For fundraisers this meant bringing together all of the elements of a successful campaign. For other departmental silos it delivered the view they needed to get their job done. Leaders began to receive more complete data from their direct reports, and for a while it seemed as if 360 had helped organizations do a 180 in terms of having the data needed to make better decisions.

But there was a problem – in fact many problems.

First, the 360 view was essentially a new way to look at all the structured data found in a traditional database of record (known as a donor management system for fundraisers). 80% of data today is unstructured and it has little to no place in the 360 paradigm.

Second, it was a 360 view of each silo – not of the organization.

For leadership this meant they were not receiving all of the information from each silo, and they were not provided the cross-organizational view they really needed.

It is like a shipâ€s captain receiving reports from each deck at different times – some more complete than others. The captain makes the decision to continue the journey not realizing the refrigerator is broken and the food will spoil soon because that department is late with their report or perhaps doesnâ€t want the captain to know there is a problem.

For the President of a college this might be the cancellation of season tickets by an alum he is counting on to support the capital campaign. The head of a homeless shelter could be asked to be part of a tour of the shelter for a large donor who she discovers volunteers there once a week. A headmaster of a private school calls on a prospective donor not knowing their daughter just received a very negative report from one of her teachers.

And what about the mission? Are leaders able to see not only transactional elements of impact reports, but also analysis of written responses? Can they see how employee engagement is affecting performance of students?

Leaders understand what they donâ€t know can, and does, hurt them. For them viewing only what their silo managers can see is not enough. They need a cross-organizational view to confidently, and safely, set a course for sustainability.

P.S. If you are interested in learning more about how you can bring cross-organizational intelligence to your leadership click HERE or stop by the New Science of Philanthropy booth at the APRA International Conference August 7-10 in Baltimore.

When talking about a fundraising campaign the first question usually is, “Whatâ€s the goal?” The higher the number the more impressed we are. I have enough grey hairs to remember when a billion was a big deal. Now a billion seems quaint as USC continues its quest for $6 billion. In the hyper-competitive world of higher education fundraising can the $10 billion campaign be far off?

In the middle of all of this “my goal is bigger than your goal” activity I came across a campaign with no goal at all: The Great Give at Florida State University. A 36 hour on-line campaign, donors could select from 24 programs. There was no overall goal – only a cost next to each program.
Despite the campaign having the misfortune to be launched at exactly the moment the world was focused on the police closing in on the Boston Marathon bombing suspects (April 18-19), it raised nearly $114,000. $57,000 a day is not too shabby for an on-line campaign.

The money is great, but what I like most about this approach is how it centers on mission goals rather than fundraising goals. Donors are exposed to projects often lost amid the hype about reaching the big number. It also presents the costs of the projects, something missed when the conversation is about how much needs to be raised.

This approach has another big benefit – it allows donors to explore your mission and discover where their interests and passions intersect with your needs. This has huge potential for increasing donor retention as people no longer feel trapped into always giving to what they have supported in the past (of course for this to truly translate into long-term giving organizations have to respect the choices donors make).

On the acquisition front, mission-centered goals provide prospective donors the freedom to find their own paths to your organization. This also combats the dreaded restricted gifts for programs you donâ€t need because you have given people choices, but not the choice to create their own projects. I believe a lot of the nightmare gifts are received because of organizations insisting donors have to give for particular program areas.

As you plan your next fundraising campaign think about adding choice to the mix, and making the goal about the cost-of-mission instead of the cost-of-fundraising.

P.S. Kudos also to FSU for having their Leaderboard focusing on how the projects are doing instead of how much individual donors have given.

 

This all sounds amazing, but to me it feels like technology is just catching up to reality. Most of the worldâ€s data has always been unstructured: thoughts and memories in peopleâ€s minds; carvings on stone; or printed on a piece of paper. The concept of structured data came along when databases appeared and data was required to fit neatly within distinct fields. Numbers, dates, names, and addresses were welcomed. Notes, comments, and documents were exiled to live either outside of the database or in unsearchable (and often seemingly unreachable) places within it.

Every time you log-on to your favorite donor management system you experience the consequences of this “Unstructured Data NOT Welcomed” legacy. You search for a personâ€s name, and if that person is mentioned in a note rather than having his or her own record, you are out of luck. You remember reading a great profile of the person, yet you canâ€t find it because it was created in MS-Word – one of the biggest prisons for unstructured data.

