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Here's my example, but lets see more.
A month or so ago, my niece emailed from London. She had set herself a couple of challenges. She was going to run her first half marathon and she wanted to raise money for a cause when she did. Oxfam, she said (in her message header) was a really good cause, didn’t we think, and here’s why, she explained succinctly in her message text (confessing to an open crib from Oxfam’s website page). Would we support her? The cause was great and it was very easy to donate, she said, giving us the simple steps we needed to make our donation online.
A week or so later, I got a reminder email. I’m still doing this, said Milly, but so far, just she and her mum had given. So I got up from the computer and went to my nearest and dearest and asked them and we gave our donation. Milly ran her marathon and from the donations of her family and friends raised nearly 300 pounds. Milly thanked us, Oxfam thanked us. We all felt pretty good about our efforts, even if Milly did the yards.
I’m telling you this story because it shows many of the elements of good fundraising.
Firstly Milly asked. It was good timing on her part (we knew she wanted to get to that start line) and she was the right person to be doing the asking. She didn’t put a figure on the amount we might give (only discretely alluded to the generosity of others) but assured us that we could give safely and directly to the cause. Milly had also remembered that for several Christmas’s we’d all been captivated by the chance to give each other goats and ducks and farming implements, small symbolic gifts, the proceeds of which Oxfam had organized, through this clever campaign, to get to those in need. So we were linked in some way to this particular cause already. We all miss Milly, the first of her generation doing her OE, despite the miles of ocean, here we all were again, back together.
Right time, place, person asking, people being asked, right amount and the right need, and most of all, a bedrock of relationships.
Ask yourself if you are ready to go fundraising:
Is my cause understandable? Who do I know or might get to know better who would ‘get’ or share a passion for what I do? Do I know why I need the resources I am going to ask for? Have I engaged with the people who might help me find those resources? Do they feel empowered to be part of the cause, because the case is compelling and they trust the need will be met? Have I made it easy for them to donate and have I made it totally clear how and what their gift will be used for. Lastly, have I thanked them heaps and am I ready to nurture and support their engagement?
Thank you for your comments and insight into the time and effort that goes into fund-raising. What this really brings into light for me is how many companies and individuals have moved away from supporting arts and focusing more on those who are in "need". This is a really important cause. But how can we popularise interest in supporting the Arts again?
Conpanies do move their sponsorship budgets around and in and out of the not-for-profit sector – these are the commercial decisions that are a reality for arts practitioners and organizations raising money out of sponsorships. And you are right to observe a shift in recessionary times from case to need. Not surprising - we are a compassionate animal to whom the urgency of food, warmth, shelter and security looms large.
But as for a general trend away from the arts in terms of its philanthropic “popularity’, I’m not so sure this is actually happening. That is, the evidence is mixed. With individual giving, especially gifts that are planned, people’s causes are usually very much their own. Success in retaining that giving is a unique blend of the case we make matching that individual’s motivation. At all times, not just when times are tough, the wise organization nurtures that bond.
However, with those qualifiers, on to your larger question: in what ways do we maintain or build a compelling case for support of the arts? Leaving aside the issue of how and to whom that case is put for the moment, lets try the elevator exercise writ large. As Alan Brown so nicely put it in An Architecture of Value, it’s no one’s job but everyone’s job to find and learn a new language of value and benefits (see Barry interviewing Alan here).
Ten compelling reasons, in paragraphs of no more than 2 sentences, why the arts in New Zealand are a great cause. Its Day Two of this forum, here’s a challenge to all – lets see them in by Friday !
I firmly believe that 99% of us work in the arts because we are passionate about them and usually that passion is driven by a desire to have a meaningful impact on an audience/society/the world (audience can mean anyone that you engage with). If you can find out who you are having that impact on they make excellent targets for your fundraising message.
With that said, we need to use the right language to articulate this passion so we have a more compelling 'cause' to champion. I don't believe words like 'professional, innovative or world class' describe that passion adequately to inspire people - even if they are true. I exchange cash for Apple products because they are 'professional, innovative and world class' but I wouldn't give my money to them.
To simplify greatly - as I am not an artistic director - we want to 'change lives through art'. Surely something life-changing is worth supporting? How can you incorporate that into the compelling reason (in 2 paras) why your art - or New Zealand arts - is worth supporting?
Tuesday April 13 was Arts Advocacy Day in the US so I checked out the Americans for the Arts site and found this Arts Blog item by Joanna Chin, a distillation of all the great reasons for supporting the arts
(Suitably absorbed, this might be of use for Friday’s homework!)
I said we’d leave aside the issue of how and to whom the case gets put but I couldn’t go past a great discussion about changing the way we communicate in public about the arts at Cincinnati’s FineArtsFund. Check it out !
