Tag Archives: giving circles

Characteristics of Strong Fundraising Programs

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Achieve Resource Library By Hannah Staton, Public Relations Associate, Achieve

When it comes to fundraising programs, we have seen it all at Achieve. We’ve worked with clients at all stages of building and maintaining their fundraising programs.

Establishing a fundraising program is an ongoing process that demands constant attention and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Knowing the effort required, we would love to discover the perfect formula that could be instantly implemented to overnight success. (“Come one, come all, and buy a bottle of Magical Fundraising Formula, sure to flood your organization with donations for the rest of its days!”)

Alas, no such easy solution exists. The good news is, while we don’t have a magic formula, there are qualities that we’ve noticed in all organizations with established fundraising programs. So, we put together a list of characteristics of strong fundraising programs to share with you:

The 5 Characteristics of Strong Fundraising Programs:

1) They are built to fundraise. Fundraising isn’t just something that has to be done in successful fundraising programs. Fundraising is a function of the organization, with the necessary structure and systems in place. There are staff, metrics, strategies, and mechanisms in place to foster a culture of fundraising.

2) Their boards walk the walk. A strong development committee leads by example. They make personal contributions to the cause, direct the process of goal setting, and hold fellow board members accountable for their financial commitments.

3) Major gifts are major priorities. Major gifts are built directly into successful fundraising programs by following a thoughtful plan to identify prospects and allocate resources for prospect research. They also employ a mechanism to track the solicitation process effectively. Staff and volunteers spend substantial time calling on prospects, building relationships, and personally soliciting gifts.

4) Their annual funds “cradle” major gift work. Annual fund programs are intended to identify new donors each year, increase the level of giving from all previous donors, and make an all-out attempt to retain donors from year to year. Fundraising success in the annual fund relates directly to investments of time and energy.

5) They invest in staffing. Successful fundraising programs are staffed by highly-qualified individuals who feel passionate for the cause and believe in results-driven benchmarks.

For more information on additional fundraising tools and resources, check out Achieve Resource Library

Where to Start with Social Fundraising

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By Justin Brady, Achieve Consulting Associate

The Achieve and JGA 2011 Millennial Donor report showed that Millennials are motivated by peers and prefer to give in response to a personal request. A new trend in online fundraising echoes this – peer or social fundraising takes the fundraising power out of the hands of a nonprofit and puts the responsibility on individuals who care deeply about the cause to recruit their friends to support and donate.
A variety of online services continue to emerge to make it easy for nonprofits to do this. Maybe unsurprisingly most have been founded by Millennials who thought it was time for a new and more engaging way to donate online.
The major components for a successful social fundraising site include:
  • Social integration, video and sharing features
  • Visual goal progress and ways for users to be updated on campaign progress and understand impact of gift
  • Options for individuals to start own fundraiser or nonprofit to manage campaign

To save you time researching, I have narrowed the list to 5 sites and scenarios to help you find the right fit for your organization. It should be known that I don’t have firsthand experience running campaigns on any of these services, but from exploring a variety of factors I can verify that each has pros and cons.

SCENARIO 1:  My organization wants to peer fundraise but leadership is nervous about testing this concept and need a low-risk option.   Razoo has all the basic features a successful peer fundraising campaign needs. It won’t have all the bells and whistles, but it will be very easy to get started and navigate the waters. Plus, the team behind this seems bright, so more features are probably only a matter of time. Cost: Only 2.9% per donation, making it the cheapest option.
SCENARIO 2:  My organization is ready to reach a young audience and has a tech savvy team to make it happen.   A quick browsing of the site will make it clear that the Crowdrise team wants to make fundraising online a fun social experience and they do it with a sense of humor. If your organization is more traditional, this attitude may be too much to start with. But if you are open to it, there are a lot of great options including a point system to incentivize individuals to fundraise. Cost: 5% fee per donation processed through Network for Good.

SCENARIO 3: My organization wants resources to make sure we succeed and analytics to prove the ROI. We already have established a social presence that is ready to mobilize.  Causes is best known as the integrated Facebook app for fundraising. Organizations can also setup stand-alone peer fundraising campaigns at Causes.com. Causes has lots of options, includes a built-in dashboard for tracking activity, plus lots of best practice tutorials and webinars to help you succeed. Warning: You can’t just put a causes app on your Facebook page and call it a day. You need to actively have supporters fundraising for you, or else any new traffic you get to your page will see no one donating and be turned away. Cost: 4.75% Network For Good

SCENARIO 4: My organization falls somewhere in between – not quite social guru but not a novice.  StayClassy seems like a good option for those who want the simplicity of Razoo, but need a bit more social integration and built in analytics. Check out the Invisible Children campaign for a great example of the potential to use this to mobilize individuals to fundraise for you at smaller levels. Cost: 4% with a smaller fee for microdonations of less than $5. Plus ticketing options if you are fundraising with an event.
SCENARIO 5: My organization is open to taking risks to fundraise.  Kickstarter has an all-or-nothing funding model that can be terrifying, but also quite motivating. If you don’t reach your fundraising goal, you don’t get any donations. Campaigns must include incentives for donors at varying levels, this makes individuals have more at stake if they organization doesn’t reach their goal. Kickstarter is really made for creative projects and therefore won’t be for every organization. If you are up for taking a risk, you might end up with great results. Cost: 5% fee plus 3-5% credit card.
If you have money to invest and are ready to take it to the next level, give2gether, First Giving, and GiveZooks are just a few options that will be more customizable, but have a setup or ongoing monthly fee to operate.

Giving Circles Key Tool for Women and Millennials

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By Angela White, Senior Consultant and Chief Operating Officer, JGA

Over the past decade, the concept of a giving circle has established itself as a growing and effective philanthropic trend among all wealth levels and backgrounds. The social aspects of giving circles, however, also make them uniquely suited for two rising philanthropic audiences – women and Millennials.

A 2009 report on giving circles, demonstrated their effectiveness showing that giving circle members give more, give more strategically, and are more knowledgeable about nonprofits in their communities. 

[You can download the full report and access tools to learn how to set up your own giving circle from start to finish at The Giving Circles Knowledge Center, hosted by the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers.]

But it is their unique ability to combine social interaction and peer-to-peer fundraising that makes giving circles stand out as a trend for the future. 

In my work in women’s philanthropy and in JGA’s ongoing research on millennial donors, we have seen evidence that both of these audiences look for the ability to combine their giving decisions with their interactions within their community, family and friends. Both audiences seek to make philanthropy a social activity.

For example, in our 2011 Millennial Donors study with our partner Achieve, we found that Millennials want to engage with friends and family in volunteering, are motivated to give by friend or peer endorsement and are more likely to trust an organization if their friends or family endorse it.

I’ve also seen some interesting examples of giving circles working to successfully engage women donors.

First, there is the High Water Women group.  Founded in 2005 by senior-level women in the hedge fund industry, High Water Women provides funding to nonprofit partners while also sharing its members’ financial expertise with the nonprofits.  

Looking at the next generation of female donors, check out GirlUP.  GirlUp gives girls in the US the opportunity to raise money for U.N. programs that reach girls in other countries.

As you can see, giving circles are already being employed effectively with women and girls, but what about the Millennials?

It may be a case of lack of education. While in theory giving circles should lend themselves well to young donors who seek socialization with their giving, our research shows that 50% of Millennials were uncertain about the role of a giving circle.

To me this means we have a wonderful opportunity to engage Millennials in giving circles once we first show them how Giving circles can help them combine fun and philanthropy.

Do you have any examples of successful giving circles for women or Millennials you can share?