From the Mountain top

Dear Nonprofit leaders,

It’s a scary time for many of you, especially those depending upon federal and state grants. Now, more than ever, is the time to communicate directly, positively and clearly with your supporters and those who depend upon your services. A few questions to help you sort out these communications:

1. Will you shut doors and stop serving your mission if federal and state funds are not delivered as committed in the previous administration? 

If the answer is, “No,” then avoid catastrophic, doomsday messaging in your communications to your donors and followers. There is plenty of that going around. Remain a source of joy and fulfillment when you deliver your mission and let that message continue to dominate your communications. 

2. If federal or state funds are not delivered as committed, what is the first area where your organization will need immediate help? 

Recall COVID, which surprised us all. For many nonprofits, business as usual stopped immediately with us all thinking creatively to prioritize continuing to fund the mission. This meant, focusing on the essentials foremost: 

• Essential staff and their needs – these are the heart and soul of your daily work. Provide for them and the rest will continue to get done.

• Essential mission activities and those services that your beneficiaries must receive.

3. If you have to cut back, do you have a plan on how to scale back new projects that may no longer be viable in the near-term? 

The probable cuts in funding may mean new projects have to be delayed. Delaying a project does not mean failure, and it does not mean the project will never happen. In fact, since you are making the hard choices to sustain your organization’s mission, resuming the project at a later date is more likely to happen because the organization demonstrated

• Making a choice to sustain serving the mission

• Making a choice to remain financially responsible and stable

• Making a choice to be responsible and supportive of the people who make meeting the mission possible.

4. How do I handle making a tough decision or change with our donors and with our supporters? It is going to be so embarrassing/scary/disappointing!

As seen in COVID, communicating clearly with your donors about the whys of your choices to institute difficult changes to sustain and stabilize the mission in challenging times is a key to retaining your donors. If devoted donors are treated respectfully and receive clear communications about difficult decisions, these donors have often shown to become even more financially generous. With clear communication, a donor understands why a nonprofit has to make difficult decisions. This is a nonprofit they can count on to make wise financial decisions. What are some of the best tactics for communicating clearly with these devoted donors?

• One-to-one phone calls from board members.

• One-to-one phone calls from the executive director or other key staff leader.

• Private, small presentation from Chair of the Board and or the Executive Director, by invitation only for presentation with chance for questions and answers.

• Special and personal electronic email letter to each donor from an essential leader.

• Special newsletter targeted to a specific group of people who are considered high-level supporters.

If you want more details on putting these processes in place, please reach out to me! Email me at: cjohnson@cjpadvisors.com.

Thank you for reading my newsletter! As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate 

Happy New Year 2025! 🎉🎆🎇

I want to begin this newsletter with a big "THANK YOU" to all of you who have taken your valuable time to read my words.

I know I have helped a few people because of the emails and kind words you have sent and said to me. I hope to continue this service and I invite your perspectives! Thank you so much for your support and your feedback.

I’m sure many of you feel like you have barely had a break and some of you have not had one at all. Such is the life of  nonprofit executives and development directors! I feel for you as I have been there for many years, myself. 

In my December newsletter, you may have been surprised to read that I do not like “Giving Season.” Allow me to explain. 

Waiting to “remind” a donor to give in November and December is not really helpful. If we put ourselves in their shoes, and if we look at our own email and mail boxes, we know that they are barraged all year-long with asks. Perhaps I’m alone in this, but the season of giving seems to have become tone-deaf and so urgent, it turns off many donors. I know it turns me off. 

Below, I'm suggesting an alternative that might help a nonprofit out of the last-minute urgency of “Giving Season.” Instead of aligning your calendar to the October – December, “Giving Season,” I am encouraging you to try out an entire 12 months of “A Year of Gratitude.” See what happens. I believe you will see higher engagement and higher giving.

How do you execute “A Year of Gratitude”? This is a proactive schedule saying "thank you" throughout the year. “A Year of Gratitude” focuses on retaining existing donors.

• Why? Because an existing donor is more expensive to replace than finding a new donor.

• Why? Because an existing donor that gives again, is more likely to give a larger donation!

What is the BEST way to thank a donor and show them that your nonprofit really appreciates them? 

Drum roll please!

The number one way to retain an existing donor is….

Have a board member thank them.

-81.5%

Average % of first-time donors that do not give a gift the following year.

(Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) 2023 Fundraising Effectiveness Project)

40%

Likelihood a donor’s next gift will increase if a board member 

calls within 48 hours of the donor’s gift.

(Penelope Burk, “Donor-Centered Fundraising: How to Hold on to Your Donors and Raise Much More Money, Published in 2003 and still true!)

-49%

Cost to revenue from donor attrition that is hidden by new dollars.

(Veritus Group, “Why Is Noone Talking About Donor Value Attrition?”)

Here is my “A Year of Gratitude” list of activities to make sure I have activities all year long that focus on my existing, deeply valued donors. Feel free to add your own activities specific to your mission! For each of these methods of appreciation, I have more detailed guides on how to put these processes in place for your organization. If interested, please reach out to me! (cjohnson@cjpadvisors.org) I would be happy to help you put your year of appreciation in place.

1. January-February: Focus on providing donor assignments to your board members who have agreed to reach out and thank your donors. Remind them, they are not asking for new gifts. They are only providing a friendly "thank you." A few key tips on this:

• Provide them with essential details such as name, amount of gift, area of focus of their gift if there was one, and email or phone number with which to connect.

• Provide stationery and stamps if mailing cards.

• Give them a suggested script that is very simple and appreciative.

• Thank your board member for doing this helpful work!

• Keep notes on which board members are assigned which donors. Then have them continue to cultivate the same donor year-to-year!

• Ask them to follow up with you once complete with summary of outreach.

