Ostara is happy announce that the winner of our Service Grant is Kids4Peace! Their organization brings together Muslim, Jewish, Christian and other youth for interfaith dialogues and leadership development. As a global interfaith youth movement, they are dedicated to ending conflict and inspiring hope in divided societies around the world. Kids4Peace accomplishes these goals through two key initiatives: the Kids4Peace Community and Kids4Peace Outreach. The Kids4Peace Community consists of youth in grades 6-12 who take part in summer and school-year programs, featuring monthly meetings, overnight retreats, intensive summer experiences, and community service projects. Kids4Peace Outreach consists of a range of programs that reach the broader Seattle community through workshops, public events, and other special opportunities. Ostara is looking forward to working with Kids4Peace to help maximize the impact of their already amazing work. In addition, we’re happy to announce that for the 3 runners up – AGE UP, Skate Like a Girl, and Tasveer – Ostara will offer a fundraising workshop with their teams to show our appreciation for what they do. In this two-hour training, Ostara Founder and CEO Kyle Halmrast will highlight both basic and more advanced fundraising concepts, with work around relationship cultivation, engagement techniques, moves management execution, and storytelling. We’re looking forward to giving back to the amazing work that our community is doing. Thanks so much to everyone who applied!

We are excited to announce that Ostara will partner with the Seattle Foundation to help nonprofit organizations make the most of their GiveBIG campaigns in 2017! Our Senior Consultant and individual giving expert Ariel Glassman will spend 90 minutes sharing tips on elevating your campaign strategy, navigating the new giving platform and other new elements of GiveBIG, leveraging the new one-to-one matching gift structure, and creating donor communications that stand out in a crowd. Details: Wednesday April 5th 2:00 – 3:30pm The Seattle Foundation 1601 Fifth Avenue, Ste 1900 Seattle, WA 98101 This workshop is free, with a maximum capacity of 80 people. RSVP now before it fills up! To RSVP, please email heartandscience@seattlefoundation.org with your name and the name of your organization!

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. It’s January – the time of year when many fundraisers are burned out from the busy December fundraising sprint. And thus, it’s a time of year when many fundraisers decide to look for new jobs. Your organization may find itself looking for a new development director, come February or March. Our sector already knows that development staff turnover is costly. The retraining costs for a fundraising role after turnover equal around 25-33% of the salary costs for that role. This doesn’t include the opportunity cost around whatever revenue might have been raised in that time period if the organization had been fully staffed. For so many reasons, it’s imperative to keep effective fundraisers around and satisfied in their work. Fundraiser retention starts with making the right hire in the first place. That’s a no-brainer, right? But it turns out that hiring for development positions is hard – really hard. And not just because fundraising is hard (which it is). It’s difficult because fundraising is an experiential profession that, by its nature, happens to be full of eloquent communicators. Development pros are great talkers; it’s in our nature. We know how to generate contributions from tough-minded business people and soft-hearted grandmothers alike; we can run circles around standard job interviews. Often, the key to hiring a great development director is the ability to separate those who can just talk the talk from those who can truly walk the walk. What’s the hitch? Most of the time, that’s not something you can do without having done it yourself. The problem lies with who hires a development director. It is imperative to have people involved in the interviewing process with direct experience and systematic participation in the hard work of fundraising. It’s easy to be swayed by a resume full of results without context, or by a smooth personality. Even the most strategic and hard-working search committees can have a sizeable blind spot around hiring fundraisers. Ostara has developed five tried-and-true interview questions for development directors to help you sort out the doers from the schmoozers: 1. How would you go about learning more about [insert your organization’s sector or mission space] so you can work more effectively with donors in this mission space? Why ask? Unless your organization is sitting pretty on a pile of cash, any fundraiser you hire – especially at the leadership level – will need to hit the ground running. But unless they have significant experience in your specific slice of the nonprofit sector, they probably don’t have enough knowledge of your mission and your impact yet to go toe-to-toe with sophisticated major donors. Fundraisers need to know as much about program work as your program staff, and you want to make sure that the person you hire knows how get up to speed quickly so they can dive in. This is one of the upsides to fundraisers that have jumped around a lot, or who have spent time consulting – they have practice getting up to speed quickly. What to look for in their answer: Some candidates will look to books, magazines, websites, or articles; some will start with speaking to experts or leaders in the field. Others will balance those approaches, or come up with something totally out of left field that you’ve never thought of before. There’s no right answer in general, but one of these styles might be a better fit for your organizational culture or your specific sector. The best way to get up to speed after joining an infectious disease research institute is probably not how you would get up to speed at a performing arts center. Think through what’s best for your organization before you ask this question in the interviews. 2. Tell us about the gift you are most proud of securing. Why are you proud of this gift? How did you structure the giving opportunity, and how did you cultivate and solicit the donor? Why ask? Asking for a specific anecdote or example of a key fundraising activity will tell you much more than a conceptual conversation about that skill. Lots of fundraisers can tell you what moves management is; far fewer actually do it well. A great director of development or major gifts officer will be able to unpack their process for you in detail. It’s important to understand the level of critical thinking and intentionality they apply to donor relationship development. This question really helps identify those whose experiences have prepared them to lead and beat their goals. And, how fundraisers defines their success, and what they are proud of, is crucial to understanding how they set goals, approach their work and stay motivated. What to look for in their answer: Many fundraisers will choose the example of the largest gift they have closed. That’s fine – after all, fundraisers need to bring results, and there’s no shame in celebrating big wins. But truly great fundraisers are purposeful and donor-centric. Some of the best fundraisers I’ve hired chose to talk about gifts that were not necessarily their largest, but that allowed their organization to accomplish something long-awaited or important. Others chose gifts that they could tell were the most meaningful to that donor. Either of these types of answers is a good sign that the candidate understands what it means to be donor-centric. Extra points go to examples that include partnership with their executive director, board members, development committee members, and/or other volunteers in cultivating and soliciting the gift. Though you need them to be effective solicitors themselves, great fundraisers recognize that donor development is often a team sport. They know when to bring volunteers in to help close the gift. 3. Tell us about a mistake you made that impacted a donor or other important organizational relationship, and how you recovered from it or addressed the situation. In retrospect, is there anything you would have done differently? Why ask? Mistakes happen. Development professionals are human. It’s great to have an example of how someone recognizes and rectifies their own mistakes, and to hear how comfortable they are acknowledging their own imperfection. This question fundamentally acknowledges that no one is perfect, and tells savvy candidates as much about your organization’s culture as it tells you about their self-awareness and humility. It communicates that once on the job, they’ll be allowed to make mistakes and grow from it. What to look for in their answer: Self-awareness about the gravity of the mistake; the instinct to be honest with other organizational leadership (like the executive director or board member connected to the donor) about the mistake; a collaborative problem-solving style; and a donor-centric approach to mitigating the impact of the mistake. 