Did you see he 60 Minutes segment on High Net Worth Philanthropy?

If you missed it, here is the link to the Forbes article that was the basis for their reporting. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoppisch/2013/05/29/48-heroes-of-philanthropy-2/

Convince Your Boss to Invest in Philanthropic Research

Preston's research (2010) confirms that the nonprofit sector is now teeming with organizations active in philanthropic activity. This includes public schools and other organizations that traditionally never before entered the private fundraising arena. In an era of reduced state funding, public institutions are joining their private counterparts in the quest to secure private financial support (CASE, 2012). Yet not everyone is convinced. Even with additional investments into fundraising efforts, some people still believe that the philanthropic activity remains happenstance. For example, research at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University points to a direct link between changes in giving and changes in the overall economy. Charitable giving tends to grow in general as the economy rises, even when the economy grows at a moderate or slow rate (Giving USA, 2010). But giving tends to decline during recessions, after adjusting for inflation. The Giving USA 2010 Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy asks high-net-worth households about their charitable giving (2010). The economic recovery was still uncertain in 2009, with a high unemployment rate and a slow increase toward the end of the year in gross domestic product. The National Bureau of Economic Research, which monitors the economic cycle, announced in September 2010 that the recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009 (Pew, 2011). But even in this era of a severely depressed economy donors indicated that the down economic conditions were not a major variable in their decision to support (Giving USA, 2011). No matter what economic conditions exist, and with a very crowded field of nonprofit organizations seeking donations, the successful organizations will no doubt be invested in state-of-the-art donor research focused on improving their fundraising methods. The pressure is growing on all nonprofit and educational fundraising professionals to be effective in their jobs and help sustain the mission of their institutions.

Why Focus Your Research on Major Gifts?

The purpose of this blog and research is to understand the underlying rationale for a high-net-worth individual’s charitable activity. The focus is exploring the exact moment, to the best they can recollect, when they made their final decision to provide a major gift to a nonprofit organization. Information about what strategic vision, meaningful story, key operating metric, or some other specific appeal, which inspired a major gift will prove helpful in assisting other major gift officers. The assistance will arrive in the form of designing effective donor qualitative research techniques when gift officers are preparing to ask a major gift donor for a major gift. By improving such qualitative research, this project will support an important part of the American cultural system: the role of philanthropic backing. This may sound trite or trivial, but private philanthropy has long played an important role in helping society change educational and other societal structures to adapt to changing times. For example, philanthropic support has made it possible for students from all societal backgrounds to attend institutions of higher education (Burlingame, 1992). The power that comes from securing philanthropic support is demonstrated by the recent experience at a private K-12 school in Pennsylvania, the Chatham Hall Academy. In October 2009, Chatham Hall received a gift of $31 million from Elizabeth Beckwith Nilsen. Her gift was the largest a girls’ school had ever received. It has become part of the school’s endowment and will be used for technology in education purposes (www.chathamhall.edu, 2009). The Nilsen gift transformed Chatham and no doubt secured the school’s future over the long term. As stated, almost all nonprofits are conducting fundraising campaigns similar to the one that produced the Chatham Hall gift, but they are experiencing disappointing results (CASE, 2012). Fewer and fewer institutions are having successful experiences in securing major gifts. Without at least one major gift that equals roughly 25 to 40 percent of the campaign total target, it is very likely the capital campaign will fail (Mutz, 2010). What may be missing for major gift professionals working in today’s 21st century marketplace is the insight that can be provided by hearing firsthand from donors who actually provided major gifts (Panus, 2011). By giving voice to their major gift experience, donors can provide a better understanding of what qualitative research techniques motivated them to give.

The 80/20 rule is now 90/10!

There is no doubt that a high correlation between a major lead gift and campaign exists It holds true here, where this decline is directly connected to the major gift activity of the marketplace. In “Upward Bound,” an article in the March 2012 Case Currents magazine, author Harriet Meyers references the CASE Campaign Report 2012, which notes that of the campaigns ongoing or ended in 2010, the top 10 percent of the donors contributed 93 percent of total money raised, up from 84 percent a decade ago (2012). It used to be that 80 percent of the total amount raised came from the top 20 percent of the total number of donors. A decade ago, that increased to 84 percent of the total amount raised from the top 10 percent of donors (Mutz, 2010). This tracked with the U.S. trend of an increasing level of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people (Reich, 2010). So it stands that this trend with major gift activity would have a detrimental effect on overall fundraising results. Eugene Tempel, in his book Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, also supports this finding. Tempel contends that the primary reason organizations are failing to achieve successful capital campaigns is their inability to secure major gifts. Without major gifts as the campaign foundation, there is no campaign (Tempel, 2009). Tempel is yet another voice from those who evaluate and research nonprofit fundraising performance. So, clearly, one could easily conclude that failures in securing major gifts is due, in part, to be attributable to a lack of thorough and complete donor profiling (Rosen, 2010). Rosen proposes that working smart and from a quantitative lens can help institutions identify donors. He also suggests that missing or incomplete qualitative data accounts for the reasons donors are not responding (2010). As a result, major gift officers are searching for new, improved, and rigorous qualitative interview techniques to provide insights into what motivates high-net-worth individuals (2010). Remember the high correlation between a major lead gift and campaign success? It holds true here, where this decline is directly connected to the major gift activity of the marketplace. In “Upward Bound,” an article in the March 2012 Case Currents magazine, author Harriet Meyers references the CASE Campaign Report 2012, which notes that of the campaigns ongoing or ended in 2010, the top 10 percent of the donors contributed 93 percent of total money raised, up from 84 percent a decade ago (2012). It used to be that 80 percent of the total amount raised came from the top 20 percent of the total number of donors. A decade ago, that increased to 84 percent of the total amount raised from the top 10 percent of donors (Mutz, 2010). This tracked with the U.S. trend of an increasing level of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people (Reich, 2010). So it stands that this trend with major gift activity would have a detrimental effect on overall fundraising results. Eugene Tempel, in his book Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, also supports this finding. Tempel contends that the primary reason organizations are failing to achieve successful capital campaigns is their inability to secure major gifts. Without major gifts as the campaign foundation, there is no campaign (Tempel, 2009). Tempel is yet another voice from those who evaluate and research nonprofit fundraising performance. So, clearly, one could easily conclude that failures in securing major gifts is due, in part, to be attributable to a lack of thorough and complete donor profiling (Rosen, 2010). Rosen proposes that working smart and from a quantitative lens can help institutions identify donors. He also suggests that missing or incomplete qualitative data accounts for the reasons donors are not responding (2010). As a result, major gift officers are searching for new, improved, and rigorous qualitative interview techniques to provide insights into what motivates high-net-worth individuals (2010).

