Foundation Magazine January/February 2021

FOUNDATION The Business & Spirit of Philanthropy in Canada January/February 2021 | Vol. 2 | No. 7

THE

FUNDRAISING REPORT Tips, Id eas +

r a J n o i t a Insights To Fill Your Don

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THE LEAD IN

The World Around Us An Island Paradise Confronts a Pandemic

Many times, the test results for Bermuda showed no new cases of COVID-19. None. On the entire island. Just under 700 total cases since the outbreak, and 12 deaths. By early February, about ten thousand residents had been vaccinated.

And help was in place because of the foresight of the philanthropic leadership. The Bermuda Community Foundation for those who want to invest in their community was only established in early 2013, a fortuitous vision. The organization was a prime factor in the island being able to respond to COVID-19 in a way that supported the sector and Bermuda’s people overall.

Bermuda has a nonprofit sector of about 600 registered and non-registered charitable agencies. A substantial obstacle to nonprofits is a shortage of funding. Individuals are the largest source of charitable giving; however, fifty-six percent of households donate less than $500 a year to nonprofits, according to the latest available research. In the corporate sector, 56 percent of business donors contribute less than $50,000 annually. Donors identified housing, crime, drugs and education as Bermuda’s top priorities but with the funding being so fragmented, the full impact of those dollars is not realized.

To tackle the growing funding challenges, increasing social needs and the need for far better administration, evaluation and information on nonprofit sector impact, groups of donors, charity and nonprofit representatives began to seek solutions, which included access to significant untapped philanthropic dollars, pooling of funds to have greater impact and reduction in philanthropic administrative costs.

With the arrival of the virus at a time when not-for-profit organizations and donors are more stretched than ever, Bermuda had an unprecedented opportunity to build a sustainable source of support for its civic sector. Bermuda Community Foundation is the first of its kind to mobilize and funnel resources strategically, while sustaining a focus on the continuing and changing needs of Bermuda.

The Bermuda Emergency Fund saw more than $2,200,000 (BD) in pledges and contributions by September of last year and continued into this year. Deployment of the funds was swift and effective.

Funds have been deployed to support the EMO COVID-19 Community response which includes: Making quarantine calls and checking in on individuals in the community; Serving as first responders who need services/equipment including mental health support; Directing and coordinating services with the EMO in terms of disaster planning support; Supporting and coordinating homeless shelter needs and transporting individuals to testing centres.

Organizations receiving funding support include Bermuda Red Cross, Salvation Army (The) - Bermuda Division, St. John’s Ambulance, Food Security / Distribution / Support to Marginalized Families – ($771,812), Medical Care / Health Support / Distribution of Meds – ($288,932), Mental Health Support & Substance Use and Abuse – ($120,825), Safety / Protection from Domestic Violence / Abuse – ($95,000), Seniors Services / Nursing Homes – ($273,590), Unsheltered / Homelessness and Related Substance Abuse – ($248,678), Miscellaneous Administration & Communications ($2,686) At times, requests for help are currently exceeding resources so are being assessed to ensure they meet criteria of national pandemic needs.

The Foundation uses a simplified application process to issue grants and set criteria to use limited funds to maximum impact.

This community fund is poised to distribute stabilizing funding to nonprofit organizations to strengthen their operations during this incredible time of need. Periodic progress reports and a final impact report will ensure that funds have been utilized as intended.

And that calls for a nice tall drink at The Swizzle Inn or The Hog Penny.

Your choice, you’re buying.

The Swizzle Inn

Fairmont Southampton foundationmag.ca

January/February 2021

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CONTENTS

January/February 2021 | Vol. 2 | No. 7

THE

www.foundationmag.ca

FUNDRAISING REPORT

Twitter: @foundationmaga1 PRESIDENT / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Steve Lloyd - steve.lloyd@lloydmedia.ca DESIGN / PRODUCTION Jennifer O’Neill - jennifer@dmn.ca PHOTOGRAPHER Gary Tannyan

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Cynthia Armour Matt Dubins Kristina Brunnler Amy Eisenstein Malcolm Burrows Claire Fan Sarah Chamberlin Rannella Billy-Ochieng Michelle Chambers Gail Perry Grant Cobb

Tips, Ideas + Insights To Fill Your Donation Jar

Naomi Powell Kathleen Provost Valentina Suarez Roxanne Tackie The FundRazr Team

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FOUNDATION Magazine

January/February 2021

foundationmag.ca

CONTENTS

FUNDRAISING REPORT

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SOURCE: RBC ECONOMICS, RBC DATA AND ANALYTICS

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Ten Virtual Fundraising Campaign Ideas for Lockdown

20 Four Factors in Fundraising Success for 2021 22 Five Reasons to Decline a Donation 24 Top Five Fundraising No-Brainers for Nonprofit Professionals in 2021

26 Ten Ways to Get Organized to Approach Major Donors

28 Three Ways Direct Mail Supports Your Crowdfunding Campaign

30 What You Learn When You Analyze Twitter on Giving Tuesday

34 Five Tips for Supporter Care in COVID Times

MY VIEW

39 From the Sidelines to the Field STRATEGY

42 3 THE LEAD IN 6 SEEN, HEARD & NOTED COLUMNIST

40 COVID-19 Upends the Charity Playbook

For Canadian charities, innovation is one path to success.

AFP REPORT

42 AFP Canada Chair Ken Mayhew:

A Facilitator of the Goals and Vision of Others

COMMENT

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Charity Armageddon?

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The Opportunity of a Lifetime Leadership - Kathleen Provost

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Next Issue…

Investing in Mental Health Matters

Coming in March 2021: .... Corporate philanthropy, animal welfare and rescue, estate planning and inside data/analytics.

Wealth Management - Malcolm Burrows

Marketing & Fundraising - Sarah Chamberlin

foundationmag.ca

46 Hindsight is 20/20:

Hopeful Reflections from the Field

January/February 2021

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SEEN, HEARD & NOTED

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for a year, while dog kennels are $1,000. Enthusiasts can also sponsor a cat or dog activity space for $750. Is this an idea that your charity can use in some way? Worth considering.

•••••••••••••••••••

They Went Walking…But Not Together. What better way to continue to hold an annual walking fundraiser called Coldest Night of the Year (CNOY) than go to virtually virtual? The yearly event can’t be held as a

record-keeping are virtual but that individual donors are taking individual paths.

The CNOY event drew more than 230 participants last year who collected more than $75,000. St. Vincent Place’s kitchen provided roughly 10,000 meals in 2020 and more than 3,000 people, including 500 children, were helped by the food bank.

COURTESY ST. VINCENT PLACE

COURTESY BC SPCA

What Assets Do You Have That You Can Leverage? Finding ways to mitigate the loss of donor revenue during the absence of in-person events due to the pandemic is leading to a wide range of creative solutions. One of the most effective and brilliantly simple may have come from the BC SPCA. While people continued to adopt animals from their kennels, what struck someone was that people like to sponsor things to recognize a person they love and there was opportunity right in front of the society. The actual kennels. Why not allow people to “adopt” a kennel and, presto, open the door to a brand new fundraiser.

Adopt-A-Kennel 2021 will raise money for the society without needing to gather people together, nor does it do much to nudge their costs up. What’s more, it garnered the BC SPCA much-needed media attention. “When you adopt a kennel for a year, that allows us to provide the most urgent and needed care for the animals that are with us,” Sean Hogan, the Kelowna branch manager, told Black Press. “One of the things that make this campaign critical is just the very fact that COVID has completely obliterated all in-person fundraising,” Hogan told Global News. Cat kennels are going for $400

group walk (you can guess why) so St. Vincent Place in Sault Ste. Marie decided to take it online, kind of. St. Vincent’s is a shelter for men, a soup kitchen and a food bank. Walkers usually start at the shelter and make their way as an entourage along a downtown route. Initially, the shelter’s marketing and fundraising coordinator Sara McCleary wanted to offer participants two options: do the walk alone; or go in a small group in compliance with the government’s pandemic restrictions. But when a new stay-at-home order became necessary, a decision was made to ask walkers to walk alone or where they can. The chooseyour-own walk idea means that all the signup and

January/February 2021

••••••••••••••••••• The Deep Deep Deep Pocket Brigade. Let’s take a visit to Paris. So let’s say you’re an institution that normally generates funding from visitors. And lets’ say that something happens that means no visitors are allowed. Kind of a problem?

Well, while places such as museums continue seeking solutions to allow them to welcome visitors again (even in small numbers and even if it means running at a loss like the MET in New York), there has to be something to replace that cash flow.

This is where the auction market shows up. Auctions have become a safety net for some institutions and, already, results in 2021 are showing a high level of demand in auction rooms.

For example, January... was Old Masters month.

With a 10 percent fall in turnover in 2020, the Old Masters (artists born before 1760) segment appears to have better withstood the impacts of the pandemic than other segments. This is probably due to the fact that a substantial proportion of the year’s sales the Old Masters segment represents a remarkably solid market.

“Old Master collectors are looking for the ‘right piece’ rather than the thrill of the moment,” observes Thierry Ehrmann, President and Founder of Artmarket.com and its Artprice Department.

“The Old Masters market is by nature less sensitive to the temporary absence of fairs, large openings and gala dinners. Moreover, it’s a market that actually appreciates extensive foundationmag.ca

SEEN, HEARD & NOTED

The Splash, David Hockney (1966)

research and is happy to wade through detailed reports by experts... all of which can be done online.”

The battle to acquire the portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel, attributed to Botticelli, ultimately brought together just two collectors. But these two determined bidders raised the price of the work to Sotheby’s very audacious estimate in the midst of a global pandemic. Announced in September 2020, its sale deliberately left three months for all concerned to conduct the necessary research.

Now let’s jump the channel to London, held back by its COVID variant and Brexit among other problems. The British capital usually hosts the year’s second round of major sales. In February 2020, three paintings fetched over $20 million each at London sales, (The Splash (1966) by David Hockney; A la Rencontre du Plaisir (1962)

by René Magritte; Portrait of Marjorie Ferry (1932) by Tamara De Lempicka). But the health crisis has led to the postponement of London’s first major sales of foundationmag.ca

the year to March 2021.

Moreover, the effective withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union risks weakening London’s dominant position in this part of the world. Paris obviously hopes to benefit from this reorganization. The French capital is also continuing to attract more and more top talent from the Art Market.

Since the beginning of the year, two of Italy’s most powerful galleries, Continua and Massimo de Carlo, have opened in the Marais District, while Sotheby’s is preparing to sell Christo and

Jeanne-Claude’s prestigious collection in Paris.

The next few weeks promise to be exciting on the art market, both at auctions and in art galleries… some reassuring news ahead of the reopening of museums everywhere. Problem solved.

Now, who’s in the hat for the next $20 million buy?

••••••••••••••••••• Are You Really Out There?

Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Future of User Interfaces Shaping New Consumer Experiences, finds that user interface (UI) technologies have moved beyond the concept of simply representing machines to their users to enabling sophisticated and personalized interaction.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated their use in healthcare, manufacturing, education, retail, and banking to simplify interactivity and improve engagement.

January/February 2021

The global augmented/ virtual reality (AR/VR) market is expected to reach $661.40 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 86.3 percent from 2019 to 2025, driven by contactless commerce.

Beyond 2030, AR and VR will merge, allowing users access to the total realityvirtuality continuum.

Meanwhile, the global biometrics market revenue is forecast to reach $54.97 billion in 2025, with nextgeneration identification, palm vein and behavioural biometrics experiencing significant demand. We’re putting this out there folks: There must me some brilliant and highly successful way for a big charity to turn this technology into big fundraising. Anyone doing this? Looking at it? Is there something we can all chip in to make this a reali..er, sorry, an augmented reality?

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COLUMNIST

WEALTH MANAGEMENT MALCOLM BURROWS

Charity Armageddon?

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BY MALCOLM BURROWS

Malcolm Burrows 8

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January/February 2021

GARY TANNYAN

hicken Little thought the sky was falling.

From the beginning of the pandemic last winter, the doomsayers predicted that the charitable sector would be hit especially hard. We’d see mass closures and bankruptcies. But when and how? Is COVID-19 an acorn or a harbinger of charity armageddon?

Early predictions The dire predictions started last March. The charitable sector umbrella group Imagine Canada projected “that three months of mandated social distancing and the economic downturn associated with COVID-19 will cause charities to lose $9.5 billion and layoff more than 117,000 employees of which the vast majority would be women.”

