Last Look: An Interview With David Duncan, Director of Membership and Development, Civil War Preservation Trust

FS: How would you describe your fundraising philosophy?
DD: We work under several key tenets; the main one we took directly from the former president of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Dan Jordan: “Good will above all.” To us that means always being the best possible stewards we can be of a donor’s generosity, maintaining good will with our supporters above all else. If you do that, our experience is that the money will take care of itself. I also operate under the philosophy that if you don’t spend at least as much time saying “thank you” as you do asking for money, then you aren’t doing it right. The final guiding principle is that fundraising success is all about building relationships, from the $25 donor to the $25,000 benefactor. This takes enormous amounts of time, but if you really put the effort into treating your donors as partners rather than just names in a database, often you won’t even have to ask for a gift — they will say, “What would you like me to do?” We do this even in our direct mail. By design, our letters are very personal in tone, and are often long and very detailed, filled with lots of information — we include battle maps of the land we’re trying to buy and often add historic images of the site contrasted with modern photos of the landscape. In this e-mail and Twitter age, long copy is often frowned upon, but by providing relevant content, we get consistently great results. And we’ve had many members tell us they actually look forward to receiving mail from us. They even bind the maps we create for our mailings and bring the collection with them when they visit battlefields. How many other organizations can say that?

FS: Can you describe a recent successful fundraising effort?
DD: I would describe all of 2009 as a successful effort, in that our membership base has not dropped since October of 2008, our revenue from appeals and membership is actually up slightly, and that our major donors don’t seem to be quite as gun-shy as they were this time last year. I believe our success is directly attributable to us maintaining a high level of quality and professionalism in our communications, a relentless focus on the mission, and our reputation for effectiveness and efficiency. These didn’t just happen in 2009; it is the culture of the organization that has been built up over time.