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Relationships are important in any business. They are especially important in fundraising. Building trust and showing true interest in a person’s experiences, beliefs and values will bring rewarding return to you personally and professionally. How are you building relationships? Here are three strategies I utilize in building relationships in my personal and professional world. Please share yours in the comments section below, we could all use support and ideas in how to build meaningful relationships. Remember something. Remember the person’s name. Where they work. What their dogs name is. Where they traveled last. Remember something allows you to continue to build upon the relationship when you see the person again. Ask Questions. Generally people like to talk about themselves. It is human nature. Ask a person a question and let them talk. Usually in their response they will give you another question to ask which allows the opportunity for people to continue to share what is important to them. I always recommend having 3-5 questions in mind for every person you meet (hint: it is okay if they are always the same question). Good themes: family, work, travel and hobbies. Make connections. Use your networks to connect people. Most of us have a friend or colleague looking for something and I would bet, most of us know a person who could help. Keep your LinkedIn profile updated and when someone mentions they are looking to “connect with…” offer your LI profile to help them (hint: take your current resume and use it to help build your LI profile). As we know, good relationship-building is plain old good fundraising. Try out some of these strategies to help deepen your donors’ connection with your organization, and develop meaningful relationships with those invested in your mission.

This article was written by Casey Caylor. 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. Grant funding is a pillar of fund development for many nonprofit organizations. While grants are an important source of income for organizations, a great grant program is about more than just the money. Inve­sting staff time and resources into developing a high functioning grant program can generate some amazing, unanticipated upsides. When you build a successful grant program, you also: Build a community of support for your programs. Funders like to see that your organization has the support of other donors; they are more likely to support your work as part of a community. If your organization has any interest in pursuing larger regional or national grants, you will need to develop a strong base of smaller local and regional funders that support existing programs before a larger national foundation is likely to invest. The grant process can also generate new partnerships with foundations and other nonprofits through program collaborations and opportunities to participate in thought leadership. Translate visionary ideas into tangible and realistic programs. A successful grant program helps translate a strategic plan into action, and helps develop a plan for future growth. Grant writers often hold an overarching, yet detailed view of the organization, as they are privy to detailed programmatic information, organizational strategy and financial details. They are in the perfect role to listen for new, visionary ideas, and facilitate internal conversations that translate these ideas into a compelling narrative with a clear budget. The result: they set these ideas on a path to becoming reality. Strong grant work guides your organization through critical questions: Who will this project serve? How will we secure funding? What is our budget? What is our timeline? Why now? Build internal systems that foster transparency and reflection. Grant funding almost always requires that organizations report back on the impact and expenditure of the grant award. Funders use this information to hold organizations accountable and make sure their funds are being used as they intended. The process of reporting financial expenditures and program outcomes compels organizations to build out internal systems that help them to better understand their community impact (and better articulate outcomes with other funders), track spending in a way that aligns with annual budgets, and approach program design with increased awareness of implementation and realistic goals. These internal systems and processes provide the necessary feed back to improve the next round of grant proposals, and have lasting benefits on an organization – far beyond that of an improved grants process. Foster a culture of philanthropy. At the Ostara Group, we view every organization through the lens of its organizational culture of philanthropy – or a culture in which fund development is valued as a long-term, mission-aligned program of the organization. A culture where members of the organization are committed to and personally involved in fundraising. The grant program plays an important role in fostering a culture of philanthropy by identifying funding opportunities, integrating departmental staff around the common goal of sustaining your mission, and building experience in collaborating with foundations to deepen or increase your impact on the community you serve. It takes a strong leader to develop a robust grant program, and it requires the collaboration of every department in your organization. It takes time and hard work from your staff and leadership in development, programming, and finance. The next time you are grappling with a tricky grant application, or frustrated about how long it is taking to build a relationship with a key potential funder, pause and think about how this work benefits your organization beyond financial gain – deepening your impact and increasing your sustainability!

