WNYC Radiolab podcasts

I am currently in South Dakota, on the Great Plains of the USA where I spent the day with some lovely people from St Joseph's Indian School.  We have been talking, unsurprisingly, about fundraising.

However, we did go off topic a little, when talking about cats and in particular, Toxoplasma.  This parasite is amazing - it makes rats and mice not scared of cats - in fact, they think they like cats.  Yummy says the cat!  Will it make humans like cats?

Ten minutes of listening to this will really change how you think about cats.


By the way, all the WYNC Radiolab podcasts are brilliant.  Public Broadcast Radio at its best.

Sean

What's in a name?

""What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

William Shakespeare, through Romeo and Juliet may have had a point.  But actually, a common knowledge is useful, especially in teaching.

I presented two sessions at AFP last week, to a mostly American audience and spoke about two things - what we in Australia call regular giving and a method of recruiting them, called face to face.  

By regular givers, I mean someone who has money debited automatically again and again in an agreed time period, usually monthly.

By face to face, I mean the act of speaking with someone, in person, and asking them for such an automatic donation.

These two names don't really work.

To many fundraisers, a regular giver is, understandably, someone who gives - um - regularly. This could include people who donate every Christmas.  So regular givers is not the right term. The Canadian approach is to call them monthly givers doesn't quite work either, since some are quarterly and some are fortnightly.

As for face to face, many fundraisers have, for decades, referred to the act of asking major donors for money, in person, as face to face. So this confuses people. Even if you define what you are talking about, people need to train their minds to the crossed meaning, which reduces the impact of the point of the teaching.

My proposed solution is to grab the best descriptions that exist and make them universal (for English speakers anyway - I don't know where to start with Chinese or Spanish equivalents).

I recommend for monthly donors / regular donors / automatic debitors we take on the American descriptor:  "Sustainer".  It makes sense, isn't a re-branding of the word and is not ambiguous. 

For face to face / street fundraising / chugging we should go with the old British descriptor: 

"Direct dialogue."  I won't even complain about the inevitable American misspelling (Dialog) which is more environmentally friendly anyway.  (Think about it).

Anyone want to help me with the re-branding campaign?

Sean

Is nuclear energy a viable solution?

The pain and fear for people in Japan is truly horrible.  The government has lost credibility in what it is saying about the partial meltdown of the now infamous reactor 2 at Fukushima.  But what is the real data?

I am currently in Canada, having spent some time in the US where Americans have been buying iodine to such a degree that there were TV ads running in the USA informing people about scams around radiation treatments.

And when they said on the news that a pool of water had one million times the safe dose of radiation - what did that actually mean?  No wonder people - even across the Pacific - are worried with statements like that.

This superb graphic puts into perspective in a very easy way. Whilst the graphic makes you realise things aren't that bad (at this point in time) it doesn't take into account indirect effects of the nuclear industry - weapons and waste in particular.

I am still torn on nuclear energy as part of a solution for energy needs.  Just because it is not as bad as coal* does not necessarily make it a good thing.  Especially when weapons and waste are taken into account. But what, real alternatives are we going to actually take up?

* In terms of anticipated deaths, environmental impact etc - even including a Chernobyl size disaster every couple of decades, coal power appears to be worse than nuclear.  This blog has useful links to other relevant data sources.

Cost of fundraising is the wrong measure

Several people at the AFP conference talked to me about how cost of fundraising (or required return on investment - ROI) was a challenging obstacle for their fundraising efforts. Especially if they were a small organisation or had a challenging 'type' of cause.  For example, it is easier to raise money for breast cancer than cystic fibrosis.

The state of Oregon in the USA is the latest place to totally misunderstand this concept.

Dan Pallotta tells you more here.  He also puts out a useful argument to present to your board about why it is the wrong measure.

Sean

AFP Congress presentation - monthly giving online

Here is my first presentation from the AFP - I hope that you find it useful whether you were there or not.

