A continuation of earlier posts from the IFC’s survey on the state of the economy and what we as fundraising professionals should be doing to ride out the storm.

• The strategic and tactical decisions made by charities will have more influence on their fortunes than the recession itself. Charities have more control than they think they do so long as they focus on program fundamentals, do not panic and focus on the long-term.
• Board members and senior management need to understand the current financial data and stop making unrealistic expectations.
• Work like a for-profit organization to gain increased long-term growth.
• Develop messages, themes and scripts around why we need our donors now more than ever.
• Strengthen current partnerships to weather the storm rather than looking for new ones. Look at what you do best and focus on that before trying a new tactic. Examine where your money comes from and concentrate on high-yield activities.
• Focus on the big three areas—regular giving, major gifts and bequest/legacy programs. Drop all other marginal or unprofitable activities that won’t provide significant long-term benefits.
• Organizations should continue to market and conduct bequest and legacy programs. It may not make any difference this year but you’ll be in a lot better position next year than will other organizations.
• Invest time, intelligence and money in massively improving the donor experience with the charity. Remind donors that they are wanted, needed and appreciated.

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In reviewing the survey results I wrote about yesterday, there are a few key comments that showed up consistently. You’ll recognize most; they fall under the heading of Fundraising 101. Key concepts we all know, but to often forget.

• Remind donors they are wanted, needed and appreciated. Invest time, intelligence and money in massively improving the donor experience with your organization.
• Make sure donors who do withdraw their support for economic reasons are still communicated with and are being shown appreciation. Most will return IF ASKED when times get better.
• Do what you are good at better, retain your strengths, cut your losses and seize new opportunities (lower media costs as an example).
• Demonstrate value for money – consistently and across all activities.
• Engage the public in other “non financial” ways with your organization through advocacy, signing up to e-newsletters, etc. This will give you a new and greater pool of warm prospects after the crisis subsides.
• Look after legacy donors more and better than ever.
• Do not stop investing in fundraising. You should spend more in the areas where it delivers the biggest ROI.
• This economic crisis is a wake up call for fundraisers to develop new and effective ways of fundraising. We need to step up fundraising R&D and break through especially on new e-fundraising initiatives. Community fundraising in particular needs to embrace Internet 2.0 and create new fundraising communities.
• Stay front and center with your supporters.
• You can’t do anything about the economy so stay calm, stay on message and stay positive!

And lastly, again, it’s about the donors:

look after existing donors extremely well - appreciate if they can’t offer support at the same level as in the past but know that they’ll see you through tough times.

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Convio, Inc the leading provider of on-demand constituent relationship management software and services for nonprofit organizations estimates that US online giving to nonprofit organization will be more than $3 billion during the holiday season of 2008. A survey conducted by Jupiter Research, a Forrester Research company, reveals that in the US more than half plan to donate to charities of their choice during the upcoming holiday season via the Internet. There are approximately 175 million adults in the US who are using the Internet. Nearly 7 out of 10 people surveyed plan to give the same amount or more, while the current state of the economy will lead 33 percent to give less to charity this holiday season. Despite the challenges of the economy online giving levels have surpassed the tipping point in being a critical component for the overall nonprofit fundraising mix.

a key finding:

The charity’s web site is the most useful tool among those who plan to donate online this holiday season (27%), followed by email appeals sent from family and friends (15%).

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I recently attended the International Fundraising Congress in the Netherlands. It was a heady experience with over 950 delegates representing 60 countries. Meeting and learning from colleagues on a global scale is becoming increasingly more valuable for all of us as we compare and benchmark with our peers.

As you can well imagine, the state of the economy was on everyone’s mind, played into many sessions and was the focus of a special mini-plenary on the last morning. But what was most interesting: attendees were upbeat about plans for the next year and saw opportunities in the challenges being presented.

Over the course of the Congress, an online survey was undertaken to explore the implications of the global financial crisis for fundraisers. The views of 100 leading worldwide fundraising thought leaders were sought on:

• How serious the financial crisis is and the broad strategy fundraisers should adopt in response to this global phenomenon?
• Where in terms of ‘cause’ - children, environment, faith etc - these international experts think the financial crisis will impact most?
• What action our experts thought fundraising directors should take to prepare for the emerging changes?

The headline results:

• Almost 40% of respondents believe that the best response is to fight for market share now; expansion to secure market share is the only option
• Almost as many favored another strong proactive action though the specific responses varied from downsizing to using reserves to weather the storm
• European and North American fundraisers are more optimistic than their African or Asian counterparts
• Globally respondents believe that the three areas most likely to lose out are arts and culture, international development and animal welfare
• Respondents also agreed that children’s causes, emergency relief, medical and faith-based causes would be least affected
• North American respondents disagree most strongly on the effect of the funding crisis on disability, education, the environment and faith-based causes
• Europeans are more concerned than others about the impact on disability, human rights and the elderly.

