CCS Fundraising

Type: Article

With increased enrollment challenges and constraints on tuition revenue, continued pressure to have competitive programs and facilities, and the growing need for endowment and financial aid, Heads of School are increasingly called upon to play an active role in securing philanthropic dollars. While new Heads of School are often prepared for the academic and administrative aspects of the job, CCS has found that first-time Heads are often surprised by the demands on their time posed by the school’s fundraising program.

With ample time between appointment and the first day on the job, CCS has recommendations for how new Heads can prepare themselves to be comfortable and confident in the role of “fundraiser-in-chief.”

Step 1: Foster a Culture of Philanthropy

A Head of School builds a culture of giving whether they realize it or not; each positive parent or alumni interaction, back-to-school night, soccer game, or science fair contributes to an invested and engaged community. As fundraiser-in-chief, a Head of School is responsible for the added work of articulating the need for continued support and making asks of the larger community.

The role of Head of School is an act of balancing both the internal and the external. Heads must manage internal priorities, including students, faculty, staff, finances, facilities, programs, DEI, and COVID-19 responses, along with external priorities, including communications, parents, and alumni. In addition to day-to-day administration, the Head serves as the voice and face of the school and its values. The Head is responsible for communicating the school’s vision and plan to all of the constituencies that make up an independent school community. While a Head’s time is limited and priorities are constantly shifting, fundraising touches almost every aspect of independent school life and merits dedicated time from the start to foster a strong culture of philanthropy.

Step 2: Chart Your Course

With many schools selecting new Heads a year in advance, newly appointed Heads have ample time to begin developing ideas for what they would like to accomplish during each year of their tenure. Any ideation around the big picture must also consider fundraising strategy, which can and should be different with each successive year of a Head’s time at a school.

To start, it is helpful to look at the first three years, the typical length of a new Head’s initial contract, to develop a better understanding of the types of fundraising activities a Head will participate in and the amount of time fundraising will require.

A Head’s first year should be spent getting to know the school community. Meetings with Board members, alumni, and parents will help a new Head gain a sense of where a school is and where it can go. These interactions will foster meaningful relationships with the school’s key stakeholders, which will lay a groundwork of trust that can only ease any future solicitations. A new Head will also need to rely heavily on the school’s advancement or development team to build a thorough understanding of fundraising development and culture. The development team will also play an integral role in helping a Head determine who to solicit and how to solicit them, in addition to arranging important cultivation and stewardship events that strengthen the school’s culture of philanthropy.

In our experience, a Head’s second year shifts away from year one’s focus on community building towards the development of a clear vision and strategy. A new Head will often begin a strategic planning or strategic initiatives process, during which he or she will work with their leadership team, the Board, and community committees to define and articulate a vision for the school’s future. This process should include a carefully coordinated fundraising plan to develop the resources that will likely be necessary to implement and to fund initiatives of the strategic plan. Many schools include fundraising considerations and encounter challenges when mapping their strategic plan to the fundraising potential after the fact.​ Getting ahead of the game and including fundraising from the start will smooth the transition from planning to implementation and execution. The time spent participating in fundraising activity will increase from year one, but the majority of time will likely be spent in stewardship and cultivation conversations, rather than direct solicitations.

For many Heads, year three will mean the preparatory and planning phase of a major gift campaign to resource the strategic plan. A Head of School may find that the community needs more time for feasibility and planning work to understand the donor base and capacity. This is also the time to define the specific case elements for the campaign. A Head will likely experience increased committee work and travel as he or she begins the important early work of securing leadership gifts toward the campaign goals.​ By the third year, particularly if the school is entering a campaign or major gift effort, a Head can expect that upwards of 50% of his or her time will be consumed by some type of fundraising activity, possibly more.

Step 3: Build Your Team

Though the Head of School is the fundraiser-in-chief, his or her responsibilities are too numerous and too demanding for all fundraising activity to fall on the Head’s plate. The Head is part of a larger fundraising team that includes the Board of Trustees and the development office. Each group plays a vital role in ensuring fundraising success at an independent school.

Ideally, every member of the Board will be a participant in the fundraising process, actively soliciting donors on behalf of the school. In reality, however, many Board members may not be comfortable asking for money. The good news is that there are numerous roles a Board can play to help advance the school’s fundraising initiatives. A Head of School can expect Board members to:

  • Serve as advocates in the community, promoting the school’s mission and values
  • Understand and execute fundraising best practices
  • And, most importantly, participate with money, time, and connections

Many schools have a development or advancement committee which helps to create big-picture strategy around fundraising, is deeply involved in solicitation, and provides critical support to the school’s development team. Members of the development committee can act as a sounding board for the development team and provide feedback on what will resonate with the school community. They play a critical role in identifying prospects and encourage community-wide giving, strengthened by their own personally significant giving. Finally, they should work as ambassadors, warming up prospects for cultivation and solicitation, and thanking them for their support.

