Jerry Lewis telethon tops $65 million for MDA

You gotta hand it to Jerry Lewis.

The "freewheeling 82-year-old showman" co-hosted the 22-hour telethon yesterday that raised a record $65 million for the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual Labor Day event.

Despite the sluggish economy, the 43rd annual fundraising blitz was $1.2 million more than last year's total. Even more impressive... the host also urged viewers to contribute to the Salvation Army's emergency disaster services because of the threats from Hurricane Gustav.

Fundraising goal finally met for Democrats convention

The Denver committee responsible for raising $40.6 million in funding for the upcoming Democratic National Convention received a lot of negative press earlier this summer when it feared they would miss the goal.

Well... it looks like they really turned on the juice this past month. This week it was announced that the group met its goal.

Political consultant Eric Sondermann said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper should be credited with helping the committee garner the funds deemed necessary to adequately support next week's convention in the Colorado city, The Denver Post said Wednesday.

"I think you have to give credit where credit is due," Sondermann said. "(Denver Mayor John) Hickenlooper has been tenacious about this and never gave up, even when a lot of people figured we would have to make this a success even if it has to be scaled down."

The group's successful efforts come more than a month after it reported it was $11 million short of meeting its June deadline for DNC funding, the Post reported.

The mayor said that the rate of fundraising increased 2 to 3 times in the last four weeks.

Operation Smile wins 2008 Nonprofit Organization of the Year

I got this press release last Friday:

The Direct Marketing Association's Nonprofit Federation (DMANF) today announced that Operation Smile is the winner of its 2008 Nonprofit Organization of the Year Award, which annually recognizes an outstanding achievement by a nonprofit organization using direct-response marketing to advance its mission. The award will be presented on Friday, August 15 at a luncheon that will conclude the DMANF's New York Nonprofit Conference, which will be held August 14-15 at the world-famous Waldorf=Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

Commenting on this year's award, Brian Cowart, chair of DMANF's Awards Committee and senior director of mail acquisition and donor retention at ALSAC/St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, said, "Operation Smile exemplifies excellence both in its mission and fundraising programs. While its direct marketing innovations and strategies are forging new paths in fundraising, more importantly, they're garnering an increasing level of support and awareness for their wonderful work. As this year's award recipient, we recognize and honor Operation Smile's contributions as an industry leader and for the fundraising success that is helping to positively impact the lives of thousands of children all over the world."

Operation Smile is a worldwide children's medical charity that provides free surgery to children in developing countries who were born with facial deformities. Founded in 1982 by Dr. William P. Magee Jr., a plastic surgeon, and his wife, Kathleen S. Magee, a nurse and clinical social worker, the organization is dedicated to providing free surgery to children suffering from facial deformities, while fostering sustainability and capacity building in each developing country where they work.

"We believe that every child deserves to live their life with dignity, and for those suffering with cleft or other facial deformities, dignity begins with a smile," said CEO and Co-founder Dr. Magee. "Operation Smile has been able to mobilize a world of compassion to change children's lives."

You can protect a lot of liberties for $335 million

Tonight in New York City, the caped crusaders over at the ACLU announced the public phase of the largest fundraising campaign on behalf of civil rights and liberties in American history. According to the group's press release:

"The $335 million "Leading Freedom Forward: The ACLU Campaign for the Future" is an unprecedented effort to build the organization's infrastructure by increasing funding to key state affiliates nationwide, dramatically enhancing advocacy capabilities and securing the ACLU's financial future for generations to come."

The group already has raised more than 2/3 of the money:

"The campaign has already raised more than $258 million - over $102 million in cash and pledges and $156 million in planned gifts - highlighted by 21 contributions of $1 million or more from the ACLU's staunchest supporters and several of the world's most noted philanthropists. These include two gifts of$12 million, one from George Soros, through his Open Society Institute, and one from the Sandler Foundation. Other leadership contributors include the Leon Levy Foundation, which donated $5 million, and Delaney and her husband,Wayne Jordan, who donated $4 million."

Personally, I've always thought capital campaigns got to cheat by waiting until they've almost raised all the money before announcing the actual number of the goal. How many annual fund directors are allowed to get 2/3 of the way through their fundraising drive before acknowledging the actual number goal.

What impresses me (and I'm sure other donors) about this press release is the bold commitment outlined in regards to how the money will be spent to achieve growth goals.

"A major goal of the campaign is to substantially increase the ACLU's presence and effectiveness from coast to coast by significantly increasing the programmatic and institutional capacity of its affiliates, particularly instates where civil liberties violations are most egregious and opportunities for change most promising. These states include Florida, Texas, New Mexico,Montana, Mississippi, Michigan, Missouri, and Tennessee.

