The Blog of Serafina Consulting

Do You Know the Cycle?

6/7/2018

About a year ago, a colleague recommended that I look into The Cycle, Michael Kaiser's management method for running high-performing arts organizations. At the time, I was just starting up my practice and needed to focus on other things, so I put a mental pin in it. This spring, after finishing up a house renovation and moving in, I was hungry to focus on some meaty professional development while *not* thinking about the miles of trim that I have yet to paint.

I was DELIGHTED to see that The Cycle isn't just a book now -- it's a free online course on Coursera. And WOW. It's excellent work well worth the time to watch the lectures, if not complete all the exercises.

Who's Michael Kaiser? He's the executive director that brought Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater back from the brink. And then he ran the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, for about 13 years. He started a management institute there, honing this method of focusing tightly on making great art (the easy part!), marketing institutionally, and building relationships with what he calls the "family." Guess which part is my favorite? As Kaiser acknowledges, the lessons apply to all sorts of organizations beyond arts and culture - that just happens to be his bailiwick.

The institute how lives at the University of Maryland, and has expanded its scope. I can't say enough about the quality of this course. And hooray for free!
www.coursera.org/learn/the-cycle

A Face-to-Face Request is 34 Times More Successful than Email

4/17/2017

I saw this article in the Harvard Business Review today and had to share it. Its findings:

People tend to overestimate the power of their persuasiveness via text-based communication, and underestimate the power of their persuasiveness via face-to-face communication.

In person requests are a whopping 34 times more powerful, in fact. Mathematically, that means, "you need to ask six people in person to equal the power of a 200-recipient email blast."

Amazing, right?

AFP Major Gifts Session Documents

4/14/2017

Here are the documents from the Making the Major Gift Ask training session. Thanks again for participating. Feel free to reach out with questions.

AFP Session on Asking for a Major Gift

3/17/2017

I'll be presenting a training session on Making the Major Gift Ask for AFP's New Mexico chapter next month. April 13th! Solicitation coaching! Networking! Lunch + cake! Details here: AFP Link.

Chance the Rapper: Born This Way

3/6/2017

Chance, totally making his dad's day.

Chance the Rapper wrote a huge check to the Chicago Public Schools foundation today. At just 24 years old, the Grammy winning musician has been in the national spotlight all of about 30 minutes. Most music stars wait decades to make such a major philanthropic move - if ever. But he and Chicago go way back - and to understand why this gift is so cool, you have to know about Chance, his dad, and their remarkable Chicago roots.

Chance's father is Ken Williams-Bennett, a native Southsider and former aide to Chicago's legendary African-American mayor Harold Washington. He later worked for Illinois state Senator Barack Obama before the presidential run, and now serves as deputy chief of staff to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. That's a fierce legacy of civic love and service by any measure, and you can bet Chance's dad had some ideas about the kind of serious public work he wished to see his son do. Chance grew up with the Obamas in his life, and as his star rose, he helped President Obama with the My Brother's Keeper Initiative.

While Chance felt called to music early, there are two now-famous things most Chicagoans know about his career: 1) he dropped out of college to pursue hip hop and 2) his dad did what a lot of fathers would do in that situation - he completely flipped out. The pair weren't on speaking terms for a long time following the move.

The fates conspire for all of us. Chance's soaring career is the result of an unknowable alchemy - a mix of talent, grit, and luck. But that $1 million gift to one of the largest and poorest public student bodies in the U.S.? I'm going to credit the enduring influence of an awesome dad for that one.

LinkedIn for Fundraising? A Word of Caution

2/15/2017

An article in Albuquerque Business First today touts the use of LinkedIn as a free, easy relationship mapping tool to prospect for major gifts. While it’s not the worst fundraising advice I’ve ever heard (in a category of journalism that can often range from the tone deaf to the truly misleading), it is flawed. Here are a few reasons why you shouldn’t over-rely on LinkedIn for this task, especially for gifts that trustees will solicit:

It’s a free tool, and to a fair extent, you get what you pay for. Why? Lots of people on the site are connection collectors who accept less than meaningful links to increase their number. Call it social media ego or just plain friendliness. It’s going to cost you a huge amount of time to research and eventually weed out feeble connections that should never be considered for a $5,000 first-time campaign gift.

LinkedIn tells everyone when their profile has been viewed and by whom. Potentially makes that solicitation meeting just a little more awkward, doesn’t it?

Prospect research and relationship mapping are time intensive with any tool, and your endgame here is having a trustee successfully solicit a friend. You want to home in on quality connections like a heat-seeking missile, while ensuring that the trustee feels 100% in the driver’s seat the entire time.