Your Personal, Spiritual Research? Read this book!

In a calm, thoughtful way this book allows us to consider the changes that Pope Francis will be making in the upcoming Synod. Highly recommended. http://catholictide.com/the-future-of-catholicism/09/

Donor Interaction: Don't Miss the Market Research Opportunities!

Recent fundraising results suggest that development professionals may be missing important prospecting information as they approach major gift donors. This is due to the fact that most fundraising research and literature have focused primarily on quantitative giving-capacity analysis (Panus, 2011). The quantitative research emphasis accelerated with the growth of the internet era and its plentiful access to hard financial information about potential donors (Hanberg, 2008). What appears missing is philanthropic research into values, insights, viewpoints, and firsthand testimony provided from the viewpoint of actual major gift donors. What would lead to this over-emphasis on quantitative analysis? The answer is easy. In a word, access. The internet makes it remarkably easy to search public courthouse records that were previously cumbersome to locate. Taking this information to a sophisticated level the market place is now full of vendors that have created a number of quantitative forecasting tools. These tools are readily available to the nonprofit industry (Guidestar, 2009). These profiles also provide philanthropic giving-capacity results for individuals, foundations, and companies (Mutz, 2010). All public record databases are scanned for the latest wealth information and then compiled into quantitative giving-capacity forecasts. Online search tools made this information available to almost the entire philanthropic community. Without question this has forever changed the philanthropic industry. One practical example of this quantitative donor research, that just about any nonprofit organization can perform, is the purchase of a prospective donor’s private residence. The value of the real estate and the amount of the mortgage are among the public records available to any interested party (Bray, 2009). Researchers also can access the most current data on valuable assets such as pension holdings and annual income levels, as well as philanthropic and biographical data (Guidestar, 2009). These quantitative capacity sources, while powerful and extremely helpful tools for major gift officers, are, however, limited to the potential financial giving capacity. A purely quantitative analysis does not inform the prospecting organization about the high-net-worth philanthropist’s personal convictions, giving intentions, passions, or pet issues (Schervish, 2009). Research further suggests that these values are constantly changing and the philanthropic industry might not fully understand these changes. Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner (2012) explains that the wealthy class in the United States are different than most ordinary people. And this difference is not always in a good way. Keltner's research suggests that their life experiences make them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish. Keltner states that the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market, and were major themes in the 2012 Presidential election, are partly rooted in an upper class ideology of self-interest (2012). In an academic version of a Depression-era Frank Capra movie, Keltner and the other authors of an article titled Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm, published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, argue that rich people are more likely to think about themselves. They believe that economic success have more to do with individual behavior and a good work ethic (Keltner, 2012). If Kelner is correct, and similar research findings suggest that he is (Vesterlund, 2006), then it is important that you hear directly from your wealthy donors about their views on your organization. This kind of “baked in” research has great potential for helping major gift officers gain insights about the attitudes and beliefs of their major gift prospects.

Professional Fundraisers: Be Wary of Gimmicks

Struggling to attract new donors in what one marketing consultant calls a “world of competing sorrows,” more charities are turning to parody, provocation, and stunts in advertising and awareness campaigns. Charities and creative firms are using various methods to shock audiences to attention, such as disposable-cup dispensers placed next to sources of polluted water in New York to dramatize water crises in developing countries and billboards featuring “WTF,” which normally stands for a vulgar expression but in this case stands for “Where’s the funding.” Experts differ as to whether such efforts help or hinder building connections with consumers. You need to be very careful when considering this type of approach- especially with major givers. http://philanthropy.com/blogs/philanthropytoday/nonprofits-look-to-make-mark-with-provocative-campaigns/77581?cid=pt&utm_source=pt&utm_medium=en