A fundraiser awakes from hibernation

The weirdest thing happened to me this morning... I woke up and got out of bed and my back felt kinda stiff... like I'd slept on my shoulder funny or something... and then I noticed that my breath smelled like my teeth hadn't been brushed in five months...

I checked my cell phone only to see 128 voicemails and over 2,700 emails. Weird, I didn't remember being that popular when I fell asleep...

Is it possible I've been sleeping for 5 months? I tried to figure out why my stupid alarm clock hadn't awoken me from my slumber, I noticed that I must have set it on "hibernation" mode before I fell asleep.

Can somebody fill me in if I missed anything in the world during the last 5 months that I was sleeping?

Do you wanna know where I've been?

In addition to the thousands of people who visit this website every month or read my stories via RSS, more than 700 people are signed up to receive Don't Tell the Donor by email. In the two weeks since I last posted to this blog, many of you have emailed to ask where I've been or why I stopped writing. So... I'm going to tell you:

I bought a time machine.

That's right, a small metal chair rigged to flux capacitor which only requires 1.21 gigawatts of electrical power to send me flying forward or backward in time. Despite my lifelong promise to myself that if I should go back in time and steal someone else's invention or stop myself from making all those mistakes I made in high school... alas... I decided to use the time machine to travel into the future to share with you what fundraising will look like next year at this time.

It's worse than just not good... it's downright scary.

The housing market isn't going to get better. As a result, I guess it was inevitable that banks like Wachovia, Washington Mutual, PNC Bank, and Fifth Third were going to go belly-up... but, even I was surprised to see General Motors and American Airlines file for bankruptcy.

Unemployment soars above 6% and many of you lose your jobs as smaller nonprofits begin to disintegrate in larger numbers. I hate to say I warned you this was going to happen... but I even ran around with my hair on fire trying to get your attention.

This isn't a normal recession. Unfortunately, this is an unraveling of a massive credit bubble... and it will not end through the normal cyclical economic patterns.

The truth of the matter is that you don't need a time machine. The writing is already on the wall. Target Analytics reported yesterday that revenue declined in the 1st quarter of 2008 for 60% of the 72 large organizations in their benchmarking study. Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University reported individual and corporate giving actually declined in 2007 when adjusted for inflation.

So... go back to living in denial if you want to... or you can adjust yourself and your fundraising programs for the new economy... either way, it's not going to get better for at least another year.

If your birthday is June 11th...

A very close friend of Don't Tell the Donor is celebrating their birthday today. Unfortunately, "a fundraiser" was too busy trying to raise money to share any cake and pass along best wishes in person... here's to hoping a special blog post will do the trick!

Happy Birthday.

Bloggers challenge Gene Austin from Convio to announce his over/under goal for the year

On June 5th of last week, Tom over at The Agitator posted this article:

Courtesy of Don’t Tell the Donor blog, I just saw Convio’s reaction to Blackbaud’s purchase of rival Kintera. In it, Convio CEO Gene Austin comments that in April alone, Convio processed over $41 million in online contributions for its clients.

So here’s my question for you, Gene…

Are you ready to predict a $500,000,000 (that’s a half-billion for you creatives) online fundraising year for Convio clients? That’s getting to be big money!

Even though it was this site that originally posted the number, Austin must have decided not to post to Don't Tell the Donor directly. Instead, Austin posted this challenge to a bet on the comment thread at the Agitator:

Gene Austin on June 5th, 2008 10:53 am
As we all know there is a fair amount of seasonality in fundraising (Spring, October and the end of year), but I actually think $550M is achievable this year. Remember that this is only actual online giving and many of our clients will testify that their offline results are significantly impacted by their online communications and strategy.

If you are a “betting man” Tom we could put a little wager together on $550M. If we don’t hit it, I will fly you to our Summit and pay for your registration….now what do I get if we beat it?

When I read the bet Austin was making, I couldn't wait to offer my own Vegas-style lines on what Convio's expected donation processing total will be for 2008. At first I thought the SEC might be supisicous if I was to publicly comment on how many donations I thought would be a reasonable over/under... but my urge to gamble made me get involved.

