Going Home

One of the best things about working in a small pond is that when you are needed at home it is pretty easy to swim out of the office.

If You Need Money Fast

Non-profits always need money. But sometimes there are special circumstance where you really need money right away.

I'm not talking about a crisis or a disaster. I'm talking about a wonderful opportunity where a quick influx of cash will make all the difference between success and failure.

What should you do?

I've experienced situations like this two different times. In both cases time was of the essence and in both cases I wrote a letter. A really good letter.

Both letters explained the need and exactly why and how good things would happen if we could move quickly. They gave the potential donors a deadline, a return envelope and an incentive to make a larger than usual gift. In both cases the incentive was that their generosity would be permanently and publicly acknowledged if they gave a gift of $500 or more. And in both cases we brought in the money that we needed by the deadline.

What were these two great opportunities?

The first was our local playground. The equipment company made us an offer we couldn't refuse. Double the equipment if we placed and paid for an order during November, their slowest month. We did it, and now our local kids have two great play structures instead of one.

For the playground we were even able to convince a major local foundation to release some funds several weeks ahead of time. They thought I was a little crazy, racing into their offices in my "mom" clothes, pushing a baby in a stroller, but they still gave me the check. (After they called around town to make sure I was legit.)

The second project is underway right now and is one of the most exciting I've ever worked on. Janet Lisle, a Newberry Award Winning author has volunteered over a year of her time to write the history of Little Compton. What an amazing opportunity! If we could raise sufficient funds by the new year we could have a beautiful, professionally published, hardcover book. If we couldn't, we could self publish. I'm delighted and relieved to say we did succeed. Our wonderful little pond community rose to the challenge once again and a beautiful book is scheduled for July.

How Much Do You Want to Raise? (Please don't say "As much as we can.")

I've asked "How much do you want to raise?" many times in many different circumstances. The most frequent answer is also the worst possible answer - "As much as possible!"

I hate this answer.

• First, it makes me think that the fundraisers aren't working from a budget. Huge mistake.

• Second, I wonder if they really have a good understanding of their project - its funding needs - its earning capacity etc.

• Third, it's just so passive. When should we ever be happy with whatever happens?

• Fourth, how can we possibly judge whether the fundraising effort is a success or a failure if the goal is "as much as possible"?

• Finally it seems naive, and even small, first-time, fundraisers can and should be smart fundraisers.

Budget

First and foremost make a budget before you go public. Make a budget for the project you are working to accomplish as well as a budget for your fundraising effort. Let's say the project is a playground. The budget should include equipment, shipping, installation, play surfaces, signage, insurance, landscaping and everything else you can think of to shepherd this project from start to finish. Total it all up, subtract any money you have on hand, and the rest is getting close to your fundraising goal. Add a 10% contingency and then add the costs of your fundraiser and you finally have your goal.

This number is going to help you determine how hard you have to work at your fundraising and most importantly what type of types of fundraising you need to undertake. Is it bake sale fundraising or is it all out capital campaign fundraising? You can't decide until you have a budget and goal.

Know Your Project Inside and Out

You can't finalize a budget and you certainly can't conduct a successful fundraising effort until you really understand your project. Is it one piece of playground equipment or three? Is it professionally installed or installed by volunteers? These decisions directly impact the budget. If you haven't made them yet, you may end up wasting a lot of effort trying to raise $10,000 when you really only need $5,000.

People will feel much more comfortable and be much more willing to support your project if it is thoroughly planned and thoroughly communicated. Don't ask for any money until you can talk and write intelligently about your project.

Planned not Passive

Passively waiting for "as much money as possible" to roll in is not going to help you complete your project. Instead you can pretty easily predict and plan how much money a potential fundraiser will bring in. Then use the predictions to choose the best possible fundraiser.

For example - You need $5,000 to add some accessible equipment to your community playground. A local restaurant has offered a banquet room that seats 200 people and deeply discounted meal price of $15 per person. Your committee members are suggesting a $25 per person ticket price. Is a dinner a smart way to raise the money you need?

Do the math.

(200 tickets x $25) - (200 meals x $15) = $2,000

Two thousand dollars is not bad but it is less than half your goal. Are you happy with that?

Can you do better? Can you push the basic ticket price to $30? Can you add a silent auction to the event? Would some people be willing to buy special sponsor tickets for $50 or $100 each? Can you give people who can't attend the option to send a donation anyway?