Sean

Second presentation at AFP - do your 5 day job in 3 days!

Today I presented a session titled "How to be so good at fundraising you only need to work afternoons 3 days a week".  I was a stand in for Jonathon Grapsas.  He came up with the title which is clever way of saying - do your data analysis!


This presentation is much more detailed, with the case studies not hidden so a massive wealth of information for you, even if you didn't make it along.


Hope it is useful.

Sean.

Afternoons, 3 days a week

View more presentations from Pareto Group

AFP 2011 Harvey McKinnon on monthly donors

Blog from Harvey McKinnon's session at AFP.  He is talking about 'How to Build.a Highly Successful Monthly Donor Program'

Right from the beginning some data - all organisations should be able to get 5% of their current donors to monthly giving. Some will get 20%.

Shocking - of 300 or so fundraisers, no one put their hand up to having more than 5,000 monthly donors.  Nearly all had less than 500. But at least half had some form of monthly giving program.

The USA really is behind Europe and Australia on embracing and growing monthly giving.

Why bother?
Monthly programs....
1. Increase income - value of the donor will at least double
2. Better relationships
3. Donors stay longer - monthly donors stay for ten years on average
4. Predictable - the money just keeps rolling in
5. savings
6. Income grows over time
7. Convenient for the donor

Although some monthly donors make their payments by cheque, as opposed to EFT or credit card they tend to be worth half of their automatic debited peers.

Myths about monthlies...

1. It didn't work - it may not work straight way, need to get the proposition right
2. Small amount of money, it is a lower average donation, but not over a year
3. Worries about access to bank and credit card info - insignificant number of people
4. Are donors too old - some old people will sign up, it is still worth it

So, you want to start a program? What are the essential components.

1. A donor base
2. An appealing mission - accept that some organisations are easier to fundraise for, but it works for pretty much every cause that can get single donors
3. An audit - what are you doing well?
4. Effective processing - must debit quickly and act when people drop off
5. Strong communications
6. Integrated marketing - don't talk about it, do it
7. Senior management support

Harvey was saying to take people out of general direct mail appeals programs once they become monthly donors. He did say there are some caveats, but we find that monthly donors who used to respond to direct mail appeals should still get them - but perhaps fewer, and always personalized and recognizing their monthly donation.

How much to ask for?

Try and tie the amount to something specific. 'Your $50 a month will buy...'

According to Harvey, the easiest method of gaining some monthly donors is having a monthly option on forms. This has worked really well for many charities, but at some point you should send specific monthly donor asks (my opinion not Harvey's).

Phones are a great way to do it too.  In his opinion there is not a lot to decide between the hone and mail. I say do both.

Harvey reckons that face to face (direct dialogue) can be too expensive to start for smaller organisations. 

Age is a huge factor on early attrition in Canada. This reflects the pattern in Australia. His data shows that average donations effect attrition too. The higher the average, the worse the attrition. To fix, always proactively downgrade young donors giving higher amounts.

Greenpeace and Amnesty are pioneers of monthly giving fundraising - check out their websites. They 'slice the salami' - 33c a day etc.

Showed a direct mail stoning pack - sending stones the same size as those used to kill women accused of adultery. It was a campaign, but all responders were asked for monthlies. They got 25,000. (I think he said that much - it is a lot!) 

Monthly programs are worthy it for example,  a specific charity where the average monthly donor gives 6x as much as their non monthly counterparts. It takes a while, but it is brilliant.

You should look after the donors though. Send them invites to special events, open house, send cards - give them a good experience.

Great session.  If you are at a conference and Harvey is speaking, even if you know about monthly giving you should go watch him.

For more on monthly giving, search this blog for 'regular givers' and 'fundraising is beautiful' and listen to the podcast on 
http://fundraisingisbeautiful.com/fundraisingisbeautiful. If you are at AFP, come to my sessions tomorrow!