Retiring fundraising’s sacred cows
It’s the worst of times to be a fundraiser. It’s the best of times to be a fundraiser.
It’s the worst of times if you’re counting on oft-repeated “best practices” and “conventional wisdom” to guide your fundraising strategy.
It’s the best of times if you’re willing to take risks, try new things, and see for yourself if the conventional wisdom is truly wise.
Present-at-the-creation fundraising mogul Roger Craver has been in the business of slaying sacred cows lately. By his own admission, many of these fundraising sacred cows are his own creations. But, as Roger reminds us, “the ‘best practices’ metrics that boards have been using were designed for a generation that preceded the Baby Boomers. That’s right; the fundraising models still widely used today were built for and by a generation that’s largely gone.”
Roger should know. He was there.
The latest sacred cow in Roger’s sights is the cost to raise a dollar. It’s an understandable metric, basic ROI math: how much we would need to spend in order to raise each dollar from donors. And maybe it’s because it’s so understandable, it’s so sticky. But as Roger explains, it leads to risk-averse, short-sighted, and ultimately less successful fundraising. And it misses the things that really drive fundraising success. He says:
“When you reward only what’s attributable this month or this year — conversion rate, cost-per-acquisition, cost to raise a dollar — you systematically defund everything that creates next year’s donors. For example, brand building and the unglamorous work of welcoming donors properly, thanking them meaningfully, treating them as investors in a mission rather than transactions in a pipeline.”
As big believers that relationships are at the core of effective fundraising, Alia and I run into constant pushback from CFOs, Boards, or CAOs who are unfamiliar with direct response. What’s the ROI on a thank-you campaign? What’s the ROI on a postcard on the anniversary of someone’s first gift? Or a handwritten note from a board member? It’s unknowable, at least in the short run, and our clients end up struggling to get the best stewardship experiences approved.
This post is only Roger’s most recent cow roast. In recent months, he has gone after premiums, co-op acquisition models, renewals, and hyper-urgent emails. In a recent email, Roger assured me that “I got a whole herd of those sacred beasts grazing in the back pasture of my mind. Surely, I’ll bring some in to the Agitator barn over the months ahead.”
The takeaway here is not that everything you ever learned about fundraising is wrong. The takeaway is, we can’t believe everything we hear just because it’s been repeated 500 times.
And the biggest takeaway of all is that we have an opportunity, and maybe an obligation, to reinvent fundraising for a new generation. I think that’s amazing. Don’t you?