Where Have All The Good Fundraisers Gone?

Where Have All The Good Fundraisers Gone is Joanne Oppelt’s take on the #1 REASON WHY fundraising campaigns fail. Here’s what she has to share:

If you’re like the CEOs I know, it is tough to find good fundraising talent. Successful development professionals are few and far between. The way I see it, the problem is that fundraisers are not taught how to fundraise correctly, that is, in the most cost-efficient methods that result in enough money being raised that your nonprofit experiences missional success. The low pay and poor compensation for most nonprofit development staff add to the shortage of high-performing fundraising personnel.

This state of affairs exists for several reasons: people are trained in outdated techniques that don’t produce the results they once did, conventional methods of raising money are ingrained in the sector’s culture, and fundraisers make the most money as consultants.

Where Have All The Good Fundraisers Gone?

Conventional Fundraising

Traditional fundraising methods include sending out appeals, writing and submitting grants, implementing special events, and, if a nonprofit is large enough, running a capital campaign. These methods, by and large, appeal to low and mid-level donors, those making two, three-, four-, and low-level five-figure donations. According to traditional wisdom, the way to find high-level donors, those capable of making six and seven-figure gifts, is to research your current donor base and cultivate them to give more. Development staff become experts in implementing these techniques, moving up the ladder to greater responsibility, usually by leaving for a larger organization or becoming a consultant.

One can argue that industry-established fundraising methods are outdated and no longer work well. If they did, 60 percent of nonprofits would not have budgets of $500,000 or less. The nonprofit sector would also secure more than 5 percent of GDP, a level at which it has languished for years.

There is a better way, although many nonprofit leaders have not pushed for it. “Why?” you might ask.

Industry Incentives

The largest fundraising trade association is the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). AFP offers industry networking, education and training, and professional certification. Their bread and butter centers around teaching people to become experts at the various techniques used to raise money: implementing direct mail and email appeals, writing grants, running special events, conducting capital campaigns, and being ethical in the field. Topics like these are a pretty good array of what has worked in the past.

Consultants and software companies have formed whole industries to help nonprofits execute traditional fundraising activities. Vying for your dollar, they promise you that, with their help, you can raise money cheaper, faster, or better.  Not knowing any alternatives, we readily accept what they have to say. We have reached a level of insanity in the field. We do the same basic things repeatedly, expecting different results.

AFP is very good at catering to the needs of those who implement traditional development activities and the consultants and companies that promote managing and growing them. When I sat on a local AFP chapter’s education committee, suggestions were made to offer workshops that challenged the traditional way of doing things. It was made clear that half of all AFP members for that chapter were consultants, and many corporate conference sponsors were fundraising companies. Upsetting the applecart would risk the viability of their educational offerings and 50 percent of the chapter’s income.

Needless to say, conventional techniques were how the committee went.

Cultural Inertia

The inertia against new ideas and change has been ingrained into nonprofit culture. AFP professional certifications test your knowledge of the various types of fundraising methods. Since the sector promotes conventional fundraising techniques, they are touted as sector best practices. Peddled as industry standards, conference speakers talk about them, authors write about them, and colleges teach them. Thus, they become widely accepted.

There is an alternative, one that is based on clinical research and has been proven to work. It is getting better known. Yet, many leaders in the sector still object to it. The change to something new is too threatening to those who benefit from the old way of doing things.

Welcome to NANOE

The National Association of Nonprofit Organizations and Executives (NANOE) is an exception. NANOE is a nationwide network of donors, volunteers, and charitable leaders whose commitment to achieving significant impact transforms the communities they serve. It is a group of individuals who believe that innovation never fears a challenge. It is the fastest-growing nonprofit membership network in the United States.

Like AFP, NANOE provides networking opportunities, educational offerings, and certification. Unlike AFP, the network welcomes the introduction of non-traditional ideas to the nonprofit industry. NANOE solves community problems, not only services them, by deploying heroic missions of scale that confront social dilemmas so completely that money chases after them.

Why should you trust what NANOE has to say? Because their principles are rooted in empirical evidence. NANOE was formed to spread the results of a five-year study conducted by Clemson University evaluating outcomes related to nonprofit capacity building. Four hundred and seventy sector leaders completed a ninety-item survey about their motivations for building organizational capacity, the organizational dynamics present during their initiatives, and the effects of these two things on their nonprofits’ performance. The results were outlined in the 1,100-page desk reference New Guidelines for Nonprofits.

National Development Institute (NDI) is a subsidiary of NANOE. It focuses on the financial capacity-building aspects of the New Guidelines for Nonprofits by promoting the Major Gifts Ramp-Up model, an outgrowth of its findings.

Major Gifts Ramp-Up

The Major Gifts Ramp-Up Model is a thirteen-step process that, when followed religiously, raises more money at less cost than any other fundraising method. Differences between traditional fundraising techniques and Major Gifts Ramp-Up include:

• Traditionally, in small to mid-size nonprofits, high-net-worth donors are found in an existing donor base after years of cultivation. With Major Gifts Ramp-Up, donors capable of making five-, six-, and seven-figure gifts are identified immediately.
• Traditionally, small to mid-sized nonprofits are vested in raising money through special events. Major Gifts Ramp-Up uses events as recruitment and cultivation tools and not as primary forms of fundraising.
• Traditional fundraising teaches you how to research, write, and submit grants as part of a reactive process to requests from funders. Major Gifts Ramp-Up proactively meets foundation eaders, asking them how best to help them advocate for your cause.
• Traditional fundraising campaign models assume you have the organizational infrastructure necessary to complete them. The Major Gifts Ramp-Up model teaches you how to create the collateral you’ll need, such as cases for support, advancement calendars, gift range charts, and campaign visitors’ manuals.
• Traditionally, fundraisers raise enough money to keep their agencies afloat, possibly growing them a little. They do not achieve complete missional success. Through Major Gifts Ramp-Up, you raise enough money to solve the community your nonprofit addresses, not just service it.

NANOE changes the way nonprofit leaders think about fundraising. They offer an alternative the sector so desperately needs: Major Gifts Ramp-Up. Thousands of nonprofit fundraisers have been trained in the model. What are their results? Organizations that are prepared to raise all the money they need to meet their goals. They accomplish missional success.

Where do you find non-traditional perspectives on nonprofit leadership and fundraising? NANOE and its offerings.

How do you raise money correctly? Learn and implement Major Gifts Ramp-Up.

Where do you find a plethora of good fundraisers? Those who investigate and execute Major Gifts Ramp-Up campaigns.

Raise the money you need to build organizational capacity. Pay market-rate wages. Incentivize your success by going against tradition. Research NANOE and attend a Major Gifts Ramp-Up conference. Train your current staff and meet like-minded professionals. Make it easier for you to find good fundraising talent.

Where Have All The Good Fundraisers Gone was first posted at NANOE

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About the Author: Joanne Oppelt has spent more than thirty years in the nonprofit sector, helping large and small nonprofits alike. She has worked across multiple areas, including the arts, child welfare, disabilities, early childhood education, maternal and child health, mental health, public health, at-risk youth, and more. She has trained thousands of fundraisers and authored or co-authored more than twenty books on fundraising and nonprofit development. Joanne’s extensive background with a wide variety of 501(c)(3) organizations has enabled her to have a specialized insight into understanding the challenges nonprofits face both internally and externally. Her years of working in the nonprofit sector have given her the gift of knowing exactly what it takes to run successful fundraising campaigns that are not only completed on time but also come in under budget and over goal. Joanne holds a B.A. in education from Bethany University and a master’s in health administration from Wilkes University. She is privileged to help charitable organizations significantly impact the world.