Every blog owes its readers a statement of bias. Here’s mine.
I’ve spent about two decades in nonprofit advancement, much of it in independent schools, and I started TRANSCEND Advancement to help small and mid-sized organizations raise money without losing their minds or their values. This week the website gets a fresh start, and so does this blog. It’s called Beyond Giving, and a new post will go up here every Thursday. Before I start handing out advice, you should know where it comes from.
Fundraising is a people business
Donors don’t give to organizations. They give to people they trust, doing work they believe in, who ask them well and thank them better. Every strategy I recommend, from a campaign plan to a database cleanup, is in service of those relationships. If a tactic makes your donors feel like account numbers, it’s the wrong tactic, however well it tests.
The thank-you matters as much as the ask
Most organizations put their energy into the ask and treat the thank-you as paperwork. I think that’s backwards. The ask gets you one gift. What happens afterward (how fast you say thank you, how specifically, and what the donor hears from you before the next appeal) decides whether there will be a second one.
Equity is the foundation, not a workshop
Diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging aren’t a separate project you get to after the real work. They’re built into the real work: who is in your database and how they’re coded, who gets invited to the dinner, which gifts your board will accept, whose faces appear in the annual report. I still use those words on purpose. They name specific things, and I’d rather be precise.
Numbers describe people
I studied theater and mathematics at Wesleyan (yes, both), and advancement turns out to need exactly that pair. You need the story that makes a donor lean in, and you need the numbers that tell you which donor to call first. Good data doesn’t replace the relationship. It tells you where the relationships need attention.
Small shops need systems sized for them
A one-person development office does not need a shrunken copy of a university’s playbook. It needs a short list of things done well, on a calendar the staff can keep, with a board that understands its part. Ambition is good. A plan that only works if nobody sleeps is not a plan.
Board members can learn to ask
Almost nobody joins a board because they love asking for money, and almost everybody can learn to do it. The fear is real and it is fixable, usually with practice, a better script, and a clearer sense that they’re inviting someone into something good rather than begging.
What you’ll find here
Each Thursday I’ll take one idea and make it useful: how to rehearse an ask, what to fix in your database before year-end, how to run a board retreat that ends in decisions, how to write the opening line of an appeal. Some posts will argue a point. Most will give you something to do that week.
So you don’t have to wait for Thursday, I’ve published a small library alongside this post. Each guide comes with a tool you can print and use:
- How a Major Gift Happens, Step by Step
- The One-Person Development Office: Where Your Week Should Go
- Is This Grant Worth It? A Go or No-Go Checklist
- Writing a Case for Support From Scratch
- Writing an Impact Report Donors Will Read
- Before You Plan the Gala, Answer These Questions
- Write a Volunteer Role People Want to Fill
- Ways Board Members Can Help Besides Asking
- Recruiting Board Members Beyond Your Own Circle
- DEIJB, Defined Plainly
- Checking Your Appeals for Savior Framing
- Gift Coding That Tells You Something
- Choosing a Donor Database for a Small Organization
On days that matter to the communities our clients serve (heritage months, holidays, and days of remembrance), I’ll post something extra, written to honor the day rather than to sell anything.
I write from Los Angeles, as a fundraiser, a board chair, a part-time law student, a mom of three, and a trans woman. All of that shapes how I see this work, and you’ll hear it here.
If something in a post sparks a question about your own organization, I’d love to hear it. And if your challenge spans more than one of these areas at once, that’s what our custom strategic partnerships are for.
See you Thursday.
– Mary-Ellen
Featured photo: Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash.