I assume the first stated over/under number of $500 million was determined because Tom multiplied $41 million from April by 12 months (that would be $492 million for you math geeks). So, part of me thinks if Gene's bravado is ready to drop a number like $550 million as an even higher over/under... that means he's holding back his real estimate.

But how much higher should the real over/under be?

First, we need to set some realistic benchmarks:

I know a couple organizations that raise 5% of their total online revenue during the month of April. That means their total annual revenue is 20 times the amount raised in the month of April. If we apply those metrics to this bet, the over/under should be $820 million. That would be an impressive accomplishment.

So, I'll tell you what. If Convio can process over $820 million for their clients in 2008, I will reveal my secret blogger identity on the Agitator's blog. Live. What do you think about that challenge Gene?

Talk to Seth Godin on Tuesday

Long time readers of this blog will remember that I credit Seth Godin with giving me my first real traffic spike. And even though his Squidoo project seems to be taking longer than most thought to grow, many nonprofit fundraisers seem to think of him as a marketing guru.

The folks over at philanthropy.com are hosting an online discussion with Seth tomorrow (Tuesday, May 20th) starting at noon. You can find out more here.

Maybe I should ask him whether the ideas for his most recent blog post on conferences were "borrowed" from my article back in April in the NonProfit Times...

Where will you donate your $600 tax rebate check?

Okay folks, it's time for an interactive post that requires feedback from loyal readers of Don't Tell the Donor. A good friend forwarded me an article by Stephanie Strom at the New York Times who wrote about the opportunities for charities who plan to ask supporters to donate their $600 rebate check.

I'm asking readers to post a comment with the best fundraising pitch they've seen from nonprofits. If you can include a link, that's great... if it's an email you received, please include the charity's name and copy and paste some of the text.

The Times article spends too much time quoting the fundraising consultant Robert Sharpe and only three weak examples are cited from:

* The VFW National Home for Children
* Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranches
* Peace Action

...but I know this audience can compile a good list of which organizations are on the creative cutting edge by offering donors an easy way to donate their rebate.

Jeff Brooks reacts to my critique of fundraising conferences

Last week, Jeff Brooks over at Donor Power Blog picked up my last column in the NonProfit Times about the current state of fundraising conferences.

Jeff offers his own critique of some nonprofit fundraising conferences:

"There's one main difference between the nightmarish climactic scene of a zombie movie and some of the conferences we fundraisers attend: The conferences use Powerpoint."

Thanks for expanding the discussion Jeff. I actually think there have been some positive developments in the past several weeks that shows progress toward making these important professional learning opportunities into the 21st century.

Team Approach uploads conference PowerPoints

Maybe they listened to me...

Apparently, the nonprofit fundraising database, Team Approach is holding a conference in Massachusetts next week. One of DTTD's loyal readers is going and she sent me an email this afternoon claiming that the organizers have posted most of the presentations to their website in advance of the conference. Go here to check it out, it doesn't appear like you need to be registered for Team Approach User Forum 2008 to download PowerPoints.

For those of you that might not know, earlier this week I called on fundraising conference organizers to start taking advantage of the power of the web for these events:

Finally, I challenge organizers to use the untapped potential of technology in more conference planning and follow-up. I know I’m a little biased, but why aren’t more bloggers given media credentials to cover events in real time? Why aren’t all those PowerPoint slideshows archived electronically for attendees to read prior to (and after) each conference? Why don’t we encourage the Direct Marketing Association, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Council For Advancement and Support of Education and the Nonprofit Technology Network to use upload video and audio from presentations?

I probably can't take full credit... because if I would have known people listened to what I write, I might have asked for something more dramatic...

UPDATE 4/9/08: I guess I should have kept that more of a secret, it looks like access to the Target site is now restricted.

The world's 50 most powerful blogs

The Guardian published a list of the "World's 50 most powerful blogs" yesterday. I'm sorry to report, but Don't Tell the Donor is not on the list.

I recommend checking out the list. My favorite is #44: Waiter rant.