Philanthropy has been especially hard hit because so much of what it does canâ€t easily be structured. Think of all the visits with donors and the Contact Reports detailing how the visits went. How much value was lost as you shoe-horned your impressions, feelings, and insights into your database? For too many organizations the simple fact of a visit happening is all that is measured without regard to how it went.

What about all the external data purchased from screening vendors? Was it reduced to a few “attributes” so you could pretend it was integrated with your “database-of-record”? Speaking of DOR, can we make it RIP please?! Your database-of-record is only a record of quantifiable data like donations, and activities. Itâ€s like a cash register – Counts your money, but has no ability to measure what is really making it ring.

And what about social media? According to Gartner 45% of spending on Big Data over the next few years will be driven by social analytics and intelligence. Where does all that data go?

On the mission side of the house where do you store information about impact? Where are the reports from the field? As donors demand more evidence their gifts make a difference, how much evidence is hidden within attachments: a technological innovation invented to keep unstructured thinkers (meaning most of us) at bay while engineers sought to bring structure to everything.

They have failed miserably. 80% of the world (and I would say even higher for those of us in philanthropy) is just beyond our reach. We are left to find our way based on transactional data, data which is misleading at best, and dangerous at worse.

It is not without some irony IBM, the company which first brought us the technology to separate the structured from the unstructured world, is the one now telling us the future belongs to those able to make sense of what their now out-dated technology cannot.

Big Blue has embraced Big Data. It is our opportunity to reclaim all the knowledge lost as we dutifully entered our feelings, emotions, and thoughts into unfeeling, unemotional, and thoughtless databases. It is our chance to free ourselves from searching, and begin finding what matters.

For philanthropy, Big Data provides a platform to enable missions to connect at a deeper level with donors, and to dramatically increase the impact on those it serves. That is an unstructured world I would like to live in – one I believe we have been living in all along.

While 39% is impressive, what I found even more striking was the year-over-year change – 15%. Clearly nonprofit leaders are getting tired of doing the same things and being disappointed when they donâ€t get different results.

What kinds of changes can we expect? A clue is the number one answer – “Attend conferences or network to build relationships.” People are hungry for answers, but they are also looking for fresh ideas and perspectives (or at least 58% of them are). The 46% planning to upgrade technology is another indication of a growing feeling that the tried and true is tired and increasingly counter-productive.

Another intriguing indicator that maybe, just maybe, there is the will to make fundamental changes is the 21% wanting to collaborate with another organization. If these brave organizations start to see the benefits of collaboration then more will follow.

You may be saying, “I have heard the collaboration story before and know how it ends – with nothing happening.” Before you give up hope, take a look at the answers from the Service side of the world:

If 50% of the organizations are planning to collaborate to improve/increase services, then we almost have a majority seriously considering finding innovative ways to work together rather than ways to compete. The missions, and the donors, are the big winners as more people are served and donor dollars are more effectively utilized.

It is heartening to see organizations taking control of their destinies, and moving their own cheese rather than waiting to complain as it is done for them.

P.S. Hope to see some of the 58% at the Donor Retention Bootcamp this summer in Tampa.

I am reminded of this story when I hear about what fundraisers, and others involved in philanthropy, say is needed to be successful. There never seems to be enough information, technology, personnel, and good donors. Imagine telling this tale at the pearly gates. I’m not sure a sympathetic audience awaits.

Do you really want to make the case for information being in short supply? Is the technology available not amazing enough for you? Good people seem hard to find, but how many good people have left your organization in frustration? And with the exponential growth in wealth is it about the money or what you are (or not) doing to genuinely engage prospective donors?

Perhaps the problem is not supply, but rather abundance. Has the value of information diminished as the ease of acquiring it increased? With so many technologies from which to choose, is it more comfortable to stick with what you know even when it’s clearly outdated? With so many people looking for work, is it easier to post a job than to focus on creating a culture that retains talent? There are more people than ever who can support your organizations, and those people come from every generation, gender, ethnic group, and location, but does this create paralysis rather than action?

We may yearn for the good old days when there were fewer answers, and best practices guided our every move. Those days are long gone. Time to get off our knees, be thankful for all we have been given, and start getting in the boats and helicopters.