4. What have you learned from previous supervisors or managers that has informed how you lead and manage a team? Why ask? Most nonprofit sector employees never receive training and education in how to lead and manage teams, because professional development is costly. As fundraisers advance their careers and grow their skills, they often receive promotions or pursue new positions that put them in a management role at the leadership level without any formal or informal preparation for leading a team. The only example most have is their own former supervisors, who most likely also didn’t have formal training. This phenomenon means nonprofits need to dig deep on management style for leadership-level positions during interviews (and be prepared to offer professional development support for management skills). What to look for in their answer: Evidence of prior critical thinking about management and leadership; an articulation of what worked and did not work for them; and a clear articulation of their own intended management style. There’s no right answer here, but listen carefully for an orientation towards trust, frequent communication, and a positive rather than punitive approach. 5. What’s your superpower, and what’s your kryptonite? And why? Why ask? This is another way to ask the standard question about strengths and weaknesses, which any candidates prepare to answer. But the casual and fun verbiage of this question will catch many off guard and produce a more authentic answer – especially if you throw it in between more serious questions. What to look for in their answer: A “kryptonite” that is actually a weakness or flaw, rather than a way to turn a weakness into a strength. Of course, a good fundraiser can spin their weakness into an upside; a great fundraiser will allow themselves to be vulnerable. If necessary, dig deeper and ask why something has become their superpower or kryptonite. Self-awareness of strengths and weaknesses is important in a field that is based on understanding and connecting with others. PS: Once you make a hire – there’s no shortage of great advice out there about how to retain your talented fundraisers.

No one can predict what the 2016 election results will mean for our nonprofit community. There is fear and so much uncertainty. Will there be cuts in federal spending for social service programs – and if so, how deep will they be? Will major gifts sharply decline if President-Elect Trump succeeds in securing the cap on tax deductions for individual charitable giving that he proposed on the campaign trail? How will the nonprofit sector handle demand from patients in need if the Affordable Care Act is repealed? At the same time, we have seen a surge in support for progressive causes. The American Civil Liberties Union raised $7.2 million in the five days after the election. In The Atlantic, Cecile Richards – the president of Planned Parenthood –  described an “unprecedented outpouring of support,” with 80,000 donations made in the three days after the election. The Atlantic also reported that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) saw a “simply unprecedented” spike of 500 volunteer applications in the days after the election. The 2016 election is a unique moment in American history. But it shares an undeniable aftermath with the wake of the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks: an alarming rise in hateful speech and acts. In 2001, it was fear of and violence against Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs and South Asians. Today, it is a heart-wrenching combination of words and deeds against LGBTQ people, African-Americans, Latinos and Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, and other marginalized and oppressed populations. In the months after 9/11, Seattle responded to a rising climate of hate and fear with innovation, tenacity, and compassion. In fact, at least three extraordinary Seattle-based nonprofits that now work effectively to promote tolerance and understanding were founded in the months following 9/11: OneAmerica:  Originally named Hate Free Zone, OneAmerica was founded directly after the 9/11 attacks by Pramila Jayapal and others in response to hate crimes and discrimination targeting Arabs, Muslims, East Africans and South Asians. With base groups in 11 Washington cities, OneAmerica is now the largest immigrant advocacy organization in Washington State, and has registered more than 40,000 immigrant voters. Tasveer: Rita Meher and Farah Nousheen founded Tasveer in 2002 to “provide a platform for South Asians to engage and express ourselves, and dispel stereotypes of us in the mainstream media and community.” Tasveer’s first festival showed just a dozen films. Today, Tasveer produces the largest South Asian film festival in the country, and events like Yoni Ki Baat, “The Vagina Monologues” in Hindi.  “Our work was important [after 9/11] and now again after Presidential election, to stand against in the wake of hateful sentiments and xenophobia,” says Meher. OneWorld Now!: One World Now! (OWN) brings foreign language skills, leadership training, and study abroad opportunities to youth without access to such opportunities. Students in high-need schools learn Chinese, Arabic, or Korean, and have the chance to study abroad in these cultures. Founder Kristen Hayden wrote in the OWN blog: “Tired of complaining about the inequity and injustice in our nation’s public schools leadership and foreign-policy, we launched OneWorldNow! after the tragic events of 9/11 as a good-faith effort to be ‘part of the solution’.” The Ostara Group wants to be part of the solution too. Our work has always supported organizations in our community fighting injustice, but in the wake of this election, we specifically aim to help the next great nonprofit whose mission promotes peace and understanding in a time of fear. To that end, we are offering our first Service Grant: 25 hours of free consulting services on an application basis, to either: Individuals in Washington State who want to start a new nonprofit to promote understanding, encourage compassion, and dispel stereotypes. We are particularly interested in ventures that help groups of people who have historically not seen eye to eye come together in new ways. Existing nonprofits in Washington State with budgets less than $300,000 in 2015 may also apply for support of their on-going work (or new projects) that promote understanding, encourage compassion, and dispel stereotypes. True inspiration arises from our most challenging moments. We offer this Service Grant to encourage the profoundly meaningful ideas you are working on, and support your ability to play an important part in elevating our culture, society, economy, and values. Thank you for taking the time to be a part of this work – we look forward to hearing from you! Sincerely, Team Ostara Ali, Ariel, Bailey, Casey, Ella, Forrest, Jackie, Karen, Kyle, Kye, Peter, Rebecca, Sarah and Talia To apply to our service grant, please submit the form below. We recommend drafting your answers in separate document and pasting them into the form itself. Submissions will be accepted through 5 pm on January 31, 2017; our decision will be announced by March 31, 2017.

