Perfect Participation Project for Donors to Missionaries: The Granny Cloud!

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Pastor Foley

It’s funny.

We developed the idea of the Signature Participation Project for individuals doing ministries overseas–a way of helping them to get their donors to give more than money ‘n’ prayers by beginning to be involved hands-on in overseas ministry without leaving their homes.

Then people involved in ministry in their own communities said, “That’s great. But our ministry is local. There are no exciting projects for our donors to do like what international ministries can do with their donors.”

So we wrote Coach Your Champions both to introduce ministries of all stripes to Transformational Giving…and to give local ministries some creative ideas of how to get donors involved hands-on in ministry.

And then the international ministries said, “That’s great. But our ministry is international. There are no exciting projects for our donors to do like what local ministries can do with their donors.”

One can’t win for losing, you know.

So for missionaries and international ministries, please check out this report of a granny cloud forming above a secular international nonprofit near you.

Lest you think that videoconferencing is either too expensive for your ministry or beyond the technological capacity of your donors, let me note that:

  1. Our ministry is now doing videoconferencing daily to connect our far-flung offices. And our new church plant is using videoconferencing several times a week. The cost for even good videoconferencing software is surprisingly low compared not only to air travel but to telephone.
  2. 15% of Americans age 65 and older have Skyped or done a videoconference. That’s one large granny and grampy cloud.

Why do we Christian nonprofits and missionaries let secular orgs take the tech lead with their donors? We don’t really believe that it’s only the pagan grannies and grandpas that Skype, do we?

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The Truly Transparent Nonprofit is Born

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Hildy Gottleib’s work is always all kinds of interesting. We may hail from different neighborhoods of the fundraising universe in terms of our metaphysics and attendant terminology.

But we often end up in surprisingly close proximity in terms of the practices we recommend.

Like maximum, sheer, unadulterated transparency.

I’ve long said that development is something you do with donors, not to them. So I’ve been watching appreciatively as Hildy builds her brand new nonprofit organization totally in public, every seam showing.

It makes for fascinating reading.

Because Creating the Future’s values are rooted in The Pollyanna Principles, we know that authentic engagement requires authentic transparency. We have therefore chosen to make all this organization’s major decisions by transparently engaging discussion.

We are building our board openly, on line at Hildy’s blog (you’ll find some of that discussion here Click ).

We are openly sharing every aspect of our fundraising – sharing our strategy, our target audiences, our progress (beginning here Click ).

We have posted our short-term interim budget as well as a video sharing our plans and goals (that’s here Click ).

Transparent engagement is being built into Creating the Future’s bylaws (we talk about that here Click ).

As I say, the terminology and founding principles Hildy lays out in her book won’t ever be mistaken for The Whole Life Offering Ten, but our practices are certainly complimentary.

I’d love to beat her to the punch with an online Bylaws Wiki. In the mean time, I hope you’ll join me in adding her blog to your RSS feed so we can keep up on the transparent cutting edge of nonprofitdom that’s in full view at Hildy’s new org, Creating the Future.

Best of luck, Hildy. We’ll be watching.

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Nonprofits Confess Their Failures on New Website Part II: My Own Worst Fundraising Flub

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Pastor Foley

We were sharing in a post last week about the new AdmittingFailure.com website, the nonprofit equivalent of the confessional booth. The confessions there have prompted me to bare my own soul and share with you my own worst fundraising gaffe.

My lowest moment actually became a turning point, as I think happens to so many nonprofit execs.

It happened years ago when I was still practicing traditional transactional fundraising while serving as President of the Los Angeles Mission. We had a huge direct mail file, and we used to do wealth identifier screening and such. The screening turned up a guy who was a big wheel on Wilshire Avenue–classic major donor prospect.

So I started doing all the tried ‘n’ true moves management moves with this guy, and everything was going great–or so I thought. I ultimately scored an invitation to visit his office. I went in ready to bag my prey.

Then the guy said to me. “I know why you’re here, why you’ve been calling, why you’ve been sending me stuff, why you’re always so nice to me. It’s because you’ve done research, and you know exactly how much money I’m capable of giving to you. And your friendship is totally predicated on that.”

Er…

I had been truly pantsed. I felt naked. The guy was absolutely right. I was at a loss for words. All I knew was that now was not the right time to bust out the calendar and CD I had brought to give him.

“OK, you got me,” I said, slumping back into my chair. “But if you knew that was the gig, why did you invite me here?”

“Because you run the largest rescue mission in the world,” he said. “So I figure that means you ought to know more than I do about how to deal with homeless people.”

He then went on to explain how every day he passed hoards of homeless people on his way to work, on the freeway, on the way home, and at the gas station. He said he was happy to give money to the mission, but that still didn’t help him to be able to know how to interact with the homeless people he saw in his own life daily.

That conversation led ultimately to a lively brainstorming meeting–one that I hardly could have expected given the way our meeting had started. Instead of talking about ways that he could support the mission, we talked about ways the mission could support him as he sought to help the homeless people he encountered in his sphere of influence.

It was a seminal point in my growth in thinking as a fundraiser: Stop trying to get people to support you and instead find ways to support them as they tackle the cause in their own sphere of influence. Ultimately that approach is the best (and most genuine and appreciated) “move” we can make with a donor.

And ultimately that approach led to two books, the teaching ministry I now help to lead, and the blog you are now reading.

This means that if you use the comment space below to share your own worst failure—even the quicksand pit that may be slurping you up at present—you may be well on your way to your own career turning point as well.

Enter the confessional by leaving a reply below.

For further inspiration to bare your soul, make sure to check out Allison Jones’ own post, The Best and Worst Moments of My Nonprofit Career. My own story is there, along with those of several other similarly humbled colleagues.

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