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Bush Heritage Australia

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EOFY receipting – far easier than a root canal

Non-profit organisations Australia-wide dread them similar to a root canal. It’s the EOFY receipting process. Charities that have their process down already have sent their end of year receipt. Those who don’t need to know that EOFY receipting is far easier than a root canal.

This week, I received a fantastic EOFY receipt from Bush Heritage Australia. The following attributes made the Bush Heritage end of year receipt top notch:

  • Arrival date – the Bush Heritage end of year consolidated receipt arrived the first week of July.
    • It was the first of the consolidated receipts to arrive. While it is not a race and no charitable organisation is late until 31 July), it is impressive they had their process nailed down to send it so quickly.
  • Video – a video message was included as the focal point of the EOFY receipt.
    • Bush Heritage brought a bit of the bush to the donors and included staff on their front line to thank regular givers.
  • Text – the text of the email reinforced the accomplishments made possible this year due to regular gifts.
  • Tax Receipt – the main purpose of the EOFY consolidate receipt is to offer a tax receipt.
    • Bush Heritage included a clean, understandable and easily downloadable tax receipt for me to keep for my accountant.
  • Appreciation – the email and video make the regular donor feel appreciated.
    • It is a wonderful donor care piece.
  • Social Media Channels – Bush Heritage included their social media channels.
    • Given how I was feeling, I wanted to share!

Bush Heritage Australia get is all right. The organisation kicked off the first week of the new financial year in style and made me realise why I am a regular giver to such a fine and worthwhile organisation.

To get help with your end of year receipting process – no matter which CRM your non-profit organisation use, contact us today.

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Staff turnover is a real hindrance to fruitful and relationships

During a workshop at an international aid organisation in Sydney this week, we had a conversation about relationship fundraising and the importance of staff retention. It takes a long time to build trusting relationships with major donor, legacy, trust and foundation, and corporate partner prospects and donors. Staff turnover is a real hindrance to fruitful and meaningful relationships.

It is estimated it can take three or more years for your staff to gain the confidence of prospective donors, which is needed for these prospects to take the leap to invest in your non-profit organisation. If your staff is turning over at the industry rate of every 18 months, how is it possible for your organisation to acquire and maintain the trust of people and organisations? Your front door cannot be a turnstile. If it is, you and your fellow senior leaders are likely doing something wrong.

Steps to ensure staff retention

Staff turnover costs organisations more than the cost of hiring and onboarding a new staff person. The cost to relationships is significant. If your organisation is having difficulty retaining fundraising staff, here are a few things you might consider putting in place in order to reverse the trend.

Create a fun and productive culture

Culture is key. The best way to ensure a non-profit organisation’s success is to start by ensuring a vibrant culture. Yes, it is called work and not fun. But, work does not have to mean we do not care about one another and we not investing in productive relationships in the workplace.

Offer professional development opportunities

There is an abundance of professional development opportunities. Set aside a budget line item for each staff person to attend at least one conference or a collection of seminars or breakfasts each year. Organisations such as Fundraising Institute Australia, Fundraising & Philanthropy Magazine, CASE, EducatePlus, Blackbaud, and others offer conferences and seminars with significant learning opportunities for your team. Not every professional development opportunity has a huge investment price tag, either. We are seeing Fundraising Institute Australia, Blackbaud and others offer free webinars and breakfasts. Encourage your team members to invest the time in learning at least once per month. Further, ask them to present their learnings in a consolidated fashion at the next staff meeting.

Let others be the boss

You may have the title. But, you need to offer your staff the chance to lead projects. Doing so will further develop your staff professionally and offer them opportunities to shine and to feel good about their contributions to your organisation.

Celebrate more than money raised

The non-profit sector is no different than the corporate sector. We have shareholders as stakeholders (donors) and we have KPIs/goals to meet. Develop KPIs with your team instead of for your team. Create goals which are not only monetary focused, but which encourage the development of very rich relationships with your prospective donors and donors. Goals such as the number of visits, the number of handwritten notes and cards, and the number of other interactions staff have with individuals and organisations can be just as significant as dollars raised. In fact, it is those KPIs which lead to the dollars.

The fact is, many non-profit leaders think the work we do is difficult. Fundraising does not have to be hard. It is easiest when we focus on the relationships and build the most solid ones possible. We can only do that if we stay with the organisation we represent and not jump ship. All of us need to do our part to ensure staff retention is a focus and turnover is not something that is “natural” or “sector norms”. Staff retention ought to be a KPI for every fundraising manager and non-profit leader.

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Sharing hotel toiletries with the homeless of Sydney

FundraisingForce has been in business for five years as of April 2019. Over the last five years, I have travelled extensively to meet with clients and for client engagements. Travel has included Australian domestic travel, as well as international travel to the US, Europe, Asia, and Asia-Pacific. I may spend up to five nights in a hotel in a given week. During that time I have done something which would make Miss Manners cringe. Shhh…I have taken the toiletries from most hotels. I do not keep the toiletries for myself. I have been sharing hotel toiletries with the homeless in Sydney.

There are some who might suggest the hotel toiletries – shampoos, conditioners, hand creams, and, even, slippers, are not for the taking. They’d argue taking them increases the costs to hotel chains. I argue that if I was keeping them for myself or taking them home for out of town guests, then you might be right. But, passing them on to those in need seems to me to be a worthwhile deed.

Why am I confessing this to you? I have given these toiletries, sometimes multiple bags full each month, to the same homeless shelter in Sydney’s CBD. The staff of the homeless shelter have never asked my name, asked me to meet with senior leadership, or taken my contact details.

To be fair, this is not a cash donation. I am not expecting a receipt. However, the homeless shelter does not know who I am and has never bothered to take my details to have someone follow up with me or to ask me for a cash gift.

It is obvious I care about the homeless people in Sydney or I would not take the effort to collect these items and to add extra weight to my luggage each and every week. I might be ripe for a regular donation to this shelter, which does have DGR status.

I will continue to bring the toiletries to the shelter each month. It is just puzzling to me why the staff is not trained to better manage these sorts of situations for, perhaps, increased opportunity.

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Thank you – an easy thing to say

Thank yiouIt is the easiest task to do, yet it is often times overlooked in our day-to-day responsibilities. In the rush to get stuff done, including finding new donors, asking for that next big gift, we are overlooking the most important task. I am talking about saying thank you to donors, volunteers, and staff.

We all need to take the pledge – one thank you call, email, or handwritten note a week.

We have more tools to actually say thank you today than ever before. It is often times the “old fashioned” way to do it – the handwritten note – that stands out in donors, volunteers, and staff minds.

We receive most of our communications today via electronic format. Communications flow in via email, voice mail, SMS, or via social media channels like Facebook, Facebook messenger, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Yet, what do we actually receive that is highly personalised and handwritten besides a birthday card or an occasional invite to a formal event like a wedding? Even those communications are moving more and more electronic.

This leaves me to argue, as fundraisers, we need to communicate more in handwriting. Thank you notes are a perfect place to start.

Reasons to send a handwritten thank you

There are a variety of reasons and ways to thank individuals for the fantastic support they offer your non-profit organisation. Reasons for handwritten communications may include:

  • A birthday.
  • An anniversary.
  • Honouring someone for achievements in your community.
  • A significant donation.
  • A donor’s giving milestone
    • A ten-year giving anniversary.
  • Volunteer service milestones.
  • A note to recognise a staff person who has gone above and beyond.

Think about who you will write a personal thank you to this week. Think about who you will call to thank. Try to say thank you via the most personal channel as possible.

 

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A CRM is is a relational solution, not a transactional database

CRMThink about your non-profit organisation’s Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) solution for a moment. Is it configured and designed so you are you able to fully record a constituent and their contact details? Tick. Are you able to record a donation and associated details? Tick. Does it end there? Issue. A CRM needs to be relational in focus because a CRM is not simply a transactional database.

If you are not maximising your CRM to fully manage constituents, their internal and external relationships, and if you are unable to manage business processes, workflows, and pipelines, it is time to think about transforming the CRM to be relational in focus rather than simply focused on transactions.

Relational CRM

A relational CRM, simply put, connects the data elements stored to relate constituents with their opportunities, donations, activities, interactions, engagement, and most importantly, with other constituents. Most of this happens “out of the box”. But, it is the design of the CRM that actually really matters. Maximising the CRM data to be able to track critical workflows and processes and to be able to manage pipelines, moves management, and other critical activities make the relational CRM pay dividends. It is, after all, called a Constituent Relationship Management solution.

Workflows

Ensuring your CRM allows for workflows means you will save the staff of your non-profit organisation time, allowing them to focus on critical tasks.  The CRM should be able to deliver automated processes resulting in efficiency gains. Workflows can help you to maximise levels of engagement with your constituents, alumni and members.

The “buttonology” or functionality in a CRM is half the battle. It is typically how you configure that functionality and the user experience you offer which really matters. Staff should enjoy utilising the CRM and see it as a time saver rather than an administrative burden.

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Do we really need a new CRM?

ChangeSearching for a new CRM is a complicated process. But, when done right, landing the perfect CRM is a great feeling and a wonderful accomplishment. Change is nice. But, remember the new car smell only lasts so long. Ask your organisation, do we really need a new CRM?

It is typical for organisation leaders to be convinced a new CRM is essential.  “If we only had Salesforce, The Raiser’s Edge, Microsoft Dynamics, Blackbaud CRM, or product X, we could…”. Staff leap to this conclusion without first analysing the current CRM and their functional requirements in order to first determine the existing CRM is incapable of meeting business requirements.

Why

FundraisingForce receives one new lead for a CRM search every 7 business days. Step one for FundraisingForce is to explore with the non-profit organisation the why. Why is there a need to change? Are you seeking to use your CRM organisation-wide and your organisation adopted a fundraising CRM years ago? Have your fundraising requirements outgrown the existing CRM? Can you demonstrate the investment in a change will return dramatic financial results through increased revenue and improved efficiencies/time savings?

Perhaps staff require leadership to invest in training on the existing CRM. Maybe there are add on features your organisation needs to acquire in order to meet new business requirements which did not exist when you adopted the existing CRM 7-10 years ago.

Investment

Searching for and implementing a new CRM is an investment. The investment is not simply what you will pay in licensing and implementation/services costs to a supplier(s), but also the cost to engage your staff in the implementation. Additionally, there will be some loss of productivity as you ramp up the use of the new CRM and staff become used to new processes. The cost is never the cost presented when you sign the agreement to purchase. Study the true cost of ownership, which includes staffing resources and other costs.

The new car smell is gone in a month or two. Ensure the decision to leap to a CRM search is the right decision before you leap to a CRM search. Make sure you have done the analysis so you do not have buyers remorse after driving the car off the lot.

 

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Face to Face Fundraisers – do not need to be out of site out of mind

Do you often worry what your face to face fundraisers may be doing to capture the attention of prospective donors on the streets in the capital cities of Australia? Are they stopping prospects in their tracks? Reaching out to shake the prospect’s hands? What are they saying to the prospect to get them to surrender a credit card for their regular gift?  Are they only stopping prospective donors their age or are they, indeed, diverse in those they approach?

Face to face fundraisers do not need to be out of site out of mind.

Mystery Shopping Defined

Mystery shopping allows a shopper to mask as a prospective donor or fundraiser on behalf of a non-profit organisation and to perform a scenario specifically designed for the organisation. The shopper will employ their skills to seek answers to questions an organisation seeks to understand. Whether your organisation is seeking to understand an experience of a prospective donor or fundraiser or whether certain quality measures or targets are achieved, mystery shoppers will help you to measure the situation at hand.

FundraisingForce has over a dozen years shopping face to face fundraising, lotteries, community fundraising, major gifts, bequests, and other fundraising scenarios for charitable organisation across Asia Pacific and throughout Europe. We know, first-hand the scenarios organisations are after and the type of reporting desired.

Benefits of Face to Face Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping will allow your non-profit organisation to understand the following:

  • Demographics of individuals engaged.
  • Number of individuals attempted each 15 minutes.
  • Manner in which prospective donors are greeted.
  • Dress and grooming of your fundraisers.
  • Length of discussions.
  • Highlights of discussions.
  • Distractions causing fundraisers to not approach prospects.
  • Additional training needed.

Steps for Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping must not be conducted in a cookie cutter approach. Shops should be tailored and customised to meet your organsiation’s requirements. The following steps are conducted for each mystery shopping customers:

  1. Defining and understanding the non-profit client’s requirements.
  2. Developing scenarios and surveys to fit the client’s requirements.
  3. Approval of the scenarios and scenario by the client.
  4. Hiring of shoppers to meet the demographics required.
  5. Training of the shoppers.
  6. Shopping the scenarios for a defined timeframe.
  7. Reporting to the non-profit client.

Experience

Experience in mystery shopping is critical. Hire a professional mystery shopping firm with expertise in non-profit mystery shopping. Mystery shopping our sector is specialised and no one should assume all mystery shopping – whether for a commercial organisation or charitable organisation – is the same.

For more information on non-profit mystery shopping, contact FundraisingForce today.

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Is our non-profit organisation ready for a new CRM?

Searching for a new constituent relationship management (CRM) solution is no easy task. The process, as I outlined in a recent Fundraising & Philanthropy Magazine article, requires 10 steps to do it right. There is an important process prior to those 10 steps and that process involves asking the question is our non-profit organisation ready for a new CRM?

Ensuring organisation readiness for a CRM is an important step, which involves people at multiple layers of your organisation. Unless your organisation determines readiness, there is no point to move to a CRM search. In fact, your organisation should not commence a CRM search until leadership has signed off on the organsiation’s readiness to adopt a new CRM.

