This article was written by Kari Dasher. 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. While I was on Army active duty in South Korea (before my fundraising career began), I was the sole woman, and a starter, on my base’s football team. When I’m sitting in nonprofit Board rooms or staff meetings, I sometimes channel my football background. It turns out that football teams and nonprofits have some things in common – and at least one major difference. Sports teams and nonprofits both have a mission (get more points than the other team or solve homelessness) and everyone has a role to play (quarterback or Board Chair). Success usually springs from a strong team culture or a strong organizational culture. In both football and fundraising, I’m looking to see if everyone is engaged in the mission. Are you actively participating or sitting on the sidelines watching others do the work? In nonprofits, there’s also a subset of organizational culture called a culture of philanthropy. It refers to your organization’s attitude towards philanthropy and fundraising. The Haas, Jr. Fund defines four core components of a culture of philanthropy. When these four components are strong, an organization will attract the resources it needs to advance its mission: Shared responsibility for development: Everyone—staff, executive director, constituents, board and volunteers—shares responsibility for fund development. Integration and alignment with mission: In organizations with a culture of philanthropy, fund development is a valued and mission-aligned component of the organization’s overall work, rather than a stand-alone function. A focus on fundraising as engagement: In organizations with a culture of philanthropy, fund development is no longer separated from engagement. People today are connecting with nonprofits via multiple channels (e.g., social media, volunteering, blogs, meet ups, petitions) and engaging with them in multiple ways (e.g., as donors, volunteers, board members, constituents). Strong donor relationships: Donors are considered authentic partners in the work, not targets or dollar signs. These organizations establish systems to build strong relationships and support donors’ connection to the work. What’s the major difference between nonprofits and football teams? Nonprofits often don’t provide their staff, Board, or volunteers with the “equipment” they need to build a culture of philanthropy, yet they still expect them to raise more dollars and attract more community supporters year after year. On the gridiron, this would be akin to sending your team onto the field without helmets or pads and asking them to score more touchdowns than ever before. It doesn’t work. While there isn’t a switch you can flip or one person you can hire to create a culture of philanthropy instantly, you can jump-start the development of this aspect of your organizational culture by investing in staffing, systems, and planning. Key Infrastructure Investments to Build a Culture of Philanthropy: Staffing: Budget ample resources to hire fundraising staff. If you lead a thoughtful process to hire great staff who align with your mission, offer them competitive wages and benefits, and invest in training and retention, they are more likely to stick around and nurture long-term community relationships on behalf of your organization. Your Board members and volunteers will be stronger partners if they have support from capable, committed, happy staff. Systems: Upgrade your technology to support relationships and engagement. Look for customer relationship management (CRM) databases, payment processing platforms, and website designs that make giving and engaging easy for donors, volunteers, and staff. This isn’t frivolous spending: it’s core to your mission and operations. Not investing in your technology platforms can work against your team and your ultimate fundraising success. Planning: Allocate Board and staff time to three key planning processes annually.  First, encourage integrating fundraising with the overall vision and mission of the organization by revisiting and refining the strategic plan. Second, Board and staff can collaborate to map the annual fund development plan to the organization’s strategic plan—giving everyone insight into the connection between philanthropy and the organizational priorities that your fundraising will make possible. The final piece is a written case for support that informs all fundraising communications and materials. This case can help articulate for everyone in the organization why philanthropy is needed and what it accomplishes in the community. These are significant investments for any organization to make, but there isn’t a better game plan for strengthening your development infrastructure – the equipment your team needs in order to build a culture of philanthropy.