Imagine observed that “physical distancing and the economic slowdown upon revenues derived from foundationmag.ca

COLUMNIST

fundraising, inter-charity transfers and other earned income activities common to the sector.” In April, their research concluded that: ❯❯ Approximately 70 percent of organizations are reporting a decline in revenues. ❯❯ Nearly two-fifths of organizations have already laid off paid staff or reduced staff working hours. ❯❯ Another 25 percent of organizations are considering laying off staff or reducing staff working hours.

Imagine said there would be “thousands” of charity closures. It was just a matter of time. In the U.S. and the U.K. researchers predicted that one-third of charities would close their doors. Why would Canada escape this trend?

But then the sunny summer hit and COVID-19 didn’t seem so bad. Despite the lack of any meaningful Federal support programs targeted at registered charities, there were stories of charities adapting.

Donors responded.

Government programs kicked in. Programs went online. Digital fundraising exploded.

Winter relapse With the winter relapse, however, it became clear that many organizations were stretched to the breaking point.

Laurentian University, an Ontario public university located in Sudbury, announced in late January that it was going into creditor protection.

Ontario, the province with the lowest per capita provincial post-secondary education funding per student, had pushed universities to rely on foreign student tuition. Laurentian is not the University of Toronto, which now get twice as much of its revenue from foreign students as it does the province.

Earned revenue is fine if you’re a big brand. Less so if you’re a regional institution. Laurentian has struggled for years. As Ernest Hemingway famously observed in The Sun Also Rises, you go bankrupt “gradually then suddenly.” foundationmag.ca

Slowly…and then all at once.

Canadian universities are generally much better off than other registered charities due to their scale and diversified funding. Some, like certain food banks and women shelters, have seen a bump in fundraising revenue. Among the hardest hit charities are health (disease and body part organizations, not hospitals), international development, environment, youth services, and the arts. Churches that serve an older population may be especially vulnerable. Many of these organizations don’t have reserves and rely on earned revenue, fundraising events and in person gatherings.

process for charities, which was prepared by the law firm Miller Thomson LLP. The second is It’s Time to Go, a workbook to help charities determine what to do with their charitable programs and resources at the time of dissolution. It was prepared with Carleton University’s Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership program.

These are unique — and uniquely helpful — resources. Here’s hoping there is little demand.

Implications COVID is hard enough, but the stress and uncertainty at charities is pronounced.

There are countless stories of charities

“Except in a few dramatic cases, it takes at least a year for a charity to fail.”

A recent article in The Globe and Mail about the state of the arts community in Calgary was especially sobering.

Mike Grogan, President of consultant IntegralOrg, said “We haven’t hit the worst of it yet; we’re not done this yet in any sense.” He noted that charities “lag behind the rest of the economy when it comes to recovery, and that arts organizations have been particularly hard hit.”

Resources Except in a few dramatic cases, it takes at least a year for a charity to fail. The bills add up, the revenue slows, and the volunteer board realizes the inevitable.

A voluntary revocation with Canada Revenue Agency takes another three to six months. So…slowly…then all at once.

The Muttart Foundation, an Edmonton-based private foundation that focuses on the health of the charitable sector, recently published two free resources to help charities facing the end. (Disclosure: I am volunteer President of The Muttart Foundation.)

The first is a guide to the insolvency

arising to occasion to fulfil their mission and deliver in the face of significant challenges.

I am concerned that this longerterm effect of this uncertainty will hurt charities for years to come. There will be burnout among volunteers and employees. With failures and layouts, charities, which depend on a dedicated and generally underpaid workforce, may have a hard time recruiting talent.

Donors may pull back, worried about supporting struggling entities.

We face a future where already strong organizations become even stronger.

And the many small and underfunded will be imperilled. There is already a lot of inequity in the charitable sector. This crisis will only make it worse. The result is concerning for causes and communities that are underserved.

Is the sky falling? Time will tell. There is, however, no question that the cloud layer is lower and the wind is picking up.

MALCOLM BURROWS is Head of Philanthropic Advisory Services at Scotia Wealth Management. He writes this column exclusively for each issue of Foundation Magazine.

January/February 2021

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LEADERSHIP KATHLEEN PROVOST

The Opportunity of a Lifetime

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BY KATHLEEN PROVOST

s a professional fundraiser, I always question myself to make sure I explore all possible options to do my best work. I ask myself: am I just repeating something I know that I am comfortable doing, or is what I am doing an innovative way of trying something new? Well in 2020, we were all given a unique opportunity to react to what we have always done, and explore new ways of doing our work, in a number of areas. This global pandemic is an unprecedented event that allows us to look at our environment, our activities, and even our relationships. We are given a chance to question our priorities and to look at our lives in a manner that was never possible before. I believe it is an opportunity of a lifetime.

COURTESY KATHLEEN PROVOST

Kathleen A. Provost

Picture taken on December 31, 2020 in Cape Breton at Cabot Shores, a special moment when we said goodbye to 2020.

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January/February 2021

Building new work environments Salesforce’s Chief People Officer, Brent Hyder said: “We’re not going back to the way things were.” Salesforce expects more than 65 percent of its workforce to come into the office only one to three days a week in the future versus 40 percent before the pandemic. Changes will include revamping office layouts to increase collaboration space instead of having a “sea of desks.” New offices will feature cafe-style seating, open-air conference areas and private nooks, with an emphasis on clean desks and social distancing.

2020 has forced us to go away from our “known working environment” and redefined the workspace we occupy. We have been able to delineate different work environments and new working conditions. After months of adjustments to working remote and virtual, individuals are reinventing what work-life balance is. We are developing new affinity groups that were previously challenged by physical distance; and, we are building new physical distances foundationmag.ca

COLUMNIST between our work environment and our recreational environment.

Thinking “outside the box” with our fundraising activities Is it possible that the pandemic forces us to look at the way we do our business and enables us to re-invent how we do fundraising? When do we feel the need to “change it up a bit”? Well, the presence of COVID-19 is forcing us to stop the fundraising activities we were doing and find new ways of doing our business. Let’s explore this a little bit more. How many of us have cancelled a golf tournament, or a gala night in the last 12 months? Then, we challenged ourselves to find creative alternatives to raise funds. So, the real question is: should we go back to raising funds as we use to, before COVID-19, or is this a chance for us the “think outside the box” with our fundraising activities?

Last month, in an article in La Presse, entitled “Le Truc: un don plus un don”, Marie-France Veilleux explored how we have come to hold virtual special events. She questions if there is a need to go back to our “old ways”. Should we not ask, for example, when we host a gala as a fundraising event, why donors spend money on a dress or a tuxedo?

Why is it necessary to wine and dine a donor in return for a donation? Should we not revisit true altruism? Veilleux gives us a challenge for 2021. What if this year, not-for-profits don’t barter for a donation? Thanks to a global pandemic, it may be time to stop perpetuating senseless practices and identify new ways of coming together for a cause.

Maybe in 2021, not-for-profits and donors can come together and redefine philanthropy.

Developing relationships with a new “people’s plan” In December 2020, McKinsey & Company produced the results of a Consumer Leadership Survey to assess if enterprises altered their behaviours during the pandemic. This survey showed how most effective leaders had adapted and had drastically changed their behaviours as team leaders. Now, foundationmag.ca

“Today, we have the chance to question what was…” being creative, supportive and employeefocussed has risen in importance.

Consequently, showing operational excellence, authoritative leadership, and promoting internal competition within teams are becoming things of the past.

It is not uncommon these days to experience a concern for the mental health of a family member, a friend, or a colleague. We have also witnessed how the donor centricity is shifting to respond to social needs during these unprecedented times. Survival mode is “kicking in” so that every human can adapt and respond to this new “reality”.

Whether we are affected by isolation, uncertainty or whether we fear the unknown; human beings need to adapt to survive. This is our history. We are resilient, and continuously adapt — even if we are unsure of what the journey looks like. We can all learn new ways of working together, new ways of leading and managing teams because it is essential to our fulfilment.

Making the most of an erratic moment in history Sometimes, we need an extraordinary moment to remind us of what we are capable of doing. As we turn the page on 2020, Morgan Housel, author and former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal had this to say about the teachings of history: “Risk is what you don’t see. That’s what made the depression a big deal! No one was prepared for it because no one saw it coming. When markets never crash, valuations go up. When valuations go up, markets are prone to crash. That’s a big, broad takeaway of COVID-19 that repeats itself throughout history: Nothing too good or too bad stays that way forever, because great times plant the seeds of their own destruction

through complacency; and bad times plant the seeds of their own turnaround through opportunity and panic-driven problem-solving.”

So, if we are in the middle of a panicdriven opportunity — today is the day.

We have a chance to take the teachings from this global pandemic moment. We can examine the choices we are making and take action to problem-solve.

Our learning can offer alternatives to specific scenario, influence fundraising practices, or maybe even help address systematic injustices. But we are given an opportunity. Learn from this moment and do something.

Carpe diem What we have done in the past may not necessarily be bad or in need of change.

However, isn’t today, the only time in our lives we are given the opportunity to examine everything we do and determine if it needs to change? Today, maybe the only time in our lifetime, we can re-define what we do. We can change how we do our work; we can alter our professional practices or even alter the relationships we hold with donors, or colleagues. Today, we have the chance to question what was, and design what could be.

This panic-driven opportunity may never be present again in our lifetime — let’s make the most of it.

KATHLEEN A. PROVOST, CFRE is currently the Campaign Director at St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, NS. She brings over 25 years of fundraising experience within the charitable sector. She has been a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) since 2007, and a long-time member and volunteer for the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). As a recognized leader, Kathleen has tailored presentations and workshops for French and English audiences at various events including AFP-Nova Scotia, AFP-Ottawa, AFP-National Congress, Coady International Institute and the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education. Kathleen is a McGill University graduate and is concurrently completing her Masters in Adult Education at St. Francis Xavier University. She has received numerous recognitions during her career, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions to the charitable sector. She writes this column exclusively for each issue of Foundation Magazine.

January/February 2021

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COLUMNIST

MARKETING & FUNDRAISING SARAH CHAMBERLIN

Sarah Chamberlin

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Investing in Mental Health Matters

BY SARAH CHAMBERLIN

t its core, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is more than a hospital. It’s a catalyst for transforming the way the world views and responds to mental illness, including addiction. As Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital and one of the world’s leading research centres, CAMH sets the standards for care, research, education and leading social change.

The hospital is supported, in part,

by CAMH Foundation, which drives advancements for mental health by inspiring philanthropy.

I’m sure that no one would disagree when I say that mental health has never been more important than it is at this very moment. You might be shocked to know that the world was already in a mental health crisis well before COVID-19 became a household name.

The World Health Organization reported 12

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that roughly 450 million people around the world live with some form of mental illness, making it the leading case of disability worldwide.

Right here in Canada, one in five people will personally experience a mental health problem or illness in any given year. Since May 2020, CAMH has worked with research technology company Delvina in leading research to understand the mental health and substance use impacts of COVID-19. In the seven days leading up to the most recent survey — which included 1,003 people and took place in late November 2020 — half of the respondents felt lonely some or most of the time, 52 percent felt depressed some or most of the time, and 23 percent rarely or never felt hopeful about the future. The effects on mental health have been drastic and at its worst, we know that mental illness can be fatal, with 800,000 people dying

January/February 2021

by suicide around the world every year.

Statistics can be sobering, but it’s important to grasp the magnitude of just how serious the mental health crisis is, and has been, and to understand that the trends continue in the wrong direction.

Today, we’re seeing that the COVID-19 pandemic — and its resulting effects including lockdowns which isolate many, physical distancing, and immense financial strain — have made an already negative situation much, much worse.

Given its leadership in the mental health space, CAMH was uniquely positioned to transition its services and fundraising to expand upon online methods during government-ordered lockdowns. Early on in the pandemic, CAMH enhanced virtual capacity to respond to the heightened demand for mental health services. To put this into context, in 2019, the hospital provided virtual care to more than 3,000 patients foundationmag.ca

COLUMNIST from more than 550 communities across Ontario. From March to April 2020 alone, CAMH’s virtual care visits increased to almost 3,000 per month, an increase of more than 750 percent.

So, I think we can all agree that the pandemic has put a spotlight on mental health. It’s also exposed a key fact: investing in mental has never been more important. Aware of this, CAMH shifted its delivery method and its fundraising strategy.