Moreover, smaller affiliates located mainly in the South and in the country's heartland will be bolstered by increased resources that will enable them to hire full-time attorneys, launch new advocacy programs, and expand communications and public education initiatives."

While the ACLU was making this fundraising promise to donors in New York City, the organization was also hosting a huge membership conference for donors in Washington, DC.

Pretty impressive.

Bloggers react to the first year of fundraising numbers from Facebook Causes App

I've been reading several blog postings about the fact that May 30th marked the first anniversary for Facebook's toolkit that enables the development of 3rd party Applications (Apps) that integrate directly with Facebook user data.

The Giving in a Digital World blog provides some interesting statistics on the biggest non-profit Facebook App, ‘Causes’ from Project Agape (now also available on MySpace). The allure to nonprofits is strong since they now have a total of 12 million registered users supporting over 80,000 US and Canadian non-profit organisations.

Over the last 12 months, $2.5 million has been raised through Causes for 19,445 organisations - equating to an average of just $126 per organisation. No donations at all have been made to 75% of the 80,000 organisations being ’supported’.

This leaves blogger Bryan Miller wonders if there is a greater potential. Caroline Preston at the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Give and Take blog also wrote about the underwhelming response to the news from people over at TechCrunch.

Adam Hyman points out on TechCrunch that the $2.5-million total works out to being only $0.21 per user. “How can anyone call this a success?” he asks.

The TechCrunch reaction is likely to shape the industry's reaction to the fundraising news because Michael Arrington published this article at the Washington Post. However, Allan Benamer at the Non-Profit Tech Blog took issue with the idea that the fundraising revenue was low. Benamer reminds readers:

"...the amount is actually greater than the first year revenue for Kiva, GlobalGiving and DonorsChoose COMBINED."

My own personal reaction is that the success of the Causes App should not be judged based on the dollar amount raised. Rather a more important metric should be the number of users who agree to share their name and contact information with their favorite nonprofits through this feature. That's why this is a revolutionary development.

For too many years, nonprofits have settled for the "cash bucket" mentality of fundraising where they failed to see the future value of collecting the names (and contact information) from people who threw donations into a bucket.

I'm happy to see social networking sites recognize that it's not enough just to raise money as a one time donation... the question for me will be whether nonprofit fundraisers figure out how to develop appropriate follow-up strategies to continue engaging this new breed of donor.

How did a "relative unknown" win $50k on Facebook?

This is an excellent article about how Love Without Boundaries won the top prize in an online contest sponsored by Facebook and Parade Magazine.

LWB provides medical treatment, nutrition programs, foster care and education for orphans and impoverished children in China... but they also do a damn fine job of recruiting volunteers like the Green Family.

Like many others, I am occasionally guilty of thinking of the web 2.0 social networking trend in fundraising as being geared toward younger supporters. I was blown away to read about how a 56 and 63-year-old couple runs LWB's eBay operation and recruited all those Facebook volunteers.

"Our biggest challenge came from the Students for a Free Tibet group," Green said. "Students are very computer-savvy and they're on them all the time. We're a 40-plus age-group organization and it was more work for us to get people on computers."

Thanks to Marge Neal at the Fredrick News-Post Online for bringing us this story.

Who says real estate stinks?

The real estate industry might be in a miserable funk these days, but that didn't stop the folks at CENTURY 21 from raising $3.8 million for Easter Seals in 2007.

For the 13th consecutive year, CENTURY 21 Town and Country,headquartered in Rochester, Mich., was the top CENTURY 21 System EasterSeals contributor. Led by broker/owner John Kersten, the company raised$912,962 for Easter Seals Michigan
in 2007, bringing the company's totalcontributions to more than $9 million since 1992.

And while the housing market shows no signs of improving, the CENTURY 21 System announced a national $5 million fundraising challenge for 2008. If achieved, the CENTURY 21 System will exceed the $100 million dollar fundraising mark.

Gayle Robert's continues to impress me

Gayle Roberts proves (once again) that she is one of the most inspirational fundraisers in the business today.

The single largest barrier to raising money is your own lack of belief in yourself, donors and your good cause. The first step is healing your own negative relationship to money, power and privilege. If you are having trouble raising money from others, let me suggest you start by increasing your own donation.

Like Jeff Brooks, I suggest you go read this article right now.

The best fundraisers are those who can tell a story

At the heart of it all, as fundraisers, we are all storytellers.

You can't be a successful fundraiser if you can't tell a good story. It's that simple.

