Aspire. Forward. Tomorrow. Hope is Growing. Stand Up. Making History. They’re the names of major fundraising campaigns that have become the lifeblood of many nonprofits and universities. They hint at the extraordinary burden that development professionals -- as well as countless leaders who’ve “fallen” into fundraising -- bear on behalf of their institutions.
Let’s begin where we need to, then, with empathy. Fundraising is grueling work.
Just how grueling? Nonprofit philanthropy consultant Katharine DeShaw, who runs Philanthropology, calls it a crisis. All you need to do is look at the short tenures and stubborn vacancies across the development profession. 52% of Chief Development Officers serve 1-2 years on the job, according to a recent study; the average vacancy for a development director position is 21 months for organizations with a budget of $1 million or less and 10 months for organizations with a budget of $1-5 million.
Against this backdrop, it’s no surprise that Days of Giving are spreading like wildfire across the development landscape, from the thirsty grasslands of the nonprofit sector to the once isolated plateaus of higher education. Last year, #GivingTuesday campaigns (this year it’ll be on December 1st) collectively raised $45 million among nonprofits, and 65% of colleges and universities report that they are planning an online Day of Giving in the next year.
At their best, Days of Giving galvanize community pride, boost first-time giving, and sow seeds for a longer-term culture of giving. At worst, they sap donor enthusiasm and can further sequester giving (already nearly a third of nonprofit fundraising occurs in December).
What makes the difference?
Fundraising campaigns that succeed at building high-value relationships apply principles of distributed leadership. At its core, distributed leadership invests resources in identifying and equipping members of a larger community to organize their own smaller communities. Picture a snowflake that continually expands outward. It’s an approach that has paid huge dividends in advocacy and politics.
In the fundraising context, distributed leadership multiplies the impact of paid development staff who are frequently stretched thin (or in some cases may not exist at all). By inviting your organization’s champions and everyday influencers to be Day of Giving ambassadors and by making social sharing easy, you are doing three things:
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Increasing your reach - You’re creating an infrastructure of new leaders who can reach a far larger audience than you can on your own. The top 5% of people in your database reach 470x the number of people as your entire database alone.
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Boosting fundraising efficacy - Peer-to-peer “asks” are significantly more powerful than direct organizational asks. 92% of Americans report trusting referrals via friends over any other form of marketing, and the same logic applies to fundraising. Yet 73% of organizations never give donors a simple “share” option after donating.
- Investing in relationships - The very process of bringing together a diverse crew of volunteer leaders -- who may or may not themselves be donors -- fosters community that is essential to building a longer-term culture of giving.
One college's experience
Here we can learn from the experience of Keuka College, a small liberal arts college in upstate New York. By the numbers, their first Day of Giving held earlier this year was a huge success. It took 7 hours to hit their goal and at the end of the day Keuka College more than doubled its goal, raising over $274,000. According to Brittany Chambers, Keuka College's Development Director, the deeper value was how their Day of Giving made it easy “organize organically,” thereby strengthening the alumni community for the long haul.
One concrete way to ensure that your upcoming Day of Giving contributes to a longer-term culture of giving is to orient the campaign around metrics that go beyond dollars raised, including:
- participation levels, including proportion of first-time donors
- share rates, proportion of donors who share on social media
- recruiting rates, proportion of donors who recruit a donation via peers
Days of Giving can be a thrilling ride. They’ve done a lot to rejuvenate fundraising, but at the end of the day, what matters most are the relationships that help your organization thrive every other day of the year. To develop those relationships at scale, you have to do much more than ask people for money -- you have to lead by lifting up other leaders.
Download the Keuka College Day of Giving Case Study and Guide to Fundraising Strategy to learn more.
