North Texas Food Bank was small and scrappy when Colleen Brinkmann started as its communications and marketing director in 2002. “We said yes to everything,” she remembers. “When anyone wanted to do a food drive, we said yes, whether it was Joe Bob’s Tire Shop or AT&T.”
Today, the Dallas food bank is one of the largest charities in the country; it raised $127 million in cash and donated goods in 2016. Next month, it will close out a $55 million campaign that will help fund construction of its second facility, in Plano. Today Ms. Brinkmann, now the chief philanthropy officer, cultivates bigger donors than Joe Bob’s Tire Shop; since 2016, the organization netted 16 commitments for donations of $1 million or more.
The North Texas story during the past 15 years is about an unusual individual effort; Jan Pruitt, the CEO who hired Ms. Brinkmann, was the organization’s driving force and a beloved Dallas figure until her death in early 2017 from cancer. But it’s also the tale of a fundraising program that has matured and transformed itself from a spit-and-bailing-wire operation to a sophisticated, professional shop.
Here, Ms. Brinkmann points to some key lessons from that evolution:
Brand matters. When Ms. Brinkmann arrived, North Texas leaned heavily on a few big contributors. Her job was to make the organization a household name that would register with donors from all income levels. Direct mail was a chief means, but one effort seems quaint in today’s digital age: Ms. Pruitt wanted the organization on the front page of the city’s newspaper, above the fold, with a color photo.
Ms. Brinkmann got that story placement, and more. The number of donors to the organization has grown from 7,000 to 47,000. Its name and strong reputation attract contributions small and big: the organization’s first $1 million gift arrived in the mail from a philanthropist who had never given before but who had heard about the charity’s work.
“It was a complete surprise,” Ms. Brinkmann says. “When we opened the envelope, we couldn’t believe how many zeroes were on the check.”
Fundraising talent really matters. When the food bank expanded its fundraising effort to raise bigger gifts from individuals, Ms. Brinkmann says, she refused to go cheap on salaries. “If the position is to raise money, then you invest money,” she says she told the board.
Corporate giving matters more than you think. Dallas and its suburbs have a deep roster of Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T, American and Southwest airlines, and Texas Instruments. Aggressively courting business titans has paid off — corporate giving has been the fastest-growing segment of the North Texas fundraising program in the past five years — and Ms. Brinkmann says there’s a tremendous ripple effect.
“Every corporation is filled with people,” she says. “If you can inspire the employees to care about your cause, and you do great customer service with them, you’ve got a friend for life.”
Set big goals to motivate fundraisers. North Texas started its major-gift program in 2008, initially setting a threshold gift level of $2,500. When donations poured in at that size, Ms. Brinkmann upped the minimum to $10,000. She didn’t analyze donor data to come up with that figure, and her staff was taken aback. But it worked and remains the baseline today.
Make supporters feel they are critical to your work. Even when the organization ran on a shoestring, it focused on little things that signaled to volunteers that they were important. “If we told you on the website that we’re great at welcoming you, well then, you’d better find a good parking spot when you come on a Saturday,” Ms. Brinkmann says.
Today, North Texas recognizes that it’s battling for supporters’ attention, time, and money — and the competition is not just other charities but all the other demands facing busy Dallas-area residents. Not long ago, it cleaned up its website to sharpen the focus on its most important message, “We need you.”
Cut chaff from the board. At one point, 50 people sat on the food bank’s board, though attendance at meetings was scattershot. Ms. Pruitt cut the roster by half to focus the group’s decision making and fundraising, according to Ms. Brinkmann.
Take care of the kids: Ms. Brinkmann says young, affluent professionals increasingly want their children to volunteer at the food bank to “get outside their bubble.” Ensuring they have a quality experience will win over their parents, she says. They, in turn, “become evangelists.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of Colleen Brinkmann.