Or what if you scrap the whole idea of the dinner and sent out 300 letters asking for a donation of $50 each. If just 100 people respond you've reached your goal. You can increase your potential return by sending out more letters, by asking certain people for larger donations and by making sure everyone knows that gifts of any size are welcome if they choose not to give $50.

Both ideas have their good points and bad points. With careful planning you become empowered to pick the one that is best for you.

Success or Failure

Nobody likes to fail. But setting very low fundraising goals to ensure "success" or avoiding goal setting altogether is not going to help you in the long run.

Set a goal. A real goal. Based on real needs. When you reach the goal you know you've succeeded and you can stop fundraising and get on to the really important work of completing your project.

If you don't reach the goal in the time allotted, it doesn't signal failure, it signals time for a new tactic.

Evaluating success or failure is not about laying blame or patting someone on the back, it's all about working smart so that unsuccessful efforts can be retired and replaced with something that's more likely to work and less likely to drain your limited resources.

Working Smart

Your time is valuable. Even if you are an underpaid non-profit employee or better yet an unpaid volunteer, your time and effort is one of your organization's most valuable assets and must be budgeted carefully. Stop spending 10 hours cutting out paper duckies to decorate the function hall. Stop settling for whatever you can get and start setting goals that move your organization forward.

The List Party

Whether you are starting at 0 or 1000 every once in a while it's smart to make a really strong effort to add to your mailing list. Donors lose interest, people move away, or sadly die. You have to add new names once in a while just to maintain the status quo and sometimes you really need a shot in the arm in order to grow.

One of the best ways to find some potentially new supporters is with a list party.

Invite 10 or 15 people who love your organization to get together to brainstorm new additions to your mailing list. Make sure they know the purpose of the meeting right from the start so that they are prepared and willing to help.

Time the meeting well in advance of a mailing so the pressure is off and you can focus on doing a good job rather than a fast job.

Ask your guests to bring other lists with them. This is key to your success but it is also a very fine ethical line. If these people are Board Members or staff of other non-profit organizations they should not bring lists from those organizations. It is a definite conflict of interest and just shouldn't be done. But if these people belong to social or athletic clubs, have children in private or neighborhood schools, participate in neighborhood associations or belong to local churches many of these places have lists of members and these lists are great ways to identify new people who may be interested in learning more about and/or supporting your organization. Our town is so small we often work right out of the phone book!

Have copies of your current mailing list available so people won't waste time on duplications.

Ask your list-building volunteers to each come up with 10 or more people who may share their interest in your work. Ask them to think about potential new volunteers, event attendees, speakers, part-time staff members and consultants as well as potential donors.

How you actually capture the addresses (and e-mails) is up to you. You can photocopy the lists, highlight the "good" new names and enter them into your database later on. You can ask the volunteers to write you a list and again enter the names later on. If you are really efficient, you can have a volunteer entering new contacts immediately during the event.

No database? Make starting one a priority. It will take time to enter everyone the first time around and even more time to learn to use the darn thing but the first time you print labels instead of hand addressing envelopes you'll never look back.

It's smart to be selective but only to a point. If you think it's worth the cost of a stamp (or better yet a bulk mail fee) then take a chance on a new name and see what happens. You may be surprised and you can always delete them later if you get no response after several mailings.

Speaking of deleting use the list party to clean up your list as well. It's hard to keep track of moves, deaths, divorces, etc. but in a small pond you've got a petty good chance of finding out what's going on in your community especially when you have a dozen willing volunteers ready to share the latest updates with you.

Finally, serve snacks. Snacks always help.

A is for Annual Appeal

I promise I won't do a series of alphabet theme postings but I do want to stress the importance of a strong Annual Appeal.

About 12 years ago when I was first starting with the Little Compton Community Center, the Rhode Island Foundation said they would give us a grant, but only if we promised to work harder on our Annual Appeal.

Far too often small organizations hold the mistaken notion that grants are the key to happiness when really all their fundraising efforts should begin and end with the best possible Annual Appeal.

Annual Appeals are a yearly request to a core group of supporters to make a cash gift (their annual gift) to your organization. The request is usually made by letter, usually around Christmas time and really should be the most important, most reliable source of funding for non-profits. So it deserves and should receive the bulk of your fundraising attention.

In future posts we'll take a look at timing, list building and letter writing all in the hope of boosting the returns of your Annual Appeals.

Why Grants.gov made me cry.