Never more important With support from generous individuals and corporations, we’ve continued to respond to urgent needs and put donations to work to make mental health care as adaptive as possible during the pandemic. We launched Apart. Not alone, which is an online destination filled with COVID-19 resources to support people who are struggling, or who might know somebody who is struggling. And we continue to lead important conversations around difficult, but timely, mental health topics like suicide.

The fact that mental health work has never been more important also means that there’s never been a more critical time to provide support . Whether you’re a seasoned philanthropist or an aspiring one, we know that together we can make a difference and change the statistics on mental illness and suicide.

And, the good news is, there are many ways you can join our growing movement.

You might prefer to invest as a monthly donor, or perhaps a virtual fundraiser is right up your alley. If you prefer the latter, then we have many ideas to get you started — breaking a sweat while breaking down stigma through a virtual run or walk, hosting a virtual meal with loved ones or colleagues, or organizing an online games night with friends. And of course, you can organize a unique fundraiser that’s all your own if you like!

Whatever fundraiser you decide to do, we can guide you through the planning process and provide you with the tools, resources and support to make your fundraiser as successful as possible.

Best of all, you can be proud knowing foundationmag.ca

that your contributions will give people experiencing mental illness help, hope and a better tomorrow when they need it most.

If you’re interested in supporting the movement for mental health by fundraising for CAMH, please visit www.camh.ca/fundraise.

SARAH CHAMBERLIN is Vice President of Marketing and Donor Experience at CAMH Foundation. The Foundation supports the philanthropic efforts of CAMH, Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital and a world leader in mental health research, treatment, and advocacy. Please visit CAMH.ca to read more inspiring stories of real Canadians who said “Not today” in support of suicide prevention.

She writes this column exclusively for each issue of Foundation Magazine

Before Strategy Comes Vision.

Peacock Philanthropic Counsel Inc. provides Canadian charities with strategic fundraising counsel to achieve philanthropic goals. Since 2005, Peacock Philanthropic Counsel has served more than 80 clients in all areas of Canada’s charitable sector – including health care, education, arts and social services.

What you can gain by letting us help turn your vision into viable strategy that gets results.

STRATEGIC PLANNING

MAJOR GIFT FUNDRAISING

INTERIM MANAGEMENT

STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

Rob Peacock is a Certified Fund Raising Executive with over 30 years of fundraising experience. For the past 10 years, Rob has served as CEO of Peacock Philanthropic Counsel Inc., providing strategic counsel to more than 80 charities in Canada.

Ask for a no-obligation, high-value consultation and we’ll be happy to chat about turning vision into results. Call or email me today.

Rob Peacock, 416-625-2801 or rob@peacockinc.ca January/February 2021

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Tips, Ideas + Insights To Fill Your Donation Jar • • • • •

10 Virtual Ideas 5 Bonus Ideas 4 Factors for Success 5 Reasons to Decline Donations 5 No-Brainers

• • • •

10 Ways to Approach Major Donors 3 Ways Direct Mail Supports 2,436 Days of Tweets 5 Tips for Supporter Care

FUNDRAISING REPORT

Ten Virtual Fundraising Campaign Ideas for Lockdown

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BY KRISTINA BRUNNLER

he COVID-19 pandemic has forced a massive shift in the day-to-day operations of nonprofits across the country. You’re likely wondering how your nonprofit is going to continue fundraising for your mission during this uncertain time. If your mission isn’t directly related to coronavirus, it may be tricky convincing donors your cause still needs funds right now. Supporters are likely stressed enough as it is, but don’t be discouraged.

Many MobileCause customers have either launched a campaign in response to the pandemic or adapted their existing campaign strategy. Here are ten campaigns nonprofits are currently running that you can incorporate into your fundraising strategy.

1. Device Drive If we’ve learned anything from the pandemic as a society, it’s that technology and internet access is essential to our everyday life. If you work for a University or K-12, some of your students won’t have access to remote learning. Allow supporters to donate their used equipment or submit donations online.

2. Donations (Specific To COVID-19 Victims) If you’re in the human services sector, chances are your beneficiaries need your help now more than ever. Your regular services, such as food drives or housing, are essential right now, as many Americans are being furloughed or laid off. Starting a fundraising campaign specific to COVID-19 relief will allow you to appeal to supporters who are likely grieving their own loss as well. Example: United Way of Anchorage's tweet for their COVID-19 response fund.

3. Digital Happy Hour Many nonprofits offer a free digital happy hour to support local food and beverage workers displaced by COVID-19. Attendees learn how to make cocktails from home while texting in donations and questions about workers in need. Example: foundationmag.ca

United Way of Greater Rochester’s virtual happy hour registration page.

4. Drive-Through Testing Nonprofits that provide free or low cost healthcare to low income individuals are offering drive-through coronavirus testing. Those who believe they may have contracted COVID-19 can register for testing without having to visit a hospital.

5. Pajama Ball / Virtual Gala / Etc. There’s no reason to cancel your upcoming gala, luncheon, or other formal event simply because you can’t meet with supporters in person. With Facebook and YouTube Live, you have the ability to broadcast your event to “attendees.”

Incorporate a live Q&A session so attendees can participate by texting in their questions to guest speakers. Participants can watch your presentation from the comfort of their homes, without needing to get dressed up and drive across town. One upside to a virtual gala, your organization saves money on overhead costs. Example: TruLight Ministries held a virtual pajama ball to raise funds to raise awareness to end child abuse.

6. Travel Funds As universities begin holding classes online, students were forced out of on-campus housing. Some universities are even raising donations to provide funds for students to travel back home. Example: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s emergency fund to help students travel back home during COVID-19 outbreak.

7. COVID-19 Information If your nonprofit is in the religious or education sector, your supporters may be looking to you as a reliable source of information. Provide supporters with a free fact sheet or a blog post. Example: Christian Broadcasting Network issued a free fact sheet: Coronavirus: What You Need to Know.

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8. Virtual Run/Walk If you had an athletic event scheduled you can always convert that event into a virtual one. Have participants pledge a specific amount of miles they plan to run or walk on their own.

Example: Guadalupe Hope Society’s registration page for their virtual run/walk for babies.

9. Emotional Support One of the easiest ways to help your supporters is by being there for them. Elderly individuals especially may be isolated from friends and family. Nonprofits are dedicating an hour of the day to prayer or offering free phone-in services for those alone in quarantine. Example: An automated mobile message from The Salvation Army offering spiritual guidance, prayer support, or just a listening ear during the coronavirus outbreak.

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10. Guided Learning With schools out of session many parents are struggling to balance their children’s education and their own jobs.

Some organizations are offering virtual guided learning sessions for free.

If you had a fundraising campaign scheduled during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s likely you’ll need to adjust your fundraising message. Consider how your beneficiaries have been impacted by the pandemic and how you can support them while still staying sensitive to current developments. These are just a few ways your nonprofit can wish supporters well during this trying time while still continuing your good work.

KRISTINA BRUNNLER is digital marketer and Marketing Manager for MobileCause. She believes in the power of marketing automation and is passionate about helping nonprofits create more meaningful connections with their donors. foundationmag.ca

FUNDRAISING REPORT

+5 FIVE BONUS IDEAS: With social distancing guidelines still intact, many nonprofits are still conducting virtual fundraising events. We’ve added five more virtual fundraising campaign ideas to help you stay afloat and fundraise for the rest of the year.

11. Live Streamed Concert Unfortunately for music lovers, we will not see a return of traditional concerts or music festivals for quite some time.

Luckily musicians around the world are taking matters into their own hands and offering performances to benefit virtual fundraisers. Even if you can’t book a household name, people still yearn for any live music from local bands, vocalists, DJs, violinists, rappers, and everything in between.

Mill Village Farm’s Culinary Concert was fully virtual and consisted of musical performances. On their live event page, they displayed text-todonate and a donor wall.

12. Theatrical Performances If your nonprofit organization is a part of the performing arts, then this virtual fundraising event idea is a no-brainer.

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You can accompany your virtual event with any of the amenities a normal performance would otherwise have, such as hors d’oeuvres, dinner, drinks, or intermissions. Consider selling virtual tickets or asking for contributions before individuals are allowed to register.

American Conservatory Theatre Spring Forward event had live performances displayed on a MobileCause event page.

13. Scavenger Hunt If you work for a K-12 or prekindergarten, you know students are being socially strained by learning from home. A virtual scavenger hunt is a great way to stimulate students and win over parents. If you are unable to connect students via a group video meeting, you can always pre-record segments with staff members, then launch them to create a sense of anticipation as you reveal clues or answers.

Great River School’s Blue Heron Bash consisted of an at home scavenger hunt for their students.

14. Meet & Greets If your nonprofit normally offers supporters an opportunity to meet beneficiaries in person, but no longer can with social distancing guidelines, offer a virtual meet and greet.

Nonprofits can ask supporters to make a donation or purchase a ticket in order to receive a virtual conference meeting link. Zoos, aquariums, or wildlife preserves can have staff feed animals or offer informational sessions on camera.

Lions, Tigers, & Bears, an animal conservation nonprofit, offered virtual meet and greets with their animals for supporters.

15. Tours Many higher education organizations, museums, and botanical gardens are no longer able to offer walking tours.

Allow supporters the opportunity to virtually see your facility behind the scenes with an expert. You can even use this as an opportunity to reach supporters outside your city or state with popular hashtags like #museumathome or #museumfromhome.

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Four Factors in Fundraising Success for 2021

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BY THE FUNDRAZR TEAM

f there’s anything 2020 showed us, it’s to expect the unexpected. Before last year, many professional fundraisers considered event-based fundraising like galas and marathons to be a tried-and-true method they could always rely on. For the fundraising community, COVID-19 provided quite the rude awakening — but really, these exceptional circumstances only exposed the inherent risks of this technique.

Event-based fundraising creates a high-risk, unpredictable revenue stream with peaks and valleys in funding that cause stress and make long-term planning a challenge. When the majority of your donations are dependent on just a few events throughout the year, anything that interferes with those events puts your organization into a state of emergency.

This year will see many professional fundraisers looking for alternative fundraising models. One of the best that’s emerged is sustainable, year-round giving. In this style of fundraising, donors pledge smaller, recurring donations that create a reliable, ongoing stream of funding to keep your nonprofit organization afloat. The effect is a baseline level of funding that can then be augmented by special events and one-off campaigns when possible.

The result? A closer relationship with donors, less dependency on grants, and a nonprofit that feels stable and predictable — say goodbye to the funding rollercoaster.

1. Start Building a Repeated, Sustainable Giving Model Two strong alternatives to event-based fundraising are campaigns with Perks and Wishlists, as these are optimized for communicating impact so your donors can really understand how their donations are helping change the world. You could also consider DIY-fundraising as another great way to engage your community without giving up too much oversight or control.

Microprojects are another way to fundraise that works great online; these are repeating beneficiary-centric campaigns that all share similar structure and have a high degree of personalization. Think 10 campaigns to put 10 girls through school, rather than one, generalized project. Usually, microprojects don’t depend on external factors like the time of year, you can reliably raise money throughout the year. In fact, they’re designed to be repeated.

Fundraisers today are lucky in that there’s more helpful technology out there before. Make the most of it: platforms like FundRazr go beyond event-based fundraising and are optimized for running multiple types of campaigns. They also remove the pressure of managing multiple campaigns

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simultaneously and automate most of admin tasks that eat up staff time.

2. Expert Advice is Important for Fundraising Strategy in 2021 It’s not just about the knowledge. Sometimes you need a fresh perspective, from someone who can really step back and see the forest, not the trees. That’s why bringing in an external advisor, consultant or coach will be one of the smartest things that professional fundraisers can do in 2021.

When you’re deep in day-to-day execution, not to mention burnt out on the intense demands of last year, it can be difficult to identify blind spots and areas that could use improvement.

We’re all going to need to adjust our strategies this year, and seeking external help is the most efficient — and likely, the most cost-effective — way to do that, especially if everyone at your nonprofit is already stretched to their limit.

Whatever the area you’d like to invest in — social media, crowdfunding, marketing, story telling — you can find a talented advisor to help you up your game in 2021. To get the most out of your session, get specific. What exactly do you need help with, and how do you want to improve? Are you looking for a complete overhaul, or just some tips to adjust what you’re already doing? How much time will you need from your consultant?