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. The 2016 presidential election has thrown the nonprofit sector a huge year-end curveball. There’s no consensus on how a Trump presidency will affect the nonprofit sector. No one knows what’s next. But before we can get to what’s next, as a sector, we have to get through what’s now: the month of December, when US nonprofits usually raise 25-30% of their annual philanthropic dollars. Which is why the most common question I’m hearing from client organizations right now is “Can we leverage the election to help raise more money? And should we? How?” Sure, political and advocacy organizations are reaping the rewards of charging full steam ahead with election-focused messaging. That makes sense. But where does that leave other types of nonprofits – the arts organizations, the social service agencies, and the education groups – who also need a strong December finish to succeed in 2017? Some nonprofits are deciding to “keep calm and carry on” with the year-end campaign they planned before the election.  Some are plagued by indecision. If your organization falls in either category right now, here are three reasons why you shouldn’t shy away from talking about the election in your fundraising. This is what an authentic conversation with your donors looks like right now. In 2016, fundraising is a war of attrition in an attention economy. The best fundraising rides the wave of what’s already relevant to donors, and few things could be more relevant right now. If you’re talking about changing the world without acknowledging the uncertainty the 2016 election brings to the community you serve, you’ll seem tone deaf and out of touch. Your supporters need to feel like they can make an impact right now. Donors and volunteers give to nonprofits because they want to accomplish something good. You are that something good, and your supporters are awesome people who took action on an issue that mattered to them. And right now, many feel demoralized and lost. They feel out of control. Give them something genuinely motivating to help you with, and their donation will give them back a slice of their agency, and be a force for good. Never forget that your outreach is not a burden to potential donors – it’s an opportunity. You already have the ingredients you need. How can your messaging highlight the relevance of your mission? Think back to why your donors support you in the first place, and work from there. You already have the tools to make the case: What do they accomplish by giving to you? How will your actions continue to serve the community in spite of the fear and uncertainty this election has brought forth? What would the world look like if the election results compromise your impact and your ability to fulfill your mission? How can people help ensure that your organization succeeds and continues to provide critical services to the community? This is an important moment for our sector. Organizations working in every mission space will be impacted by the coming shifts, and many will be more necessary for your communities than before. Art of all kinds will remain critical for dissent and protest. Health care will continue to pose immense challenges to patients, families, and medical professionals, requiring continued innovation to improve health for all. Demand for social services will skyrocket. The list goes on. Nonprofits are more relevant now than ever. Each of you can contribute your time, energy, and passion towards strengthening the donor base that supports the community at large. You can show your donors where they fit into the bigger picture – that they can take action that matters. And that’s what they need right now. It’s an honor and a privilege to help organizations take on this challenge. We applaud you for getting up every day to do this work and make change, and we’re with you every step of the way.

This article was written by Bailey Disher. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. The past week has brought a lot of uncertainty about how a Trump presidency will affect justice, opportunity and equity in our country – and the nonprofit sector that fights for those values. Whether you work to support social justice, human rights, health care, or the environment, one thing is clear: our work to create better lives for our communities is more important than ever. Here are a few things you and your organization can do right now to stay on track in this rapidly changing environment. 1. CARE FOR YOUR COMMUNITY Express care for your staff and the clients you serve, especially those who are hurting or fearful of what the future will hold for them. Whether you lead a staff of one or a thousand, this is a moment to reaffirm the inclusive values of your organization. Reach out. Remind your staff that intolerance will not be accepted in the culture of your organization. If you’ve already done this in an email or a meeting, keep it up. If you serve the public, affirm your culture of tolerance to the people you serve. Practice management by walking around. Check in with your staff informally. Let them know you are there and interested in how they are doing. Listen. Let them know that you have their backs. Thank your staff individually and collectively. They work hard. Everyone in the nonprofit sector is about to be working harder. Tell them how proud you are of who they are and what they do. Don’t retreat. Even if you feel despair personally, offer hope to your team. In a New York Times article, President Obama reportedly told his staff: “You don’t need hope when things are going well. You need it when things are not going well.” Connect with the people you serve more than ever before. If you work in a large organization, sit in on programming. Chat with clients. Hear how they are responding to the election. Consider a client open house. Mission comes first. Stay closely connected to the mission of your organization. Life has given you this leadership opportunity. Take this moment in the history of our country and your organization to exemplify the leadership qualities you most admire. 2.  FOCUS ON INTERNAL EQUITY Nonprofit staff are on the front lines of serving marginalized communities, many of whom were deeply affected by the hateful and intolerant language that characterized this election. As nonprofit leaders, we are called to respond to this divisiveness by continuing to be a beacon of hope to the communities we serve. In doing this work, your nonprofit staff will draw strength from the values and the mission of your organization. Reflect on your values. What work do we need to be doing to ensure that our workplace truly embodies the values and mission of our organization? How can our organization better support staff and the communities that we serve who are marginalized by race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or other factors? Have this conversation internally. Involve people at all levels, from board members and staff, to the communities you serve. If we want our staff to promote justice and compassion out in the world, then we have to first cultivate a supportive and healthy environment within our organizations. Stay open to to feedback. This work will almost certainly bring up some uncomfortable truths. Stay open to engaging with these issues and the possibility that there is work to be done. Discern opportunities to learn, build, and grow. Adopt an annual equity assessment and training. Consider offering nonviolent communication workshops as a professional development opportunity for your staff. Commit to revisiting this conversation every 6-12 months. 