Just as a new Head will have expectations of the Board, so too will the Board have expectations for the Head and the development office. A Head should work closely with the development team to ensure that Board members feel well equipped to complete the fundraising tasks associated with their role. Development teams, in conjunction with the Head, should provide clearly defined responsibilities and expectations, along with short and long-term strategies and plans, access to fundraising training, and, most importantly, direct lines of communication. Board members are not just volunteers, but major stakeholders in an institution, and it is essential that they receive the resources they need to fundraise successfully.

Critical to the success of every school’s fundraising program is the development team. Members of the development team will provide essential support to the Head of School and the Board of trustees by setting strategy, preparing for and participating in solicitations, maintaining donor records, and often developing donor communications. The director of development should be a trusted partner to the Head of School, a skilled communicator who has a deep passion for the institution and its mission.

The director of development will need to be a strong manager, overseeing the fundraising staff, which should include frontline fundraisers (those who ask for money), and support staff (those who maintain the donor database, conduct research, and plan events). Though most of the development staff may not be in regular contact with the Head of School, they will need to advocate for the Head’s vision and earn donors’ trust. It is essential that this team receive the resources they need to do their jobs; a well-resourced development office will not only convey professionalism to donors but will also minimize staff turnover.

New Heads are often interested in their profession because of their passion to educate young people. Fundraising is the key that unlocks the school’s ability to provide an outstanding education, cutting-edge resources, a supportive community, and opportunities that transform students and the community at large. By fostering a community of philanthropy, charting your course, and building your team, a new Head can meet their philanthropic goals and exceed at delivering their mission.

 

 

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Nonprofit organizations with missions and activities that connect them with an international community should consider whether pursuing international donors is a viable strategy in their annual fundraising plans.

To build a successful international fundraising program, establishing an internal infrastructure and developing systems to qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward international donors is critical. This article lays out four key areas for nonprofits to consider before launching a comprehensive international fundraising program.

1) Internal Infrastructure

Before developing a strategy for international donors, your organization should first evaluate its internal capabilities and whether it is equipped to effectively accept, track, and steward international funds.

Specific considerations include:

  1. Does our staffing structure support the effective management of international donors?
  2. Does our gift processing system accept multiple currencies and track international activity?

Staffing

The most effective way to connect with international donors is to have a local staff who can understand and appropriately match local philanthropic cultures. For some nonprofits, establishing a local organization in a foreign country is a productive strategy. Doing so enables your nonprofit to build meaningful relationships with local prospects and allows donors to take advantage of local tax rules.

Establishing such structures is often a substantial lift operationally, requiring clear reporting structures, transfer agreements, and processes to move and allocate funding. Further, many countries do not allow this “pass-through” agreement and require specific registration to redirect contributions abroad. This means that unless your nonprofit is conducting business in the identified country, it may not make sense to set up the infrastructure for an intermediary organization.

If building an intermediary organization is not realistic for your organization, consider which of your staff members have the bandwidth to engage international donors and the ability to travel as needed. When making this determination, consider whether there are high concentrations of prospects in any one region that a staff member can be assigned to and periodically travel to. Refer to U.S. income tax treaties to determine whether international donors may claim tax deductibility for their gift.

Systems

Before cultivating donors, it is similarly critical to consider if your nonprofit has strong gift acceptance policies and CRM processes that enable tracking necessary donor activity and information.

With the system itself in place, your organization should then outline a process that determines how to recognize fluctuations in currencies. For example, pledges are often recognized at the USD equivalency at the time of making a gift, not at each pledge payment period. There are several businesses that work with nonprofits to help set up currency converting systems, including Western Union Business and PayPal.

Having each of these internal pieces in place will allow your organization to move forward with cultivation with confidence.

2) Developing a Prospect List

Prospect research is an essential step in building your fundraising plan, as it unveils the opportunities that exist in your community of supporters. There are several helpful tools that can assist with research and information gathering on international donors:

One important factor to note while undertaking research for donors in the European Union and the United Kingdom: legislation known as the GDPR, which is widely recognized as the strongest donor privacy law in the world. It imposes strict obligations on organizations globally if they collect data on E.U. and U.K. citizens, including:

  • Inform donors on what data is being collected, how it will be used and stored, and gain their permission.
  • Upon request, provide donors a record of their personal data within 28 days.
  • Allow for the “right to be forgotten.”
  • Hold data securely and for a defined period. A data storage policy is mandatory and data may not be held indefinitely. Policies must be concise, transparent, and provided to donors.