This issue first came to my attention while I was working with a well-known university. We were discussing the giving patterns of affluent alums when a major gifts officer lamented about people who only made a gift in a year when they went on the alumni trip.

These were not ordinary trips. They were 10-14 day adventures combining exotic locations and encounters with famous people. Faculty who were experts in the areas being explored rounded out the experience.

Soon after this I was at a museum delivering their screening results and heard the same comment. Edu-cations had become all the rage and it certainly made sense for the arts to get in on the trend.

I began to ask questions about these programs and discovered they had become an industry onto themselves with less and less direct connection to the organization. If not for the school emblem and accompanying color scheme, the glossy brochures and splashy websites could have been easily mistaken for a Silversea Expedition.

This is a great example of why being mission-centered is so critical to donor retention. In a donor-centered environment you could think the trips were part of thanking your donors. In a mission-centered world the trip would focus on the relevance to the mission, and always include an honest explanation of why support was needed every year whether a person went on the trip or not.

I can almost hear the cries of the marketing team saying if you mention the uncomfortable truths about the need for on-going support the response rate will plummet. What they won’t share is the even more uncomfortable truth of how some donors actually feel paying for the trip is a gift in itself. That feeling fills cabins and hotel rooms, but it does not fill the classrooms with deserving students who canâ€t afford tuition.

Unrelated business income is an important source of revenue, and there is nothing wrong with edu-cations, but there should never be a disconnection from the mission or you may face unexpected consequences.

Good news for local organizations, and schools with a lot of alums nearby. For everyone else it is a wake-up call to find ways to bridge the distance between their missions and the hearts of their donors.

On the face of it there is an easy answer as to why – people want to keep their money close to home. Certainly makes sense, but is there something deeper at work? Are donors saying they don’t trust organizations they can’t see? Is the connection between their mail box and the mission not enough? Is social media failing to make the digital connection? Has face-to-face fundraising become so much about the ask, there is no connection between appeals?

The answer seems to be yes on all counts. We are paying the price for direct mail best practices being to ask, ask again quickly, and be sure to ask again soon thereafter; social media being about speaking at, not with, supporters; and face-to-face focusing on the fundraising goals instead of the mission goals.

Philanthropy is a sector where distance should not impact the decision to engage. After all, the person who gives rarely benefits from the gift itself. Giving is truly about the receiver, not the giver. Whether the receiver is in your neighborhood or around the world only matters if you don’t feel connected and therefore need to see it for yourself.

And what about “seeing”? I remember after the Asian tsunami World Vision told the story of sending videos of people receiving help and hearing back from donors they were happy to know their gifts actually resulted in people being helped. This story highlighted how many donors are not actually sure their gift will be used effectively (or at all).

Today how can any organization not show a donor what the mission is accomplishing with their support? You don’t need a Spielberg production, just a camera focused on your mission. Bridging the distance between your mission and your donors is your responsibility. Imagine direct mail having an ask, mission, ask, mission pattern; social media being a conversation with your mission the topic; and face-to-face meetings being mission-centered with fundraising goals never being mentioned.

Keeping a connection despite inconvenient geographic location is a talent we have all learned. My family stretches from coast-to-coast. It’s not always easy, but you receive a video like this and you are transported to a backyard hundreds of miles away, able to give the slugger a virtual hug.

P.S. For the direct mail folks who fear sending mail without an ask, World Vision received checks along with thank you notes for the video.

Reading the back-and-forth about Pallottaâ€s presentation Iâ€m reminded of the scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen becomes so fed up with a person in line pontificating about Marshall McLuhanâ€s work he brings McLuhan out of the shadows to confront the man.

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For all the people believing Pallotta is off track (and his rocker) I give you the opinion of a well-known philanthropist:

“We need to better comprehend this environment and learn how to participate in it. The arts are slow at developing donors online, where much fundraising now happens. We have been slow to attract the new money—the hedge fund and social-media crowds, the new inheritors of wealth. We need these people in the arts, but we are not getting their attention. Large amounts of money are going into donor-advised funds; we scarcely know how to reach those funds. We are late adapters of social media, of the interactive ways of dealing that are now common among the young.

As fundraisers, we are not good at collaborating; we argue for one symphony or one dance company or one museum at a time—without appealing for the arts as a whole, significant sector in American life. And as institutions we haven’t learned to combine tasks, to find common ways of solving problems, to enlist new thinkers in our business.