3.  BUILD COMMUNITY & MOBILIZE More than ever, this is an important time to build community and mobilize. Whether it is a rally or an office cohort, bringing people together around the causes we care about must become a priority. If your organization focuses on advocacy, this is a great opportunity to dial in – and if not, this is a moment to bring your community together. Stay informed. Consider forming one or multiple action groups to meet regularly and discuss ways to stay informed and engaged in response to this changing landscape. It is important to think beyond the immediate time period to ensure that momentum can continue sustainably. Assess your communications. Now is a good time to ensure that communications with your donor base and supporters are effective. If there is space in your newsletter to share information about community issues and policies that will affect your work, do so! Take action. Develop a plan to mobilize your donors, constituents, staff, and board around specific actions they can take in support of your work in the community. Are there community events to attend? Are there federal, state, or local legislators to call about a specific policy that will affect our sector? When the time comes to act, highlight the urgency and how it’s related to your mission and values. Make instructions clear and easy to follow. Think creatively about community building. How can your organization facilitate change around its causes? Are there other organizations you could partner with to increase your effectiveness? Think about the resources you have available to you as an organization and how you might be able to apply them. Take this as an opportunity to think beyond business as usual, and prepare for the fact that the challenges ahead will require more collaboration than ever before. 4.  PRACTICE SELF-CARE Self-care is often talked about within the nonprofit sector, but it is especially important to consider in this new environment. Since workloads and stress levels are likely to rise, it will be crucial to be intentional about how we take care of ourselves and each other. We can’t do the important work of helping others if we aren’t helping ourselves first. Feel your feelings. This is an incredibly difficult time for many of us. Do what you need to process your own feelings and work through them. Seek out counseling. Mindful breathing and meditation are also helpful for reducing stress levels. And, as always, get plenty of sleep. Be intentional. Focus on what you can do now. On the team level but also the personal level, there will be a continued sense of existing in discomfort. It’s important to acknowledge this and pace yourself. Try focusing on one or two things you can do each day to make progress on issues you care about. Be mindful of your news and stimulation intake. Consider taking a break from social media and being intentional about how you consume your news. It is important to stay informed, so consider dedicating specific time blocks in the day to catching up, and use the rest of the time for a self-care activity. Reach out to your network. More than ever it’s important to be with people, in real space and real time. Whether it’s having lunch with a coworker or reaching out to friends, think of ways you can cultivate community. Isolation can make us vulnerable in difficult times, so it’s especially important to be intentional about fostering connection. Listen. Keep in mind that caring for and holding space for others can be a form of self-care. If you have the capacity, listen to other people’s experiences and feelings. Ultimately, we are all in this together and are better off when we lift each other up. This may seem like a lot to do on top of the mission-centric work that’s always on your plate. And it’s easy to feel paralyzed in the face of all this hatred and division. But our sector is about to experience a collective acceleration, the likes of which we haven’t seen before, which will make our work more necessary than ever. Even accomplishing one of these steps can make all the difference for your community and affirm that your organization is a trusted resource during difficult times.

It’s October – time for the World Series, pumpkin-flavored everything, and ridiculous pop-culture meme-themed Halloween costumes. It’s also time for something far more frightening: the annual budget projections process for any nonprofit on a calendar-aligned fiscal year. The budgeting process tends to come with a lot of tsuris – an apt Yiddish word that encompasses the whole spectrum of woe, suffering, and grief. If you’re a Development Director or an Executive Director, right now you’re trying to answer the seemingly unanswerable question: How much money will you raise next year? The year after that? Where will it all come from? Budget projections are complex. The expense side is a constant moving target involving considerations about programming choices, staff fluctuations, infrastructure needs and changes, and the best one of all – unknowable but inevitable shifts in any or multiple of these categories. On the revenue side, it feels simpler: Backfill the income gaps with individual giving and grants, and we’ll figure it out. Right? Wrong. Unfortunately, this approach can do more harm than good – and can lead to greater turnover in your development department. Many organizations make the mistake of letting programs dominate the budget conversation, and budget solely based on expenses and the need to show the board that the budget is balanced. They allow the financial needs of program growth or change to overrule the goals development submits as a reflection of the potential of the donor base. This is not to say that organizations shouldn’t be ambitious in setting stretch goals for fundraising each year. But leadership needs to support an analytical process for setting expense budgets and contribution goals that trusts the professionally informed judgments of their fundraising staff. When development staff are not allowed to advocate for informed goals from their own understanding of what their donors and funders can produce, the most talented generally will leave before they fail to meet their unrealistic goals. Effective leadership of the budget process is crucial to effective leadership overall. These numbers are just a tool, and they will shift around, but nevertheless the creation of the budget brings your organization together in a way that builds a shared understanding of the work your team has committed to, and a shared desire to achieve the goals within. The budget is a values statement – a living, breathing representation of your priorities. So – how do we predict contributed revenue? This process is crucial, because it empowers your fundraising team to participate in the goal-setting process, and to collaboratively set expectations of the work planned for the coming year. Because the core of your operations relies on fundraising, it behooves you to focus on the investment, encouragement, and engagement of your