The GDPR legislation is complex and your nonprofit may want to seek counsel from an advisor with deep knowledge of the legislation before undertaking prospect research. Furthermore, creating opportunities for donors to consent to receive communications from your nonprofit is an important first step in your engagement plan.

3) Engaging Prospects

As your organization ramps up its engagement with international prospects, it is imperative to create a cultivation plan that connects these individuals with an organization’s mission, programmatic activities, and impact.

In developing this plan, gain awareness of the philanthropic culture of the donor’s home country and region. Many countries have unique philanthropic cultures and individual donors may hold varying expectations for how an organization will engage with them. Possessing a strong understanding of the distinct cultural groups within a country or region is also critical.

Moreover, consider whether the U.S. has a positive relationship with the home country of the international donor. If not, this may have implications on how your organization engages with the donor in a public fashion and how your organization might recognize a gift.

After researching a country or region’s philanthropic culture and traditions, it is important to consider the following questions as you develop an engagement plan:

  • Has the individual demonstrated an alignment with the mission through their philanthropic support of other organizations?
  • Do they want to be kept apprised of programmatic activities?
  • Do they like attending events? If so, are any events accessible to them?
  • Do they want access to members of your board or corporate partners?
  • Do they want public recognition of their gift?

These questions are not dissimilar from those your organization would consider for a local donor, but the culture of philanthropy in an international donor’s home country or region may dictate different answers to these questions and lead to the creation of a unique engagement plan.

Finally, once organizations begin to plan for in-person gatherings again, consider including a virtual option to engage with international donors who cannot travel to visit an organization in person.

4) Tax Laws and Regulations

In the U.S., specific tax structures exist to incentivize philanthropic giving from individuals and corporations. However, this is not always the case for donors residing outside of the U.S. It is important for your organization to consult with tax lawyers to understand when a donor might be eligible to claim a tax deduction when making a gift. Below, we have outlined a generalized framework for assessing eligibility.

Donors Who Are Eligible for Tax Deductibility: To claim a tax deduction in the U.S. for charitable giving, an individual must file their income taxes in the United States through an IRS form 1040. This includes individuals who are not living in the U.S. but who have U.S.-sourced income, whether that includes compensation, sold inventory, or dividends from a U.S. corporation.

Donors Who Might Be Eligible for Tax Deductibility: There are several examples of tax treaties that enable international donors to offset local taxes by making gifts to U.S. organizations. It is worthwhile to examine whether there is a tax treaty between your organization and your donor’s home country and whether this reveals opportunities in nuanced tax rules.

Donors Ineligible for Tax Deductibility: If a donor does not own a residence in the U.S., does not pay U.S. income tax, and does not live in a country with a tax treaty with the U.S., that donor will typically be unable to claim a tax benefit for their gift to a U.S. organization. For this donor, consider whether they are open to supporting your organization without a tax incentive or whether their gift can be made through an intermediary organization in the local country.

When making an ask to a foreign donor, there are two key considerations to keep in mind:

  • Advise the donor to consult their own tax professionals or local tax law. Be sure that all acknowledgments or tax letters have clear language stating that these gifts are or are not tax deductible in the United States.
  • Focus the solicitation on your organization’s mission and the impact of their gift over any incentives or tax benefits.

Final Thoughts

Building a supportive infrastructure, conducting research, creating personalized engagement plans, and understanding local customs, practices, laws, and regulations are all critical steps an organization should take before launching an international fundraising program. If your organization is developing a fundraising strategy for international donors, or considering your donor engagement strategy more generally, CCS Fundraising offers a suite of services that can help. For more information, contact CCS today.

This piece has been prepared for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal or tax advice. Individuals should consult their lawyer, accountant, or tax advisor with regard to such matters.

Do you have spreadsheet fatigue?

Are you juggling disconnected donor information across multiple spreadsheets? Tired of trying to remember which spreadsheet includes your most recent interaction, which spreadsheet includes prospect research, and which spreadsheet includes an upcoming solicitation strategy? The best solution to this common problem is to switch from tracking this information in spreadsheets to optimize reporting from—or within—your CRM (customer relationship management) software.

