What’s more persuasive: Your track record or your future potential?

Post by: Katya Andresen, Network for Good

A research team profiled at Influence at Work recently set out to answer a fascinating question: When it comes to influencing others, where should you focus most of your attention - describing the realities of your past, or communicating your potential to deliver in the future?

In some studies that are soon to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Stanford University researchers found that potential is generally more compelling than the past.

One study was a mock staffing situation.  Research subjects were asked to evaluate two people (Candidate A and Candidate B) who had applied for a job.  Both candidates were identical except Candidate A had more relevant experience and scored highly on a Leadership Assessment test. Candidate B had less experience yet still scored highly on a Leadership Potential test. According to Influence, “The results of the study showed that those shown information about the Candidate B’s potential rated that applicant as more successful and a better leader than those shown information about what Candidate A had achieved.”

In a separate study in a different setting, Facebook users were shown some quotes about a comedian. Half saw quotes about the comedian’s potential. (“This guy could become the next big thing.”) The rest were shown quotes about track record: “Critics say he has become the next big thing.”  More people clicked through and became a fan of the comedian with potential.

Interesting.  The research suggests that when selling your merits - or the merits of your services or organization - don’t dwell on the past. Spend at least as much time talking about your future potential.  Share test results or testimonials or reviews that bolster your future promise.

People apparently want to know the best is yet to come!

Do you agree or disagree with this study?  Pretty interesting findings!

It's Giving Tuesday!

How are you celebrating?

5 Ways to Say Thank You!

By: Joanne Fritz, About.com Guide

Let's all remember on this Thanksgiving the awesome power of gratitude, saying thanks, and how much our long-time friends mean to us and our organizations.

Here are five ways to remember to say thank you in our nonprofit lives. I'm sure there are many more, but just picking one and following through will do much to honor the season and win friends.

1. Thank a donor. Phone, write, email, text, make a personal call, hold a donor event - just do something and do it often. Yes, maybe long term donors and those who give a lot are thanked more lavishly, but any donor of any means is worth thanking sincerely, promptly, and personally, every time they give. Donors want to be appreciated and to know how their gift is making a difference.

2. Thank a volunteer. How often should you express your gratitude to your volunteers? As many times as you can. Send a small gift, take a volunteer to lunch, write a thank you note, send a birthday card expressing your thanks for their work. Thanking and recognition are not the same thing. Even if you have special events where you publicly thank your volunteers, think of the many ways you can say thanks in between those opportunities. Keep your volunteers motivated with an abundance of thanks.

3. Send a thank you to a foundation for considering your grant proposal. Even if you get turned down for a grant, you should thank the grantor for the opportunity. Relationships are just as important in grant seeking as they are in any other type of fundraising.

4. Say thanks to your social media friends. Social media is a wonderful way to reward and thank people. Do it often and sincerely. When in doubt, thank people for writing, commenting, referring, linking, and for passing on good information. Your social media world will grow to the degree you remember to say thanks.

5. Thank a reporter or a blogger for writing about your organization. As a blogger, I can tell you that it is hard work. Plus, they are all pitched hundreds of times each month. When he or she singles out your pitch for follow up, it deserves a hearty thank you. At the very least, send an email, and when possible mail a thank you note or send a postcard. Even though we're all online, it's surprising how something in the mail can memorialize your cause.

How are you expressing your gratitude this Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season?

How to reduce donor attrition in three minutes

By: Katya Andresen

Here’s the bad news.

As if we needed more bad news about our ability to retain donors…  The Chronicle of Philanthropy shares that donors aren’t just annoyed by our lack of follow-up—they are really, really annoyed. (Read here.)

More than 20 percent of donors say they were never even thanked!

So the obvious remedy is to thank donors, tell them what their gift accomplished and report on your progress in your mission.

What’s the best way to do that?  Here’s the three-minute trick.

Pell & Bales sent me this hot tip - which reinforces what Chuck Longfield told me last week.

