Great Fundraising Organizations

Unlock new growth opportunities by transforming your organization's approach to fundraising

In Great Fundraising Organizations, renowned nonprofit consultant Alan Clayton delivers a proven blueprint for charities and non-profits worldwide to scale their fundraising efforts and their effectiveness. Based on data gathered over twenty years of work with more than 500 organizations including Unicef and WWF, this book explains exactly what works and why, revealing to readers the rigorously researched mindsets, strategies, and practices in use by Great Fundraising Organizations (GFOs)—rare organizations that have the ability to unlock the fundraising revenue they need to meet or exceed performance and mission goals.

Accessible, confident, and infused with Clayton's signature style of observational humor, this book delivers everything readers need to fundraise more effectively with certainty, clarity, and confidence. Some of the ideas explored by Clayton include:

• Evidence to explain why some non-profits dramatically grow their revenues whilst others don't.
• What makes leadership for a Great Fundraising Organization different.
• That a precise set of internal behaviours are more important in driving growth than external factors.
• Why some fundraising communications drive growth and why some don't.

Great Fundraising Organizations earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of nonprofit CEOs, directors of fundraising, board chairs and members, and all fundraising professionals seeking to apply tried-and-tested methods for fundraising success and growth to their organizations.

Foreword xiii

Introduction: “How Can It Be So Hard to Save a Child?” 1

Learning from the Best 3

Research on the Great Fundraising Organizations 5

Discovering the Red Dot 7

Turning Intuition into Methodology 10

What You Can Expect from This Book 13

The Delight of Doing a Good Thing 15

Part I Triggering the Red Dot 19

1 Two Businesses, One Mission 21

Two Businesses 24

Three Conflicts 30

Cultural Conflict 30

Investment Conflict 33

Communications Conflict 35

Be the Best at Both 37

Respect and Dialogue 38

Education 39

A Shared Ambition 40

What Can You Do? 41

2 From Governance to Growth: The Trifecta 47

The Trifecta Is a Leadership Issue 53

Think Big Picture 55

Focus on Leading People 55

Live with Uncertainty 55

Shifting Mindsets: From Governance to Growth 56

3 Alignment Begins with the New Ambition 65

Cascading Effect 69

Communications Hierarchy 70

Purpose Versus New Ambition 72

“We Have a Problem. You Can Help Solve It.” 75

4 Not Any Ambition Will Do 83

Pragmatism to Idealism 86

Why, What, How 90

Differentiate Your Organization 91

Problem 91

Proposed Solution 91

Personality 92

Passion 92

Checklist for a Good Ambition 92

5 Investment and Ambition 101

Deciding Your Financial Aspiration 104

The Power of Long-Term Thinking 107

Understanding Investment 111

Types of Investments 113

Sources of Investment 114

Calculating Investment 115

6 Culture and Ambition 121

Why a Donor-Conscious Organization? 125

What Stops Great Fundraising? 127

Creating a Donor-Conscious Organization 128

Quality Management Systems: Building Blocks for Great Fundraising 128

Memetics 131

Part II Striving for Emotional Excellence 139

7 You Are in the Emotions Business 141

Prejudice Against Emotions 145

Truth Well-Told 147

The Science of Storytelling: Focus Your Emotion 149

Find Your Magic 151

8 Identifying Donor Needs 159

Identifying Versus Changing Needs 162

Why People Give 164

Healing 164

Happiness 165

Self-Esteem 165

Connection 166

Meaningful Life 166

Identifying Your Donors 167

Identifying Your Donor’s Needs 171

Psychographic Model 171

Biological Model 175

Identity Model 176

9 Meeting Donor Needs: Creating Great Fundraising Communications 183

Meeting Donor Needs 186

Exquisite Stories 190

Creating Great Fundraising Communications 195

Where Does Brand Fit In? 198

10 Financial Leadership 205

Understand Lifetime Value and Growth 208

Test to Make Ideas Work 210

Test 1: Will Anyone Give to Us? 211

Test 2: Improve Cost per Acquisition 212

Test 3: Look at All the Details 212

Test 4: How Do You Maximize Lifetime Value? 213

Be Proactive 214

Get on the Front Foot 215

Train Them on the Financials 215

Change How You Report Progress and Learnings 216

Help the Senior Leadership Team Manage Risk 217

Be Financially Astute 217

11 Leadership Decisions 221

Hierarchy of Purpose 224

Fear of Criticism 226

12 How to Get Going 233

Eight Steps to Success 238

Build Your Troupe 239

Train Your Leadership 239

Create a New Ambition 240

Embed the Culture 240

Data 241

Create an Investment Plan 241

Line Up and Go 241

Keep Going 242

Bonus: Do it all Again 242

Conclusion 249

Acknowledgments 255

Index 259

