Are campaigns passé?

How do nonprofits compete with giant tech companies and startups for data analytics professionals?

How do prospect researchers plan for the General Data Protection Regulation?

I spent the past week discussing these questions and many, many more at the Great Lakes Prospect Development Forum in Ann Arbor, MI.  The Great Lakes Forum is a conference for professionals in prospect research, prospect management, and analytics and focuses on large nonprofits.  The conference was hosted by the University of Michigan and supported by the CASE District V Venture Fund (thankyouthankyouthankyou).

If the conference location has famous brined food, that’s a bonus!

For me, a good conference includes hearing some provocative questions, listening to demos of other organizations’ solutions and experiments, and having at least one in-depth conversation with a colleague (or set of colleagues) from another nonprofit.  I got all three at the Great Lakes Conference–here are my key takeaways in the first two categories:

Questions:

•  Are campaigns still the most effective ways to garner support for nonprofits?  If we move away from the campaign model, what could replace it?  Fundraising campaigns are growing larger and more frequent, but several of our organizations’ internal surveys indicate that donors, especially younger donors, are more interested in solving specific problems rather than generally supporting a particular institution.  In addition, a lot of fundraisers are worried that donors are getting fatigued and overwhelmed by the volume and intensity of fundraising campaigns.  This question was posed by our keynote speaker on the first day of the conference and I’ve been chewing it over since then.
•  How can nonprofits attract strong analytics professionals?  In addition to advocating for more competitive pay packages, are there other benefits we can offer (more flex time, ability to work from home, more vacation, part time work with health benefits…)?  Data analytics has become a key tool in fundraising, but data analytics is a high demand skill and nonprofits offer smaller pay packages than startups and tech giants.  This is connected to a larger question of how we recruit and retain employees in the nonprofit sector and prevent burnout.
•  How can prospect researchers initiate and take a leading role in the GDPR compliance
  

  Sample of our GDPR compliance brainstorming…

  discussion at our organizations?  What compliance strategies are appropriate for our donor bases?  How can our organizations continue to communicate our values and mission through our approach to data privacy?  The General Data Protection Regulation will be enforced starting May 2018, but many nonprofits, even major research universities, are unaware of the full scope and penalties of the law.  I facilitated this discussion at a break-out session and we came up with some creative approaches to messaging and compliance.  For example, what if universities viewed educating alumni about data privacy and fundraising methods as part of our role in educating future philanthropists?  Fundraisers are already in the business of educating alumni about philanthropy (promoting class gifts, explaining different planned giving options, introducing philanthropy to the newly wealthy, etc.), what if we also explained the role and importance of personal data to effectively supporting our organizations and missions?

  Demos

• Self-Service bios:  At my shops, we’ve been playing around with new formats and ideas for briefing documents.  Kari Stokosa of the University of Wisconsin talked us through a new “self-service” bio for gift officers that was inspired by the customized online ordering systems at Jimmy John’s , Chipotle, Roti, etc.  I really like the idea behind this and my shop is considering how we could create a similar system.
  

  And now you know my Chipotle order

• Portfolio Optimization Scoring:  Suzanne Dunne and the team at the University of Notre Dame presented a scoring system for assessing the strength of a portfolio.  I liked the measurements that went into the score and that the scoring system redirected conversations with gift officers from “I don’t feel my portfolio is strong” to “let’s look at more objective measures of the strength of the portfolio in addition to your gut feelings about individual prospects.”  Gut feelings about prospects are an important aspect of fundraising, but it’s useful to have some checks and balances.
• Communication Styles and Strategy:  Kari Stokosa also presented on communication styles and strategies; the latter is what made it a useful presentation for me.  A lot of “what is my communication/leadership/relationship style” self-assessments stop at identification and don’t focus on how to adjust your style to others, based on your tendencies and theirs.  Kari’s presentation included some concrete suggestions.  In addition, I appreciated that the communication styles were descriptive, not prescriptive and it was acknowledged that most of us are a mix (says the ambivert).

This week, I’m back at my desk, comparing notes with my colleagues and figuring out how to adapt some of the ideas we heard at the conference to our own set of challenges.  I’m looking forward to what we’ll all bring to the Great Lakes Forum next year!