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. Yesterday, we parsed out the many benefits of instant stewardship of your giving day donors – and promised we’d explain how to get it done today. So: here’s a step-by-step primer on how to flawlessly execute instant stewardship on GiveBIG. Because you’ll be executing instant stewardship in a fast-moving environment on the day of GiveBIG itself, it’s useful to separate this primer into two sections: What you need to do prepare for instant stewardship before GiveBIG, and what you need to do on GiveBIG itself. Spoiler alert: Much of the work actually happens before GiveBIG – and it builds on work you were already planning to do. Before GiveBIG: Draft a basic template for the content of the email you will send to each giving day donor in response to their gift. Keep this short and sweet – length isn’t as important as response time and personalization. Create, ask and confirm a list of the participating development and non-development staff. This activity can become unwieldy above 5 people, so stick to that upper limit. From all the participants, define one person as the staff lead for this process. The instant stewardship process will flow more smoothly if it is clear where the buck stops, and who has the answers to any questions participants have. In this case, if you’re reading this post, it’s probably you. Make sure this person is set up to receive all the gift notification emails from the GiveBIG online platform. Define which participants will steward which donors. For example, you might assign donors under $100 to your development associate, donors from $100 to $500 to the development director, and donors above $500 to the executive director. Make sure everyone knows in advance exactly when they need to take action, and for whom. Creating an automatic set of “if-then” rules like this reduces confusion and process friction, and increases the speed of execution. During GiveBIG: The staff lead should immediately steward all the pre-scheduled donors whose gifts automatically processed at midnight as soon as they can, if you haven’t done so as they pre-scheduled their gifts. This applies to donors of all sizes, even if you have multiple people handling different segments of donors. Don’t expect your teammates to be up and stewarding donors with you at 6 AM (or 12:01 AM), especially if they’re not fundraising staff. Begin the automatic rule-based stewardship when your team has arrived at the office for their normal day – and make sure you’ve set an expectation for what time that is. I’m looking at you, arts organizations. Each participant should open up the donor database and be prepared to look up each donor as they give so that your stewardship can include personal, relational details. Keep it open all day. The staff lead should watch the inbox receiving your GiveBIG gift notification emails like a hawk. If you have 3-5 people participating, it will be easiest for the staff lead to receive and distribute all emails to participants for stewardship, based on the automatic set of rules created. This helps keep most of the internal pressure for instant stewardship on the fundraiser who is the staff lead, and makes it easier for other staff who are participating. The easier it is for other teammates to help you, the more likely they will be to help you again next year. The actual instant stewardship email can happen in one of two ways: Open up a new stand-alone email message. This method takes a little longer, and requires the content of the email to provide more context and explanation, so that what it references it is obvious at a glance to the donor receiving the message. After all, they’re busy people too – don’t make them work to figure why you’re landing in their inbox. However, organizations with a very formal brand and personality may prefer the clean and sophisticated feel of this method. Forward the actual gift notification receipt back to the donor, and include your personal message with it. This has fewer steps and thus takes less time, and the inclusion of the receipt and the pre-populated subject line help you set the context for the donor.  For these reasons, I prefer this method, but it may work best for organizations with a more casual and personal brand or relationship to their donors. Distribute high-fives liberally among your teammates throughout the day (yes, it’s OK to high-five yourself if you’re flying solo on this). If you really want your teammates to help you again next year, gift them little treats or coffee shop gift cards the next day to thank them. And that’s how you do it. But what should it look like? I’ve written a few samples that should help you figure out how to adapt this tactic to your organization, including what types of information in the database to eyeball for each donor so you can personalize them more – such as repeat GiveBIG participation, artistic engagement in performances or exhibits, and more. The most important goal is to ensure that it sounds like it came from a real human (because it did!), and that it contains at least one detail particular to the donor. These examples assume that you’ve chosen to forward the gift notification back to the donor, so you don’t have to mention the gift amount again, and the context is obvious to the donor immediately. An arts organization might write… “Hi Mary – thank you so much for this amazing donation! You also just brought us closer to completing our matching gift challenge. I hope you’re enjoying your subscription this season. Thanks again for supporting TheaterXYZ on GiveBIG! Have a great day! Ariel” An education advocacy group might write… “Hi Jamie – thank you so much! This is really wonderful. It feels so good to see our community coming together around early childhood learning in real time. Thanks for being on our team for the third GiveBIG in a row! Warmly, Ariel” A few final thoughts: If you’re having trouble finding teammates to participate, try gamifying the process to create an incentive. For example, offer a desirable prize to whoever can demonstrate the fastest turnaround time between receiving a notification and sending the instant stewardship email.  The email timestamps make it easy to prove. While speed is of the essence, you’re also a human, not a robot, which is kind of the whole point of this activity. So of course it’s alright if you miss the 90-second window for a gift because you needed a bio-break, or because your executive director had a time-sensitive question. It’s fine if you can turn these around within 5 minutes rather than 90 seconds. I just happen to know 90 seconds is generally possible, because I’ve done it myself, over and over. Some large organizations have thousands of GiveBIG donors, and some smaller organizations have very few staff. If you’re worried about having the capacity to execute instant stewardship for all GiveBIG donors for any reason, it’s fine to focus this effort on certain donor segments. Create a donor pyramid from your past GiveBIG data to look at how many donors you’ve had at each level, find the level where the number of donors giving that amount drops dramatically, and use that as the floor for instant stewardship outreach. Go ahead and steward your pre-schedules now to get them done! That can lighten your day-of load. Voila! Instant stewardship – a powerful tool for donor retention and making the absolute most of an opportunity like GiveBIG. Now, ask yourself: since instant stewardship of online donors only takes 90 seconds, and notifications of your regular online gifts also get pushed to you… why not execute instant stewardship for online gifts year-round? Happy fundraising!