2. March-April: Now is the time to provide language and reminders on gifts from assets.  This is not really an activity of appreciation, but it is considered very helpful to donors. Why? Because larger, more complex gifts require a donor’s and their financial advisor’s or community foundation's time to execute, and donors do appreciate this reminder. Even if you do not completely understand gifts from more complex assets, your donors often do. Nudge them and include language to encourage them to speak with their financial advisors about making their charitable gifts from assets. 

There is one other important point to include in your language: encourage the donor to personally inform the nonprofit with a courtesy, "heads-up" to expect the donation from their financial institution. Why? Because, believe it or not, unless specifically instructed to do so, the financial institution often leaves out the account holder/donor's personal information. If they do not include this on the check, your nonprofit will not know who made the donation! What a shame, not being able to thank them properly for a truly thoughtful gift.

Examples of why reminders about gifts from assets are important: 

• A gift from a Donor Advised Fund can take up to two weeks to process. If the reminder for a gift from a DAF does not land in a donor's email box until “Giving Season,” that gift may not get executed until the following calendar year. 

• A Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) is a distribution from an IRA account and can only be made directly to a charity recognized by the IRS as a 501c3 organization. These are smart ways of giving for retirees and those with IRA accounts because 

  • • they are tax-free (though not deductible),

    • can be up to $100,000 a year (depending upon the year the account holder was born), and 

    • May count toward the account holder's required minimum distribution (RMD), as long as the gift is the first dollar distributed that year (very important and their advisor should understand. The donor should tell their advisor that this will be a charitable distribution).

    • QCDs may take weeks to process, which may impact the December 31 date for a check to clear and qualify as a donation for the year intended. Not getting the check deposited in the correct year could cause a mess for the donor.

3. May-June: focus on your volunteers. Your lifeblood of work may be your volunteers. Without them, where would you be? If so, make sure to connect and show appreciation early in the year.

• Schedule an appreciation event for volunteers. Be sure to invite your board members and ask them to attend!

• If an event is not possible, repeat the thank-you system with your board, by having them call and thank your key and most valued, repeat volunteers.

• Did you know, a repeat volunteer is highly likely to become a valued donor later in their life? Why? They have demonstrated dedication to the mission and your organization. While their current capacity to give may be limited at this time, it may grow later.

4. July-August: Repeat January-February board appreciation thank you with more board calls and thank you cards to more high-level donors! 

5. September-October: repeat the friendly reminders of how to give complex gifts. This is the latest that this reminder should be provided. Any later and these gifts will likely not be executed until the end of the year and probably count toward the following year.

6. November – December: Highlight and celebrate donors and volunteers publicly in your emails and newsletters. This is a time to celebrate what they made happen. In your metrics, align donor and volunteer giving to the nonprofit’s achievements. Make your donors and your volunteers the reason for your success. Show your gratitude through to the very end of the year!

Look back at this schedule. The entire year is full of appreciation of your donors! How do you think that will make them feel? This is what “A Year of Gratitude” can look like. I hope you are encouraged to adopt these activities for your donors.

If you want more details on putting these processes in place, please reach out to me! Let’s have a discussion on kicking your year of appreciation off, strategically. Email me at: cjohnson@cjpadvisors.com.

Thank you for reading my newsletter! As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate 

I have not been skiing yet but I have loved walking amid the aftermath of our first big winter storm!

December's focus is: Questions to Ask Before Planning Nonprofit Fundraising Events

December, December, December. What happened to you? 

Someone decided that "Giving Season" was a great name for this last month of the year. I've nicknamed it "Gimme Season." I do not like it. More on that later since I know many of you are hard at work making the most of your last-minute mail, email and phone call campaigns. Good luck to all of you! And please stay tuned for an early spring recommendation of how to improve your nonprofit's approach and realign your nonprofit out of the "Gimme Season" crunch.

I recently read a fantastic LinkedIn blog in Forbes Nonprofit Leadership Council (November 26, 2024.) I liked it so much, I am going to reprint the contents here for you but please know, I did not write this. You can find the original here: https://hubs.li/Q02ZKNbq0

I am betting many of you will enter January with the panic of how to plan your spring time event. If that is so...please read on!

16 Questions to Ask When Planning Nonprofit Fundraising Events*

Forbes Nonprofit Leadership Council (Nov. 26, 2024)

1. What are my goals?

It's important to consider your goals. If you're aiming for a significant ROI, conduct a cost analysis while taking into account your organization’s size, brand identity, target audience, budget and the season. Depending on these factors, a large gala or a small fundraiser at a brewery might be the right choice. You might also consider a different approach if you aim to create broad awareness and reach. - Kelli Williams, The BrandLab

2. Who is the event for?

The best question to ask is whether you’ve designed this event for you or for your donors. Top donors typically go to many fundraising events, so it’s important to consider how you are going to be different or memorable. Create an event that feels novel or special while highlighting how important your donors are to the organization and its community. - Shaun Carver, I-House

3. Is there a better way to communicate our cause and ask?

Look around at what's working and what's not. In the words of famous martial artist Bruce Lee, “Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is specifically your own.” Fundraising has a couple of common elements like a cause and an ask. Determine if there is a better way to communicate your cause and a creative way to improve your ask, as the effort will return insights. - Aaron Alejandro, Texas FFA Foundation

4. What is our stakeholder’s demographics?

It's important to determine the right fit for the organization's key demographics, including clients and supporters. If they are more formal, a gala or upscale luncheon may be well-suited. If they are more casual, an outdoor or more creative event may be best. People attend events to network and socialize with others who share their values. An event should meet these needs for supporters as well. - Shari O'Loughlin, The Compassionate Friends

5. What are our fundraising goals?

Leaders should ask themselves, "What are we trying to accomplish regarding the fundraising amount?" This will force them to identify budget gaps and income needs that may be unknown by either the finance or development departments. Equally important is the fact that it will get both departments communicating. Without fundraising goals, the organization and the board are operating with an information deficit. - Ramik Williams, KAVI (Kings Against Violence Initiative)