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. Is your inbox like mine during GiveBIG: flooded? Every local organization I have ever shown the slightest interest in suddenly reappears like the Ghost of Giving Past with competing reasons to give BIG to their cause. It’s overwhelming, even as a professional who helps organizations create these very emails. If I’m overwhelmed, imagine how your donors feel. Now, envision opening your inbox on GiveBIG to find an email from your best friend, mother or colleague inviting you to support their favorite organization. I’m willing to bet you open that email first. This is the magic of peer-to-peer (P2P) campaigns. They help your organization to cut through the email noise and reach a new network of supporters through your existing donors. People will become new donors because someone they trust is a donor and invites them to join. GiveBIG 2019 includes a new P2P Campaign feature. This is a big commitment: you need to recruit people to be fundraisers and support them before the campaign, during pre-scheduled giving, and on the day of GiveBIG itself. But P2P campaigns are powerful forces for donor acquisition. Recent data shows that around 50% of donors to online P2P campaigns are new to that organization.  So, for many organizations, they are worth the investment. It’s not too late to decide that you’ll incorporate P2P giving in your GiveBIG campaign. You can check out the Peer-to-Peer Campaign page on GiveBIG 2019 for more details. Ostara’s GiveBIG P2P Campaign Quick Start Guide: Ask Yourself Whether You’re Ready for a P2P Campaign: Do you have the staff capacity to simultaneously develop P2P-specific materials in parallel with your general GiveBIG campaign materials? Is there someone who can be the point person for your P2P participants? Does your organization already have a solid base of volunteers? P2P campaigns rely on relationships you’ve built over time. Organizations with strong volunteer programs or participation are at an advantage. Are your existing donors and volunteers generally comfortable with technology? Do your donors and constituents actively engage with your social media accounts? Do your emails get opened regularly? A lively social presence takes time to build. Develop a GiveBIG campaign plan tailored for the P2P campaign. This includes a timeline and suite of communications aimed at the group of P2P fundraisers you want to build, not your average GiveBIG donor. Develop a P2P support toolkit. This resource can include messaging guidelines, resources, tips, images or graphics, and scripts or templates that P2P Fundraisers can use to easily make their fundraising page and outreach efforts while staying true to your brand and messaging. Recruit P2P Fundraisers. Launch emails to secure commitments from your current supporters to be a P2P fundraiser for GiveBIG. Focus on your loyal donors and volunteers – those who have a long-time relationship with your organization, and/or have a history of consistent, consecutive annual support (especially via GiveBIG). Ready, Set, Go! Once you have your peer-to-peer fundraisers signed up, you should activate them with strategically curated emails that deploy advice and strategies for successful P2P campaigns and content examples. Schedule on your calendar to contact your P2P fundraisers about these action items: Prior to April 18, to make sure their pages are complete On April 22, prompt them to start their outreach when Early Giving launches on April 23 On May 6, remind them to send a “GiveBIG is tomorrow” message on May 7 Contact them twice during the day of GiveBIG itself to thank them and encourage them in their outreach efforts GiveBIG 2019 could be your biggest year yet with new relationships and dollars from the P2P campaign. Don’t forget to think about your plan for after GiveBIG and how you will steward these new supporters to ensure their relationship with your organization grows, not just their relationship with their best friend or mother.

At a basic level, an organization is a collection of people working together to create action. Humans tend to complicate things, especially when they’re in groups (newsflash: it’s not limited to junior high). Even in a strong, sustainable organization you find anxieties, triggers, power dynamics, and interests in everyday life. Imagine what happens when you layer on top of these interpersonal dynamics a major organization-wide transition, turning point, or big opportunity. It’s easy for things to become unclear and messy. The opposite of to complicate is “to make easier,” which happens to be the definition of the word “facilitate”. A facilitator is a neutral leader who can carve out space for collaboration in the middle of chaos. Think of a facilitator as a nonprofit doctor specializing in organizational change. Nonprofits seek this specialist for different reasons at different times in their life cycles. Here are the voices of two Ostara clients reflecting on what led them to engage a professional facilitator: “We were considering launching a new nonprofit in the Seattle marketplace.  Since this new organization would serve a diversity of stakeholders, it was important that we hire a facilitator to help us find consensus from our advisory board about how to move this ‘big idea’ forward.” – AMY LILLARD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON FILMWORKS “We wanted to start at a foundational level and explore our strategic direction with professionals who had an unbiased view of the organization. We were looking for someone who could lead discussions and help us refine the bottom-line outcomes to establish action lists.” – STACEE MCLFF, FORMER BOARD PRESIDENT, FUTURE BUSINESS LEADERS OF AMERICA If facilitation is the prescription, how do you know if your organization needs this antidote, like Washington Filmworks and Future Business Leaders of America did? In the style of David Letterman’s lists, here are the: Top Seven Signs your Organization Needs a Facilitator You want to do something new, like expand or change your mission or vision. You are considering a merger or major partnership with other organizations. There is significant organizational stress or strife and you can’t name the sources. You want to understand the obstacles so you can build a path forward. Your leadership has changed or is about to change (Executive Director, staff leadership team, or Board). Double underline here if your leader is also a founder of the organization. You want to lead and listen to organizational stakeholders to inform the organization’s direction. You are at a crossroads and don’t know where to go. This intersection could include facing a tough reality like declining funding, increasing need, or structural deficiencies. It’s time for a new strategic plan, and not only because the last one is outdated. Your organization is ready to set a new course because you see unaddressed community need or opportunities and you think your organization is the solution. As a doctor would say, if you are experiencing any of these signs, consider the help of a trained facilitator. Like a health challenge, you risk something going from bad to worse or losing an opportunity if you skip the care your organization needs. Muscling through it on your own or inserting an inside facilitator (like a Board or staff member who may have organizational biases) often doesn’t get the organization to where it needs to be at a critical juncture. I’ll leave you with a dose of hope. Here are testimonies about what facilitators made possible for the two organizations I mentioned above. Facilitation is good medicine for organizations: “Having a facilitator made all the difference in the world. I often say that it is some of the best money I spent in my 2018 budget.  On a grand scale, our facilitator helped bring our vision into focus and, ultimately, our new nonprofit to life.  She did it one small, strategic, careful step at a time.” – AMY LILLARD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON FILMWORKS “I don’t think we could have made such significant progress with real priorities and action plans without our facilitators.” – STACEE MCLFF, FORMER BOARD PRESIDENT, FUTURE BUSINESS LEADERS OF AMERICA Whether you work with a volunteer or professional, a facilitator gives you – and every person in the room – the opportunity to participate fully in crucial conversations. An effective facilitator brings a trusted pair of “outside” eyes to any situation. Their only agenda is to create the space your organization needs to have a vital discussion.