Rant isn't quite the right word for this collection of carefully crafted stories from the sharp end of the service industry in a busy New York restaurant. 'The Waiter', as the author is known, has been blogging his experiences with fussy customers and bad tippers since 2004, winning a gong at blogging's biggest awards, the Bloggies, in 2007. It's representative – but by no means the first – of the so-called 'job-blogs', with people from all walks of life, from ambulance drivers (randomactsofreality.net) and policemen (coppersblog.blogspot.com) to the greatly loved but now defunct Call Centre Confidential. Between them they chronicle life in their trade, and usually from behind a veil of anonymity. Something about the everyday nature of The Waiter – a person we like to pretend is invisible or treat with servile disdain – deconstructing the event later with a subtle, erudite typestroke, has captured the public imagination and (hopefully) made some people behave better in restaurants than they otherwise might.

I plan on filing a formal appeal, but it's always possible that we just missed the cut at #51.

My new column in The Nonprofit Times

The NonProfit Times asked me to write a column using my anonymous alias "a fundraiser" which will appear as a monthly feature on their website.

Apparently someone over there thinks I'm running, "one of the hottest blogs in the sector" and since I'm such a sucker for flattery - I told them I would be honored to share my thoughts.

So, a couple days ago I sat down and thought about a topic that worries a lot of my fundraising colleagues... and I began my first post by asking a scary question:

How would you feel if you discovered that 500 of your donors had created a group on a social networking Web site like Facebook to publicly discuss their experiences donating to your organization?

I suspect some fundraisers would panic with a sense of fear...

Continue reading the rest of this thought-provoking article titled "Our Donors Are Talking - What Are We Afraid Of?" on the NonProfit Times website.

I think she's talking about me...

It turns out that asking a consultant to go to a conference and report back on their findings is a shitty way to collect content for a blog... and alas, it looks like I was called out on it.

"I don’t have a blog — yet — but if I did, I sure as hell would be blogging about the DMA Nonprofit Federation’s annual conference that took place in D.C. last week. I mean, come on, these conferences are chock-full of useful information — not to mention juicy gossip and ‘celeb’-fundraiser sightings. But here it is, four days after the close of the conference, and the only thing I see on the blogs is one blogger’s promise to post guest blogs from someone in attendance … but no follow-up. Weird."­

— (Not really) posted Jan. 29 by FundRaising Success Editor-in-Chief Margaret Battistelli on her imaginary "I Don’t Have A Blog Yet" blog.

2008 Annual Washington Nonprofit Conference

There is a big nonprofit fundraising conference going on in Washington, DC this week which is run by the Direct Marketing Association's Nonprofit Federation.

I've been told they have about 800 people there this year... and while I'd love to be there blogging about the education conferences and gossip from the various networking events, it's not going to happen.

So, in my place I asked a dear friend, who I will call "a consultant" to send me emails from the inner working's of the festivities in Washington. Here is what my source sent me:

Hi Fundraiser, Greetings from the conference! The escalators don't work at the hotel, so getting between floors is a pain-in-the-butt, but not as much of a pain as schmoozing with clients, former co-workers, and vendors. There is an interesting panel being held this morning moderated by Senny Boone, Esq., Vice President, Special Counsel & Executive Director, DMA Nonprofit Federation. She is going to have some impressive panelists, including:

Carolyn A. Emigh, Principal, Nonprofit Service Group
Charles Nave, Esq., President, Charles H. Nave, P.C.
Geoffrey W. Peters, President, CDR Fundraising Group
Robert S. Tigner, Regulatory Counsel, DMA Nonprofit Federation

I'll keep you posted on what I see, hear, and learn from the events.

As a note to the rest of my readers, if you have tips, stories, and reactions to the conference in DC or to any conferences you've been to recently, please send them along.

I guess DM News finally got my memo

Exactly one month ago today, I warned readers of this blog that I wasn't here to waste their time. I believe my exact words were:

Most people don't know this, but I have a magic crystal ball in my desk drawer. It has special powers that allow me to predict the future. Not only that, but I read a shit load of news stories everyday about fundraising in order to hopefully share some observations of what trends will influence our industry.I'm not trying to scare you. I only want to warn you - so pay attention.

For Pete's sake, I'm been running around with my hair on fire trying to tell fundraisers that they need to be very worried about a pending financial disaster in the global economy. Are you listening yet?

It appears Chantal Todé got my memo. An article written by Todé appeared on the DM News website yesterday with quotes from Greg Fox, SVP and chief strategy officer at database market­ing agency Merkle.

