Church Capital Campaign

Isn’t Church Fundraising Easy?

That’s what I used to think too. People are at church every Sunday; they give regularly, the pastor talks about tithing, bad things might happen to you if you don’t give (or good things if you do). Capital campaigns should be a breeze.

It sounded simple . . . until I did a few church campaigns.

Of course, many of the above factors are indeed true. A church has a definite membership and community of members. You know the constituency and they know each other well.

I also had a theory 15 years ago that most church capital campaign fundraising was done too quickly. The six-month-and-out capital campaigns were leaving money on the table. If true top-down, major-gifts campaigning could be brought to church campaigns, more money can be raised.

It turned out my theory was absolutely correct.

Why do so many church campaigns think they can do the work so quickly? Because nobody wants to ask for the gift. Good capital campaigning takes face-to-face calls with financial peers to challenge people to make stretch gifts. But in churches, everybody is supposed to be equal. Everyone may have a sense of others’ financial net worth, nobody really wants to know. In fact, in many churches only the business manager knows what each parishioner contributes each year. The minister doesn’t want to know and the stewardship committee members don’t want to know.

For high-end campaigns for churches you need to do traditional prospecting and qualifying work to determine who has the money to give. This is where an outside person can be helpful. As a consultant, they let me review the financial records. We started to find out who the top 5% of donors were each year. We looked at patterns of who was giving stock once a year to pay off their entire pledge for the year rather than giving weekly out of income.

You know what pattern we found? The best donors were a mixture of three types:

• The “ES”es — Every Sunday attenders
• The “C & E”s or “HH”ers — Christmas & Easters or High Holidays
• The “M & B”s — married & buried

With a significant portion of the best prospects not as active as we had assumed, reaching out to them for the campaign was far more complicated than we thought.

In interviewing some of the C&E/HH and M&B folks we found great “ownership” in the church or synagogue. Of course, this was their place of worship. They may only attend once or two a year or every year or two but, that’s where their religious affiliation was.

In addition, they were willing to provide operating support even if they didn’t use the programs regularly. Many times their kids and grandkids were highly active and the programs they used needed financial support so the parents and grandparents were glad to give every year.

So for church capital campaigns, take more time — a year or two — to meet with the top donors face to face. Look for people who can make significant gifts out of their capital resources. Then, you can run the “every family” campaign to get gifts out of income that are over-and-above normal weekly giving for operations.

TomWilsonMajorGiftsGuru@gmail.com

Permanent Link: Church Capital Campaign

http://majorgiftsguru.com/2008/10/church-capital-campaign.html

Help Donors Choose Get $1.5 Million

Quick Action Needed

Several posts ago I mentioned DonorsChoose.org as a fascinating example of online fundraising. Here is an email I received this morning from them. If you like helping teachers, students, and schools, help them by voting for them.

Charles Best, head of DonorsChoose.org noted they just made the finals of the American Express Members Project. "I hope so much that you will vote to help 100,000 children thrive in the classroom. Without spending a dime, you could help us win $1.5 million from American Express. All the funds will go to classroom requests on our site, delivering books, technology, art supplies, and other learning materials to 100,000 students in need."

Simply log-in:

• At AmEx Members Project website
• Vote. You should then see a gold star on the project, "Help 100,000 Children Thrive in the Classroom"
• Finally, please remember to forward this email to all your friends who care about our public schools

Could one of your major gift donors set up a challenge for your organization to help fund a project on your campus? Can you reach out to all of your donors to find out their interests through such a competition? Can they help you reach their friends? Very interesting possibilities.

Please note that the competition for DonorsChoose.org is for American Express members only. If you do not have an AMEX card, you can't vote.

TomWilsonMajorGiftsGuru@gmail.com

Permanent Link: Help Donors Choose Get $1.5 Million

http://majorgiftsguru.com/2008/10/help-donors-choose-get-15-million.html

Women in Philanthropy

Are Giving Patterns Changing?

Tracey Biles in the AHP Journal notes differences of giving by women of different generations. Ms. Biles referenced data from The Trendset Group — by 2010 women will control 60% of the wealth in the United States. The Council on Foundations finds that women make up 52% of foundation CEOs, 72% of program officers, and 31% of board members.


Lynne C. Lancaster’s and David Stillman’s book When Generations Collide define 3 generations and their characteristics:

• Traditionalists (1901-1945) — women of this era donate “out of loyalty but often give in their husband’s name or anonymously”
• Baby Boomers (1946-64) — these women “tend to be community oriented and dedicated to issues of social change”
• Generation X-ers (1965-1976) — “value diversity and innovation, lead a high-tech life style and are independent decision makers”

For additional sources on women’s giving, checkout Thomas J. Stanley's The Millionaire Mind and Millionaire Women. Stanley notes that women who have made their fortunes behave quite differently than women who control money from their fathers and/or husbands. Times are indeed changing, and for the better.

To take this information and make it useful, listen carefully when you’re interacting with your best women donors. If you know them well, talk about what you’ve learned here to see if they would agree or not. And, how would they refine these generalizations to fit themselves and their friends.

TomWilsonMajorGiftsGuru@gmail.com

Tags: Women Philanthropy, Women in Philanthroy, Women Donating, Women donors

Permanent Link: Women in Philanthropy

http://majorgiftsguru.com/2008/10/womens-philanthropy-are-giving-patterns.html