Winston Churchill said, “never waste a good crisis”!
Fundraising has had its own “underlying conditions” for years, as such many charities will sadly not financially survive this crisis.
BUT does this horrific situation present an opportunity to hit the refresh button for the benefit of the whole sector and all it serves?
I believe this crisis has turned every charity (with a few exceptions) into a “start-up”.
A nimble, think on your feet, lean, mean start-up machine – all the rules and anything remotely close to business as usual was taken off the table overnight. The mother of invention stepped in in a big way, and for many she created new “start- up like” services in a matter of days. No time to think, argue or even write the obligatory 12-inch Board pack (she is one hell of a mother). Just enough time to invent, act and cobble it all together en route.
Rather than trying to hang onto “business as usual with a bit of an online twist” is there now an opportunity to reinvent?
Has this crisis for example advanced your ability to serve your community digitally by leaps and bounds?
Has that working from home policy (you know the one that insisted everyone came into the office to maintain the 9 to 5 surveillance team spirit) been kicked into the 21st century?
Imagine doing what you have probably pulled off in mere weeks in ordinary times.
As a global not for profit sector, can we now let that “start-up mentally” loose on our fundraising limitations?
I would like to propose all charities (pretty much) are now start-ups. All the rules are off the table. It’s time to reinvent fundraising minus the Victorian roots that have not served us for decades.
Furthermore, if large numbers of charities cannot financially survive this, then at least the thinking and beliefs (which I believe have ultimately killed them) should die with them. What better example to show donors how the fundraising model needs to be much more robust and fit for 21st century purpose, rather than the tie our hands behind our 19th century backs and leave us completely exposed year on year model.
Here is a list of the main ills I would like “the mother of re-invention” to kick into touch
(no judgement by the way – I only know these so intimately from lived experienced).
Communicating to the donor:
100% of your donation will go to the project or at least a high percentage – as the projects are the only thing that matters everything else about the organisation (we fully acknowledge) is a burden – CEO’s salary (I assure you includes the weekly flogging), HR, Finance, Fundraising (ahem Development/Philanthropy rather), Communications – are all a total drain on resources and are absolutely not integral to the organisation. We have however, kept these necessary evils to the bear minimum.
Your donation will not contribute to reserves. Yes, you would like us to have a rainy-day fund but we totally understand how no one wishes to actually contribute to it. Therefore, I’m not even going to attempt to ask you to donate to such “red tape”. Let’s never speak of this again. Sorry.
We completely understand and have accepted as a collective belief (because our funders told us so) endowment funds are THE hardest funds to fundraise for. Endowment funds are the territory for THE most connected ONLY – the rest of us don’t have a cat in hell’s chance and won’t even think about asking or trying to set one up.
We understand how you want to restrict your funds, we will now present (bend the life out of) how your restrictions match what we do and why we do it that way.
Our internal self-talk:
We raise money to spend this financial year in this financial year. We fully accept we are not aligned to a large proportion of our donor’s own timelines, but rather than give ourselves a decent financial runway, let’s set the target and go for it. We’re used to living from hand to mouth, it looks good to run on a shoestring. Let’s call it “not wasting money” – besides it puts a fire in your belly (well ulcer, fire, fire, ulcer no need to split hairs).
If we raise a large/very likely to be a one-off donation – it is super sensible to create a full cost recovery budget. Jam the one off/time limited donation with everyday expenditure. This donation will not be repeated but the everyday expenditure will still exist – leaving a very real and significant hole in our finances at the end of the donation period. But hand to mouth gang – we lived another day so drinks on the CEO post this week’s flogging.
Or if we secure a large/ time limited donation let’s set up a new project. Despite our organisation’s history of securing large donations setting up projects just to close them as quickly as they were set up post the funding period. Let’s do it again to win the money, I know we still need to finance the existing projects, but here comes a big one to mask this year’s income gap…we live another day.
We must grow our income year on year. No one is exactly sure why, but if you’re not growing you’re dying apparently, which is ironic in our case as it’s the “grow year on year come hell or high water mentally” which is probably killing us….
What would a refresh look like?
Projects do not and cannot exist in isolation. Projects need the full organisation behind them.
Fundraising is not about “not wasting money” – it’s about building capacity to deliver “best in class impact”, which takes a whole team effort, and includes overheads, investment into people, processes, IT etc.
Reserves and endowment funds protect service users first and foremost – every charity has a dual mandate to serve its service users and to remain financially viable (in good times and in bad).
Let’s go crazy and add staff, volunteers, donors and financial stability to our mission and vision statements, rather than continue this sole (and very unrealistic) focus on service users only - it takes a village to achieve social change.
Large donations are wonderful – but if they only want to support “the new and shiny” or come with restrictions they immediately come at a high price to the charity. Can we just ditch restrictions and just fund/invest in causes (you either trust the charity or you don’t).
For all the charities that have or are at risk of going under. Have the bad times just revealed/highlighted the key problems of:
- Living from hand to mouth for years.
- Not having reserves or more sustainable funds to pull on in times of crisis, but worse in more stable times these funds would run the risk of making a charity look “cash rich” or less deserving of funding their day to day remit.
- The difficulty of raising unrestricted funds.
I firmly believe in donor partnerships and indeed during this crisis most donors have also reverted to reinvention/start up mode themselves. Lifting all the restrictions and usual processes to get much more money to where it is needed now to help now.
Both donors and charities are operating outside of the business as usual mode.
The mother of invention (for both charities and donors) is running amok globally right now – please help her be The Mother of “RE-INVENTION.
This is an opportunity to reset our fundraising and funding to be much more fit or purpose for all those we collectively serve.
Now if you know me you know I do not yell from the cheap seats.
If you are a Charity CEO, Trustee or Senior Fundraiser and would like a copy of my “Fundraising Strategy on a page” template – to help you think through your own fundraising plans please download it HERE