This article was written by JeeYoung Dobbs. 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. Everyone dwells on the end of a campaign. That sweet moment is made of champagne, Co-Chairs cutting ribbons for new buildings, and applause. It’s a celebration for the people, families, the organization, and community that are stronger thanks to the campaign. You will hear the mantra to begin a campaign with the end in mind. This advice is golden. Equally as important, but often overlooked, is a strong start to the campaign. Many organizations get excited about a great idea and fundraise first, plan later. This leads to half-baked visions, scant prospect lists, and lackluster leadership. Many of these campaigns stall midway or fail altogether. To avoid this fate, I suggest another mantra for your campaign office inspiration wall. Try: By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. If you are thinking about launching a campaign soon, here’s a checklist of milestones you will want to complete before you raise your first dollar (caveat: campaigns are messy. Sometimes you raise dollars from your closest supporters before all these pieces are perfectly in place). If your organization can check these boxes, you are in a strong place to start campaign fundraising: Campaign Vision: You have distilled a powerful vision for how the campaign will transform the community. Equally as important, you have articulated how the campaign fits into your overall organizational mission. Campaign Plans: While plenty of details will be in flux, you at least have a general sense of the project scope, timeline, and budget. Site Specific: If your campaign involves acquiring a new property or space, you have a long-term lease, own it, or have firm plans to purchase the property early in the campaign. *Plenty of campaigns launch before they are site-specific, but many of these campaigns take longer than anticipated or stall due to property challenges. Donors often don’t feel comfortable giving or pledging until the plans are firm. Board Leaders: All Board members are prepared to serve as campaign ambassadors and are clear about their campaign role. Donors: You have two or three times the number of prospects you need in order to complete your goal. The campaign will be spent working your way through this long list to determine who has connections, interest, and capacity to invest significant gifts. Core Assets: You are making investments in staffing and systems to support the additional workload and complexity created by a campaign. This could look like adding additional staff, gift policies, enhancing your database procedures, or developing donor stewardship plans.

Grants Accelerator is a regular blog series about leveraging your grants strategy to enhance organizational sustainability. As we roll over the calendar year, everyone is thinking about their fresh start. Some people welcome the New Year by beating pots and pans, jumping into ice cold water, or burning photographs from the past twelve months. At Ostara, we observe another distinct New Year tradition among nonprofits. It’s called “The Annual Grant Budget Freak Out.” This often involves hair pulling and frantic searches on Foundation Center. I feel your pain. I have been that staff member staring at the new annual budget filled with general operating needs and trying to match it to my list of restricted funding prospects. I could get up on my soapbox right here and rant about why there isn’t more general operating funding. I’ll save that for another day. Instead, I’ll sit alongside you as you dig into that annual budget and offer a few tidbits of advice for your 2019 grant strategy. Strategy 1: Make Restricted Grants Work for You by Carving out Flexible Funding.  Most organizations see grants in two categories: restricted and unrestricted. Ideally, a healthy grant portfolio has the full spectrum of funding categories: ____________________________________________________________________________________________Unrestricted        Lightly Restricted       Moderately Restricted       Highly Restricted Unrestricted (General Operating Grants): These are completely unrestricted and may be used for any expense purpose. Lightly Restricted Grants: These are restricted to a broad purpose that may include a program or set of programs, but they likely do not have a specific budget, list of eligible expenses, or metrics to be achieved. Moderately Restricted Grants: These are restricted to a program or project. The program budget may group together all program expenses and program revenue, including grants from multiple funders, giving the organization freedom to use the funds in whatever way they see fit to achieve the project or program goals. Highly Restricted Grants: These are awarded for programs or projects, require budgets with specific line-by-line descriptions of where each of the funder’s dollars will go, and require a complete financial report at the end of the grant period itemizing expenditures. Your sweet spot is in the middle where you can carve out flexible funding from lightly or moderately restricted grants. You can tuck indirect (operating) expenses into the budget by being more purposeful about what you include and how you label it. For example, instead of removing rent from your program budget, think about how that operating expense is critical to a program. You could then relabel it “meeting space for program classes” or whatever makes sense for