Simone Joyaux, Passionate Fundraiser and Energetic Agitator for Good, has Died

There is no easy way to say it. Simone P. Joyaux, ACFRE, Adv Dip, FAFP, CPP died Sunday, May 2, following a devastating stroke on April 29. Simone, 72, had been diagnosed 14 months prior with cerebral amyloid angiopathy. She is survived by Tom Ahern, her life partner (her preferred term for her husband since 1984).

Simone once observed:

Colleagues around the world describe me as one of the nonprofit sector’s most thoughtful, inspirational, and provocative leaders. I’m proud of that description. I see myself as a change agent, an agitator. Whether it’s asking essential cage-rattling questions … or proposing novel approaches … or advocating for change … that’s me.”

Known internationally, Simone was a fundraising and nonprofit management consultant, coach, teacher, and author. She was a volunteer for professional and civic organizations. She was a force for philanthropy, a social justice warrior, and an agitator for the changes she believed would make the world just that much better. She was a philanthropist. Even in death, she continues, quite literally, to give of herself with the donation of her organs.

In her book, Strategic Fund Development, Simone wrote:

Longing to belong. Isn’t that part of human nature? Afraid of being forgotten. Isn’t that part of being human, too? Through relationships with others, we belong. Through commitment to community, we won’t be forgotten.”

No, Simone won’t be forgotten anytime soon. She touched the lives of thousands of people around the world. You can visit Caring Bridge to read how others remember Simone. You can also share your own memories.

Simone P. Joyaux (1949-2021)

I’ve known Simone for decades, though I regret not as well as I would have liked. There always seems to be time, until there is not. I first met her following one of her classic kick-ass presentations. We chatted for a bit. I was particularly struck by how such a provocateur could also be charming, humble, and warm.

Over the years, we found many points on which we agreed. There were also points on which we did not agree. However, our exchanges were always respectful, even friendly. Even when we disagreed, she always made me think and reconsider, though not always change, my position.

Recently, Simone and I had become classmates. We both enrolled in the inaugural class of the Philanthropic Psychology course offered by the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy. During our studies, we had a chance to engage in deep, meaningful conversations. She generously shared her insights and wisdom. All of us who took the course benefitted greatly from her participation.

One of the things that always tickled me about Simone was her passionate, fiery delivery, whether orally or in print. Her constructive rants were always something to behold. I loved when they would end with “and … and … and.” I often wondered what her next thought was following the suspended “and.” Or, maybe she wanted us to fill in what came after that last “and.”

Do You Want to Know the Latest, Greatest Fundraising Idea?

When I’m invited to speak at professional gatherings, I’m asked frequently to talk about the latest, greatest ideas that will help nonprofit organizations raise more money. I’m never surprised. For many years, I’ve talked with fundraising professionals who attend conferences, participate in webinars, and read publications in a grand quest for the new shiny idea that will result in massive fundraising growth.

Recently, I read some tweets from three fundraising experts related to the search for fundraising’s Holy Grail. While these colleagues and I all embrace innovation, we also share a common belief about what will allow fundraising professionals to be more successful immediately. Here it is:

Master the fundraising fundamentals.

Here’s what T. Clay Buck, CFRE; Andrew Olsen, CFRE; and Tom Ahern all tweeted this month:

Let me demonstrate what I mean by “master the fundamentals.” In a planned-gift marketing seminar I presented a few years ago, I shared a variety of ideas for promoting planned giving. I knew I had a diverse audience, so I provided both simple and sophisticated ideas. While my suggestions were certainly not revolutionary, some of them did push the envelope of current practice.

Following my talk, a fellow came up to me and said, “You didn’t say anything I didn’t already know.” Ouch! That’s not the feedback I like, even if it was just one person’s opinion. I always want everyone to come away from my seminars with at least one terrific idea.

After receiving the stinging feedback, I said to the man, “I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t get any fresh ideas. However, I’d love to hear about how you’ve used the phone to market bequests.”

He replied, “I haven’t implemented a phone program.”

“Ok, then tell me how your direct mail campaign has done,” I requested.

“I haven’t done a planned gift mailing,” he responded.

“Ok, then tell me about your website and how it allows you to track and rate visitor interaction,” I requested.

“Our website isn’t that sophisticated,” he said.

The conversation continued in that vein. The point is that this fellow knew what he should or could be doing, but he was not doing it! He had not fully embraced the fundamentals of planned-gift marketing yet he was searching for new ideas, a planned giving Holy Grail. If he would simply implement one of the ideas I had talked about, his planned giving results would have been much stronger.

The fundamentals matter. To be successful, fundraising professionals need to learn the basics and embrace them. Doing so could add up to billions of dollars for the nonprofit sector.