According to Merkle's data, giving is already down in some areas of the Midwest and the South, and Fox says, “there may be a correlation between [the reduced giving and] the heightened foreclo­sure rates in those markets."

Unfortunately, I think we've moved past just describing this as a "foreclosure crisis" and what we now need to deal with is a global economy that needs to unwind massive amounts of leveraged trades tied to a spreading credit crisis.

...but what do I know, I'm just "a fundraiser" with a blog.

This is my 500th blog post!

Today is a big day for "a fundraiser."

Today is the 553rd day since I started this blog and this marks the 500th blog I've written for Don't Tell The Donor.

Technorati continues to reward the growing traffic numbers... this site has had over 55,000 visitors come to the website, while another 450+ readers subscribe to the feedburner email delivery.

Today this site is ranked as the 108,652 most popular blog on the Internet... and with your help, I have no doubt Don't Tell The Donor will crack the top 100,000 blogs now.

Feel free to leave a comment on this post with ideas about which blog post was your favorite!

Why not celebrate this anniversary day by reaching out to a couple good fundraisers you know and trust... and invite them to join the conversation we've got going here?

NP Times names World's Best Fundraisers

Six years ago a friend gave me a t-shirt that says "#1 Fundraiser in the World."

I wear it to work sometimes underneath my clothes. I've found that, not only does it give me secret powers, it has also been a self-enforcing prophecy. I've had some of my greatness fundraising successes while wearing that t-shirt... after all, that don't give out shirts like that to just anyone.

So, you can imagine my shock when the NonProfit Times released their list of the World's Best Fundraisers today. They didn't mention the fact that I was already awarded this title (by way of my t-shirt) over six years ago.

Despite this oversight, I think the list (and the rational) is very solid:

Younger Than 40 - Sarah Tanner
Younger Than 40 - Brian Cowart
Online - Greenpeace International
Living Legend - Larry Jones
Cause Marketing - Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Direct Mail - Susan Loth
International - FINCA
Trendsetter - Jewish National Fund

Now that I know this t-shirt isn't an exclusive award... I might as well start selling "World's #1 Fundraiser" t-shirts and mugs in the Don't Tell the Donor online store.

Worry no more fundraising fans

The last week of the calendar year is one of the busiest times of the year for nonprofit fundraisers. Even if, like many nonprofits, your fiscal year goes from July 1st to June 30th - the holiday season is still critical for fundraising success.

For the past week, "a fundraiser" has been too busy counting money and eating fruit cake to write on this blog. I apologize to all the fundraising fans out there.

I'd like to wish a Happy New Year to all of the loyal readers of this blog. We've got an exciting year planned, so if you haven't signed up to receive updates by email or to receive Don't Tell the Donor stories by RSS feed make sure to put that on your list of resolutions for 2008.

How I won the "One Post Challenge" at Tactical Philanthropy

When I submitted my entry to Sean's "One Post Challenge" it wasn't my intention to hijack the contest.

Fourteen months ago when I started my Don't Tell the Donor blog, I was one of only a handful of fundraising bloggers. Over the past year, I was initially excited to see so many more bloggers add to the online conversation.

Unfortunately, the proliferation of websites has all too often produced an incestuous conversation. For this medium to reach its strongest potential and serve as a true benefit to the nonprofits we serve, we must find a way to reach out beyond a limited number of fundraisers and foundation staffers to engage directly with individual donors.

As I wrote in my initial post, "blogging is not about talking AT PEOPLE, it’s about making readers part of the story and giving them a reason to be engaged."

Engaged was a bit of an understatement. Within the first 24 hours my post generated 57 comments, which by itself would have been enough to win the contest.

Sean himself noted that the deluge of hopeful supporters leaving comments for their cause generated more traffic to the website than his mentions in both the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the New York Times. That single comment proved my point more than the huge number of posts that came in.

...oh, but by the way... there were a heckuva a lot of comments. As I write this now, it looks like there are 683 total comments. I will leave it to Sean to see if he thinks their was any cheating with multiple votes coming from the same IP address... but here is how I saw the horserace unfold:

A total of ten nonprofits tried to lobby for votes. The early leader, Pride at Work after generating more than 60 votes within the first 36 hours. Thanks to one dedicated activist who was able to use his own site to reach out to more people, Pride at Work built a commanding lead... so much of a lead, they stopped thinking about the contest.