Then, put the word out to your network and community to find a partner who understands your brand, values, and mission. With some fresh perspective, you’ll come away with a better understanding of your organization’s strengths and blind spots, a defined strategy for the coming year, and a crystal-clear plan of action.

3. Fundraising Will Require More Creativity from You Innovation takes risk. To bring in new ideas, you’ll need to test them out and refine them with your real audience in real time.

Trying new things can be scary, especially if your organization has a large audience, or a very established brand voice and processes. But to move forward, you’ll need to get over that fear; the results of what you’re already doing will decline over time, due to increased competition and lack of novelty.

2021 is going to require us to test out more new ideas than ever and be ready to take big risks. Build a culture of experimentation at your organization. Make sure your team understands that you’re game to hear their ideas and try things out, and there’s no expectation that every new idea will be a CONTINUED ON page 37 January/February 2021

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Five Reasons to Decline a Donation

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BY ROXANNE TACKIE

hat? Turn down a gift? You may spend hours developing a relationship with a donor, or if you’re lucky, you may even receive a surprise call from a donor looking to make a substantial investment in your organization. Given how much time and energy it takes to raise funds for your cause, it may seem crazy to turn down money. So why in the world would you do it?

As strange as it may seem, not every donation is beneficial for your organization. For this reason, you should be aware of these 5 reasons that may cause you to decline a donation.

4. There are too many conditions attached to the gift.

Sometimes large gifts come with other requests from the donor.

For example, perhaps the donor would like you to rename a facility in their family name in recognition of the gift. Would this request accompany a large cost associated with signage?

Would it cause the board of directors to be at odds with one another? Or perhaps, it would impact your organization’s ability to secure future gifts? Even though the size of the gift may be tempting, if the conditions associated with donation are too sizable, it may be in your organization’s best interest to turn down the money.

1. It is impossible to carry out the project without creating an excessive burden for your team.

Some donors are eager to give to your organization so you can develop a new program or new service. Or, perhaps your donor would like to offer your organization a gift-in-kind that requires long-term maintenance, such as a vehicle or property.

Even if your organization has the expertise to develop the new initiative, consider whether the additional work may put undue pressure on existing staff. If you cannot pull it off realistically while maintaining the integrity of your current initiatives, it may be time to pull the plug on the gift.

5. The gift has complex or legal issues your organization cannot handle.

Some gifts may be beneficial to your current programs or services, but come with other consequences. For example, a gift-in-kind of property can lead to requirements such as taxes, licenses, or regular maintenance. When these types of additional costs are too much for your organization to bear or maintain long-term, it may be necessary to decline the gift.

2. The donor’s reputation is questionable.

Although many donors have good intentions when cutting a cheque to your organization, some may be using the gift as a marketing ploy. When donors make an investment in your mission, they become positively associated with your organization’s good will. For this reason, some donors may use the gift to take away from their own negative public perception.

Unfortunately, your association with the donor may create a negative perception of your charity. So if your donor has been involved in corrupt practices or a public scandal, stay away.

3. The gift doesn’t align with your mission.

Canada has over 85,000 charities[1] supported by workers that are the absolute best in their field. Each nonprofit is motivated by its own specific mission, whether it be to improve the lives of children in Richmond Hill, encourage recreation and leisure in Winnipeg, or cure disease across the country. It is important for every organization to remember their mission when accepting gifts, so if you are not the expert in whatever project the donor would like to support, you shouldn’t accept the gift. If you do accept the money and cannot complete the project as promised, you risk jeopardizing your credibility with future donors. foundationmag.ca

It is best practice for charities to develop a gift acceptance policy that is clear and well-considered. A well-developed policy will allow volunteers and staff to handle donations with consistency, and allow your organization to deal with unusual situations quickly and without the necessity of calling a special board meeting.

Also, it is important to remember that a donor’s offer does not have to be accepted or declined without first having a conversation. Before declining a gift, speak with your donor to see if the terms can be changed to align with your gift acceptance policy. But, if you do need to walk away from a gift, just know that despite how hard it can be to say “no,” your credibility will go a long way in helping you secure future gifts.

In the end, your organization will develop relationships with donors whose goals truly align with your mission.

ROXANNE TACKIE is the Cofounder of Story Point Consulting where she collaborates with nonprofits, coaching new fundraising professionals and helping small teams get more work done. You can reach her at info@storypoint.ca

Originally published on CharityVillage. Since 1995, CharityVillage has been Canada’s preeminent job board and career resource for the nonprofit sector. Their specialized job board for Canadian nonprofit professionals has helped thousands of organizations find exceptional talent. Through online learning courses, volunteer and event listings, webinars, newsletters, articles, tools and resources, they help nonprofit staff and volunteers do their best work every day.

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Top Five Fundraising No-Brainers for Nonprofit Professionals in 2021

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BY AMY EISENSTEIN

hen I was thinking about writing this idea of the no-brainers for fundraising in 2021, I put out a call on social media for 2021 nobrainers. Here are just a few of the responses I got: Wearing a mask when in public (for your safety and those around you) — this was the top response; Getting the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as you are eligible; Being more compassionate — everyone is stressed out; Taking better care of yourself; Listening carefully to others (always a smart thing to do).

And yet, sometimes what appear to be no-brainers to the majority of people aren’t always so obvious to others. This is as true when living through a once-in-a-century pandemic as it is in fundraising.

So here are a handful of fundraising no-brainers that you should heed — especially throughout 2021. Let’s count them down.

5. Investing in a Good Donor CRM A good donor management system is vital to your fundraising success. If you are using Excel or something that’s not working for you, it’s time to switch. In other words, it’s a no-brainer.

A good donor management system should help you keep organized, on track, and aware of key performance indicators, such as donor retention rates. You and your team should be able to use the system and feel comfortable looking up individual donors and running reports of first time donors, loyal donors, large donors, and more.

4. Soliciting Planned Gifts Planned gifts (in addition to major gifts) are the most impactful gifts your organization can receive. However, they usually don’t come for years after they are solicited, so these vital gifts are often ignored by development directors. Yet, planned gifts can be the largest gift a donor ever makes to your organization.

The no-brainer? By not get started soliciting planned gifts, you are hurting the future of your organization.

3. Asking for Gifts Remotely The biggest no-brainer this year is asking via phone or Zoom and not putting your asks off until you can meet with donors in-person.

This past year has taught us that donors DO respond to foundationmag.ca

remote requests and that asking by phone/Zoom are entirely effective and efficient modes of solicitation. If you are waiting for a return to in-person meetings to solicit your biggest and best donors, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

2. Thanking Donors Perhaps the most obvious no-brainer is thanking donors. But how do you thank donors at your organization? Ask yourself: ❯❯ Is there a system and process in place so donors are thanked appropriately? ❯❯ Are thank you letters timely (within a week of the gift arriving)? ❯❯ Is it personal, or clearly a form letter? ❯❯ Are you making regular donor thank you calls? ❯❯ Do you let donors know how their gift was used and the impact they made?

The bigger the gift, the more personal your letter and/or call should be. Thanking donors is an obvious no-brainer because it impacts future giving and donor retention.

And the #1 Fundraising No-Brainer for 2021 is…

1. Raising Major Gifts Raising major gifts, no matter the actual size, has the ability to catapult your organization to the next level of program and service. Seems like a major no-brainer to me.

For example, if your organization raises $100K for your yearend appeal, one additional gift of $10K, increases your total by 10 percent. And that’s just one gift!

Now imagine if you could get two, three, or even five gifts of that size. (Feel free to add or subtract zeros to make the scenario true for your organization, depending on the current scope and scale of your fundraising efforts.)

Raising major gifts, like no other type of fundraising, has the power to transform your fundraising and your organization — and that’s crucial in 2021, as most nonprofits are positioning themselves to recover from the hardships of the previous year.

The most puzzling thing about raising major gifts So often, what puzzles me most is the number of organizations that want to raise major gifts, but they never make the commitment to actually raise major gifts.

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Ten Ways to Get Organized to Approach Major Donors

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BY GAIL PERRY

o many folks are unsure how to approach major donors. It’s scary. It was scary for me, too, when I first started out.

We all have challenges when it comes to major gift fundraising — and figuring out how to approach major donors face to face. It’s not something that comes naturally to many people.

My survey What’s Your Biggest Challenge in Raising Major Gifts? reveals some fascinating issues. Turns out that “unsure, afraid how to approach major donors” was one of the top challenges people are facing.

So here are 10 steps to help you become brave, prepared and organized to approach major donors.

1. Get Your Mindset Right.

This is NOT about money. You are not trying to find someone to ask. This whole process is NOT about asking. You are not trying to be pushy. Instead you are trying to find someone who cares about your cause. Someone who is interested in learning more or getting involved.

2. Get to Know a Major Donor Somewhere.

You’ll find out that they are real people. They don’t bite. They can be really terrific, interesting, fun people. That is, IF you approach them with a light touch. You never want to be pushy or heavy-handed. Instead remember your manners and get them to do the talking. Then they will like you more.

3. Always Focus on Your Top 10 Major Gift Prospects.

Take a good look at your donor base, pull out the top one with wealth indicators. Remember that these individuals are really interested in your cause. Why? They are your DONORS right now. They’ve expressed their interest by supporting you. They’re already on your bandwagon. You don’t have to be afraid of them.

4. Do Your Research.

What are they interested in? What are they involved in around your community? LinkedIn and Google are fabulous prospect research tools. Learn as much as possible before you approach them. Over and over people say they are more comfortable getting ready to approach major donors when they are thoroughly prepared.

5. Remember the “Soft Skills” of Fundraising.

Don’t forget your social awareness. How are you presenting yourself? Perfect your handshake. Practice good grooming.

Dress conservatively. Know your manners (when to stand up foundationmag.ca

when a VIP enters the room, when open the door for a lady etc.)

Think about your energy — make it full of happiness instead of nervousness if you can.

6. Approach Major Donors Via a Thank You Visit.

Make a thank you visit just to show your gratitude. Make it clear that you will not be asking for anything. If they don’t want to visit, ask if you can please drop by a token of your appreciation. If you are lucky, you might be able to see five out of the 10. Remember not every donor wants engagement or to get to know you.

7. Approach Major Donors Via an Interview Visit.

Donors usually have a burning story to tell. It’s up to you to find it out. Call or email your donor and ask them to tell you their story. Then you’ll find out why they care. And you’ll open a path to a relationship with your donor.

8. Get Someone Else to Open the Door.

I really don’t like blind calling or emailing a donor I don’t know.

My favourite strategy is to have someone else to open the door.

You don’t have to meet them for the first time at an awkward, formal meeting. Instead, try to meet them at a community or social event.

9. Network Your Way to Your Donor.

I always recommend to fundraisers that they become active in their communities. Be out and about. Volunteer. Go to civic events. Attend other organizations’ functions. You’ll meet tons of people. You’ll have fun. And you’ll build a terrific network of connections, knowledge. Find a way to meet the donor thru a community event they are attending.

10. Sign Up for Major Gift Coaching and Mentoring.

Join my next Major Gift Coaching cohort, and I’ll walk you carefully and kindly through the maze (shameless plug). You’ll organize yourself with a thoughtful, rated, qualified Major Donor Prospect List and you’ll set up moves management for cultivating your major prospects. You’ll be prepared, coached and comfortable when it comes time for your first visit. Then everything will be possible — for you, your nonprofit and your donor.

GAIL PERRY is president of FiredUp Fundraising and an international fundraising consultant, keynote speaker, trainer and philanthropy leader, with deep expertise in major gift and capital campaign fundraising. With 30 years as a nonprofit philanthropy expert, she has helped organizations raise hundreds of millions in gifts. Gail was recently named #10 on the list of American’s Top Fundraising Experts.

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Three Ways Direct Mail Supports Your Crowdfunding Campaign

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BY GRANT COBB

rowdfunding is a transformative strategy that can be used to harness the power of a large network or group and garner support.

A crowdfunding campaign is typically hosted when an individual or group needs to raise money for an important cause in a limited time span. Some common examples of causes include medical expenses, nonprofit funds, political campaigns, and even animal welfare missions.

Once you’ve solidified your cause, you’ll want to select a platform that best meets your fundraising needs. Then, you’ll begin raising awareness and promoting your fundraiser. There are quite a few channels you can use to market your campaign.

