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Let's go to camp

Can we really turn towards people and bring new people into our organizations, the work, and movements? Sure.

Let's go to camp

How was your Giving Tuesday? Did any emails or campaigns surprise you? If you're in an organization did you find anything that went well (or worse) than expected? I'd be curious if you have a clear sense of why things improved (or didn't).

One thing I see is it helps to be in people's inboxes (and socials) with clear messages of impact and need in in the weeks leading up to year end. The inbox is a busy place full of URGENT and 2X and 3X and Midnight Deadline! subject lines. Familiarity, community, and relationships will earn you an open.

Gathering and growing, not just rinsing and repeating

I based The Year-End Fundraising Cookbook around principles of community and gathering. Not just fundraising best practices.

The goal is to bring people into community and show them there how they can create (and fund) change. And, for staff doing the fundraising, a gathering with meaning is more inspiring work than optimizing subject lines for conversion rates.

Most nonprofit fundraising, especially this time of year, exists in closed systems. We email our lists. A lot. We might do some online advertisements in places were supporters or people with shared interests hang out. But we're probably not inviting them into community or conversation so much as making an urgent case for a donation.

This morning I read a critique of progressive conferences, If We Don’t Know Why We’re Gathering, Maybe We Shouldn’t by Haley Bash who also runs Donor Organizer Hub.

Haley is describing nonprofit and progressive conferences as largely closed systems. They're places where the same staff talk to the same presenters every year. What they're not are places for movement building, recruitment, or storytelling that puts new people into the work. This quote speaks volumes:

Until we build intentional on-ramps like travel stipends, first-timer scholarships, co-led sessions, and buddy pairings, we’ll keep holding spaces that feel like reunions instead of recruitment.

Conferences and myriad smaller gatherings are the kindling that fuel long-term relationship building, partnerships, and new projects with new people and new ideas. And we're sorely missing people and ideas in many parts of the progressive and social good community.

I'll also add that nonprofit, even progressive, donors and volunteers are not just a small group but they're an aging group. No shade on age. I'm with you. The fact remains, closed off and professionally staffed organizations and movements aren't interesting places for younger people to invest their limited attention and time.

But it's not all about conferences. It's also how organizations position themselves relative to people, public, and audiences. Start by turning towards people. Here are three ways to start:

  1. Don't just ask people to subscribe or donate. Host a weekly new supporter Q&A and spend 5 or 15 minutes introducing the organization, taking questions, and showing people what they can do.
  2. Send new subscribers/supporters a welcome pack by email (or real mail!) that guides and incentivizes them to share your work with others.
  3. Host a "Insert Org Here" Happy Hour when your ED or other leader is somewhere new on a road trip. Invite some activists or donors. Give them a reason to bring someone brand new to the gathering. Invite a local news creator or two and host a five minute live interview. You can keep this simple and small or not.

Don't overthink it. Just give people reasons to be part of the work.

Bright Ideas

Take the State of Strategic Thinking in Nonprofits Survey put together by strategists/advisors Sam Landenwitsch and Susannah Hook-Rodgers. Sam describers the survey as an attempt to get under the hood of how decisions actually get made by nonprofit leaders, staff, board members, and consultants about their strategic thinking habits.

Speaking of strategy...UK folks might want to check out the Strategy Design Festival being led by Dirk Slater/Fabriders in London. The 20 January full-day session will be: an opportunity to discover how participatory, adaptive approaches can make strategy a living, breathing practice that your organisation returns to often, updates as conditions change, and uses to guide real decisions rather than sitting on a shelf.

For you climate, news, and social media folks... the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication is hosting a useful conversation next Wednesday, December 10. Creators and Climate Campaigns: How to Partner with Trusted Messengers to Build Effective Climate Communication Strategies

Bring the people together...Peak Design makes travel bags and camera gear. And they host an annual staff offsite called Kumbaya (ha!) that's described in the story Why We Go to Camp Every Year. If you're a nonprofit, a company, a loose confederation of friends it can mean the world to gather people up and do something memorable.

Listen to Community: A Conversation between Philanthropy & Nonprofits will be hosted by Feedback Labs and Fund for Shared Insight on Thursday, December 4, from noon to 1:15 pm. Thanks Dave Algoso for mentioning this one.

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