Then, on November 26th, someone who went by the name "Kjerstein" posted comment #75 - the first vote for Forge. That was followed by more than 50 more votes for Forge within the next couple hours... and the battle lines were drawn.

For the last week, votes poured in from both charities. It wasn't until late on December 3rd when Pride at Work must have thought the voting was over when Forge moved in for their final push. The refugee assistance group poured on more than 250 votes in the final day and won the contest by a final vote (through 683 total votes) by a score of 423-231.

Truth be told, I had never heard of either group when this contest started, but I have learned a lot about them in the past couple weeks... I hope others have. Both groups did an excellent outreach marketing job... and I would suggest that even though I want to donate the $500 gift card I won to Forge, I would like to suggest that Sean award his second $250 award to the second place group in this contest, Pride at Work.

My work here is done. This "fundraiser" is off to run a couple victory laps around the blogosphere. Congratulations to Sean and to Forge (who apparently only live about an hour away from each hour). I would encourage other bloggers to organize these challenges... it seems much more effective than those bland carnivals.

Thanks again for letting me be a part.
"a fundraiser"

Four weeks too late

It's hard to get a lot of respect as an anonymous blogger. I understand that. Why would you trust someone who writes a blog without the accountability of their own personal reputation? That's one of the reasons, I got myself an intern to kick around.

But, come on. That doesn't mean you can simply ignore anonymous blogs altogether and wait for the mainstream media to deliver the news you need.

The security breach at Convio is a perfect case in point. Those of you that read this blog regularly knew back on November 4th that Convio had confirmed the fact that hackers stole password information. During the days that followed, I published no less than 13 entries, I kept in contact with the folks at Convio to ask questions and get official comments, I even posted a detailed analysis on what 6 groups did to notify their members.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn. However, I am shocked by the amount of email I received today from folks who only read about the security breach yesterday in the New York Times. One email was even titled, "BREAKING NEWS" and begged me to notify readers immediately?

Seriously? If anything bad happened, the risk was four weeks ago when the breach occurred.

This isn't news. I'm not sure why the New York Times waited so long to publish their story... Stephanie Strom had to have known this was old news. So, either the timing of the publication is weird or the New York Times just proves once again how blogs have changed the speed of the information world.

Word of Red Cross leader's resignation travels quickly

Late this afternoon, the Red Cross Board of Governors announced on their website that President and CEO Mark W. Everson would be stepping down because of a 'personal relationship.'

It's only been a couple hours and already Google is showing 288 news stories.

Lucky for you, I finally got an intern at Don't Tell The Donor to boss around. I ordered him to read every single story. He rolled his eyes and refused... but at least he gave me this:

**********************************
CNN points out in their coverage that Everson is 53 years old, was paid $500,000-per-year, and perhaps most interesting:

The organization became aware of Everson's relationship with a female Red Cross employee 10 days ago, Chief Public Affairs Officer Suzy C. DeFrancis told CNN in a telephone interview.

Bloomberg describes Everson's previous professional experience as commissioner of the IRS and they reveal personal details about his family:

The former executive is married to Nanette Everson, a former White House lawyer under President George W. Bush who later served as general counsel of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission until last March. They have two children.

And the Nonprofit Times adds some details about emergency conference calls between the executive board and the full board. They also share some rumors of favored replacements:

The rumors of his replacement are already humming. One name is that of Frances Fragos Townsend, who recently stepped down as an advisor at the federal Department of Homeland Security and who was talked about as a possible CEO before Everson.

I'll post more coverage as soon my surprising lazy intern gets through some more articles. Email me if you have any tips about this story or if you have any suggestions on how I can intimidate my intern into working harder and faster.

Finally got my RSS feed fixed

A special thank you to one of my favorite readers who contacted "a fundraiser" at donttellthedonor@gmail.com to let me know that my RSS subject lines were broken. You should see a change in the way DTTD stories appear from now on. We'll be sending out a special Don't Tell the Donor mug this lucky reader... but the offer goes for anyone else who contacts us about a broken link (or typo) on the website.