One of the more challenging aspects of annual fundraising for a nonprofit never fails to surprise me, and it’s a by-product of past success.
Many organizations raise support throughout the year using a variety of methods: a golf outing, a gala, a direct mail campaign, etc. While each of those events or activities is all in support of one goal – increased annual support – they can start to feel like an end unto themselves. And what’s worse, if you’re not careful, they can turn into silos.
How do you know one of your fundraising activities has turned into a silo? See if any of these sound familiar:
- The volunteers who coordinate the golf outing don’t want to share the names of “their donors.”
- There’s a perception that a gala attendee has “already given” and therefore “shouldn’t be bothered” with a different solicitation.
- No one measures donor engagement, simply dollars in.
- Donors, parents or congregation members get categorized as a certain kind of giver, and are not allowed to be solicited for any other project.
The point of any and all fundraising activities is to channel a narrower level of interest into the larger story of your mission. Perhaps someone runs in your 5K for personal reasons and raises a little money for you. If you engage them in the larger story, they may well find other ways to be supportive and generous to your cause. But if you keep them in the “5K Silo,” you’re limiting their participation. And, when they no longer can or want to do event runs, you may lose them as a donor and volunteer forever.
If you’ve got silos in your annual fundraising plan, consider how you can break them open and allow them to be channels, allowing donors and volunteers to flow into and around your organization and lifting the entire organization today and for years to come.