fundraising team as much as your program team. Projecting Grant Revenue: by Ali Marcus, Director of Grant Programs Identify and remove the outliers. Everyone loves that annual LOI to the Washington Women’s Foundation, or even more of an outlier, the core support grants offered by the Satterberg Foundation. And everyone who remotely qualifies for these opportunities should be considering an annual application. However, the $100,000 or $300,000 (respectively) that would be in the pipeline are true long shots, even for the most qualified and well-matched proposal. These two opportunities are well known examples of highly competitive, large, multi-year grants, but there are always others. Take stock of your grant pipeline and remove the ones that are large enough (and unlikely enough) to skew your projections. Once the outliers are removed, add up all remaining planned requests for a fiscal year. This means noting the expected receipt date of a grant – not just the submission date. You want the total amount of funds you plan to request and receive within the fiscal year in question. It’s important to calibrate the request amounts for these planned submissions realistically, and to make sure they reflect your history with that funder. Divide this number by three. The number you are left with is the amount to project in your budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This method is predicated on one of the best practices we advise our clients to follow: applying for three times as much grant funding as you need. We recommend this for all grant-seeking organizations, no matter the size of their operation. It ensures an active and consistent grant activity appropriate to the size of your need, and it allows time for cultivation opportunities with new foundations that need space to develop into strong partnerships. Projecting Individual Giving Revenue: by Ariel Glassman, Senior Consultant Pull and review the previous three fiscal years’ worth of contributed income actuals – separating each out by category or revenue mechanism (major gifts, events, etc). Just like you did for grants, identify the outliers in each category – large gifts that were given as challenge matches or for specific, time-based purposes; or gifts that for other similar reasons, can’t reasonably be expected in next year’s results. Remove these outliers and calculate the 3-year average for each contributed income revenue line. For events with auction elements, it can be useful to look at the average ticket sales, raise-the-paddle contributions, and auction item totals and yields, not just a comprehensive event average. Make sure that major gifts calculations reflect the spread of multi-year pledges across different fiscal years, and don’t double count (or discount!) that revenue. Look at the development plan for next fiscal year (which should be in progress or complete by the time the budget is finalized) and reflect on how intended changes in the activities or capacity of the team could reasonably impact the 3-year average in each category. Make adjustments up or down depending on this analysis. These figures are your projected goals in each area of contributed income in the upcoming budget cycle. This method ensures that long-time patterns and trends your donor base exhibits, and new assumptions and opportunities, are all reflected in the budget and department goals. We encourage organizations to set stretch fundraising goals outside of their official budgets – that can really motivate staff, while ensuring that they’re not living in an unrealistic pressure cooker. In general we recommend that nonprofits should not budget for more than 3-5% growth in contributed income year-over-year without making additional investments in development capacity, or taking something else off of development’s plate to make way for more effective activities. Budget increases higher than 3-5% annually should only be made after examination of the specific prospects in the development stream that could support that increase, and program opportunities that can be better leveraged to build relationships with donors; as well as a commitment from the board to help bring new prospects in to meet these goals. Following these steps should relieve some of your budgeting stress this fall, and set up your next fiscal year to succeed!

Last week, Ostara’s senior team spent some time at AFP Advancement Northwest’s inaugural Forum on Strategic Fundraising – our region’s largest professional development and networking conference. We appreciated the differentiation between small shops and large shop tracks because we know from working with our broad range of clients that grant strategy, fundraising needs, and experiences are drastically different for organizations of different sizes. We also noticed a strong focus on the analytical use of data, which, in the 21st century, is a critical and growing area of interest that truly can lead to Moneyball-esque results. It was encouraging to see that even in a large conference format, AFP Advancement Northwest made a brave and sincere effort to get into technical, practical exercises in a setting where that level of depth is not often explored. AFP Advancement Northwest is wonderfully positioned to fuel innovation and help shape Northwest nonprofits’ approach to fundraising. In many ways, our Ostara team has the same goal: to build the capacity of the nonprofit sector. As an exhibitor, I enjoyed being at a table inside the room where the key-note speakers were presenting. It’s important to be on the ground and in touch with the issues that nonprofits are grappling with, whether it’s the minutiae of their approach to data analysis or the broader cultural effort to improve perceptions of fundraising for good. It was no surprise to me that 80% of the people who came to our table wanted to talk about their grant program. How do we start writing grants for a new nonprofit? How do we refresh our grant pursuits to focus on organizational sustainability? How do we get started on grant writing for an upcoming capital campaign? I breathe grant strategy every day. After working with over 60 nonprofits on their grant needs since 2010, it’s as clear as day to me that grant programs need to be in alignment with overall development and organizational goals (I’ll tell you how in a minute). The absence of any topics related to grants overshadowed my entire experience of the forum. Whey were there no sessions geared towards grant programs? The most immediate answer that comes to mind is actually another question: isn’t that what the Puget Sound Grantwriter’s Association is for? And another question: Wouldn’t someone go to the PSGA conference to learn and network in the grants universe? Grant strategy is an institutional blind spot in the world of nonprofit development. In our work, we make every effort to educate our clients about the importance of aligning organizational goals with development strategy. And when we say development strategy, we mean donor-facing, relationship-building strategy. Grantors – whether you call them foundations, corporate foundations, family foundations – are donors. They need to be cultivated and stewarded just like any other entity with the potential to meaningfully engage with your organization. But many organizations don’t treat grantors this