4 Reasons Why It's Time to Overhaul Your Fundraising Strategy - and Why That's a Good Thing

Crises have a way of opening our eyes to new possibilities.

When we’re constrained in some way, we’re forced to innovate. We see the world differently forever, whether we want to or not.

Early on in this crisis, nonprofit leaders and fundraisers talked about a return to ‘business as usual’ in a few weeks.

Today, most are beginning to realize: it’s a whole new world.

To survive and thrive, every nonprofit must radically overhaul its business model. Food banks are finding ways to meet needs without cadres of volunteers. Universities are grappling with the impossibility of bringing students back to dorms in the fall. Political reformers are galvanizing people virtually. Cure researchers are moving investigations forward beyond the confines of small labs. Arts organizations are bringing the power of creativity directly into homes. 

The pace of innovation in nonprofits is one of the ‘unprecedented’ aspects of this crisis.

Now, it’s time that it extends to fundraising.

Here’s why—and why it’s a good thing.

1. Your old case for support won’t work—so you can take a fresh approach to your storytelling.

No matter when we ‘reopen’, we will feel the impact of this crisis for years. We’re feeling the consequences in nearly every aspect of our lives as families and communities—and will continue to for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, companies, foundations, and individuals across the world want to be part of the solution. The outpouring of generosity (you can download the list of donations here) is inspiring and a testament to the power of philanthropy.

What’s most impressive about the donations we’re seeing is their diversity. There’s support for frontline responders—hospitals, food banks, etc.—but there is also a desire to respond comprehensively to the crisis. The nonprofits receiving donations are the ones making the case: we are part of the solution.

From our perspective, every nonprofit is part of the response and especially the recovery. There is something only your mission can contribute—and that is your case for support.

That is the story that every single one of your case materials should be telling. That’s what your direct response should say. That’s what you should talk about in donor meetings.

If you’re like most organizations, your case for support could use a refresh anyway—since an update is needed every few years. So, this is a great moment to invest in:

• A new message map that is compelling and concise
• An intentional effort to bring your key messages to life through stories
• A comprehensive communications plan that brings your messages and stories to your community
• A suite of materials for major donors that make the case for investment in your work

The result will not only strengthen your fundraising today, it will elevate the quality of your communications for years to come.

2. Your events won’t be profitable anytime soon—so you can finally focus on diversification.

As we shared last week, most analysts are recommending dramatically decreasing event projections for the next year.

The risks are so great, you may be asking: Why would I invest expensive staff time and effort into something that is unlikely to happen—and even less likely to make a profit?

We believe that is the question every nonprofit should be asking. In fact, the profitability question is one that has kept nonprofit leaders up at night long before the crisis.

Events hold many benefits—opportunities to raise awareness, tell stories, see people face-to-face, meet new people—but most of their value is the PR and donor cultivation side. When it comes to revenue generation, events tend to be inefficient:

• For most events, by the time staff time is factored in (honestly), only 20-50 cents of every dollar raised is left over for the mission. That compares to 80-90 cents for major gifts.
• Year-over-year revenue growth is typically small and unsustainable due to the work required per incremental dollar and the high competition among events.
• It is difficult to ‘convert’ attendees to loyal supporters of your organization. With all the distraction, even the most moving mission experiences are momentary and you’re much more likely to attract loyalty to the event than to your mission. That means, when times get tough—like now—donors won’t stick with you.  

For all these reasons, many nonprofits have a section in their strategic plans to ‘diversify revenue’, usually through individual giving and major gifts.

Yes, that strategic ‘priority’ easily slips off the to do list. Among the churn of event deadlines, projects like revenue diversification seem like they can wait. There will be time later.

Well, we’re here to tell you: the time is now.

Here’s why:

• Your donors will understand. It will make sense why you are asking them for a gift without an event. If you start now with the work of engaging, getting to know, and asking your event attendees, you have an unprecedented opportunity to inspire outright giving from event donors. We’ve seen that once donors get used to outright giving, they do it more and more. Donors who care about your mission may not realize how easy it is to support your work. They don’t have to put in the effort of a fancy gown and a trek across town (doesn’t that sound like an unfathomable amount of work at this point???), they can just click a button on your website. Help them see how easy it is—and how meaningful it is.
• Your volunteers will understand. You’ll be able to explain why you are moving this direction, without feeling threatened. Vested interest of event stakeholders is the primary reason why nonprofits feel pressured to continue the cycle of unprofitable events. Having those hard conversations just became infinitely easier.
• You have the resources. Currently, it seems like your event resources (staff and expense budget) can either be wasted on trying to force an events plan or lay idle with staff spinning their wheels trying to find other things to do. There is a third option: invest your resources in your new growth channels.
• You can have the best of both worlds. One day, we’ll be able to have events again. When that time comes, you will have achieved your goal: diversification. Diversification doesn’t mean outright giving instead of events. It means outright giving alongside events. It means reaping the benefits of both so that your mission can thrive—sustainably.