6. What is the ROI?

Deciding whether a fundraiser is the right one starts with planning a low-cost, high-yield event. If you do not have an 80% return on a 20% investment, then that fundraising event is not for you. You should also provide an experience for your donors that someone else in your community is not providing. Be unique, strategic and fun. - Erin Davison, Davison Consulting, LLC

7. Should we lead planning on the event?

Nonprofit leaders don’t need to manage everything to lead. With so much competition, consider whether your next fundraising event needs to be produced by your organization. You might even be able to join a partner’s event that already has momentum, allowing you to focus more on your core programs and services instead of organizing an event. - Michael Bellavia, HelpGood

8. Is the event a good fit for the target audience?

Nonprofit leaders should ask if this event is a good fit for the audience they are trying to attract. Event fundraising can be very profitable. It can also serve as a megaphone for your organization with the right people but you need a good fit. Golf tournaments may attract corporate support through foursomes, hole sponsorships, etc., but if you don’t have an audience of corporate players, this may not be the right event for you. - Victoria Burkhart, The More Than Giving Company

9. What connections do I have to needed resources?

One thing to ask is what connections leaders have to resources. Leveraging relationships and partnerships is a great way for new funders and donors to get involved in your mission and work. It’s also a great strategy for getting existing funders and partners to increase donor support and have access to a platter of other opportunities that may not have been available previously. - Jamee Rodgers, Urban Neighborhood Initiative

10. Is a physical event necessary?

Leaders should ask whether a physical event is necessary. Historically, we believe that events drive participants and donations. In reality, events ask donors to invest both their dollars and time. If you know your donor base well, you can understand if they truly appreciate the ability to come together with other supporters or if they will respect you more for respecting their time. - Patrick Riccards, Driving Force Institute

11. What would our supporters like and respond to?

Nonprofit leaders must ask what their supporters would like and respond to best. Is there a traditional event they’ve always enjoyed? Should it be a new event that energizes them and maybe brings new people to the fold? Don't hesitate to reach out to a group of influential members, supporters and donors. Your decisions, along with their input, will give the event a greater chance of success. - Magdalena Nowicka Mook, ICF (International Coaching Federation)

12. What will attendees gain?

Fundraising is the backbone of many nonprofits' sustainability and often a thorn in their sides. When planning the right event, it can be tempting to get sidetracked by dates, venues, revenue and "what we've always done." However, it is really important to ask what an attendee will gain from attending. With the costs of attendance rising, funders want something in return for their hefty donations. - Tara Chalakani, Preferred Behavioral Health Group

13. How does this align with our mission and target audience?

The first question nonprofit leaders must ask is, “How does this event align with our mission and engage our target audience?” By considering this, they learn whether the event will effectively communicate their mission, resonate with supporters and utilize available resources efficiently, ensuring both meaningful engagement and successful fundraising outcomes. - Jose Luis Castro, World Health Organization

14. Would our donors actually enjoy this event?

Nonprofit leaders should ask if their donors would actually enjoy this event if they weren’t obligated to support them. Many nonprofit events are predictable and not engaging. By challenging this assumption, you learn whether your event truly adds value for donors or if it’s just another ask in disguise. Design something they'd choose, not just tolerate. - Cherian Koshy, Kindsight

15. What will the takeaways be for our guests?

Consider the guest experience and its lasting impressions on attendees. Events are opportunities to showcase impact, messaging and disciplined decision making. There is an artfulness, a science and a heart to each. Beyond financial gains, think also of the chance to connect with people aligned with the organization's core values who are investing time to attend. - Randy Wong, Hawaii Youth Symphony

16. Is there a better way to raise funds?

Events are so overdone, and in many cases, the same businesses and sponsors are tasked with supporting many of the same types of events. It's great to have an event to celebrate a special milestone or recognize volunteers, but leaders might want to opt for a different approach to bring funds into the organization. - Kimberly Lewis, Goodwill Industries of East Texas, Inc

Aren't those great questions and perspectives? I hope this helped you. 

As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

I am here to help you! Reach out to me by email to schedule a conversation! cjohnson@cjpadvisors.com

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate 

Well, the beauty of fall consumed me in my free time (fall photos below!) With ski season fast approaching, my dear readers, would you accept a blog every other month? 

October's focus is: Board Policies and Procedures.

Happy Halloween! 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃

I love skeletons and you should too. Especially when it comes to your nonprofit. The skeleton of your nonprofit is your board policies. No one sees your nonprofit’s bones,  🦴 but if you have not built them to be strong, your nonprofit will collapse into a heaping mess. 

“We’re going to save the whales/children/trees! Let’s get to work! Time’s a wasting! They need us!”

Before an organization gets neck-deep into solving someone else’s problems, they should solve their own. Get professional and legal help to write your board and operational policies. With this strong structural backbone, an organization will avoid a host of unnecessary complications and risks.

Believe it or not, I’ve seen organizations commit to contracts for a project the board does not understand, has no knowledge of the resources for the money they need, and has no leadership in sight for the project they have promised donors and community members they will deliver. It’s crazy to witness, and I’ve listened to it time and time again. No corporation would run their decision-making this way and I do not want you to run your nonprofit this way either.

Below is a short list of guidelines for your policies:

Guidelines for Effective Oversight:

1.     Set Clear Approval Thresholds: Establish specific thresholds for different types of expenses. For example, routine expenses below a certain amount may not require board approval, while higher amounts or unbudgeted expenses may need additional scrutiny.

2.     Assign Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly define the roles of staff, the board chair, and the treasurer in the approval process. Ensure that staff know when they need to seek approval and from whom.

3.     Document and Communicate Procedures: Ensure that all policies and procedures are well-documented and communicated to all relevant parties. This includes creating a policy manual that staff and board members can reference.

