Where do you start? How do you put together a solid case for fundraising?
/ 12 April 2010 - 09:44 am
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For many arts organisations, that are understaffed and underresourced, fundraising and philanthropy (whether it be donations, corporate giving, individual giving, or fundraising etc) are often things that are tacked onto someone's existing job - it might be the marketing or comms manager, the director or the communications or PR person - and some cases those three positions are rolled up into one. So, if you are new to a fundraising position or you've just inherited it as part of your job, where and how do you start?
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The good thing is that you can start in a familiar place, for example, mission or brand.
Happily, I am walking in the footsteps of the wonderful Brian Richards, whose thoughts on branding are entirely related here.
I usually get started thinking about the organisation's cause.
Imagine you’ve just got in the lift to go up 20 floors or so and someone steps in to join you. In fact its not just anybody but Mrs. Someone, that person you recognize as a potential supporter of your cause. You’ve got less than a minute to make a connection. What do you say?
This is the famous ‘elevator exercise’ and when it was first thrown at us in one of my early fundraising training courses, I simply choked. The object was to test our understanding of the ‘why’ of fundraising. What cause were we really espousing and how were we going to get it across, asked our teacher? Between what the world is and what it might be existed many gaps. A gap of new knowledge, of high achievement, of poverty, of human rights, of tolerance, of participation, of good community life or of the potential of creativity to make life better. We were in the business of helping fill those gaps and so were our donors. The philanthropist’s simple wish – to make a difference – is about closing that gap. The job of those of us working in the not-for-profit sector was to first articulate the truth about that gap (the cause) in what we see around us and then to propose how the gap might be closed (the mission) by purposeful action through philanthropy (the case).
In the classroom back then, I was not alone in muddling through the odd assortment of claims of value, arguments of need and the occasional facts that then comprised my ‘case’ for the elevator person. In fact, this exercise is one of the hardest we do but boy, is it worth doing!
Last year on a quiet Saturday morning volunteered, the Board and staff of Bats Theatre gave it a go. Look to the future of the theatre, imagine what it might do write down why you, personally, are in this room, now. There was an intense 10 minutes of near silence and writing. We read back the words to each other. Smiling at each other. They were beautiful compelling messages of fire and hope.
Try it. Tell me about it.
Your fundraising case is at the heart of everything you do but bigger than you or your organization’s need.
Often when I’ve asked people about their case, I’ll get the response “I’ll give you a copy of our latest Creative New Zealand application.” Indeed this is a good place to look, especially over time, because this form can be an important expression of your case. It is however a distillation, a case expression for a specific purpose, that of exchanging information between you and CNZ.
The case is a wider set of resources which will cumulatively represent your cause and mission, where you want to go and why, how you are going to get there, how you are organized to get there, who is in charge, who’s on the job (paid or volunteering) to deliver, where you work or your facilities, how you plan or measure your outcomes and where you come from (your history) and your connections/communities.
You will pull together and distill this information into many forms throughout your fundraising and each time, if the conversation is good and listening is happening, you’ll build your case.
For example, Q Theatre and Auckland Art Gallery are two parts of a bigger ‘whole’, the Aotea precinct in central Auckland. While their activities by themselves are important, their cases encompass and reflect on their roles as part of the ‘arts ripple” of that precinct. Making everyone’s case that much stronger.
When pulling together case material, ask yourself some key questions:
This last is a good one to test your case on. Because the arts are often perceived, and indeed presented as only a ‘private good’ (and can therefore fall into the “who cares” category), I’d love to hear how people turn that question around.
I’ve seen some nice expressions of case recently. Using audience members or participants own words, they are strong because they succinctly summed up case in an “ I think, I feel, I do” expression. Lots of ways to get the words right.
Also think of the “do” expressions of your case. Want to know why one of the reasons SPCA gets more than half its funding in gifts? Because its advocates regularly do their presentations with a puppy in their arms.
So, we do this stuff, right? Lets hear it.