Learning from Sessions

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We were honored to have guest presenter Starr Sneed, Principal of Advancement Connections, with us for the first day of the small schools retreat. Starr is an expert in small non-profit development and in particular has a keen interest and knack for school development. Starr’s ability to take the fundraising topics every nonprofit organization needs to know and translate that into tangible and attainable steps for small schools to take was invaluable.

Starr focused on three areas: Capital Campaigns & Major Gifts,  Trends in Philanthropy and Annual Campaigns/Development plans.

 

Highlights of her presentation on Capital Campaigns and Major Gifts:

  • Identification of essential pre-requisites for any major gift fundraising:
    • A fully functional database
    • A well-established, high-performing annual campaign
    • A development officer
    • Trustees who are involved and ready to lead
    • A head of school and board chair who are good solicitors (or ready to learn!)
    • A solid core of fundraising volunteers
    • A compelling and legitimate case based on long-range or strategic planning
  • Alternatives to the “traditional” capital campaign models
    • The rolling capital campaign
    • Major gift campaign
    • Mix and match campaign
    • Equipment campaign
    • Bank loans or bond financing
  • How to develop a strong case statement and supportive materials
  • Donor engagement and stewardship

 

Highlights of our conversation on Trends in Philanthropy

  • We are about to see the greatest shift in wealth, ever
  • Women are giving at increasingly higher rates than men, in particular to areas of social cause

 

Highlights of our conversation on annual campaigns

  • Board and major donors gifts should equal 80% of your annual fund dollars
  • Annual funds are really the only trackable development piece year after year
  • Types of annual gifts
    • Events
    • Passive (e.g. amazon smile)
    • Restricted gifts
    • Annual unrestricted

 

Highlights of our conversation on development planning

  • We focused greatly on the 5 sections every development plan should have
    • Operations - nuts and bolts. Tools to do work and who will do it
    • Raise revenue ($) - annual fund, gala, etc. anything related to money
    • Constituent relations - every group of people the development office has to deal with or has to think about
    • Marketing and communications -- things we send out, produce or message
    • Stewardship - including the legal pieces. How we track and report gifts, and the “warm fuzzy” feelings
    • The development committee ultimately “owns” the plan
    • Write the plan in the summer, and it becomes the work of the first development committee meeting and can be a tool to educate the board early on in the school year. It’s often an eye opening moment for them to see the scope of development work
  • Don’t outright publicize a campaign goal until your 85-90% of the way there (in particular for a capital campaign)
  • Development doesn’t plug budget gaps -- philanthropic lines in budgets are intentional and planned. We rely on people that believe in our mission to help us do what we do and this essentially helps keep school “affordable” for anyone that desires it.

 

Continue Reading: HOS Session with Paul Bernstein, Prizmah CEO

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