way, and they don’t invest in training for their grant staff to think this way. If we only expect grant writers merely to talk amongst themselves, they will continue to feel isolated and unsupported in their work. And that’s not the way to fuel innovation and growth in our sector. The foundation for that innovation and growth in our sector begins inside each organization, and it begins with aligning your grant program with your organizational development goals. Here’s how you can do that: Set Realistic Goals: When drawing up a development plan, the number you input as a grant revenue goal needs to be sourced from the realistic pool of grant funders. Your funding history, as well as updated research, must be aggregated and analyzed in order to be able to come up with an annual grant revenue goal. This must be an annual exercise in concert with other development planning. The grant revenue goal should not be the placeholder that fills the gap for all remaining funds needed to balance your budget. I only reinforce this because I’ve come across this method more times than I can count. Share Critical Information: Grantwriters are required to position the entire organizational picture for funders – so let them. Meet with them to make sure they are getting it right. Let them know when programs, leadership or strategy are shifting so that they can accurately represent the trajectory of your organization’s growth and adaptability over time. Good internal communication is part of a solid grant program foundation. Integrate Your Grantwriter: A grant writer’s skill set is very different than a development director or a major gift officer’s skills. This difference contributes to the misconception that a grant writer is not an essential part of the development team, that they are more tied to the program department than to development work. They also often work more productively off-site. The danger here is that the grant writer can often be left out of bigger strategic conversations that happen in the office. Thus: Include the grant writer in standing development meetings. The more you can integrate grant strategy with your discussions about data, revenue streams, strategic planning, evaluation methods, and prospect research, the more efficient your development operations will be. Tasks and activities of your staff will complement each other, rather than compete. Stop Talking about the ROI: Your organization’s leadership – board, executive director, development director – needs to truly understand the value of the grant writer. I routinely shut down conversations about the financial ROI on a grant writer, because while it’s true that the grant writer is a critical person to have on hand to help bring money in the door, their lasting contribution to your organization’s strategy and funder relationships is far, far more important. Not only does your grantwriter source and steward some of your biggest annual donations, but they find new prospects, identify short and long term potential, and implement strategies to deepen a relationship over time. Foundation resources are often much larger than they appear; a history of $5,000 gifts can position your organization for much greater investment when a foundation decides to focus more deeply on your sector or mission space. Keeping those connections active and responsive keeps your work on the radar as foundation boards adapt their strategies to new trends and interests. Grants, and conversations with grant officers, are a critical learning tool for foundations as they survey the nonprofit landscape and refine their giving interests. Grant writers are not often viewed as a strategic voice inside their organizations. But because they are often tasked with writing narratives about your organization, your financial trajectory, and your sustainability plan, grant writers are often the first people to see the gaps or holes in organizational strategy and positioning. They frequently have to explain the reasons for these gaps but have little influence inside their organizations to help address them. Ask your grant writer what they need to better align their work with organizational goals. Have them collaborate with the rest of your development staff, as well as your program, finance, and leadership, and also your volunteers. And don’t forget the community you serve! Your grant writer needs resources in order to be capable of producing insightful pieces of writing that shine a new light on the work you accomplish every day. Over 600 people attended our region’s largest professional development gathering and were inspired by many thoughtful and resonant ideas. They will go back to their organizations feeling refreshed, full of new ideas about how to take their work to the next level. The vital work of the grant writer – tap-tap-tapping away at their paragraphs, lists, and endless requests for information while quietly developing fruitful long-term relationships – deserves the same opportunity.

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. Unless you’ve been living under a nonprofit rock, you know that last week’s GiveBIG – the Seattle Foundation-hosted community-wide day of philanthropy – didn’t quite go as planned. What happened? In fact, cities around the country participating in the coordinated May 3 GiveLocalAmerica uber-giving day (spearheaded by Kimbia, an online giving and crowdfunding platform) had a real scare. A hardware glitch took down the donation page functionality, back-end reporting tools, and the shiny new real-time leaderboards and data visualization, all in one fell swoop. Cue thousands of nonprofit professionals and board members freaking out in perfect synchrony. Thankfully, The Seattle Foundation extended the event for another 24 hours, Kimbia’s hardware came back online, and Seattle as a community met our $20 million collective goal. And then we lived happily ever after! Just kidding. In the week since May 3, Seattle’s – and America’s – nonprofit community and fundraising thought leaders have been trying to make sense of the GiveLocalAmerica kerfuffle. Kimbia tried to get ahead of potential backlash with a plan to make it up to the participating organizations that has been heavily criticized by the potential recipients. Kivi LeRoux Miller immediately punched out some lessons for donor communications professionals on backup plans for technology failures on giving days and then raked Kimbia over the coals.  