Read their step-by-step, three minute solution here, but the headline is:
-Pick up phone
-Call donor
-Talk about donor and what donor did that was amazing for real people:
-Don’t ask them for more money - just say thanks again

Pell & Bales say that three-minute call drastically reduces attrition (see below).  And their findings are in line with those of Chuck, who says taking the time to phone supporters and thank them for their gift lifts their giving by 40 percent.

Want to have amazing results this holiday?  Pick up the phone and say thanks.  Do a couple of calls a day.  It feels good, and it does good.*

*Thanks to Charlie Hulme of Pell & Bales for the tip!

On This Day, The Stroller Runners Ruled

By: Therese Grohman, Event360

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about the upcoming debut of Strollers in the Front 5K Run/Walk. Well, the event took place on Oct. 28 — and we at Event 360 couldn't be happier about the results. (Check out the start-line video.)

Here's the back story: Earlier this year, I ran a race with my girls in a stroller. Afterwards, my husband Jim said to me, "That was great, but it's not really fair that you had to be in the back just because you have a stroller. We should do a race with strollers in the front."

Jim and I took the idea back to the team at Event 360 and decided to "run" with it. We then met with our nonprofit partner,Neighborhood Parents Network (NPN), which helps families navigate the challenges of parenting in the City of Chicago. NPN loved the idea and signed on. We had about three months to prepare.

Putting strollers in the front became the ideal metaphor for NPN. They're all about putting families and kids first, and that's what we were doing, both literally and figuratively with the race. NPN introduced us to amazing partners and sponsors, and extended the brand reach of Strollers to its membership base of over 6,000 families.

Lessons Learned
You learn something every time you work on an event — particularly if it's the first time. Here are two big lessons I learned.

Lesson #1:  Find a nonprofit partner that is really passionate about the event concept and has the reach in your target market. NPN passed this test, which made our brand feel big to the right people. At an NPN parenting event, we heard parents saying, "I've heard about this race everywhere!" Secret: We weren't everywhere — we were just everywhere parents were.

Lesson #2: Ask sponsors what they want and aim to create value. We had 24 sponsors involved in the post-event festival, providing things like a bouncy house, diaper-changing station, music and photography. By customizing inventory and experience based on what people wanted out of their sponsorship, we created value in the form of exposure to new parents and families. In turn, sponsors were great about spreading the word and getting their customers to come out.

It was really gratifying to see how much people enjoyed Strollers. Even though it was 40 degrees out, families stayed to enjoy the festival. I talked to a handful of runners at the finish line, and they were so thrilled to have a race like this — we gave them a race that they didn't even know they wanted. And now that they have it, they love it and I know they'll be back.

One of the best comments of the day came from a child in the parking lot: "Can we do this again tomorrow?" And with that, we'd won the toughest critic — a kid! And happy kids = happy parents.

Thanks to everyone who worked on and contributed to Strollers, including community volunteers and my wonderful colleagues at Event 360.

Lastly, some exciting news: We've added a new city to Strollers in the Front 5K! Join us in Atlanta on December 8, and run with your little ones to benefit the Rally Foundation. See our event page on Facebook. Or, if you’re a parent with a stroller, register to run today!

Therese Grohman is the director of marketing at Event 360, where she focuses on building Event 360's thought leadership platform and developing relationships with organizations through impactful and relevant communications. She has also worked directly with a variety of organizations to create and implement event fundraising strategies, drawing from her experiences working in the nonprofit sector.

Back to Basics

By: Shana Masterson, Event 360

This weekend was the annual “Scouting for Food” drive here in Rhode Island. If you don’t have this program in your hometown, it's a food drive organized by local Boy Scout troops. In my area, it has collected more than 7.8 million pounds of food over the past 25 years.

Essentially, Boy Scouts go through neighborhoods and distribute plastic bags for residents to fill with the requested food items. Once filled, the bags are then left outside to be collected about a week later.

My fiancé, Matt, is an Eagle Scout, so participating in Scouting for Food is a forgone conclusion in our household. We don’t go through the cabinets picking out old, unwanted canned goods to donate. Instead, Matt usually makes a special trip to the market and buys the products the Scouts have specifically requested.

As I pulled out of the driveway that day, I smiled when I saw the overflowing bags he had left by the mailbox. I then looked down the street and noticed that only one of our neighbors had also left out a small bag of food. Driving through the neighborhood, I saw more of the same. 