If this is a direction you’ve been wanting to go, start today:

• Engage your leadership. Get your board and other volunteer leadership inspired about the opportunity. Make your case for change exciting and forward-looking.
• Redirect your expense budget. Use the budget you had allocated for event expenses to make an investment in the channels you want to grow.
• Redeploy your staff. Give your event staff portfolios 150 high-potential event supporters (sponsors and attendees) to manage. Guide them the same way you would a major gifts officer: help them make personalized moves management plans, hold them accountable to activity metrics, and support them in making asks when the donors are ready.

3.  How we engage donors has changed—so you can reach more of them.

Everyone is living that Zoom life now—including donors. This comfort we’ve developed with virtual engagement is profoundly altering the landscape of fundraising.

Your mission impact is now accessible anywhere—so your donors can be anywhere.

Museums are offering virtual tours, so now you can live in Singapore and be inspired by the MoMA. Researchers are sharing their work from home, so you don’t have to visit their lab to get inspired about progress toward a cure. Educators are innovating in ways that can be replicated everywhere, so any local organization can spark national interest.

For the first time, we are all telling our stories all day every day. On our websites, social media, virtual conferences, virtual events, virtual cultivation dinners, virtual meetings, we are bringing our mission to life for people who can’t see it in person.

We’re becoming more creative and less shy. We believe that we have something to offer, and we’re offering it.

And wow—we should do this all the time. 

Not only have we become better ambassadors for our causes, we’ve stopped making an important decision for our donors: that they have to live in our town to care about our work.

By communicating freely, we’re engaging people everywhere. And that should continue.

As you develop your fundraising plan for the future, consider:

• How does my mission help people beyond the four walls of our organization?
• Why might donors in other parts of the country or world care about what we do?
• How can we keep bringing our mission to this broad audience even after the country reopens?
• How will we convert that outreach effort into revenue to help our mission reach even more people? 

In-person meetings are no longer the only place that magic can happen.

Like the rest of us, donors of all ages and walks of life have received a crash course in virtual gatherings. And they’re even starting to find them normal(ish), moving past the stage of being distracted by the technology toward being able to meaningfully interact with another person 

When the country reopens, fundraisers should go back to meeting with donors in person whenever possible.

But for now, when a meeting can’t be in person or isn’t efficient to do in person, they will have another option. Rather than feeling constrained to phone or email, they can meet virtually. A year ago, it felt strange to ask a major donor for a virtual meeting. Today, it can feel normal.  

This transformation will save nonprofits thousands of dollars each year in travel & meeting expenses and lost productivity.

And again, it means: your donors can live anywhere and receive an exceptional, personalized donor experience from your organization.

4.  Your fundraisers have adapted to a new lifestyle—so you can keep them longer and make their work more efficient.

None of us wants to adopt quarantine as a lifestyle—least of all fundraisers, who are even more desperate than others for human interaction.

But this disruption of our normal lives has given us new insights into how we want to work and what makes us happy. While we miss our colleagues, it’s freeing to skip getting dressed for the office and the stresses of commuting. While we miss our desks, it’s nice to spend more time in the comfort of our homes. While we could do with a little less time with our spouses and children, it’s meaningful to be able to share more family moments together.

The longer quarantine goes on, the fewer employees want to go back to their old office schedules.

In some parts of the country, that won’t be an option for the foreseeable future. Where it is an option, nonprofits should consider maintaining the flexibility to work remotely part-time.

As an industry, we have been grappling with crippling fundraiser burnout and turnover. Flexible work arrangements are an easy way to boost fundraiser satisfaction and retention: give them the latitude to work from home on days between being on the road meeting with donors.

The change will open new possibilities to reduce real estate overhead—which makes a major dent in mission funding at most organizations.

With your fundraising team now trained to work virtually, look for other efficiencies to:

• Can you shift from servers/VPNs to cloud-based systems?
• Can you clean up your shared drive to make it easier for fundraisers to find resources virtually?
• Can you shift some of your donor acknowledgements from mail to email for smaller gifts?
• Can you streamline workflows by using cloud-based collaboration tools, like Asana or Smartsheet?
• Can you move record-keeping to the cloud, eliminating the time and expense of paper filing?

Overall, the more we talk to savvy nonprofit leaders, the more we realize: in this unique moment, nothing is off the table.

This crisis has had truly devastating consequences, but we are grateful every day for the nonprofit and philanthropic communities leading the response and recovery.

We’re also grateful that there may be a positive consequence for nonprofits: the acceleration of nonprofit innovation toward streamlined and sustainable fundraising.

What new possibilities are opening up for your organization? What questions are you asking? What disruptive innovations are you making?

Share your story with the Fearless Fundraisers community or schedule a free one-hour consultation to explore ideas. We can’t wait to hear from you.