NTC21 Fundraising Sessions Recap
The GiveMN team led three fundraising sessions during Navigating Through Change as part of our RaiseMN coaching and capacity building initiative.
In order to encourage our attendees to feel comfortable sharing professional and personal stories, these sessions were not recorded. However, we’ve provided just a little bit more context of these sessions below for those who were not able to attend.
Want to dig into these topics (or many more) one-on-one with a fundraising coach? Learn more about our special time-limited offer for Navigating Through Change participants below!
The First Thing to Face When Fundraising: Your Relationship With Money
During the first portion of this session, we walked through a brief history of fundraising heroes in the United States to explore those who walked before us in this profession. Then, attendees started to explore their personal relationship with money, and how their own past affects their feelings around fundraising today.
Resource takeaway #1: Dig into the past by researching some of the fundraising heroes we discussed—Alexander Hamilton, Cesar Chavez, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ACT UP, and Minnesota’s own Coffeehouse Collective. For non-monetary mobilization examples, look up the story of Georgia Gilmore and George Gamble’s Lake Adney story from right here in Minnesota. (Plus, even though she was not mentioned in this presentation, our own Leah E. Olm wanted to be sure to mention her own personal fundraising hero Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.)
Resource takeaway #2: Consider your own relationship to money by starting to explore these three questions:
In childhood, did you have more or less money than your friends? What beliefs about relationships and money did you develop as a result?
Could you discuss money with your family as a child? And can you today?
Did your family experience significant financial change during your childhood? How might that have impacted your relationship to money?
These questions are adapted from a worksheet by Mimi Ho, which was adapted from curriculum from the now-closed Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment in San Francisco.
Galas in a Pandemic: Taking your Offline Fundraiser Online
While in-person events are on hold for the time being, you can refocus that work time, adrenaline, and planning into new fundraising activities! While you’re not picking out table linens or folding programs, you can channel that individual and organizational energy into other ways of connecting with your donors more deeply, sharing the story of your organization with more people (for less money!), and getting creative with why and how you gather.
Resource takeaway: GiveMN has developed a fundraising campaign workbook to help walk you through the key components of your next fundraising campaign. And, for an example of a great virtual fundraising event, take a look at this one hosted by Theater Lattè Da.
Avoiding Donor Fatigue
RaiseMN’s Leah E. Olm began this session by being super upfront about her perspective based on years of experience as a fundraiser: data and anecdotal evidence leads her to believe donor fatigue is either so rare that it’s almost non-existent, or it’s a myth all together. Rather, it is easy to misdiagnose other fundraising ailments as donor fatigue.
Resource takeaway: Have you ever misdiagnosed a fundraising challenge as donor fatigue in these three categories?
“Our latest fundraising effort didn’t have the results we wanted, so it’s probably donor fatigue.”
Take a deeper look at every element of your campaign and be honest about where there were other potential missteps.“Someone (or some people) at my organization feel like donors are experiencing fatigue, so we’re going to make decisions based on those feelings.”
Everyone has feelings. Rely on data instead.“Donors must be tired of hearing double the fundraising asks during the pandemic and are just tired of giving.”
Nationally, giving volume was up in 2020. And eight months into the pandemic, donors smashed the previous Give to the Max Day record by nearly 40%.
Special offer for Navigating Through Change registrants:
Purchase two coaching appointments, and we’ll add the third for free!
Our coaching team has worked with hundreds of Minnesota organizations in the past three years to help evaluate their current development plan, set goals together, and help organizations level-up their fundraising game.
As a thank you for attending Navigating Through Change, we’re offering all registrants a special deal—when you purchase two one-hour coaching sessions, we’ll add the third for free! That’s three sessions for a total of $250 + processing. Start by scheduling your first appointment by Friday, March 5!
Through our work, we’ve discovered that three coaching sessions is enough time for most fundraisers to make measurable progress on one large project like planning a campaign or developing an annual fundraising plan. We believe we can make the most of our time together when we discover solutions which amplify your strengths and identify areas for growth.