your particular organization. The share of an Executive Director’s salary for leading a program could become “strategic program oversight.” Be creative and purposeful in your budget development, while also being transparent. Strategy 2: Group your programs under a broader brand. Instead of always developing bright, shiny new programs to attract funding (often restricted), think about how you could put a fresh face on your core programs. Ostara is currently partnering with Vine Maple Place, an organization serving homeless families. They decided to group their housing, financial skills education, employment services, life skills, counseling, and youth programs under one brand called the Stable Families program. This allowed them to attract more sustainable funding for their core programs through general project budgets. While the funding was “program-restricted,” it is restricted to all their programs. This keeps those funds more flexible over the course of the year. Strategy 3: Don’t Itemize Unless It’s Required. Unless a funder specifically asks you to itemize how their dollars will be used, you can usually present a program budget that groups together all expenses and funding sources. Whether funders need to see their dollars tied to specific expenses is a good clarifying question to ask before you submit. It may not be as cathartic as beating pots or jumping into Puget Sound, but liberating yourself from the black and white world of restricted vs. unrestricted funding will open a fuller spectrum of opportunities in 2019 and beyond.

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. 5-4-3-2-1… Here comes year-end giving! Buckle up. It’s time for the meteor shower of gifts you’ll receive by December 31 – and time to plan how you’ll make the most of those gifts in the future. This influx can be the basis of a new booster engine for your fundraising efforts in 2019 and beyond. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to build this powerful vehicle that can launch you into next year. It doesn’t actually involve aerospace engineering, though a systematic approach helps. This booster is a monthly recurring giving program. Whether you already have a recurring monthly or sustainer giving program in place or you want to launch one, here are seven reasons why it’s worth the effort. Why Monthly Giving is a Worthy Endeavor We know that monthly giving: Has higher annual retention rates (80% for first-time monthly donors compared to 20-25% for one-time gifts)  2016 Fundraising Effectiveness Project Data Is on the rise – nonprofits raised 40% more through monthly giving in 2017 than in 2016 (compared to 19% growth in one-time gifts), and monthly giving’s share of all online revenue rose from 14% to 16%. M&R Benchmarks 2018 Study Results in a greater return on investment and lower cost of acquisition and retention Inspires donors to give 42% more on average than people who give one-time gifts and contribute greater long-term financial value to the organization Network for Good Appeals to a broad range of demographics, including both Millennials and Baby Boomers Strengthens your ability to reliably project fundraising budgets each year Allows you to focus more on stewardship and building relationships with donors than solicitations, which leads to more meaningful partnerships over time Your Monthly Giving Launch Plan Your year-end giving results aren’t just cash in the door – donors who give at yearend are your best prospects for conversion to monthly donors. As you hit your yearend giving stride, make the time to do these three things to plan for the future and position 2019 as the “Year of the Monthly Donor” for your organization: Review your donor database and credit card processing system to make sure they can support automatic monthly giving (otherwise, manual management of monthly giving could eat up too much staff time). The key is to make this easy and convenient for donors, too. Identify your best monthly giving prospects. Analyze your Giving Tuesday donors and regular yearend donors, as well as your loyal donors (who have given consistently in each of the past three years or more). You’re looking for donors who made relatively modest gifts, in the range of $50-$250. You’re going to ask them in January for an amount that seems very achievable, but that would slightly increase their total annual giving. For example, ask your $100 donors to give $10 a month – that would bring them up to $120 annually. That extra 20 percent can really add up over time! Asking again within a month of their most recent gift might sound too soon, but research shows that the best time to ask people to sign up for monthly gifts is close on the heels of their last one-time gift. Steward monthly gifts intentionally and celebrate examples of what monthly giving makes possible in your newsletters and other publications. You may make a big push for monthly giving a few times per year, but you can subtly highlight the opportunity to make greater impact on the mission with convenient monthly gifts all year long. Profiling a monthly donor in your newsletter is a great way to spell out the impact and take advantage of peer influence in convincing people to step up and give monthly. You can apply this methodology any time you receive a large batch of one-time gifts. Excited about the return of GiveBIG in May 2019? Make sure you offer all those one-time donors the chance to become monthly supporters before summer hits.