As a fundraiser, I started to think about how much more could have been collected for our local food bank by applying some fundraising basics.

When the bags were first delivered, they were left on our mailbox. I can only imagine just how many more people on our street would have been moved to donate if a young Boy Scout had knocked on doors to explain the need for food in our area and made a personal request for help.

People would be so much more invested in donating food if they could put a face on the program, especially if they knew that same boy would be back soon! Even if no one was home, a note from the Boy Scout with his phone number and email address is much more personal than just a plastic bag.

After the bags were collected, I found myself wondering – what if someone else came along and stole the food because they were aware that it was Scouting for Food day? I was also somewhat surprised to find that there wasn’t a thank you of some kind in the mailbox. I might be conditioned to expect a thank you, but in this case, not only would I feel appreciated, but I’d also take comfort in knowing that our gift was going to our local food bank.

Now I understand that these efforts would take more time and the Scouts may not be able to cover as much ground. I also realize that public sentiment towards the organization is a bit marred. However, I still have a vision of looking down our street and knowing that only two of us gave to support local food banks and think we can do better.

Next year, we’ll give again, but I hope to see more of our neighbors doing the same!

Shana Masterson has been working in event fundraising for national health nonprofits for the past twelve years. She is currently the National Associate Director for Interactive Fundraising and Engagement with the American Diabetes Association. Find her on Twitter: @npshana.  

Wealthy Donors Give More When They Volunteer

By: Joanne Frtiz, About.com Guide

The Bank of America survey of the wealthiest donors was released recently and painted a post-recession picture of how these sought-after donors handle their charitable donations.

The survey (conducted by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy) covered donors with incomes of more than $200,000 or a net worth of more that $1-million. It revealed that 89% of affluent donors volunteered in 2011, which was an increase of 10 points from 2009. More than half of those donors volunteered for more than 100 hours.

We know that volunteering in general is positively correlated with charitable giving. In this study, people who volunteered for more than 100 hours gave, on average, $78,000 to charity. For those who spent fewer hours volunteering, the average came to less than $39,000. On the other hand, donors in this study who did not volunteer at all gave an average of $49,742 to their charities.

The message for nonprofits? Don't hesitate to involve high net worth donors. Get them moving and donations are likely to be higher. That may be because volunteers gain first hand knowledge of the good that a charity actually does.

There is much more in the Bank of America's survey. Here are some of the high points:

• Ninety-five percent of the wealthiest households gave to charity in 2011, and their donations, as percentage of household income, held steady at about 9%, compared to 2009. However, the average dollar amount donated by this group of donors did decline by 7%, compared to 2009.
• Wealthy donors favor religious institutions for their donations and then education.
• Support for general operations (overhead) is up among the wealthy...60% of these donors said that their largest gifts were unrestricted, up from 55% in 2009. More than 80% said they expect charities to spend an "appropriate" amount of their donations on administration and fundraising.
• Wealthy donors reported being disappointed and giving up on certain charities more often in 2011. Twenty percent said they stopped giving to five or more groups, up from 13% in 2009.
• Wealthy donors reported that they have more faith in individuals to solve social problems than other entities. Nonprofit groups come in second. Only 30% said they were strongly confident that nonprofits could meet domestic and global problems; 75% said they had almost no confidence in Congress to do so.
• Half of the affluent donors surveyed said whether or not they received a federal tax deduction did not matter, that they would give the same amount even if they got no deduction.
• The wealthy donors in this survey expect charities to use sound business practices (75%); 74% expect to receive a thank you; and more than a third said they had stopped giving to at least one charity because of over solicitation. They also want to know how their gifts are being used, and how they promote a charity's mission.

Compare this survey's results to those that Forbes found recently through a similar survey and its summit of billionaires.

Sources:
Average Gift by the Wealthy Has Declined Since 2009, Chronicle of Philanthropy.
2012 Bank of America Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy Finds Donors Firmly Committed to and Highly Engaged With Nonprofits, Bank of America press release.
The 2012 Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy (PDF), The Center on Philanthropy.