We are trying to do business as usual, when—in fact—the usual is gone. There is a new usual. We need to make it work for the arts. Without the arts, we would be people without inspiration, without ideas, without ideals. That’s why successful fundraising for the arts in the new economy is essential.”

Agnes Gund – Philanthropist

This was written in July of last year. You can take out the word “arts” and replace it with any sector of philanthropy. Thank you, Ms. Gund, for giving voice to what is on the minds of so many of your fellow philanthropists, and many people who are trying to do good better. In this case it is the messenger, not the medium, that matters.

P.S. For Woody fans here is the whole scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ8tKRlW3E

I have found in working with people who give of their time and/or treasure they donâ€t like the term donor (makes them think of missing kidneys and blood loss), so Iâ€m thinking the idea of being “owned” would not go over well either.

Sears once thought if you wanted appliances, toys or hardware they owned you. GM and Ford at one time were so thoroughly convinced of their ownership of car buyers they treated Japan more as a novelty than a competitor. Home Depot, Toys R Us, and Toyota are among the many companies born in no small part because of the arrogance of the former leaders of their industries.

As fundraising bumps along into the 21^st century it finds itself in the midst of a consumer revolt. No one is willing to be shackled to a brand or forced to purchase products and services in a certain way. This free range consumer is demanding a frictionless experience unencumbered by arbitrary processes and rules governing how they interact with a company.

Increasingly consumers are looking for this same experience when they support an organization. Text, website, direct mail, telephone, event and face-to-face are just means to a good end. Saying that one silo or another somehow owns a person defeats the entire idea of multi-channel marketing.

Is major gifts supposed to ask direct response for permission to reach out personally to a donor? Does a fundraiser at a college need approval to attend an alumni event?  This is a farce created by people who believe they can control others. It is encouraged by reward systems which focus on how well each silo performs rather than the organization as a whole.

As donor retention continues to decline too many organizations are re-organizing their silos much as Sears, GM and Ford re-organized their companies, failing to understand it is the silos themselves which must be eliminated.

Social consumers, AKA donors, are not going to put up with this much longer. In fact, younger donors are already telling the old-guard what they think of their approach as they give to non-traditional organizations who have wisely (or because they are too small) not adopted the “best practices” of the industry.

The free range donor is as scary to fundraisers (and perhaps even scarier to their consultants) as the modern consumer was to the big brands of yesterday. Donâ€t make their mistake of re-arranging the deck chairs as the ship slowly sinks. Be bold, be brave, be mission-centered, and let your donors go where they want to go. You have the greatest products on earth. They want you to succeed, but they are not going to go down with the ship.

The goal was simple: find people in your database who have the capacity to give more than they are now, and the propensity to make a gift. You would think the reaction to this was universally positive. After all, the classic peer review sessions were breaking down under the weight of the volume of people, and the growing diversity of wealth.

But it turned out the first thing people wanted to see was their current top prospects. If they were not at the top then it must not work. This is a challenge screening companies have faced ever since.

Grenzebach Glier came along and solved the problem by heavily weighting past giving as the measure of affinity. Voila! Your current best donors were your future best donors. This started a debate which rages to this day: should you mix affinity, propensity, and capacity into a single score or should you create separate scores?

As you may have surmised from the title of this post I am a believer in love for a nonprofitâ€s mission (affinity), how philanthropic one might be (propensity), and how much one has to give away (capacity) being analyzed as separate elements. I will use one of my favorite beverages to explain:

– You can love or hate Starbucks.

– You can love or hate coffee.

– You can afford Starbucks or not.

For the good folks in Seattle their best customers have the propensity for coffee, the capacity for expensive coffee, and an affinity for Starbucks. They know there are plenty of people who love to have their tasty concoctions but can’t afford FiveBucks. They also know there are people who think their coffee is too acidic and enjoy Dunkin their Donuts. Finally they also know there are people who can’t stand the smell of coffee (I’m married to one of those tea lovers).

In philanthropic terms this means someone with money who is a giver to others can still not be into your mission. Another might love everything you do, but has no discretionary dollars to share.

By measuring each aspect of a person separately you can then bring those individual elements together, and when you do your best prospects will be easy to see.

This approach also ensures that people lacking current affinity, but having capacity and/or propensity, are also easy to find.