This article was written by Kari Dasher. 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. If a tornado headed your way, you would likely run in the opposite direction. When I serve as an interim development leader, I willingly run towards the tornado of organizational change with a smile on my face. Call me a storm chaser. You might think I’m crazy, but there is significant opportunity for leadership and organizational transformation amid development leadership transition. As an interim development leader, I arrive in organizations just as a Chief Development Officer or Director of Development is transitioning, or after their role has been vacant for a month or more. Their tenures may have been rocky or successful, short or long. The common denominator is the need for leadership stability and the opportunity to re-envision the organization’s approach to fundraising. My role is to clear the way for a successful permanent hire and to strengthen the fund development team and strategies along the way. To do this, I must enter the “danger zone.”  I listen and speak up when I see people or processes that are not supporting the mission. I help the organization to consider new ways of doing things. While I’m not always popular, organizations are in better places to hire and retain staff and accelerate sustainable fundraising at the end of my interim tenure. Here are seven ways an interim development leader could transform your team and organization during your next staffing transition. Change Agent. Their short-term nature allows interims to be truth tellers in a way permanent staff are not always able to do for fear it may affect their future opportunities. Interims have courageous conversations with Board and staff to highlight challenges and opportunities. These conversations are often uncomfortable and sometimes lead to dramatic, but necessary staffing or structural changes in the pursuit of the organization’s mission. Systems Analyst: An interim brings an experienced outsider’s perspective to the structure of an organization’s fundraising operation. They assess trends, goals and results and make recommendations for how to enhance your resources (people, processes, and plans). Interims collaborate with staff, Board, and volunteers to understand what to keep, discard, and enhance. Strategy Partner: During a staffing transition, there’s potential that a leadership vacuum can leave a development team rudderless. An interim can serve as a strategy and thought partner to the CEO and Board to help guide their thinking about fundraising’s place in organizational strategy. This normalizes the permanent development leader’s place at the strategy table. Coach: With their fundraising knowledge, an interim can come alongside staff and Board with resources and experience to help reveal new ways to approach their work. Collaborator: If fundraising has been siloed in the past, an interim can grow relationships with other departments like programs, finance, and HR. This is a process of listening and understanding each other’s needs. An interim also reinvigorates the development team by removing obstacles in their path and preparing them for new leadership. Planner: An interim can build plans that map the path forward, including financial goals, a case for support, strategies, and tactics. The permanent development director is often relieved they don’t have to start from scratch. Culture Catalyst: An interim can build or strengthen your philanthropic culture by modeling for the staff, Board, and CEO how a sustainable fundraising organization works and their roles in supporting it. They can also demonstrate for staff and Board leaders the link between an organization’s culture and their culture of philanthropy and advocate for strategies and outcomes that will strengthen both over time. This can also be an opportunity to infuse missing elements of diversity and equity into the structures and roles that reinforce the organization’s culture.

Does this sound familiar? Executive Director: “How much do I need to invest in a grants program to raise $100,000?” Board Member: “Should I expect the grantwriter to bring in two times more than we pay them? Five times?” As grantwriters and fundraisers, we spend our days communicating stories and data that prove the impact of programs and organizations. We know to look deeper than the number of people served to convey the full story of an organization’s work. Ironically, the story of our own impact on the organization’s success is often measured in this one-dimensional way. Grantwriters (and fundraisers in general) are often seen as a one-person profit and loss statement: how much are they paid versus how much do they bring in? This is a shortsighted approach to the concept of Return on Investment (ROI). A sustainable grants program is more than the bottom line. Or rather, the bottom line is the relationship. The interactions that lead to strong donor relationships are key to fundraising success, and grants are no exception. Beyond dollars, a comprehensive grants strategy fosters transparent internal systems, builds a culture of philanthropy, and translates visionary ideas into fundable plans for the community.  Sounds good, but how do you translate the value of your grant strategy into metrics that speak to your staff and Board leaders? Ostara has partnered with Cancer Lifeline on grant strategy since 2014. Together, we focus on building relationships with the best prospects and reengaging past funders. Over three years, Cancer Lifeline increased their grant revenue by 40 percent. However, their true success indicators were their first-ever multi-year grant, grants from brand new funders to diversify the portfolio, and several increased gifts from existing funders. Like Cancer Lifeline, you can highlight your worth beyond the simple running tally of dollars raised. Key Success Indicators Start by building a comprehensive picture of your path to sustainability by regularly tracking and sharing these key success indicators for your grants program through tools like Board reports and staff meetings. Engagement Indicators Grant applications approved, pending, denied, and planned (listed over multiple years and separated by fiscal year) Looks Like: # Grants Submitted, # Grants Awarded, # Grants Denied Value: Demonstrates a multi-year picture of the relationships you are building for now and