I am really not much of a crier. More of a yeller and a stewer than a crier. But my first time through Grants.gov I cried.

Many small organizations are understandably put off by the scariness of grants.gov but if you can get past the initial fear it is so worth conquering. Compared to the old days of 35 collated copies of 65 page documents. Grants.gov is a godsend.

Many government agencies have special grants programs especially for small organizations. I'm most familiar with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the IMLS' programs for small museums. The grants start at around $5,000 and are perfect entry into the world of Federal Grants.

The tricks to surviving grants.gov?

1. Start very early your first time through. Three weeks before the deadline. You need to apply for a DUNS number and fill out a variety of forms that were designed for multi-million dollar contractors. It takes time. All of these preliminary steps are carefully explained on the grants.gov website.

2. Read the guidelines all the way through before you begin. That way you eliminate surprises and can determine well ahead of time if you are going to need anyone else to get involved.

3. Follow the directions religiously. Pretend you are building a shelf from IKEA. Follow each step in order. Miss one and you're doomed. Not really doomed but you will have to go back and start again.

4. Have all of your supporting documents - a good solid budget, resumes etc. all ready to go as documents on your computer. You will have to upload them all to the main grants.gov file. This is not as hard as it may sound. Just follow the directions.

5. Save - Save - Save. Save the file to your computer and work from your computer not the internet. If you are just working on-line your work will not be saved.

6. Call the program officer for your area and try to make friends. Describe your project. Ask for advice. They are real people just like you and me and most of them are very nice.

7. It should go without saying, but sometimes it doesn't - have a very clearly defined project ready to go before you begin. The more clearly you understand exactly what you want to accomplish the easier it will be to write about it in a way that convinces other people it really is a great idea.

8. Call and ask for help if you need it. Again, there are real people on the other end of the phone.

So why did Grants.gov make me cry?

After two weeks of laboring over my first application and a slow but steady climb up the learning curve I was feeling pretty proud of myself. It wasn't easy but I was doing it. About an hour before the deadline I was at home putting the finishing touches on the application and finally felt ready to press "Submit."

The darn thing wouldn't go through. And the crying began.

I tried everything I could think of. Re-sumbitting. Re-loading. You name it - I tried it. Rejected. Rejected and rejected again. Until time ran out. Midnight.

All that work for nothing. I missed the deadline. The first missed deadline in 20 years. Our wonderful project was in jeopardy.

The next morning I picked up the phone and called. A very nice, real person, picked up the phone and listened to my sad story. In just a few minutes she was able to point out that I had one number wrong in my EIN (Employer Identification Number) number and that if I just fixed it and resubmitted the application she would accept it. After the deadline. Because she was a real, reasonable, person and had the ability to change a giant government's deadline for a poor little museum director who made a mistake.

We got the grant. And I don't cry any more when I apply to grants.gov.

Big Fish, Small Pond

I live in the smallest town in the smallest state and work for one of my town's smaller organizations. Definitely a small pond.

Even so, my kids do such a great job of keeping me humble that I can't possibly think of myself as a big fish, maybe a medium fish, medium-large on an extra-good day.

I am, however, reasonably bright and a hard worker, so over the last 20 years I've managed to become very good at what I do, which is fundraising and program management for small, non-profit organizations.

I'm at a point, professionally and personally, where it makes a lot of sense for me to make the jump to a bigger pond. My kids are getting bigger, our tuition bills are mounting, and I've been working and volunteering in small ponds for well over 20 years. It's tempting to make a change. But I don't, because I love my small pond and the really big, wonderful things I've been able to accomplish here working for small organizations with co-workers and volunteers who are quite often my family, friends and neighbors.

A great workshop leader once explained to a ballroom full of museum staff and volunteers that you knew you worked for a small museum if you were responsible for fixing the running toilets. I am and I don't mind a bit. I'm also responsible for dead mouse disposal when Fred isn't there, grant writing, volunteer recruitment, public relations, donor cultivation, special events, public education, bulk mailings, project execution and coffee making.

Working for small organizations is not for everyone. You are not in the limelight, the pay is average at best, you will always make your own copies and someday you're are just going to be too darn old and tired to set up even one more folding table.

But for those of us who hate red tape and standard operating procedures and endless chains of command a small pond is a pretty great place to be.

Check back for bits of good advice that I've picked up over the last 20 years along with lots of lessons learned along the way and please don't be shy about sharing your own experiences and advice from the other small ponds out there.