Responding to the Global Marketplace

In talking about international non-governmental organisations, it’s tempting to treat them as a homogenous group. But they differ widely due to their governance structures: headquarters/branch operations, federations, loose networks and various confederations. Therefore, their approaches to global fundraising management can be quite different. So spotting trends among them can be difficult, but let’s see what’s on the INGO agenda.

Some highs and some lows
Starting with the positive: We’re seeing the smart INGOs surge forward in terms of their organisational readiness to maximise fundraising, particularly through a coordinated approach between the national and international teams. Nurturing fundraising growth across a portfolio of countries at different stages of fundraising maturity is a difficult task. It takes a truly stellar fundraising team at the centre that understands strategic planning in a global arena.

Where such teams are in place, they are doing away with the one-size-fits-all approach to creating an international fundraising strategy — an approach that often led to many meetings, much discussion and a shiny strategic report that continued to shine on its shelf until the dust settled on it.

It’s a tough call to devise a strategy that can energise both your U.S. and Austrian offices in a new push for fundraising excellence. So instead of trying to force a compromise strategy across diverse markets, some smart international fundraisers are putting creative thought into achieving organisational buy-in to a set of core objectives that enable each office to find its goals beyond a simple financial target.

We call such an approach an “International Strategic Fundraising Framework,” which means each national office signs up to a core set of strategic objectives but takes responsibility for implementing them appropriately to its own market conditions. It binds the organisation in a common set of targets and “norms” (e.g., national office income retention, ROI fundraising standards) guiding each office rather than straitjacketing them. In respecting the roles and accountability of the national and international fundraising staff, this approach ensures that the planning and fundraising implementation are done in the right place to be effective.

It also galvanises each part of the network. Goal setting revolves around those who are advancing in their markets, understanding why and challenging others to adapt that success to their markets. The development of committed giving programmes globally might be a key goal, but rather than the international team trying to devise and implement the same methodology or creative concept across every market, the national office’s responsibility to find the way to adapt the need for regular donors to its market conditions is respected.

Within a framework strategy lay possibilities for tackling the opportunities that often trip up INGOs, e.g., managing global donors. Teamwork has been enhanced by the framework approach — only those parts that have the maturity and opportunity need engage with advanced fundraising activities, and global-fundraising management standards have been agreed on peer to peer.

Financial goal setting
For a smaller national office that raises $5 million a year, it can be daunting to hear that the organisation needs to raise $100 million a year by 2012. Such giant goals can be demoralising unless each office knows its part in achieving the mega goal. It’s a completely different prospect to buy in to increasing your annual income from $5 million to $15 million in five years knowing that others have a national goal, too.

While a classic, top-down, one-strategy-for-all approach has a chance of working in an INGO with a strict head office/branch structure, the framework approach can be adopted by the looser network organisations with the international steering team drawn from key national office staff. This subtle shift in international strategic thinking around fundraising development is one that is poised to bring some serious results to the smart international teams at organisations, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Society for the Protection of Animals, for example.

Naturally, it demands a high degree of market knowledge across the entire INGO country fundraising portfolio to spot untapped opportunity and success to adapt in other markets and to set accurate income goals. It also demands unwillingness to accept “it won’t work here” — a phenomenon often better tackled by peer pressure than a top-down approach. Thus the demand for quality knowledge about fundraising markets and opportunity continues unabated; just recently my company, THINK Consulting Solutions, has been asked to study countries as diverse as Mexico and Switzerland.

But some of the frenzied desire to take on new markets has reduced as INGOs take a more seasoned approach to managing their portfolios of fundraising countries, even to the extent of tackling the perennial issue of market underperformance. Some are learning that new is not always better.

On the downside
Needless to say, the demand for an experienced international fundraising staff is strong. So if a new approach to strategy is the current peak for me, the low has to be the continued obsession with “restructuring” at some INGOs. Naturally, organisations must evolve to cope with changing demands to deliver mission and vision. However, for some, restructuring is as certain as elections — it comes around every five years or so. Unlike elections, the INGOs do little to publicise the manifestos behind their reorganisations, often leaving the wider INGO community to form opinions from rumour and disgruntled (ex-)staff. And then their senior managers wonder why they find it so hard to recruit good fundraisers to replace the old!

Gossip and rumours about staff layoffs, payoff, waste and organisational change in a big INGO can send shock waves around the INGO community. Without doubt, organisations have compelling reasons for changing, but I wonder if they take into account the damage unchecked rumours can do to their images as employers? Many commercial companies have learned the value of a strong image as a good employer in attracting and retaining talented staff. With hope, one day soon we’ll see an INGO tackle reorganisation with positive, external PR in place. After all, it should be the time to attract those rare and valuable top international fundraisers to their causes. FS