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New Productivity Tool

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Whether you are working for a charity, or serving one as a consultant, you have an even greater obligation to be productive than those working for a business. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that every employee has an obligation to her employer. But when you are working for or with a charity, you are not only responsible to your employer, but to those who have made charitable donations to fund your work. I think that raises the bar a bit.

As a consultant to charities that profits from service to not-for-profits, I think I have an even greater obligation to be productive. And those who know me or have followed this blog for a while, know that my consulting practice is diverse and includes Internet business as well as charitable fundraising. With the ever present allure of the “surfboard”, it is all too easy to spend minutes or hours focused on things other than that which needs to be done now.

Yesterday I found a new tool to help me track my time. As an entrepreneur since college, I’ve known for a long time that that which gets tracked, gets improved. I was always impressed by my attorney friends who could track their time while working on multiple projects. I always found that difficult to do. Now, there is a program that will track everything you do on your computer and allow you to track what you do. It’s appropriately called Rescue Time.

Oh yes, and the best part is that it is free. Of course it is currently in “public beta” whcih means that it might not always be free. But whatever the cost, if your time is worth more than $10 per hour, then it will be worth it. For those in $100-$200 per hour range, this tool is invaluable. Sign up at http://www.rescuetime.com/. I’ve only been using it for a day and a half and already see a difference in my productivity.

If you are a manager, you’ll want your whole team using this program. Rescue Time for Business is in development. Until it is launched you can have everyone on our team use it individually and you can sign up for updates on the program. If I had a team, I’d present it as a great opportunity for each of them to take personal responsibility to become more productive. Anyone you really want on your team is going to be committed to getting better at his job.

I’d love to hear how you are using Rescue Time individually and in your charitable organization.

Filed in Business Values, Leadership for Fundraising Pros, Management | Comments (1)

The Best Fundraising Idea

Monday, January 28, 2008

Jim Rohn said “rarely does a good idea interrupt you,” and anyone who has sat in on the first meeting of a new development committee can vouch for the truth in that statement. Of course I’m not talking about mature fundraising organizations staffed by a team of professionals who have worked closely with volunteer leadership to plan the meeting and the campaign.

Unfortunately young charities or schools that grow out of the vision of one person or a small group too often continue to think small. Bake sales, wrapping paper sales, and small events all too often pass for fundraising at the immature organization.

Even large or mature organizations can make mistakes in planning events. Last year my synagogue held a gala to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the senior Rabbi. He is very involved throughout the community, Jewish, interfaith, and secular. I believe there were 400 people there and the temple netted about $40,000. Wow, $100 per head seems good to some of you reading this. I assure you that they could have easily raised more than $100,000 and probably more than $200k had they done it right.

But, to quote Jim Rohn again, “the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do.” Raising major gifts for charity is not rocket science. It can be done with events, like the one described above. But those events need to incorporate the best fundraising idea ever. Here it is:

You need to ask for major gifts.

There you have it. I just gave away the secret that every professional fundraiser knows. I apologize to my colleagues for letting the cat out of the bag. The good news, for professional consultants is that although it is easy, it is also easy not to do.

Having elementary school students sell wrapping paper and candy to family and friends may be a good idea, if you want to engage the kids in the process, build ownership, and teach them important life skills. But if you want to raise major dollars, then you need to sit down with members of your community, identify major gift prospects, cultivate them, and then ask them for major gifts.

What makes a gift major depends on the size of your organization. It could be $1,000, or $10,000 or $100,000. Whatever the level, you need to start taking the process seriously and you need to plan how you are going to start raising real money from your major gifts program. You don’t even need a professional. You could hire one if you want to. But you can do this without us.

If you want to hear more about how to do that, just fill in your name and email to subscribe to this blog and get a notice whenever I post.

Filed in Board Development, Events, General Fundraising, Major Gifts Fundraising | Comments (11)

Internet Business Moves, Fundraising Ideas Stay

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

I decided that while I may be a bit schizophrenic, that does not mean that you are. Some of my readers enjoy reading about my business philosophy or about Internet business, and others prefer to  read about  fundraising and fundraising ideas.  Just because I have combined them into a single business, does not mean that the two markets are synergistic.

So, this will become my fundraising ideas blog and you can find my ruminations, ideas, tips, recommendations, and software that apply to Internet business at http://internetbusiness.aliyamarketing.com.

I started it a few months ago, with the intention of making this move into two separate markets, so you will find a number of posts regarding Internet business already there.

Filed in General Fundraising, Internet Marketing, Marketing | Comments (1)

Reason Why Sales & Marketing – The Power of “Because”

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

I just read an interesting post on Aaron Brandon’s blog about Internet business regarding the psychological difficulty of asking. It was interesting, but when I started to read it, I assumed it would teach me something about how to better do business on the internet. In that, it was disappointing, but it is an interesting article and useful for those who want to understand the power of their own, or their salespeople’s or fundraiser’s, call reluctance or fear of asking for the sale or the gift.

It did make me think of another famous, and I think more useful, psychological study performed by Ellen J. Langer of Harvard. I first heard about it in the a very important book for all marketers, business people, and fundraisers: Infuence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Ciladini. You can read a more complete article about Langer’s career and all her work in the NY Times Article that I excerpted this from:

In the 1970′s and 1980′s she carried out a series of landmark studies to make the point scientifically, the most famous of them referred to as ”The Copy Machine.”

In that study, she stationed someone at a copy machine in a busy graduate school office. When someone stepped up and began copying, Dr. Langer’s plant would come up to the person and interrupt, asking to butt in and make copies. The interruption was allowed fairly often, about 60 percent of the time. But the permission was granted almost 95 percent of the time if the person stepping up to interrupt not only asked, ”May I use the copy machine?” but added a reason, ”because I’m in a rush.”

That seems to make sense. People heard the reason and decided they were willing to step aside for a moment. What was odd, Dr. Langer found, was that if the interrupter asked, ”Can I use the machine?” and added a meaningless phrase, ”because I have to make copies,” the people at the machine also stepped aside nearly 95 percent of the time.

The idea, she said, is that the listener at the copy machine heard a two-part statement: a request and something like a reason. That was all their mental script for such a situation required. They never did reflect on the fact that the interrupter’s ”reason” was not meaningful.

If you need a clearer reason to include a reason when you ask your customers, clients’ or prospects to do something, I don’t think it exists. A scientific study that proves that providing a reason when you ask for something improves the positive response rate by 50% and it doesn’t even matter what that reason is or whether it makes sense or not, only that a reason is given.

So right now you need to fill in your name and email address in the upper right corner, under my photo, because when you do, you will get an email when I post more wisdom like this to this blog. I’ll be posting more about Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion as well as other important information for fundraisers and Internet business people. Can you afford to miss it?

Filed in Business Values, General Fundraising, Internet Marketing, Major Gifts Fundraising, Marketing | Comments (4)