4.     Use a Tiered Approval Process: For large projects, break the project into smaller projects or stages. Use a tiered approval process that involves multiple layers of oversight and keeps the board informed. This reduces the risk of errors and enhances accountability.

5.     Leverage Technology: Utilize financial and project management software and automated workflows to streamline approval processes and maintain accurate records. Technology can help ensure compliance with policies, reduce errors, and enhance transparency.

Key Policies Every Board should have written down, adopted and reviewed at least every two years.

• Gift Acceptance Policies

• Financial Policies

• Board Terms and Election Procedures

• Board member responsibilities in Succession Planning for future board members and leaders

• Voting Procedures and Approval Processes

• Going into Executive Session

I will leave you with one recommendation for a policy that often gets forgotten until confronted with the situation (and this is no time to make a policy.)

Staff being voted to the Board

Staff brings a great deal of knowledge that your board, understandably does not want to lose when a productive, highly valued employee decides to retire. If the relationship is still a positive one, why not vote this person straight to the board? In my experience there are a few good reasons why not to vote this person immediately to the board and a way to easily transition to avoid the difficult situations:

Why a recently retired staff member should not immediately be elected to the board.

1.     The board needs to wean themselves off of treating and depending upon this staff members in their current role. An immediate jump into a board role would not give the staff member enough separation from their employee roles and their responsibilities could easily become blurred.

2.     The staff member needs time to separate themselves from their past responsibilities and understand their new role. They are no longer employed by the board to work at the board’s directive. Each board member has the autonomous role to serve as a fiduciary and to protect the nonprofit and its donors for a healthy financial future.

3.     And finally, in the case of “passion projects,” a staff member may have trouble letting go if still strongly tied to their day-to-day role. Example: Say the staff member has shepherded a project and strengthened it over years of hard work. They may have become emotionally invested in the improvements they oversaw. The project has seen success, and time and place for the project have evolved. A competitive and less costly solution may arise, or the population needing the nonprofit’s solution has declined. This is when the board needs to make the unbiased examination of the project’s new reality and its current and future impact on the advancement of the overall mission. A person’s past role in a passion project should not play in the decision.

A better alternative: Approve a policy that requires all staff members to retire for 12 months before being formally elected to a board position. The staff member may serve in an unofficial advisory fashion, and they may even volunteer for a committee to remain informed. The policy should state that for one year after retiring, employees may not have board voting privileges or leadership roles of the board or committees. 

BONUS! The benefit of this method is that the remaining board members (and staff) must rise to the occasion and take on responsibilities in the vacuum of this wonderfully productive staff member. And this is a great exercise in succession planning for your organization to survive the inevitable transition of future leaders. 

If you and your board are running a project without policies in place you are taking an enormous risk. There are many, many resources out there to get you started. I’ve included a short list of my favorites below.

·       Boardsource

·       Roberts Rules of Order

·       National Council of Nonprofits

I hope this helped you. Please feel free to print or forward this blog to your team, or your board committee.

As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

I am here to help you! Reach out to me by email to schedule a conversation! cjohnson@cjpadvisors.com

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate 

There was no July newsletter due to so much going on! AH, Summer! 😁

August's focus is: The data story hiding behind your donors.

July was a very big month for me. There was a camping trip that included tickets to the always excellent Tedeschi Trucks band in Grand Junction; a backpacking trip with 3 other bad-ass women where we quietly watched a ginormous bear stroll through wildflowers as the sun set over Gold Basin. The next day we climbed 2500 ft to summit the Oh-Be-Joyful” Pass near Crested Butte. There were a few long bike rides, and a couple of fun books including a darling true story about the Marlboro man adopting a baby elephant. Most importantly, I onboarded two fantastic new clients:

Ah-Haa (https://ahhaa.org/) is a phenomenally well-run arts organization in Telluride, Colorado, that focuses on community engagement and arts education. It is also home to the American Bookbinding Academy, one of the three top book-binding centers in the world! Who knew? I have the pleasure of advising their outstanding Executive Director, Marty Wolleson, and excellent Chair of the Board, Beth McLaughlin, on best practices for their entire board to take their fundraising to the next level. We are discussing the art of cultivation and will be seeing how far we can take a new organizational structure for cultivating and retaining existing donors, while systematically developing new relationships in the evolving Telluride community. If you ever visit Telluride, I highly encourage a visit inside the welcoming doors of Ah-Haa. The classes range from pottery to culinary and the facility is fabulous!

My second client to onboard is a major milestone for me. I’m now serving as the Development Advocate for Habitat for Humanity, Roaring Fork Valley (https://habitatroaringfork.org/). This truly impactful organization is run by a team of great people – Gail Schwartz, President; Kristen Wilmes, Executive Director and Danielle Howard, Chair of Board. I also get the opportunity to learn from the legendary Alex Yajko, local fundraiser extraordinaire. Being able to contribute to Habitat’s local mission is a dream-come-true for me. Habitat Humanity International does such beautiful work to help good, hard-working families, attain homeownership. Their tag line – “We give a hand-up, not a hand-out,” rings so true. This philanthropy is a gift to all of us.

It is my opinion that we have never needed Habitat’s work so much, in my lifetime, as we do now. The index for unaffordability of food and shelter is reaching record levels; the data I’m learning now on how where one lives, the distance they have to travel daily to work, and the cost to provide basic care and safe living to our families, has staggering ramifications on our community’s mental and physical health. Specifically, I will be working to advance funding for an innovative project: HFH RF’s Modular Production and Education Facility. It’s an ambitious, deeply needed solution that only someone as visionary as Gail Schwartz could pull off – I am certain we will rally the community around this great solution to create affordable housing on the Western Slope!

Today’s newsletter covers a topic that I will be presenting to both of my dear clients above:

The data story hiding behind your donors.

Generating this data will require adopting a few new practices and some discipline. I am going to share the basics of what I will be teaching in today’s newsletter.

