The Hitchhikers Guide to Major Donor Fundraising

For my birthday, I got Douglas Adams’ The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy – the full Boxed set of BBC Radio CDs. Brilliant. I last listened to it in the mid 80s so this was a bit of a nostalgic moment.

Listening to them on my iPod on the way to a major donor strategy and training session (as one does) I was intrigued to be reminded of the B Ark. It reminded me of major donor fundraisers. Now, if you are a major donor fundraisers then please don’t take offence – I mean the other major donor fundraisers, not you.

The B Ark. If you are familiar with the Douglas Adams’ masterpiece then skip the next three paragraphs.

Basically, the B-Ark was a huge space ship sent from the planet Golgafrincham. It contained about a third of the population of the planet. The story (that people on the B-Ark were told) was that the planet was about to be destroyed. Three arks would be built.

The A-Ark, would have all the great minds, leaders, ideas people and the C-Ark would have the really useful people; carpenters, farmers, plumbers, electricians and the like. The B-Ark, would have hairdressers, TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitizers and the like.

The other two thirds of the population, of course, did not follow and "led full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone".

Now, major donors. I have met precisely 42 major donor fundraisers. And I must say, many I have met would earn a place on the B Ark. (Not you of course, dear major donor reader). Many major donor fundraisers circulate in this mystery zone of decent salaries and little fundraised income. They get a new job, spend 18 months prospecting for donors, researching and profiling donors, developing a case for support, complaining the board won’t ask (and – gosh – haven’t actually given themselves!) before moving on to repeat the process, on a slightly higher salary, in a new charity.

As a consultant (yes, I would have been on the B Ark too but…) I see many charities and help with their major donor fundraising. And I note the key success factor is not whether they have prospected enough, researched enough, profiled enough – not even whether they have a major donor fundraiser. It is always the same thing:

Whether they asked a rich person for a lot of money.

Assuming you really need the money, then to run a successful major donor program, you don’t need tons of research, profiles, years of relationships. All of these will help and will have a bearing on the success or the amount you raise, but ultimately the most important thing is that someone asks someone rich for a major gift.

Easy to say, but not that easy to do. In the past months my colleagues and I have conducted about half a dozen training sessions with Australian charities. Those that booked appointments and made asks within days of the training have succeeded. Those that didn’t, are ‘between fundraising successes’.

Now, I am not saying that all the great books and plans and processes by people like Neil Sloggie, Kay Sprinkel-Grace, Karen Osborne and Terry Axelrod et al are wrong.

If you followed them exactly, I am sure you would have success. They have different tactics, some take a long time and all rely on consistent staff, consistent strategy, consistent leadership and consistent follow through. These factors rarely all come together.

Ultimately, they all rely on someone asking someone rich for a lot of money.

I also recognise that for $1m donations, capital appeals etc take time, building relationships take time. But asking is the key. It won’t hurt your chances of getting $1m from rich guys Arthur or Zaphod next year if you get $50k now.

Please, just get on with asking.

Oh, by the way. I am a major donor fundraiser and proud of it.
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Pareto Fundraising helps charities with getting over the initial fear of asking - with great degrees of success. See a success story here. Contact canyouhelp@paretofundraising.com to see if we can help your charity crack on with major donors.

I originally wrote this about a year ago for the Resource Alliance's Global Connections newsletter.

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Major Donors - in action

Just before I left Canada last month, I did a job for Amnesty International Canada - our first big job in North America. We were looking together at their major donors, identifying potential people and then going through the hardest bit: asking.

I play a naughty trick, ensuring that the training finishes an hour ahead of schedule and then making the attendees actually call some donors to say thank you, and make some appointments.

I have found that this helps build confidence and get some momentum going.

Anyway, as time was ticking along one of the callers got into a conversation with a lovely donor.

At first he agreed to an appointment, then when he thought about it more, he decided it was too difficult. But our Amnesty International Canada colleague was charming, involving and listened well. By the end he had agreed to make a donation there and then of $10,000. His previous largest gift was $1,000.

What a great bloke. The amount he gave was exactly 10x previous largest gift - and also the amount the training had said we should ask for.

The training session was a bespoke version of my "Hitch-Hiker's Guide to major donors" session which has been presented at various conferences around the world, most recently in London at the IOF, and soon (by Jan Chisholm, Pareto Fundraising CEO) at the AFP in New Orleans in March.

The presentation is below and an article explaining a bit more will be posted on this blog this week!

Sean Triner

Hitch Hikers Guide To Major Donors For Slideshare

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

A personal reminder of the importance of feedback

Donors support charities because they are nice and they care. Our job as fundraisers is to make sure they have every opportunity to do so, and are encouraged to do so again.

There is some debate as to whether thank you letters should be sent to some, all or no donors following gifts. The arguments against are all focused on cost saving, and to some extent the assumption that the donors wouldn't want their money spent that way.

We at Pareto Fundraising encourage charities to say thank you every time someone donates, and send donor care letters updating donors on how their money has been used. Sometimes we fail to persuade them to do so.

But I had a little reminder today of the importance of feedback. I am currently in London, where I am presenting some fundraising training sessions at a fundraising conference.

Last night, as a friend, John Sauvé-Rodd was leaving I asked him what honey bees had to do with with fundraising - and told him about my blog.

A fundraiser that he had just introduced, Anetta Murphy, overheard and said - 'Oh, I know; did you write that blog about the honey bees in Canada?'

Now I had never met Anetta and she works for an agency in Dublin, but she told me that her boss, Damian had sent her the blog.

To this point I thought I had about ten readers of my blog (my sister, my girlfriend, my dad and about half a dozen Pareto Fundraising staff) so I was amazed - but more importantly incredibly motivated to carry it on and make sure I get more quirky, but useful, stuff up there.

OK, big ego boost too - but honestly, isn't that what donors need as well? (I don't say 'want' because they - like me - would deny that!)

So please, send me feedback too, I want to know who reads this!

Mountain View - It is not a zoo

So today we are going to see a charity in British Columbia who basically breed incredibly rare / endangered and extinct in the wild species.
They are called Mountain View and seem to achieve tons - despite 'only' having a budget of $750k.
They are our first Canadian client and we will be working with them on improving their 'story' to present to major donors.