Here is a great video featuring Professor Brian Sturm from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He describes storytelling as a way of organizing information, conveying emotions, and building community.



When you think of his model of storytelling as altered state of consciousness (the story trance) that includes 16 portals to altered states... it really helps understand his thesis.

The video features three stories that are told to illustrate the theoretical model: Truth and Story; What happens when you really listen; and The stone cutter. Storytelling ethics and the need for trust and truth are discussed.

I encourage you to start the video and minimize the window while you are checking emails this week and just list to what Professor Sturm has to say.

Rotary President offers fundraising advice

Wilf Wilkinson, the first Canadian president of Rotary International, will speak in Halifax on Tuesday evening.

His fundraising efforts are legendary in Rotary circles. For example, in 1986, he was treasurer of the Canada PolioPlus program, with a goal of raising $10 million across the country. He raised $12 million.

Not only has Wilkinson helped raise many millions more since that campaign; Rotary has almost eradicated polio, through its massive financial contributions.

His advice on fundraising is simple and honest:

His theory is simple. "The secret of fundraising is being convinced of the need, having the courage to ask and not being discouraged when someone says no. You’ll get a donation about every fourth person, so just keep asking. And you’ll get something eventually from the person who turned you down the last time — if you ask again next time."

The 77 year-old leader overseas an organization that has grown to 1.2 million Rotarians in 32,000 clubs in 200 countries and regions.

Quiet an impressive fundraising resume for a guy named "Wilf."

Keep up the good work.

LA Times profiles Ron Paul fundraiser

Trevor Lyman is a 37-year-old musician and Internet entrepreneur who didn't finish college.

He was running a website called musicsubmit.com that enables artists to bypass major record labels and market their songs. He was a political novice who never bothered to vote in the past.

However, when the new Democratic majority in Congress didn't pull the troops out of Iraq, Lyman was drawn to Paul because of his promise to end the war immediately.

Despite the fact that he has never met Ron Paul, he was profiled by Dan Morain at the Los Angeles Times as "the man behind Paul's fundraising curtain" who helped the Republican candidate raise millions in online donations.

Much has been written about Ron Paul's surprising fundraising success... and given the early results from his Tea Party event on Sunday, plenty more attention will be directed toward the maverick's campaign.

I believe viral online fundraising can really work for all nonprofits... but it's not simply the technology that makes it work, it's a willingness to allow a decentralize structure... and a willing of fundraising staff to understand what motivates people like Lyman.

BBC Children in Need breaks record

The BBC has an annual fundraising drive called Children in Need.

Last year, they raised £18.3m - with the sum reaching £33m after donations from all fund-raising was collected - and was seen by 8.9 million people at its peak.

It appears that this year is going to break all previous records... with £19m coming in during the 7 hour telethon which featured a performance by the Spice Girls. Organizers estimate the 36,000 donations were made online and 15,000 donations were made using digital TV service... and more than 212,000 phone calls were placed to operators.

Go here to listen to an interview exploring the technical requirements to handle 212,000 donation phone calls in one night.

Ron Paul's big day

I was so preoccupied this week I forgot to blog about Ron Paul. The Republican maverick running for President "blew up" the one day fundraising record in celebration of Guy Fawkes day.

The Christian Science Monitor said this:

On Monday, an independent effort by Paul backers raised a stunning $4.2 million for his campaign, nearly all of it online. At the rate Paul is going, he will have a fourth-quarter funding total that rivals or even surpasses the top-tier GOP candidates.

Paul backers tied their Nov. 5 fundraising effort to Guy Fawkes Day – which commemorates the day in 1605 when the British mercenary tried to blow up Parliament and kill the king. Fawkes also provided inspiration for the 1982 graphic novel "V for Vendetta," later a movie. The Paul-Fawkes connection led the Paul campaign to assert that the congressman does not support violence against the government.

The website Editor and Publisher speculated that the media will be forced to pay attention now that Paul's supporters have taken matters into their own hands.

$714 million raised by road runners and walkers

Marking a trend of continued growth, road runners and walkers raised $714 million for charity in 2006, USA Track & Field (USATF) announced Monday. The figure marks a nearly 9 percent increase over 2005 and shows continued, steady increases since USATF began its annual charity survey in 2002.