So my advice – whether you have a consultant or are doing this solo – is that the quickest, most effective method is still a largely human-centered one:

Develop your wish list of dream prospects for your project. They will need to have both the dollars and the affinity for your cause. Finding them in programs and annual reports is great, but nothing is more valuable than beginning with your own database of past donors.

Request a prospect meeting with your trustee. Tell them it will definitely take an hour, and ask them to export and bring the list of their LinkedIn contacts. (Instructions here.) If they decline to do this, it’s probably telling. Ask if they have other contact lists, including board lists from their other top priority organizations, to bring.

You have two lists to review during the meeting: your dream list and their contact list. They will automatically gravitate to the names that they would feel good about soliciting. My experience is that several more names will come up that aren’t on either list –- the real value of this conversation is jogging your trustee’s memory about who might be a good fit.

Ideally you want to identify 5-10 people they could solicit. Now delve into who those people are, what size and type of gift they might give if really energized, and sketch out a plan to cultivate and ask them. At a minimum, this should involve the trustee inviting each prospect in to experience firsthand the current work that you do, followed by an in-person solicitation in the weeks after.

Make certain your trustee understands the true nature of peer-to-peer giving: They can only solicit gifts of the same size or less than they themselves have committed to the project. If they’re close to a prospect that can afford to give far more than themselves, you will need to find a partner they can co-solicit with who is in that same target giving level. Call it law of the jungle or good manners, breaking this one can result in serious offense to your prospect that can potentially be irreparable.

Ideally every trustee should go through this process before you make the final decision about whom should solicit whom. Gather all the relationship data and determine which trustee is most likely to maximize support from each prospect – in terms of giving and strength of relationship. In many cases, two trustees can make an excellent co-soliciting team. The more energetic and enthusiastic the team, the better.

How to Write the Perfect Donor Bio

1/15/2017

Here's my outline for a thorough yet succinct major gifts donor bio. It's universally useful and not too fussy. I use it constantly.

Primary Names
Aliases (include nicknames and maiden names)
Record number in your database
Contact info
Photo

Relationship with Your Organization
•   How they became connected to your organization
•   Years of involvement, key groups and leadership roles
•   Current donor status
•   Key relationships within your organization, especially board
•   Two sentence max summary on last key contact with organization

Professional and Civic Background
•   Companies and leadership roles
•   Important business info, especially newsworthy events
•   Involvement in other nonprofits or civic groups
•   Giving to other organizations (quick to read chart form is ideal)
•   Schools attended, alumni roles

Family and Personal Background
•   Key family members and relevant history
•   Spouse, basics about children
•   Residences
•   Interests, hobbies not otherwise covered
•   Anything else important that didn’t fit in above

Optional: Possible Interest Areas
•   Briefly identify 3-4 possible interest areas within your organization

Footer: Your name, date, and possibly list key sources

Clear the Path for Your VIPs

12/9/2016

This isn't a phone. It's a stewardship machine.

I've been working with a nonprofit in ABQ that wants to improve the attention they give their top sponsors once they've signed on. This type of stewardship work is critical to making sure your sponsors find value in their support and want to renew with you next year. While it's natural to focus on creating VIP-only events - and those are terrific - there are other ways to give extra attention without a huge drain on your resources. Here are a few favorites:

1. High-touch RSVP outreach: Any time you invite a key VIP to any event, give them a personal call or email a few days before the RSVP deadline. Top donors are super busy and they'll appreciate the heads up in advance of the respond date. (Avoid reaching out the day of the deadline. My experience is that VIPs feel guilty for not being on it sooner.) Simply share that you hope to see them attend. If they can't, let them know they'll be missed. It's a warm, genuine interaction that boosts your VIP engagement, and you decide exactly who and how many to reach out to. You can even delegate this one to another staffer and it still works beautifully.

2. Think logistically: Any time you extend an invitation to a VIP, whether formally or not, think through the logistics that they'll have to negotiate to show up - and clear the path. Chances are they'll be running through a hectic day and getting stuck along the way will only have them showing up late or frustrated. Are they unfamilar with this venue? Need parking? Is there valet right outside? Do you know if construction down the block will snare traffic? Will coat check take more than a minute? Share the useful details upfront, either in the invitation if it's a quick and tidy explaination, or after they RSVP. Everyone loves it when someone else saves them time and aggravation.

3. Treat their assistant like family: An assistant is far more than a gatekeeper. That person at the other end of the line is more like an extension of the family, often running your VIP's personal affairs as well as their office. They can't live without that person, and neither can you if you want to build a strong relationship with them. In my experience, assistants run the spectrum from efficient air traffic controllers to quirky, quirky, quirky. It's your job to figure out how to work with each one best. Build trust with them, and think to offer them an occassional perk along the way, and it's a win-win-win.