought or information to realize it is practically irrelevant.
A more important question is 'what impact will my donation have?' But the answer to that is not simple. Fundraising is not simple, nor is it fair. It is easier for certain causes to make money than others. Think kids with cancer versus rehabilating young offenders.
Dan was advocating a public program to establish 'overhead' as a good thing - after all, a charity with really low overhead is less likely than one with a higher overhead to have correctly trained and paid staff, proper legal advice, computers, Licences software, accountants, HR policies, outcome measurements etc. Doing things right costs money.
Explaining this to the public will be hard, and maybe we should take it on (despite the huge overhead burden it would add to our costs!) But we need to get our own houses in order first.
Within our own sector, there are many, many board members, finance people and CEOs plus a not insignificant number of fundraisers who buy into the simplicity of the cost of fundraising myth. Dan showed one charity proudly displaying then fact that 100% of your donation goes to the cause.
According to a local radio station, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne recently came out and said F2F should be banned in Melbourne. He is the chair of a large fundraising organisation and he doesn't get it. How can inform the public when our own leaders are so badly informed?
Before we try to explain this issue to the public we need to make sure these non-fundraising bosses of fundraising organisations really understand it.
Sean
The issue of most interest to the fundraising conference attendees seems to be cost of fundraising. The simplicity of the question 'how much of my dollar goes straight to the cause?' is tempting and easy for journalists to pick up on. If a lot of thought is not put into it, it is a fair enough question. But it doesn't take emuch thought or information to realize it is practically irrelevant.
A more important question is 'what impact will my donation have?' But the answer to that is not simple. Fundraising is not simple, nor is it fair. It is easier for certain causes to make money than others. Think kids with cancer versus rehabilating young offenders.
Dan was advocating a public program to establish 'overhead' as a good thing - after all, a charity with really low overhead is less likely than one with a higher overhead to have correctly trained and paid staff, proper legal advice, computers, Licences software, accountants, HR policies, outcome measurements etc. Doing things right costs money.
Explaining this to the public will be hard, and maybe we should take it on (despite the huge overhead burden it would add to our costs!) But we need to get our own houses in order first.
Within our own sector, there are many, many board members, finance people and CEOs plus a not insignificant number of fundraisers who buy into the simplicity of the cost of fundraising myth. Dan showed one charity proudly displaying then fact that 100% of your donation goes to the cause.
According to a local radio station, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne recently came out and said F2F should be banned in Melbourne. He is the chair of a large fundraising organisation and he doesn't get it. How can inform the public when our own leaders are so badly informed?
Before we try to explain this issue to the public we need to make sure these non-fundraising bosses of fundraising organisations really understand it.
Sean
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Face to face bashing is not unique to Australia
Karen Ward who works for the New Zealand PFRA (which tries to make sure face to face in NZ is coordinated and has code of conduct etc) sent through some anti-F2F media following up on the Australian POYSN story (as per my last blog).
My mate in Ireland also wrote up about how an ill informed senator and some media muppet are having a go over there.
http://conorbyrne.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/chugger-debate
Dan Pallotta, US fundraiser and author is speaking first thing at the FIA (Australian fundraising) conference tomorrow and he will probably show his 'I am overhead' campaign from the US taking the issue of costs to the public.
Should we(and the Irish, British and Kiwis) take on the issue in the media? Or are we better off sticking with a pseudo Von Bismark approach - 'The people need sausages, laws and charities but they really don't need to see how they are made'?
My mate in Ireland also wrote up about how an ill informed senator and some media muppet are having a go over there.
http://conorbyrne.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/chugger-debate
Dan Pallotta, US fundraiser and author is speaking first thing at the FIA (Australian fundraising) conference tomorrow and he will probably show his 'I am overhead' campaign from the US taking the issue of costs to the public.
Should we(and the Irish, British and Kiwis) take on the issue in the media? Or are we better off sticking with a pseudo Von Bismark approach - 'The people need sausages, laws and charities but they really don't need to see how they are made'?
Friday, February 24, 2012
Face to face in the media
Face to face works - hundreds of millions of dollars raised over the last decade in Australia alone - as you can see from my most recent blog.
But journalists keep sniffing around to find a story. Unfortunately for them, there is not much of a story; from a public point of view it is pretty boring because it is just a bunch of people getting paid to do a job.
They get paid a reasonable amount which is usually based on how well they do their job.
They are employed by a company who arranges materials, admin, data and organises the whole thing with relevant charities.
As the chart in my previous blog shows, the system works - donors who otherwise would not have donated, donate, and charities get to do more work than they would have done if they had not used this method of fundraising.
As the chart in my previous blog shows, the system works - donors who otherwise would not have donated, donate, and charities get to do more work than they would have done if they had not used this method of fundraising.
Consequently, when there are stories in the press not a lot happens really - from a data point of view. We don't see a spike in cancellations and it doesn't seem to make things harder for street canvassers (if you are one, please correct me if I am mistaken!)
Sunday Telegraph Journalist Jonathan Marshall decided to go undercover and go through the process of training for a canvasser.