The most generic route is to utilize digital marketing, but sometimes choosing other channels, like direct mail, can provide for a pleasant and powerful alternative.

In this article, we’ll discuss how you can utilize direct mail as a marketing tool to spread the word about your crowdfunding campaign. Here are three specific ways that direct mail can support your virtual efforts: ❯❯ Get the word out about your campaign. ❯❯ Break through the digital clutter. ❯❯ Build long-term donor relationships.

Leveraging the power of direct mail is a unique way to promote your campaign, which can lead to increased awareness and immense engagement. Let’s jump in.

1. Get the Word Out About Your Campaign Your direct mail should bring awareness to your virtual campaign and encourage donors to get involved. If you implement this correctly, not only will it create another channel of communication between your organization and your supporters, but it will also raise engagement due to the multi-faceted marketing approach.

The first step in using direct mail to support your campaign is to leverage your existing donors. If you have carried out direct mail campaigns (or just about any other fundraiser) in the past, you should have donor profiles from existing supporters who already give to your organization. These individuals should be targets for your campaign, making sure they’re aware of your ongoing virtual efforts as well.

After talking to existing supporters, make sure that your direct mail is also used as a way to follow up and thank top donors for their contributions to your campaign. If you include personal touches like their name and donation amount, it may even encourage them to donate again! foundationmag.ca

If you implement direct mail to complement your existing marketing efforts, your donors will become more engaged with your overall campaign. This shouldn’t be different than any other marketing campaign for your organization. After all, you already know that direct mail is still one of the most effective marketing channels for nonprofit organizations, so you’d be remiss to leave it out of your crowdfunding strategy.

2. Break Through the Digital Clutter One of the most sought-after commodities is your supporters’ engagement and attention. They are pulled left and right by competitors and other distractions—especially when it comes to online engagement. So how can you avoid this? Well, the easiest answer is by engaging with them from outside the digital realm by implementing direct mail in your marketing efforts.

This may seem counterintuitive because crowdfunding is a largely virtual phenomenon, so why would you want to pull your donors away from the computer? The answer lies in grabbing their attention. This is where you have to get creative to implement powerful engagement techniques such as personalized letters and calls to action for your donor.

If you execute a successful direct mail campaign and nail your fundraising ask, you are likely going to rekindle a sense of engagement with your donor. They will not look at your campaign as “another digital ad” but instead a personalized call to action, asking them to contribute to your campaign. This will not only lead to higher engagement but may also lead to increased generosity and a long term relationship with your donor.

3. Build Long-Term Donor Relationships Speaking of long-term supporter relationships, a direct mailing is more personal than a social media share, and donors will feel more inclined to get involved with your organization in the long run when you put extra effort in.

Now that we know why we need to use direct mail to support our crowdfunding campaign, the next step is to garner retention with your donors to keep them coming back time and time again. There are three main strategies to begin to build long term relationships and improve donor retention: Relate the donation to the mission. When writing your direct mail appeals, make sure to include a clear and compelling mission statement. If your mission is clear, it provides your donor with a tangible idea of where their money is going. Plus, it allows your donors to feel a deeper connection to the overall CONTINUED ON page 38 January/February 2021

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What You Learn When You Analyze Twitter on Giving Tuesday

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BY MATT DUBINS

o on Twitter and search up the #GivingTuesday hashtag and you’ll find a never-ending torrent of tweets by non-profits trying to get the attention of digital passersby.

Given how jam-packed the market is, and how short peoples’ attention spans are on Twitter, if there’s anything a non-profit can do to get even one “like”, or one re-tweet, or one reply on their #GivingTuesday tweets, shouldn’t they learn what that is?

I wanted to try to turn #GivingTuesday tweets into data to figure out the answer to a simple question: Which #GivingTuesday tweets got liked/re-tweeted, and which didn’t? Using my programming skills, I managed to download information about 604,478 tweets, all mentioning the #GivingTuesday hashtag. To my knowledge, this is the most extensive data ever collected on such tweets, ranging all the way from the year #GivingTuesday started, in 2012, all the way to 2020. All in all, we’re talking about 2,436 days’ worth of tweets.

For each tweet, the information I got includes the text of the tweet, counts of favourites, re-tweets, and replies, info on whether the twitter user included a photo or video, among other things.

In addition to doing some basic analysis on the tweets, I also wanted to use these tweets in a sentiment analysis. That means that I coded as many words as possible in each tweet according to whether or not the word represented one of a relatively small set of sentiments, such as, positive; negative ; anticipation ; joy; and anger.

While this process of coding words for sentiment is imperfect and flawed, I thought that something good and interesting might come out of it, so I forged ahead anyway.

Let’s start by looking at the basic trends of the tweets I collected, then we’ll move on to the sentiment analysis.

Basic twitter trend analytics First off, let’s have a look at how many tweets I was able to download for each year present in the data. As you can see, before 2018, the data contains anywhere from about 10k to 48k tweets, but then shoots up precipitously in 2019 and 2020!

In our current cursed year, we had a total of 2 #GivingTuesdays, between #GivingTuesdayNow, and regular #GivingTuesday.

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Yearly trends Next, let’s look at the trend in terms of likes, replies, and retweets. You’ll notice in the graph below, I’ve expressed these metrics in terms of the percentage of tweets with at least one.

I don’t care about the viral spinoffs in this analysis, as there aren’t that many that go viral.

YEARLY TRENDS OF ENGAGEMENT METRICS

Immediately, you see from this graph that tweets became way more likely to be liked/favourited as the years progressed compared to when #GivingTuesday began in 2012. Replies tended to hover just over the 10 percent point, whereas retweets showed a modest upward trend over the years, and then spiked upward in 2019. It looks like it’s been a great time to participate in #GivingTuesday in these last few years!

When tweets include photo or video Now let’s look at something a little bit more practical: How do your chances at getting engagement change based on the media you include with your tweet?

Here we see a very clear result: including a video in your tweet is the way to go. Video doubled your chances of getting a re-tweet, increased your chances of getting a like by about 56 percent, and gave you a SLIGHT advantage when it came to replies. Out of the entire dataset of 604,000+ tweets, only 21,595 included a video! That’s just 3.6 percent of all #GivingTuesday tweets.

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FUNDRAISING REPORT HASHTAGS

On the horizontal axis, I’ve included a count of the number of hashtags included in each tweet. On the vertical axis is the usual “percent tweets with 1+…” levels, and the different colours represent likes, re-tweets, and replies, respectively. As much as I hate to admit it, including more than one hashtag seems to help you achieve more engagement from a likes and retweets perspective, but not so with replies interestingly! Likes appear to reach a peak for tweets with 5 hashtags. Re-tweets reaches that peak for tweets with 3 hashtags.

Just please don’t use too many hashtags, for all our sakes!

Engagement by number of URLs This is an interesting pattern. Inclusion of even one URL seems to put you at a disadvantage from a likes and replies perspective, but brings your chances to a peak in terms of getting re-tweets.

What is it about including a link that makes people shy away from liking or replying? If anyone has a theory, please do let me know!

URLs

Including a video is something almost anyone should be able to do, and is highly valuable, given what we’re seeing here.

However, if we ever get to a point where almost everyone is including a video, I predict there wouldn’t be as much of an advantage anymore.

Hashtag engagement factors Continuing along a theme of practical insights, let’s look at our engagement metrics according to the number of hashtags included in the tweet. Have a look below: 32

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Engagement by number of mentions Mention someone on Twitter, and whatever you’re tweeting about gets brought to their attention. That’s why perhaps the below pattern isn’t much of a surprise: The simple message here is that mentioning more people foundationmag.ca

FUNDRAISING REPORT NUMBER OF MENTIONS

in your #GivingTuesday tweet basically helps boost your engagement metrics across the board. This effect was especially pronounced in your chances at getting a reply. Re-tweets and Likes, while boosted impressively, were impacted less.

Sentiment analysis My aim in this analysis was to try to correlate the relative presence of a small group of sentiments in each tweet with the extent to which those tweets saw engagement of digital passersby. To do this, I had to score each tweet according to the percentage of all of their content words that matched with a known sentiment word.

For example, the word “abandoned”, in the dictionary I was using, was associated with the sentiment “sadness”. Also, the word “gift” was associated with the sentiment “anticipation”. Depending on the particular mix of sentiment percentages, a tweet might have been more or less persuasive compared to others.

According to my analysis, if a tweet was high on “anticipation” words, that tweet had a 62 percent chance at being liked.

Compare that against the least likely group to be liked: low on anticipation, low in joy, and high on anger. In this group there was a 46 percent chance of being liked.

A good example from the most likely group to be liked is a Tweet which combines an astute mixture of anticipating a successful result (“providing quality education”) to some serious problems. As well, they include a picture, which as we saw earlier can help to boost your chances at getting a like.

A tweet from the group least likely group to get a like is one in which the person is referencing the firm or advocacy organization that the person works for. The point of the tweet (and the thread of which it’s a part) is to inform people about the good work her firm does but includes a link and no picture.

As we saw earlier, including a single link does decrease the likelihood of a like by about 6 percent. foundationmag.ca

Tweets which got re-tweeted If a tweet was low on anticipation, and high on argumentativeness, that tweet had a 44 percent chance of being re-tweeted. As a comparison, if a tweet was simply low on anticipation, then there was a 33 percent chance that tweet would get re-tweeted.

An example of that had high re-Tweets combines an appeal to help with a legal defence for someone who had to fight for her own safety, a few choice hashtags, and a compelling picture. Sure enough, it got five re-tweets.

One from the least likely group to get re-tweeted, while it does include a picture, it’s a mobile screenshot of what looks like a Facebook fundraiser. The founder asks people to visit his organization (presumably on Facebook) to help/donate. All in all, the tweet is simply matter of fact, doesn’t offer a compelling image, and doesn’t even provide a convenient way of visiting the fundraiser page.

Tweets which got replies If a tweet was simply low on joy, there was only a 13 percent chance that it would get at least one reply. By comparison, if a tweet was high on joy, high on anger, and high on surprise, there was a 52 percent chance it got at least one reply.

A good example from the most likely group to get replies contains a nice mixture of surprise (“breaking news!”, “now’s your chance!”), joy at the additional money from the generous donor, and a “challenge” to the donors.

The least likely group to get replies may show that it’s clear that the call to action with this tweet is to click on the link and donate. They don’t spend too much time convincing you about the work that they do, presuming that work will be done by the website itself. It’s no wonder that this wouldn’t warrant any replies.

Conclusion This was a lot of fun. I hope you’ve gotten some helpful information out of this, and that this analysis enables you to have the best Giving Tuesday 2021 possible.

MATTHEW DUBINS has a Bachelors in Psychology and Sociology and a Masters in Experimental Psychology. His interest in what motivates people converged with his scientificthinking, methodology, and understanding of data and led him to work at a non-profit where he started honing his understanding and methods of applying data for the benefit of nonprofits. Before launching Donor Science Consulting, Matthew worked for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (now Canadian Cancer Society), KCI and Blakely and Cornerstone, where he expanded his knowledge and range of data tools.

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FUNDRAISING REPORT

Five Tips for Supporter Care in COVID Times

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BY MICHELLE CHAMBERS

e’re now over a year into a COVID response that has seen lockdown rules force the temporary closure of nonprofit offices and require home working of staff wherever possible. Besides disrupting the planned fundraising calendar, with external events and recruitment activities cancelled, it has also fractured the usual supporter care processes that are a core part of delivering good stewardship to the very donors that organizations now rely on more than ever.

Hopefully your organization has not managed not only to put an initial stop-gap process in place to ensure things like post sent to the office is collected, read and managed accordingly, but also to design clear processes, with owners and escalation points, for key communication routes used by supporters. If you feel like you are still in the stop-gap phase then you are likely not alone; but your organization’s fundraising program, and in particular your retention goals on existing donors, means that you need to be not just barely functioning but instead functioning well.

How on earth do you do that you may be asking? Here’s our top five tips on how to ensure you are managing all the right areas as we continue to work from home, and hopefully move into the split office/home rota environment as we start to transition back to the office:

at home, and again if you transition back to office working with a slow part-return to the office of some staff. Think about what situation you and your team are in, and plan accordingly. Be ready to test, learn and innovate on your processes.

