My thanks in 2022? For YOU!
File under: In case you've heard a discouraging word
Pass me more of grandma's corn-bread stuffing, please....
Dear fundraiser, this (US) Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for you. You persist.
You wish. I wish. We all wish there were easy answers. But fundraising is hard, detailed, uncertain work. And THEN there are those upswells of joy .... when the fuel for your very worthy mission really starts to flow!
------
It's giving season ... in loads of places.
There's Thanksgiving in America, a national holiday ... on the final Thursday of every November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it official (though he didn't quite get it right first time around). In 1970, Native American activists rebranded it as a National Day of Mourning.
(To dig into this, subscribe to the remarkable e-newsletter published by the Tomaquag Museum; founded in 1958 by Princess Red Wing [Narragansett/Wampanoag] and anthropologist Eva Butler. ¶ Tomaquag is Indigenous-led. It has decades-deep scholarly partnerships with Harvard University, Brown University, the Rhode School of Design, the University of RI & other leading academic institutions. It is building a new campus, to open in 2024. To view Tomaquag's case for support for that new campus, click here. Tap, tap, tap: Is any transformative philanthropist like MacKenzie Scott within range of this broadcast?)
Then there's #GivingTuesday on November 29, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
And THEN there's year-end giving ... October, November, December in English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere... ticking down to a desperate New Year's Eve: the last day in the US when you can claim a charitable deduction on your current tax return.
If you're a big donor with a tax advisor, you care about Dec. 31.
If you're not, you probably don't much care ... which, in my view, makes January of 2023 a pretty good month to go fishing for fresh giving, now that the crowd's gone home.
Curious fact I've witnessed: Well-managed US community foundations keep fundraisers on duty until midnight, December 31 ... to receive and certify last-minute major gifts. I imagine many otherinstitutional charities are burning midnight oil.
THEN ... at one minute INTO the New Year ... these same fundraisers wearily don a silly hat, weakly blow a horn, throw a slice of cold pizza into a sack; go home to rest. That's fundraising. It's a demanding business ... for the common good.
------
Typical response rates for almost any appeal are so low that you, dear fundraiser, could reasonably despair: Does anyone care at all?
Spoiler alert? YES, they do!
Humans have empathy. Humans have causes they care about ... for a host of personal reasons. Humans have complex identities.
Yes, you still have to work the numbers ... and understand that inertia will always be your most dangerous enemy. But that's just a fact of life, like gravity.
Come on: it's SO much easier NOT to make a gift. I'll I have to do is nothing.
In 2019, Emerson & Church published a myth-buster titled IF ONLY YOU'D KNOWN ... you would have raised so much more. I wrote and world-sourced it, responding to years of brave questions from fundaising newcomers. This book was meant as a comforting reality check for people serious about evolving their fundraising careers ... especially those (like me: over and over and over) who'd encountered internal, baseless objections from clueless bosses and boards.
------
The book's Chapter 39 opened:
Let’s pretend.
Let’s pretend you are sending out a direct mail appeal. You have great hopes. In fact, you need to attract a bunch of new donors. Otherwise, as you’re aware, perfectly normal attrition will knock your fundraising program on its ass.
You’re pumped! You have the perfect mailing list. (That doesn't happen. But we’re pretending here.) Every name on your rented list is pre-qualified. They all actually live where the addresses say they live. They really do care about your cause, given their past behaviors.
They already give (or gave) to a similar cause. Say you’re a conservation charity. Your mailing list has already responded to Audubon and the Sierra Club.
OR, say, you’re a respected local theatre company. Your list of prospects has already responded to a similar appeal in your arts-loving community.
Bottom line: your list is solid.
And your offer is everything it needs to be. (Training required.)
And the letter itself is everything it needs to be, too. (More training required.) The appeal is warm. Stirring. Entertaining. Personal. Easy to read. Has a P.S. And obeys a dozen other well-tested rules of the direct mail craft.
So, how will you do? Perfect list, perfect offer, perfect letter? Sent to well-qualified folks who have never before given to your particular charity?
If you get a 1 percent return, break out the champagne.
Oh, heck, if you get a 0.5 percent response, have a stiff celebratory drink. Phew! Take deep breaths.
How do you like those apples? One-half of one percent response? You sent out two hundred appeals. You got a single gift back, from a stranger. And YET—surprise!—you actually did quite well.
You met industry standards.
How does it feel? Pretty good, right?
No?
------
One more time: fundraising is hard. Ask any new fundraiser ... especially those swimming upstream against second-guessers and the inexperienced.
That's why I say, Thank you for your service. Or as they might say it in Dublin: "Tanks!"
------
PS: The rapid (worsening) turnover rate for newly-hired fundraisers in the US is Halloween-gruesome ... and that tells a tale ... about workplace culture and unreasonable expectations.
And yet I just watched (then eagerly re-watched) a short video that made my hopes leap like a startled fawn! (We live in the country; wildlife metaphors roam.)
This quick video features statements from attendees at the 2022 Nonprofit Storytelling Conference in San Antonio. The video's called Watch what people had to say about the 2022 conference. Scroll down a tiny bit to find it. It runs 2 minutes.
It's like attending a fundraising pep rally. You ... will ... be (I suspect) ... revived! (This is NOT a paid endorsement, BTW. I wasn't at the conference. I receive zero compensation for these remarks. The video plucked my harp/heart strings; that's all. It looked like a better future.)
ONE MORE TIME: thanks, fundraisers, for your service to the world around you ... despite headwinds.
Fundraising requires a team effort. (Doesn't everything?)
ONE MORE TIME:
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for your endurance ... and your tolerance.
Thank you for putting up with whatever you now put up with ... for the common good.
YOU, dear fundraiser, are a true gift to our troubled planet.
Pass the cranberry sauce.
# # #
Dear Reader: This is an excerpt from Tom Ahern’s e-newsletter. Did you miss crucial back issues of this how-to e-news? Immediately available! Just GO here. (And scroll down just a bit to sign up for Tom’s revenue-boosting tips and insights. In your inbox regularly. It’s free.)