ALAN CLAYTON is the founder and CEO of Revolutionise International, a fourteen-year-old consultancy that works with name-brand NGOs worldwide to “accelerate people with purpose.” His firm has helped more than 500 organizations, including UNICEF, WWF, Oxfam, and many smaller and medium sized nonprofits solve their problems through a signature blend of research, teaching, and execution.

Despite hard work and good intentions, many nonprofit organizations (NPOs) around the world massively underperform. Why? They don’t have the money. They don’t have the money because they don’t know how to raise the money.

In Great Fundraising Organizations, leading nonprofit consultant Alan Clayton helps you unlock your organization’s potential to meaningfully change the world by showing how to build and lead a Great Fundraising Organization (GFO), a rare type of organization where massive fundraising growth allows for maximum performance, with a particular focus on leading financials, people, and communications. Based on data gathered over twenty years of work with more than 500 organizations, this book reveals exactly what works—the proven, rigorously researched mindsets, strategies, and practices of GFOs—so that charities worldwide can scale their fundraising and their effectiveness.

Containing case studies about organizational culture viewed through the lens of behavioral science and supported by Clayton’s track record of working with the world’s biggest nonprofits, including UNICEF and WWF, to unlock more than $5 billion dollars of new revenue, this book teaches readers how to align and marry an organization’s various internal cultures to its mission.

Readers will learn how to sidestep common errors like assuming fundraising is simple, easy, and cheap, failing to recognize the two vastly different business models of raising money and delivering programs, and being blind to systemic internal conflict over culture, investment, and communication that can cause potential donors to lose faith regardless of the basis of the mission.

Accessible, empowering, to-the-point, and infused with Clayton’s signature observational humor, Great Fundraising Organizations imparts proven methodology to all nonprofit leaders seeking clarity regarding exactly where they need to focus and what they need to do in order to reach their fundraising goals and make the world a better place, faster.

Praise for GREAT FUNDRAISING ORGANIZATIONS

“A very simple idea morphed into a 10-year program of research, the most exciting scientific project I have ever been involved with and the generation of literally billions of dollars for nonprofits around the globe.”
—PROFESSOR ADRIAN SARGEANT, Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy

“Being part of this journey has been a privilege—I wholeheartedly endorse Great Fundraising the book, the training and the people at Revolutionise International Ltd . This has underpinned my approach to building teams, engaging donors and influencing my organisations to achieve growth every year for the last 10 years.”
—JAYNE GEORGE, Director of Fundraising, Marketing and Media, the RNLI, UK

“Unrestricted income means sustainability, independence and innovation for any INGO. At Lutheran World Relief, we have practically doubled our unrestricted revenue in five years since implementing the Great Fundraising programme that this book lays out so clearly. We now have an organisation which is united behind our vibrant fundraising culture.”
—DAVID FUERST, Associate Vice President, Global Relationships & Resources, Lutheran World Relief, USA

“There are many good ideas but there are a few great ideas. The challenge is to know the difference. And with fundraising, it is ‘Great Fundraising’ that propels your organisation towards enabling the great ideas to happen. The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia is a great organisation with great services underpinned by great fundraising thanks to the principles and practices in this book. We at RFDS have grown our service capacity exponentially by placing the ‘business of fundraising’ at the core of organisational survival and growth. There is no mission if there is no money, and this book enables the board and staff to achieve the ambitions every organisation has for the people it serves.”
—SCOTT CHAPMAN, CEO, Royal Flying Doctor Service, Australia

“Great Fundraising Organizations provides the key missing piece to achieving practical, sustainable, fundraising growth in the real world. By taking a deep dive into what makes an entire organization effective, it represents an important milestone in fundraising research. These proven strategies can transform your organization as they have done for so many others around the world.”
—RUSSELL N. JAMES III, JD, PhD, CFP^®, Professor & CH Foundation Chair of Personal Financial Planning, Director of Graduate Studies in Charitable Planning at Texas Tech University

