I recently read an article by a colleague and highly experienced fundraising consultant Avraham Lewis, who has many years of experience in helping Torah institutions raise money. It was discussing an interesting experiment he ran with approaching foundations and it grabbed my attention because in the past, I have been quick to steer clear from approaching foundations where I didn’t have a personal connection.
Avraham was working on a fundraising project for a non-profit at the time when he conducted his experiment - he wanted to see what would happen if he reached out, cold, to 100 philanthropic foundations, loosely connected to his non-profit organization’s mission statement, and pitched his organization based on its social justice and leadership-training aspects.
Here’s what he wrote:
My Process:
Using my subscription to www.foundationcenter.org, I entered “xxxxx causes” into the search bar. Up popped over a thousand options – with a combined annual giving rate in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Wonderful.
Next, I set about tracking down contact details of around 100 of these foundations. Numbers and emails in hand, I reached out to every single one.
My Discoveries:
My experiment revealed a new way to categorize xxxx foundations. Each foundation I researched fit neatly into one of three boxes:
Wealthy Guy (with a Foundation)
Man with a Mission
Someone Else’s Money
A Wealthy Guy (with a Foundation) isn’t generally different from any large solo donor. He just likes the tax or financial planning advantages that come with giving through a foundation. So he sets one up for himself, and gives through it.
These guys can be treated just like any big new prospect. No formal application, no red tape. Just good connection-building practices. Plus, you get the advantage of seeing the donor’s giving habits, so you can do good homework before you make your solicitation.
On to the second type. A Man with a Mission typically starts a foundation to channel funds toward one particular mission or vision for the world. Obviously, if they’re into saving koalas and you run a school for at-risk youth, reaching out to them would be a waste of your time.
But If you do come across a M.W.A.M. foundation who could potentially see your work as an agent of their vision, you gain an edge. In this case, even a cold call might prove a powerful first step in building a lucrative relationship.
And, the third type: when a group of trustees make the giving decisions around Someone Else’s Money – when the original founder has died or disappeared from the picture – you gain a new kind of opportunity.
Whatever the original founder had in mind for his money, he’s now left his intentions up for interpretation by his trustees. So if your cause speaks to any one of them, or to them as a group, you gain an in where there might not have been one before.
My Extra-Noteworthy Discovery:
One powerful discovery I made through this experiment concerns foundations who restrict their funding to one specific city or state.
If you find a foundation in your locale who might be sympathetic to your cause, you may have hit a nice-sized jackpot.
Why? Because many of your donors are likely located in your area.
And chances are one of them knows someone connected to that local foundation.
Ahhhhh.
Truthfully, even without that super-handy connection, I’ve seen nonprofit organizations win big by reaching out to local foundations – even if, at times, their work didn’t fit perfectly into the foundation’s stated criteria.
Which is why I found this discovery extra-noteworthy.
My Results:
So – how did I actually do? Did I get my three 10K+ donations from those 100 foundations?
Weeell, not exactly. However, after a cold call to a trustee at a “Someone Else’s Money” foundation, I actually got a gift of $2,000.
The next year, it grew to $10,000!
I thought that was pretty nice, for the amount of effort and seriousness I invested in my little experiment.
So, what’s my take-away from all this? I’m not recommending building a non-profit organization’s entire fundraising strategy around cold-calling foundations, however, If you don't expect quick results and are prepared to invest time and effort in finding common ground and building relationships then this may be a good long-term investment, which deserves a percentage of your time.
Each organization has its own dynamic needs and my goal is to help your organization move to the next level and turn your vision into donations. You can contact me at suzanne@suzannelieberman.com; let’s start a conversation.
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