Most of what he found is pretty boring:
Most of what he found is pretty boring:
- the companies exist to make profit
- canvassers are told if they do really well they can make lots of money
- mining towns are great, because people have too much money, little to do and like chatting to attractive young people
However, one thing gave him his hook - something that would actually make this story interesting enough for editors to run, and to be fair to Jonathan he had invested a lot of time in this and is a well trained journalist.
His hook was that the agency was using an acronym to describe who should not be targeted. Whilst their targeting is actually socially responsible, it had a totally inappropriate word in it - 'Stupid'. Canvassers in this company were told to avoid marketing to Poor, Old, Young, Stupid and Non English speaking - they say avoid the POYSN (pronounced Poison). Of course, it is not in the interests of the charity to sell monthly giving to particularly vulnerable people so the advice is good - but the phrase is disrespectful. Really, it was just waiting to be exposed.
What we do in fundraising is not wrong - we invest and pay trained professionals to make money for our causes. But we need to do it in a respectful way - yes we can be cheeky, motivate people from many angles (change the world AND make money is a good incentive for many people) - but assume there is a webcam watching us when we do it.
Jonathan's story was picked up by The Project. The Video will only work in Australia and you want the 19 Feb episode which should start playing . Fast forward to about 1:30 after the ad.
His hook was that the agency was using an acronym to describe who should not be targeted. Whilst their targeting is actually socially responsible, it had a totally inappropriate word in it - 'Stupid'. Canvassers in this company were told to avoid marketing to Poor, Old, Young, Stupid and Non English speaking - they say avoid the POYSN (pronounced Poison). Of course, it is not in the interests of the charity to sell monthly giving to particularly vulnerable people so the advice is good - but the phrase is disrespectful. Really, it was just waiting to be exposed.
What we do in fundraising is not wrong - we invest and pay trained professionals to make money for our causes. But we need to do it in a respectful way - yes we can be cheeky, motivate people from many angles (change the world AND make money is a good incentive for many people) - but assume there is a webcam watching us when we do it.
Jonathan's story was picked up by The Project. The Video will only work in Australia and you want the 19 Feb episode which should start playing . Fast forward to about 1:30 after the ad.
Sean
Friday, February 17, 2012
When will face to face reach saturation point?
Face to face, or direct dialogue*, which is used to acquire monthly donors has added millions onto charity disposable income in New Zealand Australia in just one decade. In 2001 it hardly existed in Australia.
Every year my company, Pareto, coordinates a data comparison project on behalf of a few dozen charities. Last year 41 charities compared their data and found that around a third of their income from individuals now came from regular giving (automatic debits from their bank accounts or credit cards)... RG is the light blue on the chart below...
...and of that 30% or so of their income F2F has been the biggest driver...(F2F is the orange-ish bit).
You can see that F2F was still driving the growth, and had actually grown by more in 2009-2010 than 2008-2009. But I still keep hearing people worried about 'saturation' - sometimes to the extent that it puts them off investing in this area.
Clearly it is not saturated yet across the market. However, some charities have done so well that the number they acquire each year is about the same as the number they lose to attrition so they have no net increase. For them, they need to look at alternatives if they want to continue to grow.
The latest benchmarking round of comparative data is due April/May this year and seeing if F2Fs rate of growth grew again in 2010-2011 will be fascinating. I will let you know.
Sean
* By face to face I mean the process of stopping people in the streets, shopping malls, door to door and at events and asking them to sign up for an ongoing debit from the credit card or bank account. It is huge in Europe, having taken off big time in the mid 90s in the UK and accounts for the majority of new donors acquired in emerging fundraising markets like Hong Kong, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. Canada is into it too, but the US is a late entrant, with proportionally less F2F activity. Almost certainly the biggest growth potential in the world is in the USA. If you are US fundraiser and don't know about it - find out more!
Every year my company, Pareto, coordinates a data comparison project on behalf of a few dozen charities. Last year 41 charities compared their data and found that around a third of their income from individuals now came from regular giving (automatic debits from their bank accounts or credit cards)... RG is the light blue on the chart below...
...and of that 30% or so of their income F2F has been the biggest driver...(F2F is the orange-ish bit).
Clearly it is not saturated yet across the market. However, some charities have done so well that the number they acquire each year is about the same as the number they lose to attrition so they have no net increase. For them, they need to look at alternatives if they want to continue to grow.
The latest benchmarking round of comparative data is due April/May this year and seeing if F2Fs rate of growth grew again in 2010-2011 will be fascinating. I will let you know.
Sean
* By face to face I mean the process of stopping people in the streets, shopping malls, door to door and at events and asking them to sign up for an ongoing debit from the credit card or bank account. It is huge in Europe, having taken off big time in the mid 90s in the UK and accounts for the majority of new donors acquired in emerging fundraising markets like Hong Kong, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. Canada is into it too, but the US is a late entrant, with proportionally less F2F activity. Almost certainly the biggest growth potential in the world is in the USA. If you are US fundraiser and don't know about it - find out more!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)