"A very simple idea morphed into a 10-year program of research, the most exciting scientific project I have ever been involved with and the generation of literally billions of dollars for nonprofits around the globe."
—Professor Adrian Sargeant, Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy

"Being part of this journey has been a privilege - I wholeheartedly endorse Great Fundraising the book, the training and the people at Revolutionise International Ltd . This has underpinned my approach to building teams, engaging donors and influencing my organisations to achieve growth every year for the last 10 years."
—Jayne George, Director of Fundraising, Marketing and Media, the RNLI, UK

"Unrestricted income means sustainability, independence and innovation for any INGO. At Lutheran World Relief, we have practically doubled our unrestricted revenue in five years since implementing the Great Fundraising programme that this book lays out so clearly. We now have an organisation which is united behind our vibrant fundraising culture."
—David Fuerst, Vice President for External Relations, Lutheran World Relief, USA

"There are many good ideas but there are a few great ideas. The challenge is to know the difference. And with fundraising, it is Great Fundraising that propels your organisation towards enabling the great ideas to happen. The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia is a great organisation with great services underpinned by great fundraising thanks to the principles and practices in this book. We at RFDS have grown our service capacity exponentially by placing the “business of fundraising” at the core of organizational survival and growth. There is no mission if there is no money, and this book enables the board and staff to achieve the ambitions every organization has for the people it serves.:
—Scott Chapman, CEO, Royal Flying Doctors Service, Australia

"Great Fundraising Organizations provides the key missing piece to achieving practical, sustainable, fundraising growth in the real world. By taking a deep dive into what makes an entire organization effective, it represents an important milestone in fundraising research. These proven strategies can transform your organization as they have done for so many others around the world."
—Russell N. James III, J.D., Ph.D., CFP®, Professor & CH Foundation Chair in Personal Financial Planning & Director of Graduate Studies in Charitable Planning atTexas Tech University

"This book is magnificent. It’s the book the charity sector needs right now! It needs to be seen by every staff member, board member…and donor! Anyone interested in working for or giving to a charity should read this – a wonderful insight into how charities do, and should, work. Early career fundraisers will get a blueprint for success. Senior, experienced fundraisers will feel seen and validated. And everyone will feel empowered, inspired and energised for success!"
—Alex Hyde-Smith, Chief Marketing Officer, Alzheimer’s Society, UK

"What I love most about this great book is that it isn’t only about theory, it’s all about practice. Alan Clayton knows how to achieve great fundraising results because he’s done it, over and over again. Great Fundraising Organizations defines the essential ingredients, shows how to assemble them, then guides us through the process that makes the dream a reality. The result is Utopian fundraising success."
—Ken Burnett, author, Relationship Fundraising and other books.

"Alan is my favourite fundraising expert and this book will make him one of yours as well! His hard-won vast knowledge and world-wide experience is passed onto you to help change the basic way you think about people, organizations and creating world beating fundraising ideas, processes and results. Make no mistake he will change the way you see the world!"
—Pat Dade, Founder Director, Cultural Dynamics Strategy and Marketing Ltd.

"We really truly believe we will beat macular disease now because of being a Great Fundraising organisation, and those with macular disease believe it too. Macular Society was an early adopter of the practice detailed in this book and we have seen tremendous growth as a result."
—Emma Malcolm, Director of Fundraising & Marketing, Macular Society

"I want to thank Alan for his new book that gives us the opportunity to understand how to be better fundraisers and achieve extraordinary results for our causes. This is in part because I felt a great identification with its purpose as it has taken me years of practice and reflection to understand the logic behind exponential growth and Alan is committed to explaining the keys to great fundraising. If someone is looking for the right path in a fundraising strategy, I would definitely recommend this book."
—Martín Giménez Rébora, Gerente de Movilización de Recursos, UNICEF Argentina

"It was largely as a result of this methodology and thinking that we raised committed funding at UNICEF India from US$5m to US$65m in just 5 years."
—Richard Beighton, Chief of Resource Mobilisation and Partnerships, UNICEF India