1. Map Out Your Incoming Communications from Supporters.

Grab a piece of paper, or do this via a team conference call, and use the online whiteboard functionality (learning new skills as we go!), and literally map out all the different routes to how supporters get in touch. Mail, email to info@, email to name@, phone to reception, phone to direct lines, online chat, etc. For each one check what still works and what doesn’t. For those that don’t work, figure out how to make them work; and for any that can’t work, figure out how you reroute them — e.g., if your main phone number goes to a now unstaffed office, then can it be rerouted? Can you put an appropriately worded (i.e., with mention of COVID and the fact that staff are working from home) message on it to ask callers to leave a message and that their call with be returned within 48 hours? Avoid simply switching all routes to send people to the website, as not all supporters are digitally literate, and some may have already looked and still need help. Aim to connect them with a human response as soon as possible. You may need to do this exercise twice — once to cover for an empty office and all staff

3. Keep Those Wider Team Relationships Tight.

Supporter care and the delivery of stewardship work best when the team responsible has a great relationship with other related teams. This is typically the fundraising/philanthropy/ advancement team — the designations differ dependant on causal area — but the underlying activities are usually the same. Ensure that you continue to manage and maintain this relationship, and schedule clear briefing and updates to ensure everyone knows about current activity and any changes to plans. In an office environment these conversations can often happen ad hoc in person, when grabbing a coffee, or in the elevator, and so you may need to make time to create space for them, perhaps with a fortnightly call between supporter care and fundraising. Work out who your key touch points are for the supporter work you service, and who in turn supports you, and ensure communication lines are open at all times. Finance, IT and marketing are likely to feature in the list too.

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2. Ensure you Have Clear Responsibilities, Policies, and Escalation Points.

Usual office-based processes are covered by long-standing and understood procedures and policies, and people know who to go to with a query or problem. Your team, and the wider teams your work with, are now fractured across many locations, without the usual touch points. Some team members may unfortunately no longer be in position due to redundancies, sickness or other absence reasons. Put together a quick reference guide to the key processes (you could use tip one as a starting point) covering what the process is, how it now works, who is responsible, and who is the escalation point. This will be one or two sides of paper ideally for ease of reference and include any key considerations such as security or health and safety e.g., if a staff member is taking cheques to the bank. Don’t forget the importance of data protection at this time, with a clear policy on how to handle supporter data at home, appropriate electronic management, and the secure destruction of any paper related to it. Get advice from the relevant team or person as needed.

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FUNDRAISING REPORT Four Factors in Fundraising Success for 2021

Top Five Fundraising No-Brainers for Nonprofit Professionals in 2021

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winner. With an atmosphere of free creativity, you’ll always be able to come up with something fresh.

Start by identifying areas where you’d like to experiment, like fundraising, promotions, places to find new donors, ways to engage with existing donors, and more. Narrow in on up to three areas and start brainstorming.

Make sure there’s a specific member of your team in charge of every experiment, and that all their outcomes are properly measured. Remember, results aren’t always the point; failure and iteration are in the heart of experimentation. A good experiment shouldn’t require a lot of resources, will bring your team interesting insights, and helps you move forward in distilling your strategy. Think of it like this; if you get one strong idea out of several tests, that’s a great result.

When you decide to bravely explore uncharted waters and try out new ideas at work, you can get ahead of the competition, bring an exciting, creative energy to your programs and campaigns, incite donor interest, and establish yourself as a thought leader.

Since I’ve dedicated most of my career to helping organizations raise major gifts, this past year was no different. (Well, of course 2020 was extremely different, but you know what I mean.)

I spent dozens (hundreds?) of hours revamping my online program and community, Mastering Major Gifts, to adapt to the changes brought on by COVID-19. In addition, I lowered the fee to a “no-brainer” price (less than $200 per month).

Why? Because I know how important it is to raise major gifts and I want to strongly encourage participation.

After all, if you don’t think you can raise an additional $1,000 or more per month, then you’re not really raising major gifts. That bottom-level major gift of $1,000 is five times ROI the cost of the program.

4. Swap Photos for Short-Form Video In 2021, we saw the rise of bite-size video content. Accelerated by the popularity of TikTok, audiences showed a strong and growing preference for interesting, entertaining short-form videos. As fundraisers and nonprofits, we need to keep up with their expectations. There’s more online content than ever, so keeping up with the trends isn’t optional — it’s a must if you want to capture attention.

Set an organization-wide goal in 2021 to prioritize video content and keep audience engagement high. Try expanding this outside of your creative and marketing teams — with a little guidance and the right tools, everyone at your nonprofit can create awesome videos that give your supporters a look inside your work and see the difference you make every day.

To put it into practice, keep an eye out for special moments behind the scenes, especially if they show off the real-world impact your work is having. For example, try filming the moment an abandoned dog gets picked up by its new family, or your team’s celebration when you finally reach a big fundraising goal.

Finally, don’t overthink it. Authenticity and immediacy is more important than a video that feels polished, fancy or professional. Your audience wants to connect, and this is their way to do it.

FUNDRAZR is an award-winning best fundraising site and platform that has helped thousands of people and organizations raise money for causes they care about. Located in Vancouver, Canada, FundRazr is at the hub of all things entrepreneurial. Our story starts in 2009 with an enthusiastic team led by CEO and crowdfunding pioneer, Daryl Hatton.

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AMY EISENSTEIN, ACFRE, is one of the leading fundraising consultants. She is also the CEO and Co-Founder of the Capital Campaign Toolkit. She's raised millions of dollars for dozens of nonprofits through event planning, grant writing, capital campaigns, and major gift solicitations. She has a real talent for making fundraising simple and accessible for her clients and followers.

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FUNDRAISING REPORT Three Ways Direct Mail Supports Your Crowdfunding Campaign

Five Tips for Supporter Care in COVID Times

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mission and vision of your organization.

Attach each donation with its direct impact. Going a few steps further, you can even communicate the exact dollar amount of a donation with its tangible aspect. Supporting impoverished children is great, but supplying a student with nutritious lunches for a week with a $15 gift is better. In clearly describing their impact, you share the success of their donation with them. This creates a sense of connection between you and your donor and encourages supporters to continue giving to make a difference.

Express gratitude. Thanking donors should be as important as asking for gifts. After all, showing appreciation is one of the easiest ways to keep them engaged with your organization. It’s also an opportunity to provide an update or remind them of the impact their donation made. This way, they remember the donation and may consider making another one because you made them feel appreciated and a part of your mission.

4. Keep Your Team Tight.

Supporter care can be a hard job when staff is often dealing with ad hoc queries and sometimes complaints from supporters.

Home working conditions have made the job even harder now as the usual immediate support from the physical wider team is removed, and perhaps trickier queries are coming in, e.g., if a donor can temporarily suspend a monthly gift due to financial hardship. Make sure the team has regular touch points together, perhaps with a dedicated weekly call at the start of the week to set out the run of the out, and a mid-week virtual coffee for more of an informal chat. Regular catch-ups should be in place for each team member with their line manager, virtually replicating the office approach, and everyone should also know how they can reach their manager in case of urgent need. Perhaps consider a team WhatsApp group or similar for chatting and sharing, outside of work concerns. A separate channel can help keep work and social aspects apart and give space for the sharing of fun items and connection on a more personal level.

Direct mail can immensely improve your donor relationships and bring awareness to your crowdfunding campaign due to its personal touch and ease in building long term relationships.

Just remember to continue updating your CRM and thanking your donors throughout the continued donor lifecycle.

All in all, direct mail is an immensely important tool that can be used to support your crowdfunding campaigns in powerful ways. When you implement direct mail effectively, you get to see the benefits of a successful crowdfunding campaign and the impact it brings to your mission.

Remember to use direct mail to spread the word about your campaign, use it to break the digital barrier, and increase your donor retention overall. If you use direct mail and implement these three tips, your campaign should see much more success and engagement overall.

GRANT COBB is a fundraising specialist with over 6 years of experience in the nonprofit space. Currently the head of marketing and analytics at GivingMail, he is a huge proponent of data-driven decision making and the push to bring high-level analytics and fundraising to all.

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5. Don’t Forget Your Situation – and that of Your Supporters.

A key thing to remember during COVID times is that we are all in this together. Everyone is experiencing disruption on a level never experienced to this timeframe or scale, and we are all, to a greater or lesser degree, worried about when and how this will end. As such be kind to yourself during the challenges currently faced, as well as to your team. And don’t forget that your supporters too are experiencing unwanted change, will be juggling wider life/work priorities, and yet amongst this do still want to support your cause as something that is important to them. Be mindful of that when crafting responses to queries, when planning stewardship with wider colleagues, and especially when dealing with problems and complaints. The golden rule of great communications — right message, right time, right audience — still stands; and perhaps just needs a bit more of the amazing donor care that you can offer.

The above is not of course an exhaustive list of everything to think about and action during this phase of COVID response, but we think it’s a good start to highlighting the key areas to examine. Always remember that people are at the heart of all we do, whether they be staff, donors or beneficiaries. Keep that at the centre of your focus as we all move through this period, and we’ll come out the other end still standing. And maybe even stronger.

MICHELLE CHAMBERS is a director of Think Canada. Objectives and results orientated, Michelle combines strategic thinking skills with operational delivery, applying practical implementation to the creative idea.

January/February 2021

foundationmag.ca

MY VIEW

From the Sidelines to the Field

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BY VALENTINA SUAREZ

“I know about the importance of values because everybody talks about them,” Rodriguez said. “But Unikall taught me how to put them into practice and apply them in my daily interaction with others.”

COURTESY VALENTINA SUAREZ

hroughout my life, I’ve always thought that everyone suffers in their own way. For me, it was shocking to see how some people were complaining about eating the same meal two or three days in a row, while others were struggling to get at least one meal in a day. It seemed unusual to me to see how those with the opportunity to eat just once per day were generally happier than those with the privilege of eating three times a day with a varied menu.

There was a moment when I thought that it would be great to combine both extremes to make people value the things they have, and what better way than showing them different cultures and giving them another perspective?

But, how would I start?

I never found a way to realize this idea until I learned about Unikall CSI, a Canadian non-profit organization created to help youth in Latin America through education and acts of love.

As I immersed myself in this organization, I began to realize how much Unikall CSI contributes to the Latin American community.

One of the first testimonials I read was from Juan Camilo Rodriguez, from Colombia. He taught me several things that I want to share with you.

A love of soccer, a love of volunteering.

For Rodriguez, life isn’t always about learning and absorbing information. For him, life is about sharing knowledge in the appropriate moment with the right people. Life doesn’t make sense to him when people don’t share what they’ve learnt with the world.

“I like when people want to help my community,” said Rodriguez. “I really appreciate when they give us material elements such as food, clothing, and elements for a better living. But what I have appreciated the most is the time that people give us. Our community is

different when I feel their presence here.

They make us feel happy; they teach things that we can put into practice with others. It works like a knowledge network where each one transmits to the other.”

Besides contributing with material elements to improve people's quality of life, Unikall CSI was formed based on tangible experiences that can change lives and leave a legacy. Unikall CSI encourages leveraging talents and uniqueness through meaningful experiences.

“When people ask me if I love soccer, I don’t know what to answer because I can’t measure how much I like it,” said Rodriguez. “For me, soccer is life.

However, sometimes I have felt I’m not enough to be a professional soccer player and that there are many more people with better skills than me. With Unikall CSI’s support, I now feel I’m playing with a purpose. Even though there are adversities, now I stay hopeful and thankful in my position because I know that change is coming, and I am ready to welcome it into my life.”

Like Rodriguez, I am grateful for the opportunity, through Unikall CSI, to don my cleats and hit the field, rather than watch from the sidelines.

VALENTINA SUAREZ is a second year Public Relations and Strategic Communications Student Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario.

Responsive, active audience. Traffic and leads.

700,000+ Canadians Canada CASL Compliant B2C Email/Postal List File www.codymontana.com happytohelp@codymontana.com 905.763.8051 foundationmag.ca

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STRATEGY

SOURCE: RBC ECONOMICS, RBC DATA AND ANALYTICS

COVID-19 Upends the Charity Playbook For Canadian charities, innovation is one path to success.

A

BY RANNELLA BILLY-OCHIENG, CLAIRE FAN AND NAOMI POWELL

healthy December bump eased what would otherwise have been a dismal year for Canadian charities. They will remember 2020 as a time of painful disruption, when virus-fighting measures stemmed or halted the flow of donations.