the future Grant Renewals Looks Like: # Renewals from previous year Value: Demonstrates a vote of confidence in your work from previous funders, especially when they increase their previous grant amount Re-Engaged Lapsed Funders Looks Like: # Re-engaged funders from past two years, # Re-engaged funders from 2-5 years ago, etc. Value: Demonstrates your hard work in reviving old relationships (beyond this fiscal year) Reports Submitted Looks Like: # Formal reports submitted, # Informal (i.e. not required) reports submitted Value: Demonstrates the time you invest in stewardship for all funders (not just when reports are required) Cultural Indicators Interactions, including with non-development staff and Board Looks Like: Standing meetings with broader development team, standing meetings with broader staff outside of development, Regular touchpoints with the Board, organization-wide celebration of grant success, organization-wide participation in grant strategy choices Value: Demonstrates the cross-organization collaborations with grant writers helping to drive your grants strategy Financial Indicators Multi-Year Grants Looks Like: # LOIs accepted and invited to full proposal, ability to report and steward over a longer period, potentially through changes in leadership and staff Value: Demonstrates sophisticated internal systems often required to manage relationships with multi-year funders Progress to Goal Looks Like: Determine a grant revenue goal as part of budget cycle that is achievable and supported by all, and update staff and Board leadership on progress at least quarterly Value: Demonstrates progress towards realistic annual goals that map to community needs (not filling budget gaps) and year-over-year comparisons to frame progress over several years Do you want to explore other ways to enhance your grants strategy and organizational sustainability? Join us for our new Grants Accelerator Workshop Series that will help nonprofit leaders and grantwriters solve these common challenges – Seats are filling up fast!

“You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.”—Epictetus My greatest lesson so far as a newly-minted teacher is this: the right question is more important than the right answer. Questions challenge, engage, and stimulate. They are invitations to a deeper understanding of something. I’m wrapping up my first quarter as an adjunct faculty member in Seattle University’s Master of Nonprofit Leadership program. Lucky for me, I am team-teaching with Peter Drury, fundraising expert and Vice President for Mission Advancement at Make-A-Wish Alaska and Washington. One of the thrills of teaching fundraising 101 is rewinding my 25-year career back to the essentials. Peter and I recently role played a donor conversation for Planned Parenthood in front of our class. Our students were particularly interested in what everyone thinks is the key question: will you make a gift? It struck me that this is the least powerful of all the questions for donors. Once you are “making the ask,” you hopefully know everything you need about someone’s values, beliefs, and experiences to make the right ask. The more important questions, the Authentic Questions, are those that lead up to and follow the ask. They promote dialogue and deeper understanding of each other and the organization. So what are these authentic questions?  Here are my favorites, arranged by phase of the donor relationship: Identify: What’s most important to you in your life? At this point, you are starting a conversation with someone you know little-to-nothing about. Maybe they’re at one of your events for the first time or maybe you’re having coffee to introduce them to the organization. This is a good time to cast a wide net to understand who they are and whether their life philosophy could overlap with your organization’s mission. Your goal with this question is to listen for their values, beliefs, and important life experiences and whether they care about your mission. Qualify: How do you spend your most precious resources (time, talent, and treasure)? Once you have a sketch of a potential donor’s life philosophy, then you can explore how they live out those values and beliefs. You can better understand where they work, participate in hobbies, vacation, volunteer, and donate—and why they do these things. How someone spends their money, working hours, and spare time tells you a lot about what matters most to them. Your goal with this question is to listen for interest in learning more about what your organization does and how they can get involved. Cultivate: What’s your greatest hope for our organization? Once you progress to this question, you have determined a potential donor cares about your mission and wants to become more involved. This is a good opportunity to treat them as a partner in your mission. You can demonstrate this by inviting them to dream along with you about a better future for the community. Maybe they want you to grow faster or improve your facilities. Their ideas could reveal how they want to support your mission and the best program, person, timing, and amount for The Ask. Your goal with this question is to listen for ways to align their hopes, talents, and interests with your organization’s funding, volunteer, or leadership opportunities. Steward: How can we share the impact of your gift with you? Listening doesn’t stop after they make a gift. This is the time to pay close attention to how they want to be thanked, recognized, and stewarded. As Penelope Burk has found, you must thank the donor, confirm how their gift was used, and share the impact of the last gift before you ask for the next gift. Many organizations do the first two well, but the third piece is often forgotten. Your goal with this question is to listen for how they want to hear about the difference their gift is making in the organization’s work in the community.  Specifically, listen for how often and in what way they want to hear from you. You can start by asking yourself this: over the course of a relationship with a donor, do you listen more than you speak? Whatever your answer, you can hone your conversational and listening skills by selecting one of the “Authentic Questions” to jump start an upcoming donor conversation. I have found donors appreciate these real questions, and they lead to great conversations. Try it. You never know what you will hear!

Every campaign is a marathon, no matter how quickly the first large gifts come in. I have found that the most important factor in completing the campaign marathon is strong and steady leadership. You need the right team to navigate the ups and downs and to push through the inevitable obstacles that come up.  Campaign leaders are vital to keeping even the strongest and best planned campaign moving forward.  For campaigns that have more inherent challenges, strong leadership is often the only path to success. Now, leadership can come in many flavors, from strategists, to relationship managers, to cheerleaders.  These roles need to seamlessly work together, with thoughtful planning and ongoing communication.  Yet, many times there isn’t the capacity within the organization to plan, execute, and complete a campaign while keeping the day to day wheels of mission-focused activity turning.  So, outside of current development staff (who are most likely spending their time managing the campaign), who are these leaders and how can you find them? Here’s the secret. You already know them. They are your Board members, program staff, volunteers, and community members. Anyone who is passionate about and committed to your mission. A well-run campaign can also become an opportunity for these team members and supporters to step forward and reveal their leadership superpowers.  Your role, whether you’re an Executive Director or Board President or development staff, is to prepare your campaign leaders for greatness. This is the most important thing you can do to ensure campaign success. Your first step is to find people with a powerful mix of talent, commitment, and passion and align them with the key campaign constituencies. Here’s the short version of my playbook for assembling a campaign dream team: Talent Look for a mix of people who can fill the leadership skillset needs of the campaign. Storytellers: This person can share compelling examples of what your organization’s impact looks like in your community. They can put faces on both the challenge and solution. Financial Leaders: This person can help build and explain any budget or cash flow projection. They make it simple for anyone to understand. Project Leaders: This person loves talking about the price per square foot and meeting with architects and city officials. They are credible and passionate advocates for any capital project. Fearless Solicitors: This person likely has a background in sales or community organizing. They are willing to ask anyone for anything in the name of your mission. Board Ambassadors: This person represents the community ownership of any nonprofit. They are uniquely prepared to integrate the larger organizational vision and the campaign vision. The “X Factors” The above profiles are mere skillsets if they are not also coupled with more intangible traits. Above all else, find people in and around your organization that deeply believe in what you are trying to accomplish through the campaign. So, what does this look like in practical terms?  Here are a few clues to who might be ready to step into a leadership role. Commitment: They have been consistently giving, volunteering, or working for your organization for five or more years. Charisma: When they talk about your mission at events, on social media, or one-on-one, people listen and engage. Grit: They have the determination to keep the momentum going when gift acquisition slows down (this will happen) and keep pushing through when inevitable challenges arise.

When I was a nonprofit staff member, I disliked the words “strategic planning.” I feared the process would take forever.  Or that the plan would no longer be relevant by the time we were done. Or we would be too busy to implement it. Or worse, we wouldn’t even look at it. Sound familiar to you? It wasn’t until I went to graduate school that strategic planning came alive for me. I learned to appreciate its purpose. Strategic planning is leaders wrestling with the biggest questions of organizational identity, opportunities, and impact. It’s dynamic, important, and rooted in individual and collective passion for doing good. There’s so much to love here. Now, I have the privilege of facilitating strategic plans with organizations in our region and around the nation. No matter the organization, people love strategic planning when we include these three elements: Element 1: Invite Board and Staff to Collaborate. There’s a perception in the nonprofit world that the Board of Directors develops a strategic plan and the staff implements it.  In reality, a great strategic planning process unites the on-the-ground thinking from staff leaders with the big picture thinking of the board. By including complementary perspectives from Board and staff leaders, the plan can reflect reality at all levels of the organization. Everyone involved is more likely to own what it takes to make the plan happen. Of course, the Board still approves the final plan. Element 2: Look Around at Your Community. If your organization has been heads-down on your program delivery for years, it’s time to push back from your desks. We believe every strategic planning process should include a peer analysis: a comparison of your organization against three or four other nonprofits that work in your field. I have seen clients experience major “Ah ha!” moments by scanning their peers. Some have pleasant moments of affirmation where they see they are the biggest or best in their field. Others have sobering realizations that another organization is better positioned to meet a community need. These epiphanies allow you to define the strategic advantages that truly set you apart from every other organization. Then, you can forge a new path based upon your real (not imagined) strengths. Element 3: Encourage Strategic Thinking. In The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution, David LaPiana makes a good case for the importance of strategic thinking. Writing down a bunch of goals is not what he has in mind. He promotes a process that brings organizational leaders together during “protected time” to think strategically about: 1) Who are we as an organization? 2) What is our current impact? and 3) How can we best increase our impact? At Ostara, our approach to strategic planning reflects LaPiana’s thinking. We create a written plan at the end of the process, but we also strive to leave behind the kind of strategic thinking that will help an organization meet the next big unexpected opportunity or challenge. In the end, a good strategic planning process should be powerful, not painful. Board and staff should have clarity about the most strategic way to meet community needs and a plan to actually make it happen. Perhaps you will also find a newfound love for strategic planning along the way!

