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    Nonprofit Growth
    Nonprofit Growth
    Nonprofit Growth
    Ebook143 pages1 hour

    Nonprofit Growth

    By ed dugan

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This book carries some incredible reviews from people in the fundraising field. The strategies it contains have been endorsed by Hillary Clinton as well as other notable people. If you are engaged in any way with a nonprofit you need to read this book.

    LanguageEnglish
    Publishered dugan
    Release dateDec 3, 2016
    ISBN9781540149015
    Nonprofit Growth

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      Book preview

      Nonprofit Growth - ed dugan

      Ed Dugan

      ––––––––

      Same Highway but Different Directions

      In fundraising, methods may change, but fundamentals – never!

      Ed Dugan

      A

      ccording to the Foundation Center, there are currently 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States alone, and that number is going to continue to grow. Unfortunately, the number of potential donors is not growing at the same rate.

      In my opinion, the small and medium-sized nonprofits of the US are, to borrow a phrase from the business vernacular, too small to fail! They are just as needed as the large ones, quite often more so. This book has been written to help them become more effective and successful.

      Whether it’s an Ivy League university or a small shelter for abused women and children, the need for more money never ceases. The good news is that there are always sources for more and larger gifts, but the controlling factors are the quality of the organization’s planning and services, and the methods it uses to obtain those gifts.

      As a former college president, fundraising campaign director, and strategic planning consultant, I have planned and directed brick and mortar campaigns, program-specific campaigns, annual giving campaigns, and just about any other type of fundraising effort you can imagine. Quite often, as a prerequisite for those fundraising efforts, I have also developed institutional strategic plans with goals that ranged from several hundred thousand dollars to well over $100 million. Not once did I ever fail to reach a fundraising goal.

      I’ve often thought about why all of my campaigns and projects succeeded while others, directed by people just as smart and just as experienced as I, did not.  I will be the first to admit that, every so often, luck played a part. On the other hand, I learned early in my career, successful fundraising demands a respect for the traits that lead to that success – common sense, innovation, and adherence to fundamentals. Most importantly, it demands a continuing awareness of the people the campaign was meant to help. Fundraising is always about people much more than it is about money.

      My colleagues, as well as some former clients, will tell you there was another reason for my success. I frequently took the conventional way of doing things and turned it on its head. I have no fear of risk-taking, so I often devised strategies and tactics that, at first glance, seemed clearly off the wall. Conventional wisdom to me is something that needs to be challenged, not blindly accepted. My wife Lynne, who accompanied and assisted me, suggested the word maverick described me better than anything. I fully admit the name fits, and if you happen to have a maverick gene, I would encourage you to keep it active.

      I once worked with a very successful head coach in the National Football League, and I remember him telling his players repeatedly:  IF YOU MASTER THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE GAME, YOUR TALENT WILL DO THE REST!

      That’s the same advice I would give to anyone involved with a nonprofit organization. This is particularly true if your fundraising results are stagnant or if you are not meeting your goals. In this book I have outlined the fundamental principles of planning and fundraising, as well as offering some innovative concepts for your consideration. The size of your organization doesn’t matter. The coach’s advice was just as valuable for a high school football team as it was for one in the NFL.

      Change Can Be Good – But Not Always

      Ed Dugan is the King Pelican of fundraising in that he always comes up with a fish in his mouth.

      Erling Ayars, Former Newspaper Publisher

      N

      othing remains static for very long and this is especially true for nonprofits and the world of fundraising. People change, as do their needs and circumstances. The methods used to help them also change, as they must. A hundred years ago society’s problems were perceived much differently. We now focus much more on addressing the disease as well as the symptoms, and most of today’s nonprofits have done a remarkable job of doing that. The result is that the entire culture of fundraising and nonprofit organizations is much different today.

      I realize I am dating myself, but I think young people in the nonprofit world ought to know a little bit about its history. My first fundraising job was as Staff Director for the Philadelphia United Way, or the United Fund as it was known then. Roughly half our contributions came from payroll deductions and the other half from house-to-house solicitations, conducted by neighborhood volunteers.