USATF highlights a Charitable Race of the Year. Here are the winners for the past several years: 2006, Nike Women's Marathon; 2005, J.P. Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Series; 2004, Rock & Roll Marathon; 2003, Marine Corps Marathon; 2002, Boston Marathon

The USATF also awards a Charitable Organization of the Year. The past winners include: 2006, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation; 2005, Arthritis Foundation; 2004, American Heart Association Heart Walk; 2003, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure; 2002, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training

Finally, if you're interested in the previous annual totals since the USATF began tracking totals: 2006, $714 million; 2005, $656 million; 2004, $575 million; 2003, $560 million; 2002, $520 million.

Charity earns $4 million on eBay today

The recent auction on eBay of an original letter by US Senator Harry Reid concerning Rush Limbaugh sold to the highest bidder for over 2 million dollars. Limbaugh has said that he will match the money that the auction raises. So, four million dollars will be going to the designated charity, The Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation.

Smithsonian exceeds fundraising goal by more than 20 percent

The Smithsonian Institution surprised some skeptics on Monday by announcing they received about $140 million in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 - up from $132 million last year and about $25 million over its goal of $115 million.

Acting Secretary Cristian Samper said it was welcome news after a year when the Smithsonian saw lots of embarrassing coverage over the resignation of former Secretary Lawrence Small over questionable spending and excessive compensation.

I wish more nonprofits held public board meetings. Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said the board expects to start holding at least one open meeting each year to hear from the public.

...but were the fundraisers surprised? Not really.

No matter how serious the problems were at the Smithsonian, I think most direct mail consultants would tell you that the press from a story like this has a negligible impact on low dollar donors. Workplace giving and special events probably went on as planned.

Scandals are not likely to impact the death rate of your donors - so planned giving was probably safe. In fact, I think any major donor fundraiser worth his/her salt should be able to use the scandal to their advantage.

I guess institutional giving from foundations and corporates could be vulnerable fundraising programs for other groups that experience such turmoil, but with the caliber of exhibitions at the Smithsonian they probably did fine as well.

Let's see if we can encourage someone from the Development staff at the Smithsonian to weigh in on our comment section below on why they were so damn successful. Maybe their goal was too low...?

Mr. Rogers was one helluva fundraiser

Before leaving office, President Lyndon Johnson proposed a $20 million grant for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. President Nixon wanted that amount cut in half and the Senate held hearings in an attempt to reduce the funding.

On May 1, 1969, Mr. Fred Rogers testified before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications and in less than 7 minutes turned the tide and saved the entire $20 million for PBS.



The blogger that tipped me off to the video believes Mr. Rogers should be considered the best fundraiser ever.

Clever fundraising campaign title

I noticed today that a local United Way chapter in the town of Mexico, Missouri launched a fundraising campaign today with the title, 'Give Until It Helps.’

If fundraising campaigns were decided based solely on how clever the marketing tagline was, this group should have no trouble reaching their $134,000 goal... unfortunately, cute slogans only get you started.

WETA's new fundraising ace

The Washington Times ran a story in its business section today on Mary Kay Phelps - the new "fundraising ace" at WETA, the D.C. public broadcasting network.

Miss Phelps most recently worked as senior vice president of Development Resources Inc. in Rossyln, where she worked with local, national and international nonprofits. She worked for three years with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Phoenix as vice president of communications, marketing and development. From 1996 to 2001, she worked for the American Red Cross in various fundraising positions, including senior director of direct-response fundraising and planned giving at its national headquarters in the District.

Phelps predecessor, Sue Richmond, spent more than 30 years with WETA working in fundraising and membership.

To be honest, I've been curious how WETA fundraising has been affected since a controversial format shift this past January. Anyone care to shed some light?

I’m no stranger to trying to raise money under tough circumstances

Back in 2001, Benedict College, the historically black institution in Columbia, South Carolina raised $5.2 million in private gifts. Since then... their fundraising has been in a bit of a funk.

In the past two years, Benedict has averaged about $2.5 million a year in private gifts while similiar school like Claflin University in Orangeburg, raised $6.8 million in private gifts in the year that ended June 30, 2006.

To revive the anemic private donations, the college hired Love Collins III, a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army officer. In his previous job Collins was a vice president for advancement at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati where he raised more than $11.1 million.

In an interview with James T. Hammond at The State, Collins said:

“I’m no stranger to trying to raise money under tough circumstances,” said Collins, Benedict’s new executive vice president for institutional advancement. “But I’m a firm believer that if you tell people what your plan is, they will help you.”

...and it appears things are already going well.

Collins said he has just closed out Benedict’s Alumni Annual Giving Campaign, raising $787,859 in gifts and pledges for the academic year that just ended. That total compares with $696,520 a year earlier; $654,520 in 2005; and $655,771 in 2004.

I love the fact that one man can really turn a fundraising program around.