Overall giving fell 4 percent in Canada last year, according to RBC data. The decline masked some sharp divergences within the sector, with some organizations seeing increased contributions and others getting nothing — literally.

I think the thing that’s going to persist is that many of these organizations to survive, they had to become online overnight.

Kelly Schmitt, incoming CEO of Benevity, noted “I think the thing that’s going to persist is that many of these organizations to survive, they had to become online overnight,” said Kelly Schmitt, incoming CEO of Benevity, whose software helps coordinate giving and volunteering, on a recent episode of Disruptors, an RBC podcast. “There’s been no charity galas, no golf tournaments. The fundraising activity that they used to do just completely dried up.”

Charitable giving has fallen in times of recession before. It dropped sharply in the 2008-2009 financial crisis, declining more than 5 percent in each year according to Statistics Canada (data for 2020 is not yet available). This time around, what was an existential crisis for some was an opportunity for others to innovate — to embrace new technologies and platforms to reach long-standing supporters, and attract new ones.

The pandemic dealt an uneven blow to Canada’s charities.

Almost 42 percent of organizations that had received donations in 2019 got less in 2020, according to RBC data. The combined 40

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January/February 2021

SOURCE: RBC ECONOMICS, RBC DATA AND ANALYTICS

damage amounted to $60 million less in donations. Some charities did fine; 27 percent received zero dollars in 2020.

The biggest collective hit came in May, early in the pandemic, when giving plunged 30 percent from a year earlier. In December, donations rose 21 percent from a year earlier, as many Canadians rushed to lock in contributions before the end of the tax year.

Small, grassroots organizations are at greatest risk, according to a report from Imagine Canada, a non-profit that promotes the work of thousands of Canadian charities. They tend to have fewer financial reserves, and many of their typical donors were hit hard by the economic downturn.

The loss of live events really hurt. Despite widespread job losses, Ottawa’s support programs ensured household disposable incomes never fell below 2019 levels. That suggests the decline in giving over the course of 2020 had less to do with financial hardship than with the absence of live events so critical to fundraising. Overnight, charities were unable to rely on triedand-true approaches to capturing donations — door-to-door canvassing, live auctions, walks and runs, even bake sales. foundationmag.ca

STRATEGY

SOURCE: RBC ECONOMICS, RBC DATA AND ANALYTICS

YMCA Canada has asked for urgent support from the federal government, after revenues decreased dramatically due to cancelled in-person programming and fundraising events.

The Salvation Army’s iconic Christmas kettle campaign also fell short of its fundraising targets in several areas as COVID restrictions limited foot traffic in public spaces and shrunk the pool of available volunteers.

Amid the decline in giving, charities are being forced to do more with less. A November 2020 survey from Imagine Canada revealed that 68 percent of charitable organizations have seen a decline in donations since the onset of the pandemic, even as 46 percent of these organizations reported an increase in demand.

Digital tools enabled some charities to thrive.

Those organizations which fared better had a virtual presence or pivoted to online payments and fundraising. Canada Helps, the national platform that accepts online donations for registered charities, captured almost 33 percent of the December increase in donations, according to RBC data. Employees and customers of Benevity’s corporate clients donated $500 million of their own funds through the Calgary-based firm — a 76 percent increase over last year.

“We definitely learned that it pays to invest in your digital infrastructure,” said Todd Minerson, country director for Movember. “We’ve been an online charity since 2010, basically, and having that platform ready and available for people to participate was a huge part of how we got there this year.”

Some charities found a way to convert live events into virtual ones with the help of apps like Strava and Zwift.

Religious and health-related charities fared better. Religious charities and those focused on health saw their receipts increase compared to 2019. Charities with an international or educational focus were battered. Companies shifted their giving patterns too. Under Benevity, companies stepped up campaigns aimed at combatting COVID-19 or racial inequality, with average total donation amounts rising by 150 percent in April and 215 percent in June.

The digital shift hit this sector too. As with other economic sectors, the charitable sector can benefit from the scale which digital offers: the potential to reach far more donors. One in seven people who are asked to give at a Walmart checkout do foundationmag.ca

SOURCE: RBC ECONOMICS, RBC DATA AND ANALYTICS

so, according to Benevity’s Schmitt. “Once again, a big driver of donations is simply just being asked,” she said. Digital fundraising offers a more efficient way of doing that.

Benevity has facilitated $6 billion in donations and 34 million hours of volunteering. Digital platforms can also be used to encourage micro-donations, which can add up rapidly, particularly when companies match gifts, Schmitt said. “Without considering the company match that might be provided, the average donation size on our platform is in the neighbourhood of $50, yet over $2-3 billion was donated through the platform in 2020.”

Methodology This RBC report uses RBC Data & Analytics’ proprietary database of anonymized card transactions by Canadian clients.

The data are an accounting of merchant transactions, both in person and online. We exclude purely financial transactions such as cash advances and insurance from spending. We use RBC data as a substantive indicator of the broader market. We draw insights from a broad range of sources including this data.

Online spending volumes are estimated based on the presence of an RBC card at the time of the authorization.

Ensuring consistent identification of charitable organizations and linking them together over time is done on a best-efforts basis. As more charities have adopted online platforms, it is possible that a number of organizations identified as receiving zero donations are actually the result of a missing link as the organization adopted new fundraising approaches and online platforms.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS RANNELLA BILLY-OCHIENG is an economist at RBC. She holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Economics & Accounting from University of the West Indies, Master of Research in Money, and Banking & Finance from Lancaster University and a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Guelph.

CLAIRE FAN is an economist at RBC. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from University of Toronto and a Master of Financial Economics from Western University.

NAOMI POWELL is responsible for editing and writing pieces for RBC Economics and Thought Leadership. Prior to joining RBC, she worked as a business journalist in Canada and Europe, most recently reporting on international trade and economics for the Financial Post.

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AFP REPORT

AFP Canada Chair Ken Mayhew:

A Facilitator of the Goals and Vision of Others William Osler Health System Foundation that serves the 1.3 million people living in the Brampton and Etobicoke region of Ontario.

Throughout his career, he has been actively engaged in AFP. He is a past president of the AFP Greater Toronto chapter, a founding director of AFP Canada and, for the past three years, and served as chair of the communications committee of AFP Canada.

In January 2021, he began a two-year term as chair of the AFP Canada board of directors. We caught up with him to find out what he’s thinking about the year ahead.

Ken Mayhew is one of the best-known fund development professionals in Canada

K

en Mayhew is one of the best-known fund development professionals in Canada. He spent more than 20 years as the chief development officer at Multiple Sclerosis Canada, where he designed and rolled out some of the most innovative fundraising programs in the country, building a database of almost one million donors and raising $50 million a year.

For the past nine years, he’s been president and CEO of the

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January/February 2021

Deciding that you’d like to try your hand at being chair of a national organization is a lot of work in anyone’s book, especially in addition to your day job. What made you decide you’d like to be the chair of AFP Canada?

I am very fortunate that my day job is more of a calling than a job. In my role, I lead an exceptional team of fundraisers who are helping hospitals at the epicentre of this global pandemic by caring for people often from disadvantaged socioeconomic circumstances. As a member of the hospital executive responsible for leading the 8,000 physicians, nurses, staff and volunteers at Osler, I have never felt more aware of the importance of what I do nor more humbled by the everyday heroes I work with.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have my challenging days — we all do. But since childhood, I have always felt a responsibility to pay things forward. And I deeply believe that AFP does that for our profession and our community. Many AFP colleagues are close friends and advisors and have lifted me as supporters and as critics. All have made me better as a leader and a human. I also believe that AFP Canada, acting through and on behalf of all members as the voice of AFP from coast to foundationmag.ca

AFP REPORT coast to coast, is uniquely able to take tough positions with the federal government that educate them on the importance of ethical fundraising. Concurrently, we have and will continue to develop briefs on perennial issues such as why fundraising is an essential service and the cost of fundraising.

What are your goals for the organization as you set out on your term as chair?

Our priorities are to build on the path created for us by our members, our strategic plan and the awakenings of 2020. We must be more thoughtful about the social construct in which we work and live, of the needs of our 21 chapters that are the face of AFP in Canada and of the stress on our members—who are also rightly worried about the future of the fundraising profession.

We will do so by inspiring a large and diverse team of volunteers focused on everything from the public narrative on the legitimacy of our profession to efforts to provide sustainable funding to the organizations we work for. The transparency of how AFP operates and populates its volunteer cohort is also on the list. I have six specific SMART [Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound] goals in support of this and will do my best to deliver on the promise of our collective ambitions.

Do you think the wealth inequity and racial injustice we witnessed during 2020 — thinking of the pandemic and the resulting protests around the killing of George Floyd — changed or will changed the way fundraisers look at their jobs?

The George Floyd murder remains shocking and indefensible.

The protests against systemic injustice and racism have opened doors that will not be closed again. None of us will live nor do our work in the same way again. At the same time, the traditional notion of philanthropy itself involves a profound power imbalance between the donor and the person seeking the donation. I question the source and motivation behind donations to an extent I have not before.

What’s your experience of the difference about being chair of a board as opposed to being “just” a board member?

I view myself as a good listener and collaborator. I view my role as chair is to be a facilitator of the goals and vision of others at the board table. With the calibre of board members recruited, and the smart work done by those who came before me, including Paula Attfield, I am very excited by the potential of AFP Canada to make a difference. I have a reputation for driving work from premise to output and view my mandate as being about service and amplification and never about me.

What do you think are the biggest issues facing fundraisers today?

The concurrent pandemics we face of injustice and racism, of the COVID pandemic, and the likelihood that both will foundationmag.ca

destabilize the ecosystem in which we work and live. I believe some of this change is overdue and for the good. As we confront our new economic and social constructs and constraints, it will be important to keep our momentum, our hope and to remain resilient. Indeed, amidst this, I believe AFP has a role, perhaps the key role, to play in creating the sense of belonging for those who fundraise for a living.

What is one challenge you anticipate in your new role as chair of AFP Canada?

Ensuring impact and relevance within the seriousness and complexity of these concurrent pandemics.

What’s the thing you’re most looking forward to?

Building on the foundation left by others.

One lesson learned in life that you can apply to this role.

I am an imperfect work in progress on a lifelong journey to learn and grow and improve.

What books are you reading now?

Today, The Wayfinders by Wade Davis. Recently, Go Wild by John J. Ratey MD, Untamed by Glennon Doyle, Becoming by Michelle Obama, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas, How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, American Dirt by Jeanne Cummins. And I regularly re-read my all-time favourite, Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez. That, and thanks to a long commute, I listen to a daily dose of podcasts.

Do you have a message to the members of AFP? What you do matters. How you do what you do matters more.

Use the enormous human and archived resources and diverse perspectives of AFP in Canada to leave your mark on your organization, your community and world. If, you feel you have it together, help someone who, despite best efforts, does not.

This interview appeared on the AFP Global website and is reproduced here with permission.

CYNTHIA J. ARMOUR CFRE Facilitation Training & Coaching • Strategic Planning • Change Management • Executive Coaching • Conference Speaker

• Board Governance • Fundraising • Communications • Rural Retreat

cja@elderstone.ca • (705) 799-0636 January/February 2021

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The Animal Gu ardian Society

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HELPING TORONTO’S MAJOR DONORS FIND THEIR CAUSE

t’s been over 30 years since Kathy Asling found an old puppy on the street. She 8-weekAs an animal immediately called possible link to rescue group we the pup’s every microchip know how important in her local newspaper. owners and ran an advertisem pets. You cannot it is to ent predict what will A reporter who Kathy to write happen in the saw the ad called future so we always advise a cover responsible pet an appointment Although no owner story. owners to for was ever located, procedure. It’s better this quick and painless 5 minute make calls to adopt the she received almost puppy. (or less) to be safe than 200 options sorry. With other adopters and conducted She instinctively screened out there, we also expensive prospective know that many home visits. Kathy not to proceed but had names pet owners decide decided on with micro-chip and ping their pets provide a loving numbers of several families she a home price. That is why because of the TAGS initiated home to a dog. felt would saving a cheap way to The next day she local shelter and a good amount microchip, visited started ‘match of people who had making’ by contacting the The revenue goes toward money (instead of paying $90 called her looking and up). a good cause the need through to adopt.

The Animal Guardian – helping dogs & cats in Society.