This article was written by Kari Dasher. 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. What do you know about the hottest thing to hit giving since the internet? Chances are donors are already asking you about donor-advised funds (DAFs). According to Giving USA 2017: The Annual Report on Charitable Giving, contributions to DAFs almost tripled the overall charitable growth rate in 2016 (up 7.6 percent to $23.27 billion). As the new tax law rolls out this year, I expect the interest in DAFs to grow as people rethink their giving strategies. I regularly hear questions about how to tap into DAF dollars for annual and campaign fundraising.  My response is always to educate yourself and prepare your organization first. When donors choose the DAF route, you go on a journey with them through tax and accounting land. This is why you became a fundraiser, right? We know you don’t have extra hours in the day to pore over trend reports, tax laws, and accounting, rules, so we did your DAF research for you. Here’s your quick guide to DAFs for when you have a donor on the line or a question in your inbox. What is a donor-advised fund (DAF)? Think of a DAF like a charitable-savings account established under the tax umbrella of a public charity (community foundations or philanthropic arms of financial institutions). Donors can contribute to the fund as often as they want and receive immediate, maximum tax deduction.  The donor then becomes the donor-advisor and recommends to the organization managing the DAF which organizations should receive the funds. The organization is not obligated to follow the donor’s advice (although, they most often do). Why do donors choose DAFs? Simplicity: It’s like having a family foundation that handles all record-keeping, disbursements, and tax receipts. Unlike a foundation, there are no start-up costs (although there is often a minimum initial charitable contribution to establish the DAF). Flexibility: You can give and receive the tax benefit today even if you don’t know what organization you ultimately want the gift to benefit. Efficiency: There are no transaction fees, so 100 percent of the gift benefits the nonprofit. The gift is tax-deductible and investment growth in the DAF is tax-free. Privacy: If you don’t want your giving to be public or known to the organization, it’s a good way to stay anonymous. (Source: Pacific Northwest Ballet) What are the challenges with DAFs? Relationships: Counter to the core of fundraising, DAFs can make it difficult to build long-term relationships with donors when anonymous checks arrive (although this is still a happy day). Disbursements: Unlike foundations, there’s no obligation for the sponsoring institution to distribute any of the money from DAFs to nonprofits. Technically, those funds could sit there forever. Academics have analyzed IRS tax data and found that 25 percent of DAF sponsors distributed less than one percent of their assets in a year. That’s a lot of unrealized potential for our nonprofit missions. Why do I need to know about the Pension Protection Act (PPA) of 2006? The PPA (The Pension Protection Act of 2006) stated that the donor-advisor cannot receive more than “incidental benefit” from the recommended grant to the charity. What’s an incidental benefit? If you had given the gift directly to the nonprofit and the benefits would have changed the value of the tax deduction, then it’s off limits. This means if I recommend funds from my DAF benefit the ballet, I cannot receive season tickets to the ballet in exchange for the DAF funds. The donor-advisor can still receive benefits that have no fair market value (like a high-five or a thank you card). How does the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 affect DAFs? The new tax law includes higher standard deductions, meaning fewer taxpayers are likely to itemize their 2018 taxes. While we know most donors are not primarily motivated to give because of taxes, some people will lose the tax benefits associated with charitable giving without itemized deductions. I expect people will give, but they may not give as much. Some donors may start lumping gifts (giving more in one year and less in another to surpass the charitable deduction). During “lumping” years, donors may park their funds in their DAF for future use. Donors get immediate tax benefit, but the benefit to nonprofits may not be realized for years. Want to dig deeper into donor-advised funds? Join Kari’s session about the Opportunities and Challenges of Donor-Advised Funds at the AFP Advancement Northwest Forum on June 7. In the meantime, let’s keep this conversation going. We are here to connect.