Development Committee? Or Donor Development Committee?

08 Apr Development Committee? Or Donor Development Committee?

8 April 2024

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

I’ve been thinking about Board Development Committees a lot lately. The word “development” in the fundraising context is short for “donor development,” meaning building relationships with organizational donors. It’s one of the core functions of non-profit governance work (along with finance, strategy, and self-replication). For all Board directors to be involved, donor development work needs to be organized by a committee dedicated to the task – the Development Committee.

But I don’t find many development committees engaged in donor development at all. They’re involved in appeals, outreach, event planning, communications, and so on, but not in actively building relationships. I believe two things get in the way: the urgency embedded in other tasks and an intimidation factor related to getting started. In short, Board directors don’t know what to do, and everything else has a deadline.

This post describes a simple exercise that will help the Development Committee get started. I wrote most of the content back in 2022, but it’s worth revisiting.

Two core fundraising ideas come together here. The first is that we raise money from people who already give us money. Marketing efforts to bring in new people frequently cost more money than they raise.

The second is that people (donors) have their own reasons for giving money. Our job is not about selling them our reasons. Our job is to get to know them well enough that we know what their reasons are. And one of the largest handicaps we have in fundraising is that we don’t know them.

Instead we assume that the reasons they might want to give are the same as the ones we have.

How do we go about getting to know them?

Here’s one way to start. Assemble a list of relatively current donors going back about 5 years. Choose them using any methodology you wish up to a practical maximum of about 500. (There is NO minimum.) Many organizations may wish to screen their entire membership list.

MY priorities would look something like this:

• ANYONE who has made a gift of $1,000 or more for any purpose in the past 60 months (5 years)
• ANYONE who has notified the organization that they have left it in their estate plans
• ANYONE who gave $250 or more last year
• ANYONE who has been identified through research as a major gift prospect
• ANY current donor brought forward by a Board member, staff, or volunteer as a major gift prospect

Keep in mind that these are all people who have previously given money. We can include prospects who have never given, but the first job for them is to ask them to give something – anything – as a first gift, and that’s a different exercise.

Also, we probably need to quantify “major gift prospect.” I use a threshold capacity of $5,000. This is NOT related to what they may have given. It’s what they might give if they were appropriately motivated. You should feel welcomed to use any alternative threshold that works for you.

Got a list? Now alphabetize it by last name on a spreadsheet and include checkbox columns for:

• I know them well
• I know them
• I know OF them

I know them well means that we are related, that our families get together frequently, that they live next door, that we respect and like each other, and/or that we are close in some other way. These are people you can count on to pick up the phone when you call or return email and voicemail messages fairly quickly.

I know them means that when I call or email or write, they will at least recognize who is calling, emailing, or writing and that they are somewhat likely to respond. It means that I have “access” to them.

I know OF them means that I know who they are, but that they might not remember who I am.

Now print the list using a point size that is easily read by most people and ask your Board members to scan it, checking off the column cells as appropriate. You could also engage former Board members, staff, and/or other volunteers in the same exercise.

I suggest giving each person a printed list. It’s a waste of paper for sure, but it allows everyone to work independently even when the exercise is presented to the entire group at the same time. And it makes it less likely that one person’s answers will influence someone else’s.

Also, as a general rule, I am reluctant to present these exercises electronically. These are your most important donors, and you won’t be able to completely control how many electronic copies are floating around out there.

You will want to aggregate, analyze, and record the results. You will have a list of organizational donors that the organization knows or knows well, knows OF, or doesn’t know at all.

Think about that:

• The people we know and/or know well: How much did they give collectively last year? How much did they give individually? Why did they give? Could we ask them to give more? To help support a specific activity or project? To join or start a giving circle? Why would they say yes? The Development Committee can help by making assignments – connecting Board directors to short lists of donors they know well.

• The people we know OF: What do they have in common, if anything? Age? Geography? Affinity for a specific activity (birding, eg)? What could Board directors do to help the organization get to know them better? How much did they give collectively last year? Could we ask them to give more? Why would they say yes? The Development Committee can help by creating opportunities for like-minded people to come together – to meet each other and to meet Board directors.

• The people we don’t know at all: Look at the percentage here. What percent of our current donor base is completely unknown to anyone in the organization? What can we do to reduce that percentage? What can Board members do to help? The Development Committee can help by creating opportunities for Board directors to introduce themselves to donors.

• Donors known to just one Board member or staff: These are people likely to leave the organization when the person they know does. We need to prioritize introducing them to other Board members, and this should be job #1 for the person who knows them now. The important long-term relationship is between the donor and the organization. It can’t be carried by just one person. The Development Committee can help by encouraging these directors to introduce the donors they know well to other directors and staff.

• Board members who know donors: First of all, would they be willing to help – to use their relationship at all? If so, under what circumstances? Would they be willing to introduce their friends to other people? Other Board members or staff? Would be willing to sign a letter asking for renewal? Prepare and support invitations to organizational events? Or possibly just help by providing background information? The Development Committee can help by making assignments – connecting Board directors to short lists of donors they know well.

• Board members who don’t know any donors at all: We need to systematically put them in positions to meet people – at events, on field trips, making thank you calls, as part of a welcome team for new members, and so on. The Development Committee can help by making these assignments.

The point is that the aggregated information you collect from the exercise will tell you what to do next. Consider that this is an exercise you may wish to make into an annual event. Hopefully the percentage of donors you know and/or know well goes up, and the percentage you don’t know at all goes down.

The other point is that this work is a primary and critical responsibility of the Development Committee. Conducting the exercise every year in the first place. Aggregating and analyzing the results. Making donor/director connection assignments. Creating opportunities for donors to meet directors and each other. And imposing the discipline of capturing the information in the donor database.

Development Committees need to be talking about specific donors and they need to be talking about what other Board members are doing. This work could easily take up all of their meeting time.

There will obviously still be a need for work on appeals, outreach, event planning, communications, and so on, but perhaps this work could be better delegated to staff, or to other volunteer groups.

Love to hear of your experience. Are you doing something like this now? Anything I can share?

Cheers and Have a Good Week!

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by Jennys77 courtesy of Pixabay