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. After six years, many nonprofits in Seattle and King County seem to have their GiveBIG action plans down pat. But as the number of nonprofits competing for donor dollars grows, organizations should continuously evolve their practices and increase the sophistication of their campaigns. Chances are, even the most tried-and-true, dependable GiveBIG and giving day campaigns could use a little freshening up. GiveBIG comes at a busy time of year for most nonprofits. The prospect of adding something new to your campaign might not be so appealing. But there’s one tactic that is so effective and efficient that I recommend it to every single client. You’re probably thinking there has to be a catch. It’s probably expensive, annoying to plan, and/or overly complicated to execute. Right? Nope. This activity: Costs nothing Is fast, easy, and fun to do Helps you in the short and long term Works for nonprofits of any budget or staff size Works for nonprofits operating in any mission space or impact sector Can improve your internal culture of philanthropy (yes, really) Is over when GiveBIG is over (phew!) So, what is this magical unicorn, this fairy dust-sprinkled activity? I’m so glad you asked. It’s instant stewardship. If you attended my “Making the Most of GiveBIG” workshop at the Seattle Foundation last month, you heard me ring this particular bell over and over. Instant stewardship is the practice of sending each of your giving day donors a customized email thank-you from a real human within 90 seconds after the push notification of the gift arrives.  It takes the concept of stewardship – the care and feeding of your donors through demonstrations of gratitude and impact – and dramatically accelerates the usual timeline. Stewardship drives retention. I probably don’t need to tell you how important donor retention is to the health of your fundraising program and achieving your mission. Spoiler alert: It’s really important. Retention of giving day donors requires special attention because 30-60% of them will be new. GiveBIG is a huge opportunity to acquire new donors. Unfortunately, new donors are hard to keep. Only 19% of an organization’s new donors make a second gift. Ouch. But if you can get that second gift, 63% of these returning donors will keep giving beyond that point. That’s huge, and that’s where the majority of your fundraising revenue comes from. That’s why stewardship is so important, and even more important for opportunities that bring you new donors – like GiveBIG. You need to intervene to ensure that they’re on the path to their second gift. But new research shows that it’s not enough just to thank and steward donors. Online engagement has a half-life of about 24 hours, so response time matters. According to fundraising communications expert (and one of my professional heroes) Tom Ahern, new donors who get a personal thank-you within 48 hours are 4 times more likely to make that all-important second gift. Waiting even one day after GiveBIG to personally thank a donor cuts the impact of the thank-you in half. If you wait two days, that thank-you reaches only a quarter of its full potential; and so on and so forth. This is why the speed of stewardship is so important. Instant stewardship can also help build your internal culture of philanthropy and make your job easier in the long run. Non-fundraising staff often resist participating in development work, usually because they think fundraising is all about asking, and they fear being expected to make asks. This barrier to a genuinely participatory culture of philanthropy can be difficult to overcome. Change sticks when it’s incremental; you have to let people dip their toes in new waters before asking them to dive in.  And they have to be shown, not told. Instant stewardship during a giving day like GiveBIG is an opportunity to give resistant or tentative non-fundraising staff an easy, early win in the juiciest part of the fundraising cycle – thanking donors! The process can be managed in a way that allows you to delegate some of this (easy, fun, quick) activity to non-fundraisers in your organization, and show them how good it feels to be part of your organization’s gratitude machine. That quick taste of initial success can build their confidence and openness towards fundraising in the future. That’s why you should execute instant stewardship for your giving day donors. Click here for the second post in this series – a step-by-step tutorial for flawless execution of instant stewardship on giving days.

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.