Do you want more money for the annual fund? Then tell me, do you have a monthly donor program? Do you do second-gift appeals? Do you do targeted upgrade appeals? Do you effectively steward gifts to ensure a high donor-retention rate? Do you use database analytics to help you better target asks, even in your direct mail appeals?

Do you want more planned gifts? Then tell me, do you have a sophisticated website that allows you to track individual engagement and then rate prospects based on that? Do you use direct mail to generate bequest commitments and leads? Do you use the telephone to generate planned gifts and leads? Do you use surveys to learn more about prospects while engaging them?

Do you want more corporate support? Then tell me, do you offer something of value to your corporate donors or do you simply expect them to “give back”? Do you only go after the usual suspects or do you also approach the profitable, rapidly growing small and mid-size businesses in your community? Do you just ask or do you cultivate and engage as well?

Don’t get me wrong. Once again, I’m a big fan of fresh ideas and cutting-edge research. Again, so are Buck, Olsen, and Ahern. However, learning without doing accomplishes nothing.

Everyone seeking to work as a fundraising professional should learn the fundamentals so they can effectively identify prospects, educate and cultivate them, ask for gifts, and properly steward supporters.

Implementing relatively simple, small changes can yield big results for your nonprofit organization. Virtually every charity has low-hanging fruit. But, you actually have to go and grab it!

Here are five simple steps, that I outlined several years ago, that you can take now:

How Can Nana Murphy Make You a Better #Fundraising Professional?

[Publisher’s Note: This post is part of a series kindly contributed by guest authors who attended the 2016 Association of Fundraising Professionals International Fundraising Conference. These posts share valuable insights from the Conference. This week, I thank Erica Waasdorp, President of A Direct Solution, for highlighting the seminar “From Ireland with Love: A Five-Year Case Study on Donor-Centric Fundraising for Retention, Revenue, and Results.”]

 

What does Nana Murphy have to do with great fundraising results?

The answer: ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!

Who is Nana Murphy?

So, who is Nana Murphy? Is she a successful fundraising professional? Is she a leading fundraising consultant? Is she a donor advisor? Is she a fundraising or nonprofit management professor? Is she a philanthropy researcher? Do you give up?

Nana Murphy is your typical donor.

You need to get to know your organization’s Nana Murphys. You need to understand why she supports your organization. You need to give her what she needs from your organization. In short, you need to be donor centered. But how?

The AFP International Fundraising Conference session “From Ireland with Love” not only stressed the need to be donor centric, the presenters shared dozens of practical tips to show you exactly how you can be more donor centered and, therefore, more successful.

The speakers know what they’re talking about; together, they increased the amount of money that one prominent Irish charity raised by 1100 percent in just five years!

Erica Waasdorp, President of A Direct Solution and author of Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant, attended the session and shares some of the tips she thinks you’ll find particularly valuable. At the end of the post, I provide links for you to download two free handouts from the session that are full of dozens of additional tips and real-world examples that you must checkout.

Here are the highlights Erica wants to share with you:

 

I attended “From Ireland with Love,” presented by Denisa Casement, CFRE, Head of Fundraising, Merchants Quay Ireland, Dublin;  Lisa Sargent, Lisa Sargent Communications, Safford Spring, CT; and Sandra Collette, S. Collette Design, Stafford Spring, CT.

Denisa is American, originally from Arizona, and she moved to Ireland in 2008. Boy, did she make an impact on this Irish homeless charity since then, taking the revenue from 250,000 Euros to 3 Million Euros just five years later.

For me, as a traditional “old school” direct-marketing fundraiser, this was a fabulous session!

It really honed in on those fundamentals we should all know and use in our fundraising every day. Especially now, where we all get so distracted by the next new electronic approach — the next new shiny thing as Tom Ahern calls it — let’s not forget that it’s not about us, it’s all about the donors.

So, the speakers presented a life size Nana Murphy, the typical average donor in your donor base. She still reads direct mail and writes checks. She needs reading glasses and she loves honesty, emotion and authenticity. So, the first thing you need to do when you think of how best to approach donors like her, is forgot about what you think and feel. Instead, consider Nana in everything you do, and you’ll be successful. I promise!

I don’t have space here to provide you with all of the tremendous practical tips and guidelines from the session (see the handout links at the end of this post), but here are 11 that stand out. If you follow these rules, you’ll absolutely be able to raise more money!

Know your metrics. So many fundraisers don’t know their own numbers: response rate, average gift, cost to raise a dollar, lifetime value, and retention rate, to name a few. Managing your fundraising program is considerably more difficult if you don’t know the key metrics.

