Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Has quality of donors been sacrificed for quantity

The month since the death of 92 year old Olive Cooke has been filled with extraordinary commentary and concern about fundraising in the UK.

Nonprofit 'trade' journals have run articles featuring an array of the UK nonprofit sector's biggest names:
  • 'Charities in crisis over Olive Cooke case, Shawcross says' (Third Sector).
  • 'Shawcross and Bubb lock horns over the fallout of the Olive Cooke case' (Third Sector). 
  • 'Rob Wilson writes to IoF asking for greater protection for donors' (Civil Society UK).
  • 'Etherington’s suggestions ‘won’t address public concerns’, says Peter Lewis' (Civil Society UK).
  • 'Fundraisers should need a licence to practise, says former IoF chair Mark Astarita' (Civil Society UK).

A quick guide to the cast of characters - William Shawcross is the chair of the Charity Commission, Sir Stephen Bubb is the Chair of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO);  Rob Wilson MP is the Minister for Civil Society, Sir Stuart Etherington is the CEO of the National Council of Voluntary Organizations (NCVO); Peter Lewis is the CEO of the Institute of Fundraising (IOF). Unmentioned in the headlines yet central to many of the arguments is another organisation, the Fundraising Standards Review Board (FSRB).

On reading this you might be surprised at the number of worthy sounding bodies and their titled representatives and wonder how fundraising in the sceptred isle could have fallen into such disarray. Here is a brief sypnosis.

A 92 year old lady, known to have complained about the high volume of charity appeals directed her way was found dead beneath a 245 foot high bridge. The media instantly linked her death to the pressure of the incessant fundraising approaches made to her. Within days the British Prime Minister, David Cameron urged action be taken. Both the FRSB, the independent regulator of fundraising, and the IOF, a professional association for fundraisers and fundraising, responded to the incident and ensuing media pressure. The FRSB launched an inquiry into charity fundraising approaches.  The IOF announced strengthened rules for its fundraiser members.

The media pressure continued, notably in the tabloid press. The Mail on Sunday for example ran a story written by an undercover journalist who underwent training with telephone fundraiser, Listen Ltd. The journalist described  how "staff are trained how to cynically squeeze cash from potential donors including 98-year-olds and cancer sufferers." Several household name charities such as Oxfam, Cancer Research UK and the RSPCA were forced into defending their links with the telephone fundraiser. A commentator described the entire ongoing saga as a “a pent-up stream of concern and complaint” [12].

The debates signalled by the trade press headlines above are indicative of the discomfort of the charity sector. NCVO chief executive, Etherington pointed to the conundrum of “The Institute of Fundraising’s dual identity, being both the champion of fundraisers, and a body with a key role in regulating fundraisers". He noted that the IOF as the representative of fundraisers sets the code which the Fundraising Standards Board adjudicates fundraisers against". The players, in other words, are setting the umpire's rules.

The commentary has been joined by the academic and research community. Jo Saxton, chief of an independent  a research consultancy, NfpSynergy wrote: "The sector needs to get its house in order, providing donors with a much better sense of their rights when it comes to giving".   He reminded fundraisers of an apparently forgotten 'Fundraisers Promise", published on the FRSB website.

Among the Promise's statements are: “If you tell us you don’t want to be contacted in a particular way, we will not do so” and “we take care not to cause undue disruption or nuisance”.

Plymouth University’s fundraising think tank, Rogare, is responding by bringing forward a project to develop new ‘normative’ fundraising ethics.  The core of the new norm will be presented at IOF’s Scotland conference in October.  It is that, "ethical fundraising balances the duty of fundraisers to ask for support, with the rights of other stakeholders not to be put under ‘undue’ pressure to donate", says Rogare Director, Ian MacQuillin.

Most interesting to me, of all the various opinions expressed, is one by a veteran of  charity fundraising, Chris Washington-Soare. In a blog he bemoans fundraisers "have fallen for the growth-over-quality revenue generation model for far too long" [16].

In the future, Washington-Soare argues, "Our focus needs to be on nurturing high-quality, high-value donor relationships and slowing down the hamster wheel of growth".

A version of this blog first appeared as an NPQ Newswire on 22 June 2015

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Building profiles is good fundraising

What are we to make of this announcement in the Sydney Morning Herald



"Elite private schools are using sophisticated technology in order to tailor their fundraising pitches."

The piece then went on to say that schools use software that:

"Builds profiles on each donor, using census data to estimate wealth based on the average wealth of their suburb and the likelihood of them donating to the school.

"It stores every email a parent or donor has ever sent to the school's fundraising body, their payment and donation history, their volunteering efforts, event attendance and community involvement, to build a profile of the donor and measure their propensity to give."

In other words, schools identify and research fundraising prospects. This is exactly what schools, universities, cultural organizations and other charities ought to be doing if they are serious about fundraising, especially if they are serious about attracting major gifts.


Alfred A. Blum, Director of Advancement at Boston College Law School is cited as the source of the following fundraising maxim:

“The best solicitation occurs when the right prospect is asked for the right gift by the right solicitor at the right time in the right way... For that to occur, research is essential”. [For non-North Americans substitute 'ask' for 'solicit'!]

You as a competent fundraiser will also be able to justify good prospect identification and research from a donor's point of view.  How would you as a donor feel about sitting and listening to a pitch from a fundraiser for a project or cause in which you have absolutely no interest? What if you were asked for an amount that would be impossible for you to consider?  Or, conversely, you were approached for a small gift for something toward which you are strongly motivated and would like the opportunity to be significantly involved with?

Good prospect identification and research stops fundraisers wasting the time and effort of donors (as well as their own time and effort). Good prospect research builds a portrait of a door that tells us their interests, their ability to give and their links with your and other organizations. Good fundraising requires keeping and constantly refreshing this information. Most fundraising software provides ways of doing this.

Additionally, there is a heap of web-based software and searchable databases, freely available or paid for, that can provide valuable information to answer the questions you need to ask about someone's interests, ability to give and linkages.  From this information, you will be able to carefully plan your fundraising approaches so as to not waste the precious time and good regard of people.

The most important consideration though is to once again put yourself in the prospect's shoes.  Every time you record and retain some data about a prospect ask yourself, "If I saw or heard that this was being kept on my record how would I feel?"

If you have any doubts about storing information remember these five principles (adapted from the  Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement Ethics and Professional Standards):

  • Keep confidential information protected
  • Be sure data is accurate
  • Be sure data is relevant
  • Be clear about the purpose of your research
  • Take responsibility and be accountable for your actions as a professional fundraiser