Who to involve in a CRM readiness assessment

Individuals from various teams at various levels across the organisation ought to participate to determine and sign off on readiness. Those parties include:

  1. Business owners – those end users who will adopt the new CRM.
  2. Information Services – those who will need to support the infrastructure.
  3. Senior Management Team – those who are ultimately responsible for sponsoring the project, including approving budget for the project.

What determines readiness?

There are just two key steps in the process to determine CRM adoption readiness. Those steps involve critical information gathering and assessment and analysis of that information. A gut feel is not good enough. Your organisation needs to determine CRM adoption readiness through objective information and analysis.

Information Gathering

The types of information you ought to gather and assess, includes the following:

  • Data integrity – review the data in your existing CRM and determine if it is in the condition you would want to see it in your new CRM. Think of this as similar to moving houses. Would you want to open the door of the new house and find the new house in the same condition as your present home?
    • Additionally, remember the condition may get messier through a data migration.
      • There will always be data clean-up which needs to occur during Go Live of the new CRM.
    • Document the last time your organisation conducted any sort of data hygiene exercise.
  • Resourcing – the work during a CRM adoption falls to your team as much as it does to the supplier you engage. Do not expect the CRM supplier to do more than 50% of the work. A CRM adoption is a team effort. Document who you have available for the design of the CRM, as well as user acceptance testing and go live activity.
    • Think about whether staff can dedicate 100% of their time during peak periods of the project.
    • Document holiday periods and other key projects, which will compete for your team’s attention.
      • Remember to document public holidays in addition to paid time off.
  • Senior management engagement – determine the level of engagement of your senior management team. Change starts at the top and your project must have the endorsement and the engagement of CEO and his/her management colleagues.
  • Strategic alignment with the organisation – does the CRM transformation support strategic goals of the organisation?
    • Will the CRM assist you to raise more money and to engage more constituents?
  • Budget – indicative pricing for a project needs to be planned for and tentatively approved. There is no point in gathering requirements and going “shopping” for a new CRM if your organisation cannot afford the CRM and implementation services at the outset.
    • Create a contingency budget for those items which are not planned for, but which are common during a project.
    • Budget for a project manager to guide you through the project.
      • A project manager does not have to be a full-time position.
    • Training and ongoing support of CRM – will your organisation train the staff who will use the CRM and will your organisation make ongoing investments in the CRM once the solution is live?

Information Analysis

Create a scoring tool and score the information gathered in order to objectively determine your level of readiness. If your score is not 75% of the possible perfect score, your organisation is not ready for a CRM transition. If you do not achieve a 75% readiness score, spend time to correct the matters. Re-evaluate in 6 months and see if your score improves.

Too many organisations jump to a CRM search and move into a CRM implementation without first asking is our non-profit organisation ready for a new CRM? Spend a month pre-CRM search to evaluate your non-profit organisation’s readiness. You will not regret taking this time to determine readiness. Your CRM adoption project will be more successful as a result.

 

 

 

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Tap to donate – as productive as a gold coin donation?

Tap to donate
Tap to donate devices are popping up in many locations. I have recently seen tap to donate devices in the Virgin Australia Lounges, the Qantas Lounges, and other high-end venues. The devices are asking for a $5 or $10 donation for charities like Cure Cancer Australia and Starlight Foundation.

Is tap to donate – as “productive” as a gold coin donation?

As a fundraiser myself, I am never against a non-profit raising money. And, offering donors a menu of convenient options to give is certainly top of any charity’s list. But, I have always criticised gold coin donations because, while they offer a quick way to raise money and awareness, they do not allow the charitable organisation to collect contact details to engage the donor further. Likewise, known tap to donate devices, do not allow non-profits to collect contact details of donors.

The tap to donate machines are placed in convenient locations. In the Qantas Business Lounge, the device is placed on the bar and near the barista. While waiting in line, it is very easy for passengers to tap their debit or credit card and to donate to a charity they may otherwise have overlooked. I have also seen these devices placed in high traffic areas, such as pedestrian walkways. Donors walking by simply walk up and tap to donate.

Your thoughts

So, what do you think?

Is your non-profit organisation looking to adopt tap to donate technology in 2019?

Are you able to locate a supplier which shares the contact details of the debit or credit card holder so your organisation may cultivate an enhanced relationship with the new donor? Does such a supplier arrangement exist?

Are you bothered by the fact you cannot even send a receipt to the donor unless he or she contacts you to request one? Do you see the benefits outweighing the negative points I have included above?

Let me hear your thoughts by voicing them below.

 

 

 

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