      Can you imagine the logistics involved in recruiting that many volunteers? I gave at the office soon became a standard way to avoid a gift. I think the most interesting aspect of that period was our weekly Report Meetings, when volunteers and staff met to count the latest receipts and announce the progress of the campaign. We brought the money directly from neighborhood volunteers in paper bags. I can remember stuffing 10-15 bags full of cash and checks into my car and racing downtown to report the results.

      Since then, two major changes have taken place in the nonprofit world, one being the tremendous growth in the number of agencies and organizations. As churches, hospitals, and other established nonprofits developed outreach programs, and as the population grew, the need for more help and services grew as well. That growth increased the competition for donors in huge increments.

      Added to that was the incredible increase in the number of college-bound students. A college education, once the purview of only the well-to-do now became available to millions more. Colleges found a need for more classrooms, dormitories and administrative space, and capital campaigns were launched by the thousands.

      The second most significant change is the way nonprofits have embraced the participation of women. Dominated by men in the early stages, the nonprofit world is now dominated by women and I think that’s a good thing. Less ego, more compassion, equal if not better competence, what’s not to like?

      The growth of technology has also affected nonprofits, and not all for the better. We should never lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with human beings with real problems, not simply numbers the computer spits out. Recently I was working with a small rural shelter for abused women and children and was astounded to learn it handled over 3,000 cases a year!

      We have become a much more violent society and seem to be encouraging that evil growth in just about every way we can. The residue usually ends up at the door of a nonprofit agency or program, and the result is the need for more financial support as well as more staff, more services, and additional programs.

      The hard truth about fundraising is that only the results count. Either you raise the money your organization requires or you don’t, and when you don’t your community suffers. I happen to believe that adherence to fundraising fundamentals is the key to success, and I hope this book helps you to better understand them.

      Getting Across the River 

      In the never-ending battle for donors, if you have a plan, you win, if you don’t you lose.

      Ed Dugan

      P

      icture your organization on one side of a river and the money on   the other. What you learn here will help you get across. That can mean attracting additional gifts, obtaining larger gifts from your current donor base, and developing a viable plan for the future. If you omit the planning, the rest is not likely to happen.

      There is no generic formula to help a nonprofit become more successful because there are no generic nonprofits. Every organization faces a different set of challenges, even those in the same field of service. What works for one organization does not necessarily work for others. Fundraising situations are different, as are staffs, governing boards, locales, types of services, the size of an endowment or the lack thereof, and the general perception the public has of what the organization is doing.

      I realize there are a significant number of nonprofit organizations too small, or too underfunded, to have a development staff or even a development officer, and the task of raising money falls on the shoulders of the executive director and volunteers. Those are the organizations that, in my mind, are the most admirable. They expend a lot of energy and resources simply trying to survive, but they never give up. For many of them, every day is a struggle and yet the demand for their services continues to increase.

      If you agree that every nonprofit organization is unique, then you will avoid what I sense is a very negative trend. Nonprofit staffs seem to have become victims of boiler plate fundraising, sort of one-size-fits-all, which emphasizes form over substance. A major source of their knowledge appears to come from webinars, a dehumanized version of a seminar. Webinars offer a generic approach to everything, and suggest over-simplified solutions to some very complicated issues.

      I have been involved with the successful planning, cultivation, and solicitation of some very large gifts, and campaign goals of many millions of dollars. I hate to rain on your parade, but a successful approach to that level of fundraising cannot be accomplished by participating in a webinar.

      Another trend is to form a committee to develop what is called a mission statement. I can’t think of a bigger waste of time. What a homeless shelter does is apparent. Overblown rhetoric and pretty words will do nothing to enlighten the public about its mission. With the population increasing, and the number of poor, abused, and handicapped people growing with it, there is only one mission statement critical to every nonprofit – GROW!

      I have also noticed new phrases springing up that everyone seems to have embraced. Instead of

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