Ever heard of the term venture philanthropy? The idea is that philanthropy needs to be entrepreneurial and we need to focus on the desires of the prospect, both unmet and met and how to get them to opt into our communication streams. We need to motivate our prospects to engage in the dividends of their relationship with us - just like they would with any of their investments.
As we engage prospects throughout our organizations, in a variety of ways, we need to utilize information they willingly share to build our databases and prospect pipelines. Growing our databases is a key element in establishing ourselves as venture philanthropists – by being creative and persistent in data acquisitions. Leveraging everything we know. Looking for hidden opportunities to capitalize on.
Creative data acquisition isn’t easy and there are a number of obstacles that may need to be overcome:
• Rules and regulations such as HIPPA, FERPA and others make it more challenging to access data, particularly in areas such as grateful patient fundraising.
Our organization’s internal stakeholders may have trouble understanding rules and may feel that we’re sometimes stonewalling (when they ask for information we can’t give them) or on other occasions using data too aggressively (such as asking parents for gifts when they are already paying high tuition for their children).
A practical political balance between passive and aggressive data use may be difficult to implement and communicate because of organizational silos and/or firewalls. These will need to be broken down in order for us to be effective.
• Other databases may exist but may not be integrated at all with the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems we use for fundraising and engagement. Other systems may be much more focused on transactions rather than the data elements used for managing and recording ongoing relationships.
• Data models are becoming more complex in all systems and it takes additional time to understand and reverse engineer other systems.
• Other databases may not be as well maintained as our fundraising databases, particularly if the “external” database is not as extensively utilized. (The more you contact people – and then update your database – the more accurate your information typically is.)
• Database screening for other databases can be time consuming and expensive. We may end up with many potential duplicates with our main fundraising system which can be difficult to resolve. People and organizations that surface from a screening might show capacity but we often have no idea of their inclination.
• There are often substantial data integration efforts and technical challenges if we are to maintain and update these other databases over the long haul. We may not have the appropriate technical infrastructure or expertise to facilitate automatic transfers, uploading and data cleansing. Data definitions will vary between systems even for what are often assumed to be commonly understood organizational terms.
• There may be business processes and workflows that need to be altered or managed in a different way. It’s sometimes tough to get people to change the way they do business even if the benefits appear to be obvious. Even harder if the benefits are not clear.
Not everyone understands the fundraising cycle and how this can tie into their data and how their data can be used to leverage relationships and gifts.
• New data is exciting because of perceived potential donations. Our efforts in acquiring data will need to be managed and prioritized in light of other projects which may be higher priority.
It’s important not to be caught in “unprofitable” businesses at the margin if our main database is where we need to spend the time. A cost benefit analysis for integrating should be done. It’s not always easy to step back and take the most logical approach when excitement is running high.
• Some databases, because the original purpose of creating them was not related to philanthropy, are going to be more difficult to utilize. They may not have all the right contact information, interests may not be recorded and the data may be piecemeal.
• There may be timing issues. A database with grateful pet patients from a veterinary clinic may become “stale” very quickly. We may not get the information until long after the event and long after any inclination to give has passed. Emotions run high at the moment but can fade quickly.
Issues aside, it’s still a valuable exercise to seek out new sources of information that we can use to build our prospect pools.
Moving Towards Solutions with Plans and Creativity
All campaign strategies and plans should have elements on how we broaden our pool of prospects from other databases. The following is a brief sampling of ideas but you can likely come up with many more based on your own organization. Just be creative.
• Untapped resources such as continuing education programs and others may have many prospects that may not normally be asked for a gift during a Campaign unless this is specifically addressed in the Campaign plan.
• Another opportunity could be within a community relations or marketing area. There may be community activities that are “close” to the institution. People you send news releases to may be other missed prospecting lists.
Since you are communicating with these people on a regular basis, include information on fundraising as part of your communication. This helps educate and can eventually lead to direct asks.
• Engaging volunteers from the community is another creative tactic.
Many of us have corporate memberships in chambers of commerce, boards of trade, rotary, etc., which can represent opportunities to engage key volunteers – these volunteers can represent us to the business community. It is critical to record these actions in the database and to follow up with volunteers.
• Don’t forget to look for data gems such as third party events, memorial gifts and others where we sometimes erroneously assume that “this is a one-time gift/event only and we never need to communicate with these people again.”
Use statistical testing with these groups and try to predict if a solicitation will come in “over the margin” and generate a positive ROI (Return on Investment).
• Look for data that may have been “firewalled” behind one of your program areas. In other words, data that was used for a specific program, and where that data has not been integrated with your main fundraising system because of the organizational structure, protectiveness, insecurity or similar reasons.
• Last but not least and by no means the end of the list – “Shadow” databases or “Supplemental Systems.” This is a whole separate topic, these systems always exist for some reason – but seek them out, determine the reason for existence and work towards cooperative agreements to get them back in house.
All opportunities to grow your database should be evaluated in the context of ROI since many prospects will take mid-to-longer term cultivation before they give.
There are always a number of “hidden” and unquantifiable side benefits such as cause awareness, opportunities for future engagement and greater recognition of your brand as you move it out to a broader audience. However, you need to have a practical and realistic budget perspective on the amount of resources adding data to your system will require. Remember that whatever you assume will increase your future maintenance by X% - an often hidden statistic.
The key to adding information to your system is outreach. Communicate and ask, try and be aware of all the systems and their information potential, participate on organization wide committees and become the number one information guru for your organization.
Acquire soon and often. Don’t be afraid to test any and all of your potential lists and extrapolate the results over a larger population. The non-profit space is continually more competitive – if you’re not doing everything you can to effectively build and grow your lists, someone else will. Everyone is looking.
Brian Dowling
brian.dowling@supportingadvancement.Com