Rumbling on underneath the conversation in the States is a general concern that arts support has reached a plateau. Yet the evidence is so contradictory. Everywhere around us (literally) we see activity that suggests we are madly at work and play creating art. Three in four New Zealanders declare themselves engaged in the arts. What is going on? This forum, especially under its Cultural Philanthropy Taskforce thread, is a chance to bring forth the ideas you have about how to encourage arts philanthropy, including changing the ways we talk about art, and the ways we organize to give or receive support.
Let's not fall into the trap of believing that what goes on in arts philanthropy 'overseas' will only work there .
I’m going to borrow, unashamedly, the observations of Melissa Smith, a 2007 Australian Churchill Fellow, from her insightful report here.
She took the opportunity of her fellowship to compare the experience of arts organizations, both performing and visuals arts, in the UK and US, to find some best practices in philanthropy. She argues that despite cultural differences and differences in the funding ecology, some good practices are very transferable.
My summary of her observations is this, that successful philanthropy is happening in these ‘best practice’ organizations because:
Those organizations, often in highly competitive environments, have listened hard to that environment and have refined and articulated their communications so that their case has a style that reverberates with their ‘brand.’
Those organisations don’t just stick to the knitting of transaction-based interaction with their funding markets, they look to (and invest in) philanthropy to build greater long-term sustainability
They acknowledge the longer-term project and the cyclical patterns of giving (“no money this year, I’m nervous about…” or “actually I’ve had a windfall, I’m so glad you believe I’m still there for your mission, because I am…) by taking a broad development approach and over time putting real resources in. And not pulling out the seedlings out too soon!
These organisations see the risk of the slowly moving demographic shift in giving habits, understand that finding the next generation of donors will be tough but know that these are issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Hi Margaret,
Thanks so much for your great insights. You've talked about how we need to build a compelling case for the arts. But if an individual arts organisations has articulated its value and put a great case for support together and the "everyone" Alan Brown refers to (i.e. board/staff/volunteers) is ready and willing AND we think that there's some potential supporters out there. What do they do next? Where do they put their fundraising resources? How do they get the right strategy going?
I attended an excellent presentation on Funding at the Creative New Zealand 21st Century Arts Conference last year and one thing that really struck me was how strategic artists and organisations needed to be. One speaker commented on the fact that you not only need to know 'who' to ask for support, but you also need to know 'how much' to ask for and that we regularly ask for too little or too much. So how do you approach fundraising once you've got your case and your support? And given that all arts organisations are underresourced, how do they make the most of their resources?
Fundraising strategy gets built on mission, leadership, goals and opportunity.
Let me pause a little on that word: opportunity. It assumes an outward-looking perspective and confidence. It is about building on insight, as CNZ’s conference speakers rightly stress. The confidence that perhaps comes out of taking a hard, objective look at the funding “market” (I’d qualify the use of that word) working out what funder requirements and possible motivations might be.
Hints: To get closer to understanding your funding constituency (or “market”) use those handy acronyms: LAI ( Linkage, Ability, Interest) for individual gift prospects. Ie: is there a linkage or existing relationship, what is their ability to give, and do we have any evidence of their interest in our field. For institutional funders (that is, groups organized for philanthropy), I use M.H.C: What is their Mission (what has the organization expressed as their philanthropic intention), History ( what is the actual practice of this reflected in their funding decisions) and Criteria (the obvious, but never, ever ignore).
Back to strategy. Again, a great wealth of knowledge out there and scarcely time here to provide detail on all the possible combinations of market opportunities and fundraising technique. Keep asking questions of yourself. Where does your existing know-how lie? Is it in getting funds from trusts and foundations and government. Would you want to extent that know-how into corporate gifts, because your research is showing that changes to business use of distribution channels, use of social media or tax law has reactivated some companies to the possibility of the not-for-profits and their audiences. Would you want to re-orientate your use of direct mail and your membership schemes, because your research is showing you that your “friends” constituency is newly acquiring internet social networking enthusiasms and might perhaps want to help you get new friends. Have your investigations showed you that now you really do need that proper relational database and bingo, there’s a number of funders who have shifted their funding policy (criteria) into this (capacity-building) area.
The point being, that there are handy vehicles ( symbolic strategies) to help you organize your thinking (annual giving, direct mail, online, special events, capital campaigns, major gifts, project or planned giving) but the real strategy right for you has to be a match with where you’ve decided and agreed you want to go and deep exploration of your means to get there.
Check out one of the guru’s of fundraising strategy, Mal Warwick, last here for a FINZ conference in 2004, who writes vociferously on this subject. Indeed, check out FINZ, both its website lists of fundraising consultants and its educational platform, coming soon to your town with a number of training options.
What is your fundraising strategy going to be? Well, as Mal says, it depends.