Use the Casement Quotient^tm. I love this. Denisa introduced the Quotient: Annual fundraising income divided by 52 weeks in a year divided by the number of hours in your work week. For example, in 2015, her fundraising team raised $1,627 per hour. So, if someone comes to you to ask you to do something, that’s not going to at least raise that amount of money, you probably shouldn’t be doing it! What a clever way to say no to the next “sit in a booth at a fair for a two day event and you’ll reach 100 people.” Consider finding some volunteers instead and divvy up the time. The Casement Quotient^tm is a helpful tool when it comes to setting priorities.

Get rid of silos, both in how you organize your departments and your donors. It all works better if you and your colleagues know what’s going on. There’s no need to “hide” results or think that someone does not need to know about how your fundraising is doing. Remember, the objective is not for one person to do well; instead, the objective is for the organization to do well.

Mail enough! I still see so many organizations leave lots of money on the table. They simply do not ask for gifts often enough. As long as your next mailing generates more money than it costs, you can mail more. MQI mails four appeals a year and four newsletters. Absence does not make donors’ hearts grow fonder!

Perfect is the Enemy of Good

The 18th century French writer and philosopher Voltaire wrote, “Perfect is the enemy of good.” Whether he originated the sentiment or was referencing an earlier Italian proverb, Voltaire’s powerful observation is one that remains relevant for today’s fundraising professionals.

While it’s certainly understandable that fundraisers strive for perfection in cultivation, solicitation, and acknowledgement, the reality is that that quest is problematic for several reasons, including:

1.  Perfection is unattainable. There is good. There is excellent. However, perfect does not exist. W. Edwards Deming, the father of Total Quality Management, believed in a process of never-ending improvement. Seeking improvement is very different from seeking unattainable perfection.

2.  If you wait until you have developed the mythical perfect cultivation piece, appeal, or acknowledgement, the reality is you will never deploy your message. Sir Robert Watson-Watt, who developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the rapid growth of the German Luftwaffe during World War II, stated, “Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late; the best never comes.” Releasing a good or excellent message is far better than never releasing a near-perfect communication.

3.  Seemingly near-perfect communications do not necessarily work any more effectively than less ideal messaging. Let me explain.

The way to cut grass perfectly is not exactly the best way to a nice lawn.

I have a client, an international social service agency. A few months ago, one of the organization’s fundraisers traveled to Central America to meet with an affiliate agency and see, first-hand, how services were being delivered. Immediately upon returning to headquarters, the fundraiser sent emails to her key major and planned gift donors and prospects. Attached to the emails were a few snapshots she took during her trip.

In response to the cultivation emails, the fundraiser received a number of thank-you messages from recipients. How often do your donors and prospects thank you for cultivating them?

I believe that the emails and snapshots were effective for a number reasons including:

Tom Ahern: 3 Questions Your Case for Support Must Answer

Nonprofit organizations spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to produce their Case for Support, the document that outlines the organization’s activities and explains the need for philanthropic support.

But, are those hours and dollars well spent? If your organization is typical, the answer is: probably not.

That’s why communications expert and author Tom Ahern, of Ahern Communications, will be sharing his wisdom at the upcoming Association of Fundraising Professionals International Fundraising Conference (Baltimore, March 29-31, 2015). His session, “Fabulous Case! Building One,” will reveal the secrets for creating a powerful document that can actually help you raise more money.

Ahern recently shared with me some of the tips he’ll be presenting in greater detail at the Conference.

Did you know that every Case for Support should answer three fundamental questions? Ahern identifies those questions:

1. Why us? You need to answer this question by explaining what your organization does that is so uniquely wonderful that the world should want more of it and support its new plans.

If you need help answering the question, just imagine that your organization, project, program, idea, mission or vision has gone away. What difference would that make?

2. Why now? You need to explain why your campaign needs to happen immediately, perhaps showing people what has changed or the reason for sudden urgency.

In other words, your answer to this question must demonstrate why your project(s) is relevant to the person whose support you seek.

3. Why should the prospective donor care? Donors have many options for directing their philanthropic support. Often, there are even many organizations focused on similar missions. You need to help prospective donors understand why they should care about your organization and your project(s).

The key to answering this question is thinking about the impact your organization will have once it’s project(s) is fully funded. Remember, your campaign is not just about funding your organization; it’s about what your organization will accomplish.

When working to develop a fabulous Case for Support, Ahern says we must remember:

Building Donor Loyalty: What’s New?

Among first-time donors to nonprofit organizations, the median rate of attrition is 77 percent! In other words, more than three-quarters of all new donors to a charity walk in the front door and promptly exit out the back door. That’s the appalling finding of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Fundraising Effectiveness Project.

Over the past few months, the issue of high nonprofit Donor Attrition rates has received increasing attention. I’ve even put a spotlight on the issue with the following posts:

• The Greatest Idea for Retaining and Upgrading Donors
• Donor Retention: Time for a Change

As I worked on those articles, I couldn’t help but wonder: What’s new and effective that can help us build donor loyalty? Well, we’ll soon find out.