If you implement these changes and these practices, I guarantee – yes, I do GUARANTEE your organization will begin to reach new levels of improved fundraising. Why? Because you will become informed about what you are doing well, and what is not working regarding your fundraising efforts. You will maximize efficiency.

Ready? Let’s go.

Two of the most important metrics to track are:

Donor Retention Rate (DRR)

Donor Lifetime Value (LTV)

Calculating your annual DRR is extremely valuable, since it tells you:

·      If you are failing to convince donors to support your mission over time.

·      If you have earned commitment from a donor toward the mission.

·      Donors who give again often give more.

·      The marketing required to convince a first-time donor to give is far more expensive than the marketing required to retain a donor.

Calculating your LTV for each donor is time-consuming but worthwhile because of the data it provides.

·      How much you should project to spend on marketing to retain each donor.

·      Projections for annual giving over time (as long as cultivation is part of the strategic plan.)

·      Feasibility of larger scale projects that require ambitious fundraising.

By adopting the following calculations as part of your regular reporting, you and your board will be making informed decisions based on data.

Donor Retention Rate: You calculate this very important number by dividing the # of donors last year who gave again this year, by the total number of donors who gave last year. (The only way you will have this year-to-year data is if you spend an exorbitant amount of time inputting this informatin into Excel or, your organization ahs invested in a useful CRM software. Most of these software can generate DRR reports with a few clicks. Here's how: 

The # of donors last year who gave again, this year

Total # of donors last year

For example, say you had 580 donors last year. Last year, 225 of those donors who gave last year, also gave again this year. This would be your formula:

225

580

= 

.38 is your retention rate rate.

This means you are losing 62% of your donors every year. Sadly, this is typical of the nonprofit industry.

Donor Lifetime Value = this is the financial value ascribed to a donor file in terms of anticipated average giving and expected average years of actual giving. (from the online AFP Fundraising Dictionary (2003))

Step one: Break out your donors according to Giving levels. It is more accurate calculate LTV by using a “Total # of donors” within a specific Giving Level.

Example of your data about donors in the $5,000 - $10,000 giving range.

• You have 7 donors in this range.

• Total # of donations for these 7 donors is 15 donations

• Find the inputs for each calculation of each donor.

  LTV = 

[(Lifespan x Ave donation amount) 

X  

(Total # of donations / Total # of donors)]

Step two: Use the following formula:

o   Donor A has been giving for 3 years

o   Average donation over this giving lifespan is $5500.

LTV =  

[(3 x 5500) x (15 / 7)] 

= 

(16,500) x(2)]

 = 

Donor A’s LTV is $33,000

What Donor Lifetime Value information tells you:

1. Over five years, you can estimate what would be a reasonable annual marketing and cultivation investment to retain this donor.

2. With the potential to raise $33,000 from this donor (if well-cultivated) this donor is valuable!

3. You will only retain this donor and earn their value with suitable cultivation.

              Helpful tip:

            There is a free tool available from Fundraising Report Card, that allows you to calculate your LTV for each donor much faster.

-        You need to have a CRM software with all your donor information available to download in CSV file.

-        You need to register for free, with Fundraising Report Card (https://app.fundraisingreportcard.com/register)

I hope this helped you. Please feel free to print or forward this blog to your development team, or your development board committee.

As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

I am here to help you!

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate 

Tools to help your Board Members become top fundraisers!

In my first newsletter I encouraged even small nonprofits to move away from focusing so exclusively on gifts from cash and educate themselves about tools and techniques to receive donor gifts from assets of wealth.

Recently, during discussions with clients, I’ve realized that this recommendation is difficult for many small nonprofit cultures to put into action. There is an intermediary philosophical step that could improve your progress to gifts from assets. I call this philosophy, “Collaborative Curiosity.”

We want the best for our friends.

We have courageous, kind and thoughtful discussions to help each other resolve challenges.

This sums up the philosophy and fundamental approach of a Collaboratively Curious conversation between two people who are supporters of the nonprofit.

I’ve found this approach to be a valued litmus test for accountability; a bellwether for financial stability; a discoverable sensibility during board recruitment and staffing interviews.

Collaborative Curiosity is at the core of my trainings for helping board members and nonprofit leaders become more successful, and I believe the practice of Collaborative Curiosity is essential to interrupting the unsustainable “Treading Water,” philosophy. Below I am going to attempt to share with you, dear reader, the essence of my philosophical approach.

TWO OPPOSING PHILOSOPHIES

“Treading Water” vs “Collaborative Curiosity”

Have you ever had to tread water for a long time? It’s exhausting. You can only hold up one person – yourself. Sometimes, the person is so frantic, they don’t realize a solution is nearby.

“Treading Water" 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊😩

Here’s the typical “Treading Water,” nonprofit mind-set that undermines so many organizations with missions to house the poor and underpaid, educate and protect our children, rescue abused animals, and expand our hearts and souls with the arts (just to name a few):

·      “Not-for-profit” means every cent of our fundraising goes to the current year’s programming; future investment is not part of our planning.

·      We accept the premise of overworked, underpaid staff who sacrifice financial health and security for the mission.

·      Funding programs with donors’ dollars is acceptable, but funding operations (staff) is not fundamental to the mission.

·      Gifts from cash are easy to understand. We are frightened and afraid to make a mistake with a gift from a more complicated asset, so we do not talk about them.

·      Receiving gifts with donor instructions is way too much to manage.

·      We are terrified of not knowing the answer to a donor’s question.

If this sounds harsh and your backbone has tensed up, then please dear reader, please stay with me.  Too many nonprofits are doing important but unsustainable work guided by the “Treading Water,” philosophy.

“Collaborative Curiosity" 💁🪨🏊🪵🧑‍🏫🐬👍

Now imagine you are in the water with curiosity guiding you instead of fear of the water. You duck below and discover that only five feet away is a nice rock to stand on. A person nearby, spies a floating log and brings it over for both of you to share. A third person befriends a dolphin who lets you all hold on as it swims all of you safely to shore. Sound improbable? As long as you are splashing wildly churning up water that blinds you, any other solutions are hidden.

Here is the ambitious and rare culture and philosophy of a sustainable nonprofit guided by Collaborative Curiosity:

• We understand that “Not-for-profit,” means building a reserve is both strategic and helps sustain the mission.

• We inform our donors that 100% of our staff and operations are essential and retaining them is valuable and stabilizing to our mission.

• We fund staff’s time to conduct data collection so we can transparently self-report on our own successes and learned lessons to our community of clients and donors.

• We empower our board to be active advocates of the mission in our community.

• We actively improve our own knowledge to give our donors tools to make smart financial gifts.

• We actively engage financial advisors as partners for smart charitable giving.

• Staff and board members are not afraid to reply to a donor’s question, “That is a good question! At the moment, I don’t know the answer, but I’ll get the answer for you within a week.” And we do.

Why is a Collaborative Curiosity philosophy so rare, and why does it sound so out of grasp? Because Collaborative Curiosity requires investment from your entire organization, especially your board leadership.

One of the most essential activities that results from a Collaborative Curiosity philosophy is purposeful conversations between your board members, and your donors.😱

It is interesting to me that this is also the activity that strikes fear in most board members.

“What would I say?” the board member asks.

Imagine, the board member and the donor both share enough of a passion to support the same nonprofit. Why would they not find common ground in a conversation? I promise, there is much to be gained in these donor/board member conversations. The key is, approaching with them with a Collaborative Curiosity philosophy.

Below are a few tools to help your board members feel more comfortable with this philosophy and the crucial activity of them having conversations with your donors. Feel free to print them out or share this blog with your entire board!

Three words I use to describe the Collaboratively Curious conversation:

Open-Minded.

The relaxing way to engage a stranger.

Authentic.

The best way to keep the conversation going, and to increase trust in one another.

Ongoing.

Most importantly, this board member will continue the relationship,

 on behalf of the nonprofit and the donor.

10 Reasons for a Board Member to call a donor:

1. To put into action, their fiduciary duty to the nonprofit.

2. So the board member can introduce themselves.

3. To personally thank them for their first gift.

4. To personally thank them for their repeat gift.

5. To learn why the donor made their gift.

6. To provide an update on a project the donor supported.

7. To ask the donor to save-the-date on a soon-to-be announced event.

8. To help the hard-working staff reach and retain more donors.

9. To ask if the donor has any friends who might also want to know about the nonprofit. Could they make an introduction?

10. To ask if they are satisfied with the way the nonprofit communicates with them. (Emails? Newsletter? Do they feel appreciated?)

10 Rules of Thumb for a “Collaboratively Curious” conversation.

1. Staff or a key volunteer should prepare and keep updated, a “Tool Kit” for the board members making calls. (See below.)

2. I always recommend that someone on staff with access to donor information prepares a donor profile for the board member to have in advance of the call.

3. No donor should be assigned to receive the same call from two board members. Therefore, this needs to be organized by staff in advance.

4. During the call, the board member should take notes.

5. A primary objective should be appreciation. If the donor does not have time for a call, at least they can hear a genuine, “Thank you,” was the reason for the call and be asked to chat at a future date.

6. Following the call, the board member should report the results to their staff point-of-contact.

7. The staff point-of-contact records this information in the donor file, for future reference.

8. The staff point-of-contact helps the board member schedule a follow-up with the donor at an agreed upon future date.

9. When it is time for the donor follow-up call, the staff point-of-contact contacts the board member with a respectful reminder.

10. The staff point-of-contact also provides any updated material in the “Tool Kit” to the board member and the cycle begins again!

The “Tool Kit”: Empowering the Board Member to make the call.

The board member should be given a “Tool Kit”, prepared by staff or a key volunteer team, to have in front of them during their call with a donor.

Here is my suggested list to have at hand:

A.       Donor Profile:

• The donor’s name.

• The name of any of the donor’s family members, known (especially partner.)

• The donor’s gift history. Or, at least, the board member should know if the donor has given repeat gifts

• Did the donor give at a specific honorary level?

• Did the donor give a gift restricted to a specific purpose or program? Then, the donor's interest should be the focus of the call.

B.       Organizational Information:

• Two minute “Elevator Pitch” or summary statement that describes what the organization does.

• Statement that describes the need the organization is fulfilling. (Note: Not how they are fulfilling the need – what the need is, itself.)

• List of programs and services provided with correct names.

• List of customers and clients.

• Data points on achievements, effectiveness, outcomes, especially as pertains to a donor's gift, if it was restricted to a specific program.

• A story or testimonial

C.      Organizational Financial details:

• Earned income, vs donations from individuals, corporations and businesses, and grants, as described in percentage of total budget.

• UBI (Unrelated business income)

• Sponsorship opportunities

• List of sponsors

• Summary of strategic plan

I hope this helped you. Please feel free to print or forward this blog to your development team, or your development board committee.

As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

I am here to help you!

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate 

Hello beautiful philanthropy world!

I’m on my way to Los Angeles, after two great weeks in Austin, Texas. Purpose for all this fun? Time with family and friends, plus a couple of exciting philanthropy meetings. I begin this newsletter with a couple of tips for nonprofits and fundraisers, ending with advice for well-intentioned donors who might be feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders. 

Let's talk Asses and Pachyderms 🐘 🫏

How will the 2024 United States presidential election season affect nonprofit fundraising? You might think the noise of a presidential race would drown out your nonprofit’s pleas for support. Studies show that election years are a great time to fundraise. 🥳 🇺🇲 US donors open their wallets wider during election cycles, especially politically active millennials.

Findings from the Blackbaud Institute, CCS Fundraising, reveal that in most election years, donors give more to their philanthropies of choice. It was also revealed that a particular group of donors gave more than any of the other group in the studies. Who was this generous-minded group of donors? 

