Client Success

Walk Bike Nashville embarked on learning best-practice tactics and strategies around membership growth while creating opportunities for a greater share of the community to participate. Through interview, research and a detailed action plan to grow membership, Walk Bike Nashville saw immediate enthusiasm for their new membership category and a significant increase in membership renewal from the previous year.

Sarabande Books need to evaluate revenue growth over the next five years. Through best-practice strategy identification and thorough research into peer organizations, HSI proposed an aggressive strategy to become a leader in the arts space in their community.

Museum of Contemporary Art Nashville has been doing great success with pop-up shows but is ready for the next-level in patron engagement and fundraising. HSI is working with them to set best-practice fundraising tactics, support for leadership and strategies for effective philanthropic planning.

Special events, grants and the annual fund! What’s the difference?

Nothing.

Nonprofits spend a lot of time categorizing money. Is it a grant? Did the donor respond to this letter or that email? Is this ticket a donation? First thing is first: you are seeking money for your nonprofit. While how you get there matters, the money is more important.

After I began working at a moderately sized nonprofit ($6M), my colleagues said, “We need to diversify our funding; we need more money.” I looked around at the organization and noticed quickly that this nonprofit had one of the most diverse funding streams I had ever seen, including earned revenue from billing for services as well as federal, state, and local grants, and a modest annual fund composed of special events, individual solicitations and institutional grants.

A lot of nonprofit folks get trapped into thinking that calling Melinda Gates or Jeff Bezos will solve their financial woes. It’s like the nonprofit lottery. And that’s exactly the thinking. Let’s throw some unrealistic ideas at our fundraiser, then see if they stick around long enough to blame them for not being successful.

But let’s focus on what is realistic-a healthy, consistent annual fund.

If you are not running a capital campaign or a special projects campaign, you are managing an annual fund. Everything you do, whether it is grant writing, individual solicitation or special events comprises the annual fund. It takes each one of these categories to be successful at raising the yearly dollars for your organization.

But I’m sure you clicked on this post to read about how to optimize the annual fund. The reason you optimize the annual fund is to make your job easier and raise more money the next year, so here’s what I did.

Use your database - there are so many awesome fundraising databases out there. They do more than track your donations! Run reports, investigate the history. Click the button that says “cash projection.” There are so many easy tools within your database. Dig in. Learn how to use your database and don’t let your database use you.

Overcommunicate - your donors love your mission and you are their connection to this work. Tell them the impact of your work and they will send you money. Did you read that? THEY WILL SEND YOU MONEY. Tell them the stories of your nonprofit’s work and the money will come in.

Track your goals - you must know where you’re going with your philanthropy and how to get there. Own your numbers; create the plan to achieve them and you will get there.

Results:

By using the database, we secured 50% increases in long-term donor giving. We did this by targeting our high-level, long-term donors and creating special donor groups that appealed to their interests.

By overcommunicating, we secured $40,000 in new donations. This organization was not talking to current donors, lapsed donors or even their mailing list. Spread the word or your good work and the money will show up.

By tracking our goals, we met our goal despite economic challenges that made donors cautious with their pocketbooks. Focus on the goal and you will find a way.

Put them to work.

In one of my previous roles, I was the fundraising liaison for an organization with a complex governance structure. There were boards across five states. Each board had unique roles, but all were expected to give. None of the boards had a minimum expectation, and philanthropy was part of it, but not the priority.

If I could turn back (Cher-pun), I would absolutely lobby for a board minimum or set up expectations for each board member to abide by.

But I was able to do a couple of other things that moved our organization(s) in the right direction.

Engage them - get to know your board members, why they give, what is important to them, etc. so you can figure out a way to connect them to the work.

Help hone a vision - you’re the fundraiser, so know your goals, and create a plan that is achievable for them to accomplish with your help.

Report back - share successes to inspire them. Communicate the fundraising wins and they will get excited to see the organization prosper and be more willing to help.

Results:

By engaging them, we grew our annual event from $90,000 to $240,000 in one year.

By honing a vision, we stayed focused on our goal and increased annual revenues by 33%

By reporting back, more board members got involved in direct solicitation of their networks.