Adrian Sargeant, PhD, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy at Plymouth University, will be presenting “Building Donor Loyalty: What’s New?” at the AFP International Fundraising Conference (Baltimore, March 29-31, 2015).

Sargeant has been passionately conducting donor loyalty research for two decades. Sargeant and his colleague Elaine Jay wrote Building Donor Loyalty: The Fundraiser’s Guide to Increasing Lifetime Value.  Tom Ahern, the internationally recognized communications expert at the helm of Ahern Donor Communications, has described the text as: “Transformational.” I cited this informative book in my post: “Avoid Making Faulty Assumptions about Donor Loyalty.”

In his upcoming session at the AFP International Conference, Sargeant will demonstrate how even small improvements in loyalty, in the here and now, translate to whopping improvements in the lifetime value of a fundraising database.

For example, he has found that a 10-percentage point improvement in retention can lead to a 200 percent improvement in the lifetime value of the fundraising database!

Sargeant will also look at what drives loyalty, drawing on lessons from both the commercial and the voluntary sectors, including work on the big three drivers of loyalty: satisfaction, commitment and trust. He will also explore new work on loyalty that looks at the role of donor identity and the extent to which donors identify themselves in part through their support of a nonprofit.

Sargeant will show how the concept of identity interacts with the other three big drivers of loyalty and which of all these factors offers the greatest potential to the sector to bolster giving and grow long-term support.

Sargeant told me recently:

Special Report: How Will the Fiscal Cliff Affect Nonprofits?

In recent weeks, there has been an increase in the amount of media coverage of the “Fiscal Cliff” negotiations in Washington, DC. I’ve even written a number of posts on the issue including: “Obama Plan Could Cost Nonprofit Sector $5.6 Billion a Year.”

Now, the blog site Nonprofit Community, hosted by publishers John Wiley & Sons and Jossey-Bass, has asked the question:

How Will the Fiscal Cliff Affect Nonprofits?

I, along with nine other Wiley and Jossey-Bass authors from different perspectives, respond. We offer insights and great advice for every nonprofit organization. By visiting Nonprofit Community, you’ll have a chance to hear from:

Avoid These Mistakes in Your Next Fundraising Ad

I recently heard from my friend Ligia Peña, CFRE, Senior Development Advisor at Canada World Youth in Montreal, Canada and Fundraising Coach at Diversa Consultants. She Tweeted me a snapshot of a fundraising advertisement that appeared in her alumni magazine. Her message read:

#PlannedGiving marketing #fail from my alma mater @concordia Leaves me cold & I know what PG is!! cc: @MLInnovations”

Before I even peeked at the photo, I knew I was in for a treat. First, Ligia used not one, but two, exclamation marks. Second, she made a point of copying me so that I’d be sure to see the message. She wouldn’t do that without a good reason. Third, she struck an unusual, harsh tone in her Tweet. Fourth, I know she’s a sharp development professional with interesting insights.

When I opened the photo (presented at the right), I immediately understood Ligia’s reaction to the ad. It is a wonderful example of how not to write and design an ad.

For starters, the headline shouts “planned giving” with the word “giving” in boldface. There’s a good chance that readers won’t know what the term means. As I reference in my book, Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing, The Stelter Company commissioned a survey that found that only 37 percent of Americans over the age of 30 are familiar with the term; I doubt that the stat is much different in Canada. Even if readers don’t know what “planned giving” means, they certainly know about “giving.” Why would anyone read an ad that they know is going to ask them to give? Rather than drawing in the reader, the headline rebuffs them.

I was going to write a critique myself until I learned that Ligia intended to so. I couldn’t wait to read her analysis. So, I pestered her for it. While she plans to post her critique to her own blog site, she’s kindly given me permission to share it with you now:

 

Last week, I received my alma mater’s summer magazine filled with interesting articles on recent studies conducted by students and professors, news from other alumni and what the university is planning for Homecoming. Ah, happy memories of Homecoming!

Until I get to page 17, and what do I see? A full page advertisement on planned giving. That’s expected. After all, this is the alumni magazine, and the advancement department should raise awareness among alumni on ways we can contribute to the future of the university.

However, if you’re a fundraising professional, you can see how this advertisement falls short on many fronts. 

According to Frank Minton and Lorna Somers, Canada’s foremost experts on the matter and authors of Planned Giving for Canadians, using a current publication is an ideal way to promote planned giving. To be successful they recommend using a “donor testimonial that includes interesting details about the donor’s background, relationship to the institution and reasons for making the gift, describe the gift vehicle and the benefits to both the donor and the charity” (p. 380).

While this advertisement uses a donor testimonial, it has left me cold for various reasons: