The 40-hour work week, calls for boardroom equity, and examples of fundraising success during the past year’s crises highlighted this week’s annual conference of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which showcased just how much 2020 transformed the nonprofit world.
The conference — coming on the heels of “Giving USA’s” finding that giving increased nearly 4 percent last year — is something of a victory lap for fundraisers who relied on trial and error to stay connected with their donors and inspire new ones to give during a period when face-to-face conversations were limited.
Josh Selo, executive director of the California social-service nonprofit West Valley Community Services, recalled trying to balance the shifting public-health guidance with accelerating community need. “This is not our expertise,” he said.
Yet Selo and other professionals are emerging from the pandemic with knowledge on how to lead a charity through crisis and effectively communicate new needs to supporters. Demand for the nonprofit’s services increased 140 percent during the pandemic, but the group also expanded its donor rolls 260 percent and completed a capital campaign.
“We just pushed through,” said Kohinoor Chakravarty, the nonprofit’s development director. “We did not stop.”
Some fundraisers recalled dilemmas from the pandemic year, such as receiving a glut of product donations that they couldn’t use.
“We’re in philanthropy, and that means we like to say yes to our donors,” said Jessica Journey, director of donor experience at Indiana University Health Foundation. “Saying ‘No thank you’ was a cultural shift and was uncomfortable for many of us.”
In the conference chat, other fundraisers shared how they learned to use the act of politely turning down a gift as an opportunity to reiterate how supporters could best advance the charity’s mission. One charity that trains guide dogs, for example, requested specific types of dog food or cash donations rather than accepting food or treats it doesn’t give its dogs.
Importance of Equity
Another lesson fundraisers learned in 2020 was how to demonstrate a commitment to equity. Speakers said they wanted to see a more inclusive and equitable nonprofit world in the future. They also discussed how the spotlight on racial equity has shifted grant makers’ expectations for nonprofits. More and more foundations expect grant applicants to share a strategy to include diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in their mission, says Lauren Steiner, president of the grant-seeking consultancy Grants Plus.
Nonprofits can show their commitment to these principles by reconsidering the language they use in their grant applications, Steiner said. She realized amid the racial-justice protests last summer that “language was something that we control, and language is very powerful.”
Steiner encouraged grant writing that outlines the barriers beneficiaries face, rather than casting them as victims who need saving. She also shared tips for crafting strong grant applications that leave wiggle room for an uncertain future. “If/then” statements can help outline multiple scenarios about how a nonprofit will meet its goals, she says. For example, applicants can share how they plan to raise funds if an in-person fundraising event is canceled due to public-health measures or other emergencies.
Hours in the Office
Authenticity was another hot topic at the conference. Fundraisers now know that having conversations with gift officers over Zoom didn’t dissuade donors from giving.
Speakers encouraged the audience to continue having authentic interactions with supporters even after the pandemic abates. Donors grew accustomed to Zoom interlopers like kids and pets over the last year and a half; that didn’t discourage giving. Speakers said that proved fundraisers could bring their own challenges and values to conversations with donors — rather than hiding their humanity under a veneer of strict professionalism.
During a session on how nonprofits and foundations can retain millennials on their staffs, speakers highlighted how the stressors of the pandemic and racial reckoning pushed employers to demonstrate empathy to their employees in the form of flexible work hours and policies.
“That level of empathy is not something that I had always seen in the past, and I want that to be continued moving forward,” said Allison Quintanilla Plattsmier, executive director of
Edgehill Neighborhood Partnership. “We are people first and employees second.”
The session’s speakers were unanimous in decrying the 40-hour work week. For so many professionals, work and family life ran together in unprecedented ways over the past 16 months. The mentality that a certain number of hours in the office are necessary to yield a certain amount of money just doesn’t jive with the art of fundraising, Quintanilla Plattsmier said.
Nicholas Kulik, chief donor engagement officer at the Findlay-Hancock County Community Foundation, added that in-person meetings with donors have long happened outside of business hours. And the past year has shown that fundraisers can win big gifts remotely, he said.
Cherrelle Duncan, founder of the nonprofit consultancy Duncan Impact Solutions, put it simply: “It’s about your outputs. It’s not about time.”