• Politically-minded and politically active donors between the ages of 25 and 34. 

• Giving was highest to charities with missions close to hot-button election issues.

• This was true for charities whose issues aligned with either positive or negative political ideology of the winning candidate.

Election year fundraising tips: 

• Begin making phone calls and meeting with your donors now.

• Target new millennial donors to grow your donor base! They are itching to make a difference and many suddenly have some level of income for the first time in their lives.

• Keep tabs on global and local events—they can sway generosity.

• And most importantly, be genuine in your “Ask.” Enough with the weatherman-like urgency.

Nonprofit Website Tip of the Month: 

Please prominently and regularly display your nonprofit EIN number on your website!

The EIN number is the “Employer Identification Number” assigned by the IRS at the time of the charity's approval of formation. Think of it as your charity’s social security number. Providing it to donors makes it much easier for them to verify you are a legitimate charity and the number is often required for many financial transactions.

These days, donors can easily make large online donations when the mood strikes them by electronically transferring gifts from stock, a Donor Advised Fund, an IRA or a Qualified Charitable Distribution to their charity of choice. They can make these sizable gifts only if they have the correct EIN number for your charitable organization. 

Statistically speaking, gifts from these sources are 

many times larger 

than gifts from cash.

Actions to take immediately, and correctly display your EIN number:

• On your DONATE page

• Wherever you list your contact information

• On all printable materials and collateral that asks for donations.

From the Mountaintop - A Donor’s Focus Statement

This month I am visiting my mother in Texas. She received 25 appeals within the first two days of my visit. Was it a floodgate triggered by some special event? Nope. She said this is constant. 

She received three book marks, nickels, dimes, a silver fifty cent piece and three crisp dollar bills, a promise of a “free” copy of the Episcopal Church’s Musician’s Handbook, and offers of high quality insulated tote bags from Ocean Conservancy. And the calendars, oh my, the calendars. In this day of cell phones, Really??  Admittedly the one urging “Save the donkeys,” was very cute. 

Besides being a staggering waste of paper and postage, messages were hopelessly repetitious. For all you donors out there feeling bludgeoned by this paper-mill pursuit of your dollars, I’m sharing the tips I shared with my own mother.

First, Aggressively Reduce this Mess

Take the time to get yourself removed from these nonprofit mailing lists. It takes a little effort but is probably worthwhile: 

1. Send an index card in the return envelope with a, “Please remove me from your mailing address.” Include your mailing address you want removed and be sure to affix enough postage to the return envelope.

2. Email the charity with a request to “Please remove me from your mailing and email address.”  Include your mailing address and email address. 

3. Scan the return form letter and look for an “Opt-out” option of all communications. Check that box and return that form!

4. Sign up for the United States Postal Service (USPS) Do Not Mail List, which allows you to register your name and address to stop receiving mail from charities and other organizations. You can register online or by phone.

Second, take time to create your “Donor’s Focus”

We often read the charity’s Mission Statement before we decide to make a donation. I challenge donors to write their own mission statement by creating a “Donor’s Focus” statement. (I have a work sheet for this exercise. See my email at the bottom of this newsletter if you would like me to send it to you.)

Why should you bother to create your own statement of Donor Focus? Well, I have a secret to tell you…

You cannot solve every problem.

Sorry if that distresses you, but it's the truth.

You are one human being.

Not even MacKenzie Scott can solve all the world’s problems.

Neither can you, so give yourself a break.

There has always been the conflict between helping as many as possible, versus helping a few, generously and deeply. This is why defining your focus is so important. The fact is, we fundraisers and nonprofit experts attend classes and conferences just to figure out how to convince you to open your wallet. Knowing this, it is your job to get and stay focused. This is not cold and insensitive. This is what I call staying true to you and becoming a more effective donor. 💰💰💰💰💰

Exercises for Creating Your “Donor’s Focus” Statement.

1. Narrow your Lane. Pretend someone asks you, “If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?” How would you answer? Explore your answers, then refine these ideas over the next few days and weeks.

   • Would you target your support locally, regionally or globally?

   • Would you focus on humans, animals, the environment or something else?

   • Write down your answers. Don’t criticize yourself. Keep writing. 

   • Who, what, and why do you want to help in this way?

   • What would you like the result of your support to be?

Take a week or a month to deeply explore your responses to this question.

2. Draft your Donor's Focus Statement. Now that you have done all this writing, take another week or two to distill all this work into a sentence or two. The goal is to end up with your clarifying statement of Donor’s Focus. It might take you a few times. Keep working. Read it out loud to yourself. Put it down for a day and then read it out loud the next morning. How does it sound? Keep working.

When you think you are close, read your Donor’s Focus to a close friend. Ask them, did they understand your goal? It is fine if the goal is not achievable in your lifetime. That is up to you. But is your goal well-defined? Once you feel satisfied, move on to step 3.

3. Research the charities working within your Donor’s Focus

Before you give a single gift, make a list of charities whose missions and accomplishments align with what you have discovered about yourself, during your exercise to Narrow Your Lane.

Once you have found a short list of charities that align with your goals, think about what you might accomplish with each of those charities if you were to begin your own long-term giving campaign.

• What are you capable of giving this year? $25 a year? $100 a year? $2,500 a year?

• Now, think about that gift every year for 10 years. 20 years. Based on what you can learn from their website, what kind of change could you make possible for them over this amount of time? 

You are one human being.

And now, you are beginning to realize the change you could affect in one small but very meaningful way.

You could make a small and real change happen with your Donor’s Focus.

4. Decide the one-to-three charities you want to focus on. 

• Put a calendar reminder on your phone or whatever calendar you use, to make your gift again, annually.

• Retain the communications you receive from these charities. 

• Over the next year, think about how they communicated with you. Did they answer your questions (did you reach out to them with questions?)

