Advancement and Collaboration Produce Synergy and Greater Fundraising Results!

Fundraising is not marketing.

That is sometimes a tough — yet at the same time simple — concept to understand.

It has come to light recently that a friend has had her successful development program merged under a nonprofit's marketing umbrella. The challenge — an ongoing battle with the marketing wing of where direct appeals and Web giving are housed and credited.

The combination of fundraising, marketing and communications, along with alumni relations, is the proven college advancement model. According to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE):

"Advancement is a strategic, integrated method of managing relationships to increase understanding and support among an educational institution's key constituents, including alumni and friends, government policy makers, the media, members of the community and philanthropic entities of all types."

We have encountered this before. A client was focused on events and direct appeals — rather than the resources it placed in that area. The events and direct-appeals responsibilities were in marketing, where there were four staff members compared to one in development who worked on major gifts and grants. The difficulty was that as donors were brought into the fold through events or an appeal, most of them left before having been identified or cultivated for major gifts. The marketing department refused to give up "its" donors or "its budget." We recommended restructuring with an integrated advancement model and focus on a dramatically increased bottom line versus two smaller but protected budgets.

Another client — a zoo — faced the same battle. The membership side was protective of members, yet the correct strategy and implementation of sharing information would yield far greater results, as many also could have been major donors.

This week I met a very sharp and successful owner of a marketing firm. He shared that his firm had been helping a foundation with its capital campaign. No research. No study. No campaign plan. No board or major donor engagement. The sole strategy: direct mail.

From time to time we see a nonprofit retain a public relations or marketing firm to help with a capital campaign, instead of hiring fundraising counsel. The result is usually a lot of attention, nice looking materials, but more often than not a campaign that languishes and usually never hits goals. Fundraising is a profession. A discipline. Violate the proven best practices and you will pay the price.

In the higher education or independent school arena, the same can be said about alumni relations. These leaders and programs are so important to engagement, understanding and deepening relationships. But for success, there has to be an understanding and definition of roles and goals.

We are big fans of the advancement model. It can transfer to organizations of any type — i.e., with the alumni bucket being replaced with other key constituencies.

Fundraising is about relationships — and the raising of funds. I love the Merriam-Webster definition because it states "the organized activity," which we don't always see!

According to Webster, marketing is about awareness: "the activities that are involved in making people aware of a company's products, making sure that the products are available to be bought."

The right leadership for the advancement model is critical. You have to have someone who understands the concepts of each component — and who can then lead them together to see the dramatically increased results from a synergistic approach.

CASE's definition says it so well; successful advancement must be strategic and integrated. It relies on the understanding of what each discipline is — and is not — and how together, the disciplines become a beautiful orchestra creating a masterpiece yielding a great donor relationship and experience, plus many more dollars raised to achieve the organization's mission.