Beth Kanter jumped in to talk about the wisdom of trying to scale and centralize giving days like Kimbia attempted to with GiveLocalAmerica. The head of Colorado Gives wrote about their giving day crisis management plan. Local Seattle activists have thrown an equity lens into the mix. How did we get here? It’s important to reflect on how we got to the place where a technical glitch can trigger a massive wave of organizational anxiety, panic, and anger. Since its 2011 debut, GiveBIG has transformed into a fundraising juggernaut. It’s grown from a $3.6 million event in 2011 to raising over $20 million in 2016. Year after year, the Seattle Foundation has added new creative twists to keep it fresh. They started with a stretch pool from some local corporations, and the idea to create $1,000 random golden tickets. Then came silver and platinum tickets. Media partnerships with major sports teams. A new theme every year. A stretch pool over $1 million. Promotional toolkits to help nonprofits easily create custom campaigns. Real-time leaderboards. Shopping cart functionality and the ability to schedule gifts in advance. GiveBIG now dominates the spring fundraising season for most nonprofits in every sector in Seattle and King County. Organizations aren’t just stepping up to the plate for GiveBIG for one day anymore. They prep their donor bases with weekly communications for a month in advance of the event itself. They change the timing of longstanding spring direct mail appeal campaigns, crowdfunding campaigns and signature events so they don’t have competing simultaneous fundraising opportunities for their donors. GiveBIG is no longer a giving day – it’s a well-oiled, sophisticated philanthropy machine. All the innovations make it super shiny, and it seems like an easy technology-based solution for organizations that struggle to find the time to fundraise effectively from individual donors year-round. The illusion of control But even the most sophisticated fundraising endeavor doesn’t give you complete control. What the Great GiveBIG Freakout of 2016 really illustrates is the thing every nonprofit has to remember about fundraising: you never have control. Certain tactics and incentives can help you influence behaviors, but control is an illusion. In the past year alone, we’ve seen our clients take hits from all kinds of situations they couldn’t control. One organization’s top event table captain’s travel plans were changed to the week of their gala. Another saw their biggest general operations grant funder change their guidelines on short notice. Another saw a top major donor drop their gift significantly to help pay for a parent’s unexpected medical bills. These situations crop up all the time, and they can happen to any nonprofit. You are not immune. Throw in elements that rely heavily on new technology, and the risk is even greater. It’s OK to be angry or upset about the GiveBIG failure, or about any of these situations. Feel those feelings – you wouldn’t be in the nonprofit sector if you didn’t attach to your mission, outcomes, and impact. It’s entirely accurate to point out that people’s lives may literally be at risk when a giving day fails to launch. But ultimately, your job is to make sure that if it ever happens again, your whole fiscal year doesn’t go out the window, your doors stay open, and your programs still succeed. Stay focused on constructing that fundraising reality for your organization. What can you do? So how can nonprofits insulate themselves against this lack of control? How can they buffer themselves against the winds of bad luck and bad timing? Through smart planning and diversifying your revenue sources. This isn’t a new concept, or one you can accomplish in a snap. It has to show up in both your short-term, annual fundraising tactics, as well as in your long-term, overarching funding strategy. Fundraising is difficult, relational work. It’s an art and a science. No technology or single tactic will ever replace the sustained effort and thoughtful strategy that effective fundraising requires of us. So, what does this look like in practice? In any given fiscal year, your development plan has to acknowledge what giving days are capable of accomplishing for you, and what they’re not. Giving days are good for certain things, like acquiring new donors and generating matching challenges from existing major donors and corporate sponsors. But precisely because so much is out of your control, and because everyone and their mother is participating and shouting from the rooftops about it, giving days can’t be given excess weight. How do you know when you’re over-investing in giving day? Every nonprofit has a custom calibration of staff size, available budget, and ongoing fundraising tactics. There’s no one standard, obvious red flag.  But ask yourself some questions like: What will happen if I don’t meet my giving day goal? If the answer is along the lines of a staff layoff or furlough, or a significant reduction in program activities, you have too many eggs in your giving day basket (or shopping cart? Too soon). Am I spending more energy on giving days than major donors? If you’re investing more resources in preparing for a giving day than you are in shepherding your top 5 major donor relationships, you’re over-investing in giving days. Am I investing more energy in giving days than engaging my board in fundraising? If you’re spending more time on preparing for giving days than you are in training your board members to be year-round advocates for your work in all kinds of situations, your strategies are out of balance. Am I expending more resources on giving days than year-round donor stewardship? If you’re investing more time and energy on a transactional, acquisition-oriented single day of your fundraising calendar than a year-round continuum of impact stewardship and love stewardship for donors at different levels, you’re over-investing in giving days. You probably can’t address over-investment in giving days in one fiscal year, especially if you see your nonprofit reflected in one of these scenarios. And you don’t want to pull the rug out from under donors you’ve conditioned to give through GiveBIG too quickly. But let this incident be a wake-up call for every nonprofit to assess your level of investment in GiveBIG, Giving Tuesday, or any other giving day that has become part of your annual activities. Now is the time to step back and look at the balance of your investment in each of the major established fundraising strategies: grants, corporate partnership, events, crowdfunding, giving days, annual appeals, major giving, and planned giving. And don’t forget earned income! Think through questions like: How much money do you raise through each of these strategies? How much time and effort do you invest in each area to achieve these results? What activities can you drop, based on ROI? What could be tweaked or modified to be more effective? What is missing? Is your current staff structure aligned with your areas of greatest ROI? Do you have the right people in those staff roles? Is your board fundraising engagement aligned with your areas of greatest ROI? Don’t chase every strategy – some of them won’t be right for your organization. But you should have a healthy, appropriately prioritized mix of the right 4 or 5 digital and analog fundraising strategies, without any one leg of your philanthropic stool standing too much taller than the rest. That way, if somebody kicks one and breaks it, no one’s going to fall over. Every single one of these strategies has its own level of risk, and its own type of reward besides pure funds generated. There is no one strategy, and no specific mix of strategies, that is ideal for every organization. The challenge is to know your organization and your donors well enough to know which strategies are right for you, for your level of risk tolerance, for where you’re at in your organizational lifecycle and program cycles, and for what you’re trying to accomplish.

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. Our Senior Consultant and donor communications expert Ariel Glassman lays out 3 tips for making the most of the unprecedented second day of Seattle’s GiveBIG 2016!