How We Use Your Money 100% of your donations goes to helping the program as we animals in our have far is the veterinary no paid staff. TAGS’s largest expense by bills. We want are healthy, and to be sure that sometimes this all our dogs means expensive or surgeries that medications cost hundreds or even thousands In addition, all TAGS dogs are of dollars. spayed and microchipp ed prior to adoption. or neutered, vaccinated to receive some While TAGS is donations of dog fortunate purchasing quality food, we also spend Identifying the dog food to feed need for someone money Other expenses to our dogs in of good dogs from to step up and include the production foster care. save the lives being put to death, and created the name promotiona l material. of training, educationa The Animal Guardian Kathy and her daughter l To donate visit of 1987 the first Society (TAGS).

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The Animal Guardian like building materials and their love and dedication to services. animals to take Society’s microchip a stand to educate a popular tradition, participate in the clinics have become and offering inexpensiv pet owners in the ❯ To see the day cause of rescue.

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The Animal Gu ardian Society

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The Animal Gua rdian Society

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Durham Region In March It is our mission based Kathy set out to to companion animals provide re-homing and medical meet with individualsrescue was formed. care to displaced and guide her into education, behaviour to support the community developing a program who could mentor and in areas of humane counseling, the integrity and ethics that promotion of ownership, and that would promote would operate with the needs of animals.responsible pet our communit humane education y and find homes to for displaced animals.

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General information with any questions or comments https://ww w.canadah about our program you have. n elps.org/en/dn/13492at Canada Helps tagsinfo@animalguardian or volunteering:

Find your path to new major donors and sponsors. Get into the 2021 GTA Giving Guide and get your charity’s story and key mission statements, fundraising campaigns, major gift programs, sponsorship opportunities, I accomplishments and donor stories into Toronto’s largest official guide to help major individual donors and corporate foundations find new ways to support your efforts. Reach more than 20,000 senior executives in marketing, finance and C-Suite leadership in the largest firms in the Toronto area. Headquarters of companies which allocate millions of dollars for donations, sponsorship, social programs, volunteering, governance, advice and insights. And whose leaders and proven individual donors.

The Animal Gua rdian Society

Telephone: 905-263

.org

-TAGS (8247)

t’s been over 30 years since Kathy old puppy on Asling found an the street. She 8-weekimmediately called possible link to the every in her local newspaper pup’s owners and ran an advertisem . A reporter who to write a cover saw the ad called ent story.

Kathy Although no owner was ever located, calls to adopt the she received almost puppy.

200 adopters and conducted She instinctively screened prospective home visits. Kathy but had names decided on a home and numbers of several families provide a loving she felt would home to a dog.

The next day she local shelter and visited started ‘match people who had making’ by contacting the called her looking the to adopt.

Identifying the need for someone of good dogs from to step up and save the lives being put to death, created the name The Animal Guardian Kathy and her daughter of 1987 the first Society (TAGS).

Durham Region In March It is our mission based rescue was to Kathy set out to companion animals provide re-homing and medical formed. meet with individuals care to displaced and guide her into education, behaviour to support the community developing a program who could mentor and in areas of humane counseling, the integrity and ethics that promotion of ownership, and that would promote would operate with the needs of animals.responsible pet our communit humane education y and find homes to for displaced animals.

We welcome your To donate visit feedback and Please feel free our website your questions. to contact us org or see our at General information with any questions or comments donation informatiowww.animalguardian. about our program https://ww w.canadah you have. n tagsinfo@animalguardian or volunteering: elps.org/en/dn/13492at Canada Helps

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.org

-TAGS (8247) 2021 GTA Giving

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COMMENT Hindsight is 20/20: Hopeful Reflections from the Field For many, we’ve taken multi-tasking to new heights and yet for others who were laid off or had their positions terminated, they are coping with the shock of job loss, the impact of loneliness or conversely too many people confined in one house with inevitable financial worries that are taking their toll. In addition, the intolerance we’re witnessing in the U.S. and Canada, cannot be denied and nor should it be accepted. How we handle stress depends on so many factors including how we were raised and our willingness to seek professional help, before we can even consider our ability to pay for therapy or another coping outlet and the availability of support.

Little did I know that life on an Ontario farm, while working mostly with small to medium-sized charities would train me so well for frugal isolation! I once dubbed myself a “FIF” (fiercely independent female) until I realized that a “lonely FIF” is a self-created contradiction that necessity was destined to change. Within the past decade I’ve had one hip replacement, two hernia repairs and brain surgery for the successful removal of a benign tumour.

I’ve learned that as long as I appear “capable” and self-reliant, help is rarely offered. People have their own priorities.

Yet just as we learn in fundraising that most donors don’t give unless they’re asked I discovered generosity abounds when I communicated my needs. And again like fundraising, it’s not personal if someone says no. Asking for help isn’t easy but consider this, it’s more strength than weakness to be that self-aware and not mask (or numb) what’s real.

Although generosity has been inspiring since last March, Imagine Canada’s December/20 Sector Monitor Study shows that 68 percent of charities have seen a decline in support since the onset of the pandemic. I was encouraged that more than 36 percent of survey respondents said their donations had increased since the previous year. Sadly, 54 percent had decreased with that majority being dependent on special events as their primary revenue source. Corporate foundationmag.ca

donations and sponsorships are down, but committed individuals, who’ve remained employed and had reduced expenses have continued to give. Funders have been open and flexible regarding pre-pandemic grant deliverables and some foundations have opted to support operations and capacity-building opportunities. While many fear when government programs run out, subsidies, rent relief and emergency funds have made a significant difference in organizational survival.

COVID-19 has introduced all of us to untold vulnerabilities including our own (humbling) mortality, at least for those who know this nightmare is real.

Our challenge is to understand that like a flight emergency, we need to put our own oxygen mask on first…which literally brings me to breathing. Adults apparently take 25,000 breaths per day...incorrectly, despite years of practice! These lifesustaining gifts don’t cost anything and done consciously, they have the power to soothe our souls, reduce our stress, heal many ailments and return a sense of equilibrium in this world of uncertainty.

We also have the affordable and restorative powers of nature. The great outdoors in all its seasons is inspiring and I’m not alone in believing that the addition of fourlegged friends adds a comical, frequently entertaining and unconditionally-loving bonus. In fact, I learn from my animals daily and I credit them with teaching me

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how to breathe properly (along with singing lessons and yoga instruction for the English translation). My horses and cats remind me to stay in the present; considering Brock the Bronco got fired from the Toronto Mounted Police for bucking cops off, presence is a safety requirement. He’s more playful than mean and just doesn’t recognize his 1,800 pounds of energy requires constant monitoring and positive channeling. So, if ever you want to commune with a domestic or even wild animal at a safe distance, you need only to be quietly still and match their diaphragmatic breathing to ground and transcend you both. Our pets echo our anxiety so this is a way to relax together.

This storm requires whatever it takes to stay afloat. If you’re financiallystrapped finding comfort doesn’t require any investment except your time. Pay attention to what healthy addictions bring you joy and prescribe them for yourself regularly. Even my wise, nearly-98-yearyoung father, who’s seen so much in his lifetime, exclaimed he’s never witnessed anything like this before. Life goes on, our mortality deserves reflection and hope springs eternal.

CYNTHIA ARMOUR, CFRE, is committed to strengthening board/staff leadership teams, strategic thinking and planning, goal setting and inspiring mission-driven results that benefit those you serve. With a lifetime of studies, research and practical experience, "AMA" (ask me anything) at 705-799-0636 or cja@elderstone.ca.

For more information and a vast selection of resources go to the COVID-19 sections of Imagine Canada (https://www.imaginecanada.ca/en/covid19), Ontario Nonprofit Network (https://theonn.ca/resources-covid-19/) Other Tips & Tools include: ❯❯ https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/stories/strategy-and-learning/tips-andtools-for-nonprofit-planning-in-a-pandemic - Nonprofit Planning in a Pandemic ❯❯ https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/library/organizational-effectiveness/ nonprofit-decision-making-in-covid-19-crisis - Compass for the Crisis: Nonprofit Decision Making in the COVID-19 Pandemic ❯❯ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBqGS-vEIs0&feature=emb_rel_end TedxGalway - Patrick McKeown - Buteyko Breathing (a quick overview of the value of nasal breathing - Breathe Light to Breathe Right) ❯❯ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woyIhwomy1U - Why Changing The Way You Breathe Will Transform Your Body and Mind (a deep dive podcast hosted by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee with James Nestor on his new book “Breath”) January/February 2021

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COMMENT

Hindsight is 20/20: Hopeful Reflections from the Field

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BY CYNTHIA ARMOUR, CFRE

ver the past three decades I’ve facilitated many strategic planning processes and helped boards and senior staff to explore and plan their organization’s futures. Ironically, many final strategy documents were earnestly entitled “Vision 2020” without any inkling of what horrors would unfold.

My brother’s quick-witted quip has evolved from “denial...that’s in Egypt isn’t it?” to “denial works...until it doesn’t work”. Last March the world certainly faced that reality head on. Despite encouraging clients to be proactive, advising them to have reserve funds and build risk management plans, I must say a global pandemic wasn’t on our radar (unless you’d taken Bill Gates’ 2015 Ted Talk seriously). Hospitals regularly have to plan for such risks and even these institutions have been ill-prepared for what’s transpired.

Holding the fort Last spring I was contacting my clients, speaking primarily to chief executives, to inquire how they were doing. I had trouble reaching many of them and yet two words summed up what continues to be confirmed by those left “holding the fort”. Brianna Salmon, Peterborough GreenUP’s young, energetic and bright, award-winning, executive director just sighed and gasped “I’m exhausted!”

While my immediate response to Brianna was “you’re my canary in the coal mine!” I’m profoundly aware that so many effective, efficient and seamless responses have been akin to how smoothly a duck floats across the water, with no evidence of how hard it’s paddling beneath...but in this case, its wings are clipped and it’s hunting season.

Like so many other organizations, everyone was suddenly working or volunteering from home, some rurally46

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or remotely-based with constantly frustrating internet limitations, learning new technology while having to examine which programs could continue online, reconfiguring staff responsibilities and making big, quick and ongoing decisions affecting policies, procedures and protocols. The governance/management leadership teams had no choice but to rise to these challenges.

“For many, we’ve taken multi-tasking to new heights.”

There is an abundance of easilyaccessed, excellent resources available that have helped inform me (see links below). I also wanted a local 2021 perspective so I surveyed members of the Peterborough Area Fundraisers’ Network.

I was grateful for the prompt 67 percent responses received. PAFN is a professional group of voluntary sector colleagues working mostly within urban and rural Peterborough County (Ontario). One organization is entirely volunteer-driven, up to the community college, university and regional hospital. Budgets range from under $30,000 to over $300 million with 36 percent in the $1-3 million range.

It’s evident from the survey and client conversations that organizations whose board bring engaged and diverse skills, insights and strategic thinking have fared more favourably. What remains to be seen is whether nonprofits/charities that lacked sustainability pre-pandemic will survive and if not, we’ll see an increase in collaborations and mergers.

Regardless of location, one of the most poignant observations noted everywhere is the extreme differences people are experiencing. Writer Damian

January/February 2021

Barr highlighted these inequalities in a heartfelt poem captured succinctly by his summary…We are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm. Some are on super-yachts. Some have just the one oar.

I’d venture to add, some are trying to stay afloat with neither boat nor life jacket!

National organizations that relied on big special events either for fundraising or programs (like WE Days) laid-off or furloughed huge numbers of staff early in the pandemic. By last October and prior to renewed lockdown measures in the Greater Toronto Area, I attempted to reach fundraisers in many charities and even if an individual’s LinkedIn profile confirmed their position, less than two percent actually answered their phones.

Some voicemails provided cell numbers but many office extensions were just dead ends so be sure your organization’s donors can find someone. A colleague in the executive search world remarked that she’d never seen so many over-qualified applicants for a mid-level position in all her years of practice.

Coping with increased demands People who’ve managed to keep their job in this sector, particularly in frontline healthcare and social services are coping with increased demands for support, with even less human and financial resources than during already-stretched pre-pandemic times. These individuals, many of whom are women, are carrying a disproportionate burden and the risk of burnout is very real. If their position includes working from home, while simultaneously parenting and schooling their children (again inadequate internet services outside urban centres prevails) then they’ve surpassed being super-moms and dads; frankly I’m in complete awe and also very concerned for their wellbeing.

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