• Did they quickly thank you for your gift? It is important to evaluate nonprofits. I’ll talk about evaluation in future newsletters.

I have served as a director at three nonprofit organizations. I can verifiably say, if I had a donor reach out to me to tell me how they wanted to receive their communications, and ask me a question they hoped I could answer, trust me, I would be grateful. I would listen and I would answer this donor. And, if I had a donor give me $25 for 10 years, I would take that donor over another donor who gave me one donation of $500. 

I LOVE long-term relationships. 🥰🥰

Because long-term relationships are mutual and have the chance to grow with one another. This goes for philanthropy as well. 🌍💝🌎🫶🌏💗

Final take away.

If you take up the “Donor’s Focus” challenge and a charity asks you for a donation, you have full right to say, “Thank you for doing what you do to make the world a better place. I applaud you for your efforts and appreciate you telling me about your services. That is not my focus of my own charitable giving, but I will keep it in mind to tell a few friends about you.”

If you are a donor who received this email from your charity of choice, congratulations! 

I have created a “Donor’s Focus” worksheet and would be happy to send directly to you. (No charge; it is something I did for my mother.) I won't keep you on my email list unless you request. For the “Donor’s Focus” worksheet or any more questions I can be reached at cjohnson@cjpadvisors.com. 

As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

Keep making the world wonderful!

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate 

April 2, 2024

Good morning Roaring Fork Valley and nonprofits beyond!

It is April 2, 2024, and this is my first newsletter.

It is a beautiful morning. Why?

• The sun is rising.

•  I am going to enjoy a hike this morning.

•  I met nonprofit leaders yesterday who inspired me yet again.

The Roaring Fork Valley and Colorado are abundant in nonprofits; by some counts, there are more than 300 nonprofits between Aspen and Grand Junction.

Is this a good thing? Are there too many? I don’t think there are too many nonprofits – there is plenty of important work to go around for all the charities and I am regularly astonished at the great work being done! 

However, I do think there are too many nonprofits that could make even bigger impact. Why? Because their fundraising is inefficient, and inefficient fundraising results in lower impact.

My observations have shown me that many nonprofits here still focus their fundraising from two sources:

1.        Cash

2.        Grants from government entities

Few nonprofits fundraise with a focus on the individual donors’ point of view! It’s as if charities are scared of talking to people! Are you?

What is the donor’s point of view?

Give them metrics to understand how their donation will make impact.

Then – and this is the kicker – report back to the individual donor with metrics, how their donation did make impact!

Stay up-to-date and inform donors about financial vehicles are strategically beneficial to them and the charity for making gifts.

Cash is not king. Only 8% of our country’s wealth is tied up in cash. And yet, almost every single charity here in the RFV has their website donation page focused only on cash gifts via online credit card payments. I’ve done my research and its frightening. Big gifts are being missed!

More than 90% of wealth in the United States is tied up in assets such as land, our homes, stocks, bonds, crypto, IRAs and other assets.

Help your donors! 

If you do not clarify in your charity’s literature and website that you can receive these gifts from assets, and provide them details about how your donors can make these gifts, your charity will not receive gifts from wealth.

Why would a donor want to give from their wealth? 

When their assets gain in value, the gains can be wonderful to the holder, and they can also be a burden.

Why a burden? 

Because capital gain is taxable according to the tax rate of the individual.

But it’s complex. Why should a charity dip its toes into explaining stuff about taxes to wealthy people? Shouldn’t wealthy people know these things?

Yes, they should. But many times they don’t.

Wealth is a mindset. Some people who have capacity still do not think of themselves as wealthy and so they do not think in terms of giving their hard-earned wealth away. As well, financial advisors are not paid to help their clients think in charitable terms; their goal is to preserve and increase the wealth of their client's estate. If the client doesn’t mention, “Hey, I’d also like to be charitable with my wealth planning,” then the financial planner might not be motivated to mix charity into the planning. But from the estate owner’s perspective, this could be unfortunate because sometimes being charitable could benefit both them and the estate owner's heirs. (More on this in later newsletters.)

Okay, so how would talking about gifts from assets really benefit my charity?

You probably know that a charity does not pay tax on capital gains.

So, here is an example for you:

If the donor gave the charity an asset such as stock or crypto that increased in value, the donor would pay no capital gains and get a deduction for the value of that gift. Great!

But it gets better...the donor could turn around and use the cash they would have used to make the donation, to buy back the stock that they gifted to the charity, only at a higher base point, erasing their original capital gains. Because the asset was gifted to the charity and the charity was the one selling the asset, the donor was not involved in a wash-sale and can buy back their stock.

Hmmmm. Starting to get my point?

This is just one jewel of a tool that charities should get used to talking about with their donors. Each month, in my newsletter, I plan on featuring a gift-giving vehicle that I feel could benefit donors and nonprofits.

The United States has the most complex tax system in the world. But these complex rules allow a donor’s gift to be both be charitable and reduce the tax bill burden. If you dive into the details, some of these rules are not so complex. No other country facilitates giving the way the USA does. We should work to understand the tools this system offers us.

Note: I do not benefit from any of the tools I recommend on my website. I have learned about them and feel they could help nonprofits do a better job for their donors and their missions. It is up to you to review these tools and make an informed decision.

Tools I like that I think you should learn about.

These are widgets you can add to your website to allow donors to give stocks and gifts from Donor Advised Funds, straight to your charity’s accounts.

Stock Donator

Donate Stock

DAFWidget

These are suites of tools that you can add to your website to allow donors to do everything from write their own will, to making planned gifts to a charity, to making quicker-turnaround gifts with assets that have capital gains.

FreeWill (Smart Giving Suite and Planned Giving Suite)

Giving Docs

As with all my recommendations, review these tools to make sure they are right for you and get the necessary approvals from your board and leadership before implementing!

Keep making the world wonderful!

-Courtney

Your biggest advocate