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. GiveBIG is nigh upon us. Are you ready? For its 6th year of GiveBIG, The Seattle Foundation changed the infrastructure for GiveBIG from online giving provider Click ‘N Pledge to the online and crowdfunding platform Kimbia, who host some of the most successful giving days across the country. Their system has some awesome upsides for nonprofits, like advance gift scheduling and an option for donors to cover credit card processing costs. The switch to Kimbia has one complication. The new system doesn’t do something the old system did really well: automatically email each participating nonprofit each time it receives a gift. Donors get their receipts, but nonprofits no longer get the same receipt in real time. This aspect of the previous GiveBIG system was the basis for one of our favorite tips for maximizing GiveBIG: creating and executing an instant stewardship strategy for your GiveBIG donors. Specifically, re-forwarding the notification email to the donor with a personal note from a real human only takes about 3 moves of the mouse. This speedy personal contact with each donor right after their gift makes them really happy. The new system requires each nonprofit to log in to their Kimbia account and download a report to see who gave to their GiveBIG campaign. That makes it more complicated and time-consuming to execute instant stewardship. Small nonprofits with less manpower devoted to fundraising will likely be impacted the most. But as we’ve pointed out before, stewardship in the short- and long-term will help you make the most of your giving day donors. Insights from Kimbia’s massive online fundraising data sets show that nonprofits participating in online giving days can expect that up to 60% of donors that day will be giving their first gift to your organization. Giving days are great acquisition strategies for adding new donors to your pipeline. But your goal is sustainability, right? And how you treat a donor after their first gift is what will get you a to second gift and beyond. So – if you can’t do instant stewardship for all GiveBIG donors as easily, focus on a mid- and long-term plan welcoming the new donors you gain through GiveBIG. Create and give them more opportunities for them to engage with you, hear how much you love them, and learn what their gift accomplished. Your one-month, multi-channel GiveBIG new donor stewardship plan is incredibly simple: Week 1: Have your board call new GiveBIG donors the next week to thank them. It’s actually a great idea to have your board members call every GiveBIG donor following the event itself. If you task your board with this, make sure you identify who the new donors are so they can explicitly be thanked for making a first-time gift. It should be easy to pull a full donor list from Kimbia, identify the new donors, and give your development committee or other board members specific follow-up call lists. This is also great for smaller organizations or those struggling to find ways to really engage their board in fundraising. Thank-you calls to donors are one of the most effective uses of board member time for fundraising overall, not just for giving day donors. Week 2: Have staff send a personal electronic donor welcome kit to each new GiveBIG donor. Within two weeks, have your development director send personal, 1:1 welcome emails to each new GiveBIG donor. The concept of a donor welcome kit is not new – and it should be part of your overall donor stewardship plan all year long. Creating a smaller, cheaper, easy-to-execute digital version for your GiveBIG donors is a cost-effective way to make your donors feel great and get them more involved in your work. It doesn’t have to get crazy – just include: A personal note from a real human that thanks the donor for taking the action to make a gift for the first time. An invitation to sign up for your email list and links to follow you on social media. Don’t just opt GiveBIG donors in to your email list automatically – you need to let the donor do that themselves. But you have to put the opportunity out there in the follow-up, since the Kimbia forms don’t allow the donor to opt in to your email list when they give. An invitation to your next event or public program, or volunteer opportunity. Bonus: for high-dollar first time donors, invite them to meet with the development director or executive director personally. Week 3: Take a break from GiveBIG. You probably have other things to do. Remember not to let giving days eat your life. Week 4: A physical postcard inviting them to your next event, public program, or volunteer opportunity. Just because someone gave online doesn’t mean you can only contact them online. We live in an attention economy – don’t limit how you interact with someone when they’re getting hit with competing messages and bids for attention from every angle, all the time. Inviting them to an in-person opportunity is the way to go. Face time with staff and service recipients, and seeing the mission in action personally in real-time, are powerful tools for drawing someone closer to your work. For small shops, this doesn’t have to be expensive. Self-produce a card in-house that specifically recognizes that the donor gave through GiveBIG, and invites them to step deeper into your mission.

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the wonderful work she did while part of the Ostara team. Meet Ostara is a series getting to know the talent behind our results continue this month with Ella Mahler – descendant of the late Romantic composer Gustav Mahler, an artist in her own right, and a skilled writer, researcher and strategist on our grants team. Photo by Miles Fortune. Meet Ostara: Ella Mahler 1. What’s the biggest challenge you see for the nonprofit sector? Misperceptions of what it means to fundraise. Myths, stereotypes, and lack of knowledge about fundraising get in the way of both fundraisers and their donors. With a misplaced, misguided, or undervalued culture of philanthropy, an organization faces any number of consequential challenges – aka staff turnover, unrealistic goals, debt, poor leadership, struggling relationships, the list goes on. 2. What do you think is most promising about our sector? Nonprofits are full of dreamers, doers, leaders, and changemakers. People who imagine a better world, and then work and work HARD to make that happen. I think these visionaries bring essential inspiration and hope to us all. 3. If you were an animal, what would you be? Either an owl or an elephant.  They are social, generous, and loyal animals. They typically represent good luck, wisdom, determination, stability, change, and are known to never back down from a challenge or obstacle. These are qualities that I seek and embrace in my life, and want to offer to others. 4. What else are you out in the world doing? I’m a dance artist. I perform for contemporary dance companies and artists around the region as well as present my own work. It is through the creative process and performance that I explore curiosities and the ways in which art and performance impact how we see and experience each other and ourselves in the world. 5. What would you do if you had a million dollars? I would donate a bunch of money to arts organizations and youth arts education programs, spend some long and undefined time in snowy mountains and tropical waters, get another degree or two in maybe Anthropology and Art History, and go on a worldwide food tour with Anthony Bourdain. 6. What is something you wish you knew in the beginning of your career? That there is no single plan. We’ve heard this before, but I think we need to hear it a few times through milestones in life. You make one plan, so you can change it and make a new plan along the way. I had a very specific idea of what kind of work I wanted to do when it came to fundraising, but as I delved in, I discovered all kinds possibilities and challenges I could have never planned for – but I am certainly glad for them.  The willingness to be nimble and responsive is incredibly important. 7. What does a typical day for you look like? I usually have a list of about 17 things to do in a day, but it is often some combination of coffee, yoga or the gym, grant calendars, proposals, client meetings, more coffee, dance class, rehearsal, a dance or theatre show, and lots of water and good food – all accompanied by my iTunes or KEXP. 8. What’s your favorite travel spot? Whistler, British Columbia. Dreamy in the winter, hot and gorgeous in the summer. 9. What advice would you give to someone starting out in fundraising or nonprofit management? Be a leader/fundraiser of a cause that you really love. Your passion inspires passion in others. Your honesty for the work will help you do it better, faster, and more creatively. If you don’t really care about what you do, it will show, make it more challenging, and let’s face it, it will make your long nonprofit days even longer. 10. Who in Seattle do you admire for their leadership in our sector? Seattle is unique in its robust community of nonprofits – all of which do such important and interesting work. Two leaders in particular that I admire are Holly Arsenault of TeenTix and Rosa Vissers of Yoga Behind Bars. Each of these women are such generous and smart leaders, making invaluable change, and are all the while fantastic artists in their own right.