Tomorrow: some selected ideas from survey respondents on what fundraising professionals and our organizations should do as we ride out the storm.

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The fundraising mix in the 21st century

by Indira Sam-Sin

Fundraising instruments have changed over the last twenty years. But donors have changed as well. Donors aren’t as loyal to their favorite charities as they were some years ago. If charities don’t approach the donors in the way donors want to be approached, they are likely to cancel their support.

While donors have changed, technology has advanced. Do charities need to communicate differently with their donors? And do charities need to make use of new media to communicate with their donors? This article addresses both these questions.
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We live in a global world. Not only do we look within our own communities for new donors, but we reach across borders seeking those who would support our cause. Today we begin a new category, Crossing Borders, where we will speak about international fundraising. Joining us will be contributors worldwide who will weigh in on topics ranging from the challenges we face in the current economic climate to the various fundraising instruments available today. Our goal is help you discover new ideas, new markets, and new donors. We hope to assist all our readers acquire additional knowledge along with the needed tools to be poised for new growth when the current challenging climate turns around.

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from Fundraising Success Magazine:

You Might Need to Redesign Your Web Site If …

For most businesses and organizations, a Web site started out as an online billboard or brochure. As technology has changed — and it has done so at breakneck speed the last several years — Web sites have become online locations where audiences expect to get real services and take actions important to them.

“Modernizing” your Web presence — particularly if it involves multiple sites, complex e-commerce applications or extensive libraries of content — can be a long, costly (and sometimes painful) experience…

But how do you know whether it is time to redesign your Web site? Less than two years ago, a thoroughly modern Web site could ignore things with names like social media and RSS, accessibility and search engine optimization; it could do without Flash-based animation and “rich media”; it added new content weekly, if that often. It had no blog. When content needed to change, a technician was called in to work magic with HTML code.

But things have changed … and keep changing, almost daily it seems. What appeared up to date yesterday, today can seem so “yesterday”.

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eJewish Philanthropy welcomes London journalist Celina Ribeiro with her post, Looking a Gift Horse In the Mouth.

At what point should a charity ‘just say no’?

At a seminar on ethical challenges for Jewish charities hosted by the Jewish Association for Business Ethics, I was struck by the comments of one of the speakers.

Dayan I Berger, an expert in Jewish law, told his audience of Jewish charity representatives that they have an ethical and pragmatic duty to investigate the source of their donations. Indeed, sometimes, to reject them.

Charities, in particular Jewish ones, have a responsibility “not to bring the institution of charity into disrepute by associating with or receiving tainted money,” he said. “It belittles the concept of charity altogether.”

And when a charity is presented with “dubious money”, Berger insists they have a duty to reject it. Accepting the money, even when it would do great good for the charities’ beneficiaries, would “condone wrong-doing”.

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LIFE: an innovative Tikun Olam program for Jewish and Israeli young adults is just about to launch their initial cohort. We last wrote about them in August; here with a program update is Rachel Neiman.

Helping the developing world is perhaps the biggest challenge of the new century and, at this point in history, one of the most disheartening. Despite decades of effort on the part of governments, organizations and individuals, in the long run many aid programs have perhaps done more harm than good. To paraphrase the old adage: most aid efforts have focused on giving people a fish, rather than teaching them to fish. And while the Israeli government, through aid arm MASHAV, has long been helping the developing world learn to fish, Israeli and Jewish non-government organizations (NGOs) have mainly focused on Israel, its immediate neighbors, and the Jewish community.

Time for a change, says Yonatan Glaser, founder and director of educational NGO B’Tzedek. “Up until now, efforts to revitalize Jewish institutions have been very inward focused. I think you’ve got to be worthy to appear worthy. I think that’s where young Jewish and Israeli people are today: they want to build their own identities, a community and a communal life. Paradoxically these can be strengthened by going overseas. By being outwardly focused we will do some of that inward revitalization.”

B’Tzedek has partnered with another Israeli NGO, Brit Olam, to create LIFE, a nine-month learning program for college graduates from the Jewish world and their Israeli peers (aged 21-30) that will train participants in effective social action which can change policy by sending them to the developing world.

Early this November, starting with an initial one month training period in Israel that will include looking at case studies of community, rural and urban development and social change, the first group of LIFE interns will depart for internships in Hyderabad, India for four months, after which they will return to Israel for a second four-month internship. So far, 12 people have registered and a few more slots are still open. A shorter option, ending in the spring, also exists.

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A 1951 advertising clip by Air France promoting travel to Israel. Enjoy!

Shabbat Shalom

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