You Don’t Want to Miss These Worthwhile Items from 2016

As the frenzied year-end fundraising and holiday season draws to a close, we have an opportunity to catch our breath this week. Like me, you’ve probably found that, between work and family, a 24-hour day just isn’t long enough to accomplish everything we want to do. We need a break every so often.

When trying to stay on top of the latest fundraising and nonprofit marketing news and ideas, I know it’s time consuming just to sift through the wealth of articles, blog posts, and books that are published each year. It’s easy to drown in all the information. That means it’s also easy to overlook useful information.

With this blog post, I aim to save you some time and link you to some valuable material by listing some of my most popular posts of 2016, showing you where you can find other excellent bloggers, and by telling you where you can find books recommended by readers who are fundraising professionals and nonprofit managers.

Here is a list of my top ten most read posts published in 2016:

1. Stop Showering All of Your Donors with Love!
2. Stop Making Stupid Email and Direct Mail Mistakes
3. Do You Know that “Planned Giving” is Bad for #Fundraising?
4. Avoid a Big Mistake: Stop Asking for Bequest Gifts!
5. Donors Say: Enough about You. Let’s Talk about Me!
6. How Can Nana Murphy Make You a Better #Fundraising Professional?
7. How to Avoid a Disastrous Political Debate with Donors
8. 6 Great #Fundraising Tips from a 6-Year-Old Boy
9. Do You Know How to Take Criticism?
10. Stop Pretending that You Work for Stanford!

Here’s a list of five of my older posts that remained popular this year:

• Can You Spot a Child Molester? Discover the Warning Signs
• Can a Nonprofit Return a Donor’s Gift?
• Special Report: Top 40 Most Effective Fundraising Consultants Identified
• 5 Things Never to Do in Your Phone Fundraising Calls
• 10 Essential Tips to Protect Children from Real Monsters

I invite you to read any posts that might interest you by clicking on the title above. If you’ve read them all, thank you for being a committed reader.

You might also be interested in reading about my guest blog posts on the Bloomerang site:

• Don’t Miss Out on the 8 Benefits of Engaging Donors
• What You Don’t Know about Donor Retention will Hurt You

Recently, I was interviewed twice for the MarketWatch site. You can find links to the articles as well as my elaboration on my comments here:

Was 2016 a Good Year for #CharitableGiving? Will 2017 be Better?

We’re rapidly approaching the close of what has been a tumultuous year. In 2016, the USA experienced an unusually bitter presidential campaign culminating in the unexpected election of Donald Trump. In the UK, voters chose to exit the European Union; the surprise Brexit vote sent shockwaves around the globe. The civil war in Syria continued to spin out of control resulting in a massive wave of refugees. Terrorism continued to be an international problem.

Uncertainty, fear, and stress are all words that one might use to describe the atmosphere in 2016 given much of the news. However, at least for fundraising professionals, there has also been much good news:

• The third-quarter 2016 annualized Gross Domestic Product growth rate is 3.5 percent, according to the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is important because philanthropy closely correlates to GDP with overall giving being approximately two percent of GDP.

• Personal income has modestly increased in 2016, according to the BEA. Individual giving correlates to personal income at the rate of about two percent.

• The stock market has been achieving new record highs since the election with the Dow approaching 20,000. Increased stock values mean foundations will have more money to grant and individuals will have more appreciated securities they can donate.

• The price of crude oil is the lowest it’s been in more than a decade, according to Macrotrends. This means lower gasoline and heating oil prices for consumers thereby providing them with more disposable income.

• Third-quarter 2016 corporate profits were up, rising to the highest level since the first-quarter of 2015, according to Trading Economics and the US Bureau of Economics Analysis.

• The nonprofit sector saw #GivingTuesday philanthropic support worldwide grow at the rate of 44 percent, reports NonProfitPRO. While this might not reflect an increase in philanthropy, it does reveal the public’s philanthropic spirit at a time of year historically defined by commercialism.

• Blackbaud, which analyzes more than $18 billion in charitable giving, sees a 3.5 percent increase in donations in 2016 compared with 2015, reports MarketWatch. You can read my comments in the article as well as additional information from Blackbaud.

• Some progressive charities have seen dramatic increases in philanthropic support since the election, reports MarketWatch. It remains to be seen whether this represents an increase in philanthropy or merely a shift in giving priorities. In any case, it reveals that contributions are often driven by philanthropic passions.

• In a Harris Poll survey for CARE USA, 15 percent of respondents say they have or will increase their charitable giving in 2016. While I have a number of problems with the survey methodology, the results are nevertheless somewhat hopeful.

Taking all of the positive news together, we can expect to see that philanthropic giving has increased in 2016. To learn how much growth we have experienced, we’ll need to wait until all of the data has been compiled and analyzed. While I don’t expect a massive growth rate, I do expect good growth. Furthermore, I expect the good news to continue into 2017:

Make Better Presentations with 10 Powerful Tips

Imagine if you could make great presentations. I’m not talking about merely good speeches. Instead, I’m speaking of truly memorable, meaningful, influential presentations at staff meetings, board meetings, professional conferences, and gatherings of prospects and donors.

Would taking your presentations to the next level help you more effectively guide your staff, inform your board, teach your colleagues, and inspire your prospects and donors? You bet it would. It might even earn you a promotion or better job.

Decades ago when I first began teaching at fundraising conferences, I asked Ted Hart, ACFRE, now the CEO of the Charities Aid Foundation of America, for some helpful tips. He told me, “If you want above average evaluation scores, start on time, end on time, and speak to the topic that the program book says you’ll be addressing.”

At first, I thought Ted was setting the bar a bit low. However, in practice, I discovered he had shared some essential, fundamental advice that I’ve always appreciated. Over the years, my evaluation scores improved as my speaking skills developed. As I became a more proficient presenter, the scores and comments I received from my audiences were usually quite good.

However, I still was not satisfied.

I do not want my audiences to simply enjoy my seminars in the moment. I want them to also remember and use the information I share when they get back to their offices.

Michael Rosen at PPGGNY Conference, starting at the podium before speaking from the audience during his keynote address.

Then, in 2006, I heard about a special educational program from the Association of Fundraising Professionals: The Faculty Training Academy. AFP offers the program to teach good speakers advanced presentation skills. In short, the program was the most transformational workshop I’ve ever attended.

You now have an opportunity to have a similarly meaningful experience by being one of just 35 participants in the next Faculty Training Academy. The program will be held at AFP International Headquarters in Arlington, VA on March 30-31, 2017. The two-day, intensive workshop will teach attendees about adult education principles, learning styles, classroom management, assessment, and other related topics. AFP encourages fundraising professionals, with extensive experience who are also members of AFP, to learn more about the program by clicking here.

It’s a chance for you to learn how to be a more effective, inspirational public speaker.

Dr. B.J. Bischoff, of Bischoff Performance Improvement Consulting, will again facilitate the program she created for AFP over 15 years ago. Bischoff has also presented at the AFP International Fundraising Conference and Leadership Academies. She has also designed and presented train-the-trainers programs for the Fund Raising School at Indiana University, the US Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Agency for International Development, the Government of Romania, the World Bank, and many other nonprofit and government funded organizations.

Recognizing that not all of my readers will be able to attend the Faculty Training Academy, Bischoff has kindly provided a list of 10 powerful tips that will make you a far better presenter, no matter how good you already are:

#GivingTuesday Hits and Misses

I’m not a fan of #GivingTuesday. Don’t get me wrong, though. I do like the idea of it. Promoting philanthropy at a time of year that has become associated with extreme consumerism is a nice concept.

While I have no quarrel with the idea of #GivingTuesday, I do have several problems with the reality of it, including:

It does not inspire much philanthropy. During #GivingTuesday 2016, early reports show that charities raised $168 million … WORLDWIDE. Last year, nonprofit organizations raised $117 million. Assuming all of that money was given in the USA, which was not the case, it would have accounted for just 0.03 percent of overall philanthropy!

We do not know whether #GivingTuesday inspires new and increased giving. While people contributed on #GivingTuesday, we simply do not know whether they would have given those gifts anyway. We also do not know if #GivingTuesday simply shifts when people give.

Well-resourced charities may be siphoning support away from smaller nonprofits. With larger marketing budgets, staff sizes, and brand awareness, it’s entirely possible that big organizations benefit from #GivingTuesday at the expense of smaller ones.

#GivingTuesday growth appears to be slowing. NonprofitPro reports that this year’s growth rate is the lowest in the five-year history of the campaign.

While I recognize that some charities have benefitted from their #GivingTuesday campaigns, I still fail to see how it is a benefit to the nonprofit sector as a whole. (You can read my more detailed critiques of #GivingTuesday by entering that term in my blog’s search box to the right.)

Furthermore, I find that many individual charities do themselves more harm than good by rushing to embrace #GivingTuesday while failing to invest time and money to enhance the fundamental fundraising skills of staff.

Consider the #GivingTuesday appeal initiated by Inis Nua Theatre Company. This small theatre company in Philadelphia produces excellent contemporary, provocative plays from Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales.

Jessica Simkins, General Manager of Inis Nua, told me that the company normally does a year-end fundraising campaign. This year, staff chose to use #GivingTuesday to frame this year’s appeal. Rather than implementing an entirely new appeal for #GivingTuesday as many nonprofits have done, Inis Nua chose to leverage the hype around #GivingTuesday, such as it is, to see if it could boost its year-end fundraising campaign.

Despite my general feelings about #GivingTuesday, I actually like this application of the concept. I consider it a Hit. I also like that they included a challenge grant.

Unfortunately, the appeal letter itself is a big Miss. Here’s the direct mail appeal my wife received:

The major issue I have with the mailing is that it is very organizational-focused. The author uses the words I, my, our, ourselves, us, we a total of 30 times in a one-page letter. On the other hand, the writer uses the words audiences, donors, patrons, supporters, you and your only eight times.

The letter is a self-congratulatory missive from the Founder and Artistic Director. Donors are never given any credit for helping to make possible Inis Nua’s impressive accomplishments. There are other problems with the appeal, but the organization-centric approach is a giant problem. Piggy-backing on #GivingTuesday won’t offset Inis Nua’s neglect of fundraising fundamentals.

By contrast, my wife received a donor-centered email from Lantern Theater Company that also referenced #GivingTuesday. Lantern Theater is also a small nonprofit in Philadelphia that produces classic and modern plays. Unlike Inis Nua, Lantern’s mission statement actually mentions audiences, audience members, and community. You’ll see the audience/community focus represented in Lantern’s email appeal: