Regular Giving: Bounce Back

Positive steps will get your regular giving programme back performing. In fact, there is considerable potential to make programmes better than ever.

Successful hardship funds are currently producing many new donors. Right now people have more time to listen. People have more time to help. People are more aware of need.

Dont think you cant ask. A UK top 10 university just ran a really successful phone campaign. Everyone has a Hardship Fund and they are working. People are asking and people are giving everywhere.

Grasp these opportunities and your regular giving can be better than ever before.

Many have launched successful hardship funds in recent weeks. St Albans School has raised over ￡200,000. So has West Buckland School. Kingston University has pushed on past ￡250,000. Manchester University has crossed ￡1,000,000. Others are launching now. But all face the classic problem of such fundraising: How to turn a huge single gift response into regular, long-term giving. Every capital appeal throughout history has produced the same dilemma. And it happens with every Giving Day. Good fundraising practice, via a good regular giving programme, has solved this problem in the past and will be equally effective now.

In fact, there are some excellent reasons that make it easier to promote regular giving now than pre-Covid. People have more time to listen. They are simpler to contact. Evidence from across our sector suggests that major gift fundraisers are finding it simpler to get meetings, albeit by Zoom.

If you try to contact people now you will reach many of them. They will also be more likely to talk because they have been acclimatised to socially-distanced communication. Familiarity with online meetings has reduced the stress of speaking without direct contact.

People are also more aware of need. We might assume that is a reaction to the reality of these arduous times. It is more than that. to exemplify this, look at what has happened regarding Black Lives Matter.  BLM is connected to Covid as BAME individuals have been so affected. And it was a specific and tragic incident that brought BLM back into world focus. Nonetheless, it has gained traction, in part, because there is less ‘chaff’ blocking out important messages. People have more time to consider bigger issues. So when you make a case, people can think it through. When they do that, they are more likely to give.

These factors combine to make it an excellent time to reach out. There are challenges too. Some people will be wary of giving. But the success of hardship funds proves this is not a universal constraint. I re-published an article last week from 2009. In it, I pointed out that in such times, living costs fall and so those in secure jobs can be better off than usual in a recession. These people are the stock-in-trade of regular giving. They are the middle-class professionals who represent at least 80% of the output of universities and private schools.

They are the doctors, lawyers, bankers, civil servants, teachers who mostly will never make transformative gifts but who will work, often with no hiatus, through to retirement, quite well-off. They are the people who can give ￡10-20 a month almost straight after university and a decade on, ￡20-40 a month or more. Of course, some will be suffering. More will be fearful about the future. However, some will be doing better than ever. It is worth noting ￡60 billion has not been spent in retail over the last three months. Vast amounts will not be spent on summer holidays or winter breaks. Many have put off buying a new car. Many are not commuting. Interest rates have reduced, lowering mortgage costs for many. Fuel prices have fallen by 25%. Everywhere, goods are on sale. Saving money has become less attractive. There are many people who have a much-increased capacity for philanthropy.

What does this mean for best-practice now? We have a need. We have people ready to listen to that need. We have some people with even an increased capacity to give. We have a better chance of reaching them than ever before. The imperative is to ask now.

Organisations are asking. And Hardship Funds are working. However, they have limitations. They have a shelf-life. People are rebuilding. They will still give to relieve hardship, but, as time goes by, they will be less engaged by ‘emergency’. They will want to see a medium-term plan to get life back to normal. In fact, BLM shows us they will want a plan to get us back to better than normal.  

Hardship Funds also mainly produce single gifts. We will not answer the medium-term need that way. We will disappoint single donors if we do not produce a plan that will turn their immediate response to long-term benefit. We have an obligation, they an expectation, that we will come back to them with a strategy that takes their institution forward.

This means we need to get back to personal approaches. We can do this in two ways.  

First, people, at present, have more time. There will be many individuals who cannot support you with a gift, but who are furloughed and some may well be heading for early retirement. These people could be enrolled into volunteer programmes as fundraisers. They can be trained, in group sessions, on Zoom and they can increase your capacity to make personal asks. These can considerably enhance the effectiveness of your leadership programmes; they can also increase your reach overseas.   

Second, you need to get your students or former students back on the phone. Your alumni (and often parents too) are waiting to hear from you. The ones who have made single gifts want to know how they can do more and do it long term. If you do not call soon, you will have missed an enormous opportunity. 

You will not have grabbed the current mood of increased social awareness and willingness to talk. Worse, you will have told your supporters you only need help in the good times. And that's the wrong message to send.You may assume that there are obstacles to phoning in the traditional way, with a team of students on site. These are surmountable. A UK top 10 university just ran a great campaign with the students working from their rooms and homes. Shared Vision have the software and the expertise to run remote campaigns. Or we can supply the software and training packs so you can do it yourself. Talk to us about how this can work.

You will deliver many goals if you reach out. Such calling can be to secure gifts. And it can be to recruit that group of volunteers who can then progress mid-level giving now. Most of all, it can be to show you care about your alumni at a difficult time.

Every institution should seriously consider if they can undertake phoning and volunteer asks before the end of the year. These unique times offer unique opportunities. Calls to mobiles during the day are much more likely to be answered. Schools need not limit themselves to vacation times. Their callers, if phoning remotely, could do this in university time this autumn... especially as they may well operate from home, or at least not be socialising much in the evenings.

In conclusion, now is the time to make personal contact. Creating a legacy for your hardship fund is vital. That legacy should be to turn your single donors, who made impulse gifts, into regulars. This will build a long-term dividend from these terrible times. A dividend of a new cohort of loyal supporters. To do this, institutions need to get back to active mass asking. That means Zoom and it means phone.

Always happy to talk through the points in my articles. Call +44 1608 678676 or email [email protected]. There is a lot more information at www.sharedvision.org.uk

BTW, if you havent seen the new Regular Giving Channel you should take a look now https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM4v88IHxq9QMsAnY8QMsOg/playlists

At Shared Vision we have put together a new FREE resource for development offices. It's the Regular Giving Channel on YouTube. What we have done is collate hundreds, and we do mean hundreds, of videos from around the world. All are focused on educational advancement. Some are thank yous, some are asks. Some are intended to promote the brand and build engagement. Some are for telethons, some giving days. There are legacy videos too.  

The channel is there for inspiration. If you are thinking of making a new video, you can find fantastic examples here. It's for something more fundamental too: reminding us that what we do is very special. Some of these videos bring home just how important, how life-changing philanthropy can be. Next time a friend or one of your kids asks you what you do, just go to the channel and show them some of these videos. Like the LSE one, where a young student describes having had his world changed by access to a community of learning and ideas. Or look at the NUS one, where a school principal talks about caring for her pupils. See how she explains her impact on young lives today is only possible because of the financial support she herself received as a student.  

There are funny ones and emotional ones, ones to have you run up a hill like Rocky Bilbao... and many, many, many to make you want to give.

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