I understand—it can feel onerous to enter information into a CRM, create a report, and then export data from the CRM into a spreadsheet rather than just update your existing spreadsheet. But there are valuable benefits to tracking donor information in your CRM rather than spreadsheets, including:

1) A CRM serves as a vault of organizational knowledge for years to come

One study found that the average tenure of a fundraiser is 16 months. To continue a seamless relationship with donors during staff transitions, it is vital that all donor interactions, research, and notes are recorded in the CRM rather than peppered throughout various spreadsheets and documents.

2) Managing data in your CRM provides access to insights in real-time

Rather than searching for the most recent version of a spreadsheet on your desktop or shared drive, a CRM allows you to get up-to-date data from the source. You can even create dashboards to ensure key data points are always at your fingertips—for example, gifts from prospects in your portfolio or donor interactions to date.

3) Spreadsheets are more susceptible to errors

Especially if your organization collaboratively edits shared spreadsheets, there is a much greater chance that the contents of a cell are mistakenly deleted or changed compared to a mistake happening in your CRM. In addition, working in a CRM greatly minimizes the risk of mistakenly overwriting important past information, such as a column for “most recent interactions.”

4) A CRM ensures you stay on top of follow-up tasks and outreach

While next steps can get buried in a spreadsheet, keeping track of follow-up actions in your CRM provides you with many options to review your to-do list, whether it is in a dashboard or notifications that remind you of what tasks are coming up and what might be overdue.

Transitioning from Spreadsheets to Your Donor Database

Would you like to start making the switch from spreadsheets to your CRM? Some simple first steps include:

  1. Look at each piece of information you keep in your spreadsheet and see where it fits in your CRM. In tasks? Prospect status? Notes? An opportunity? Map out where each column will live.
  2. If not already in your CRM, upload or enter the information.
  3. Build out a dashboard to visualize information within your CRM.

OR

  1. Create a report to pull the data you would like to see.
  2. Copy and paste the data from that report into your original designed template.

Note: if you are stuck on one of the above steps, you may need to consult a database expert, either at your organization or externally, who can help ensure that your CRM is organized in a way to best serve you and your team.

Voila! You have an updated, accurate donor or prospect report to help you and your team review important information and create a strategy. While porting information to your CRM requires an investment of time, it will certainly be worth it.

Learn more about CCS’s Systems and Change Management services.

On July 31, 2021, the extended federal moratorium on housing evictions due to COVID-19 will end. The eviction ban, which offers renters protection if they cannot pay rent, has been in place since September 2020 by the Department of Health and Human Services and was extended through July in March 2020. While some states have extended their own eviction moratoriums beyond July 2021, many have not, and those living in states that have may only qualify for relief if they are already in the process of seeking support.

What will the end of the ban mean for individuals and families who are struggling to afford rising rent costs and are at-risk of being evicted? What impacts will be had on the operational capacity and fundraising needs of organizations that address homelessness and housing stability who will be called upon to step up and provide resources for safe, stable housing and rental assistance?

According to the Census Bureau, roughly 3.6 million people claim they face eviction in the next two months and 7 million people are behind on their rent in the U.S. Based on past and recent experiences, nonprofit organizations in the homeless and housing space are already bracing for a significant spike in demand as was seen following the housing market crash of 2008 and throughout 2020 as public spaces closed and quarantines were established.

Across all nonprofits, fundraising is a critical lifeline for sustaining and growing program and service capacity. In addition to prioritizing the fortification of operations and program capacity, as well as exploring new partnerships to meet an anticipated rise in demand, housing-based organizations must also actively respond through their communications, community engagement, and fundraising efforts.

Your best donors are those who are informed and engaged. CCS Fundraising recommends assessing and updating your communications plan and fundraising materials to elevate the visibility of this emergent need, and focus on engaging the new donors who stepped up and joined you during COVID-19 as well as those donors loyal to the organization over the years.

Communications and Case

With regards to assessing and updating communications and fundraising collateral, your newsletters, annual appeals, major gift proposals, stewardship reports, and sharable social media content will be strengthened by including the following:

  • The ongoing impact that your organization had on homelessness since the start of the pandemic and eviction ban, as well as how demand and service delivery have evolved
  • Information about the policy change and the broader context of the state of homelessness both nationally and locally
  • Emphasis on the importance of stable housing and the incredibly damaging impacts of eviction as it relates to fighting chronic homelessness, holding down a job, pursuing career and education goals, supporting families, and providing safety in a pandemic
  • Elevated and amplified client stories and experiences
  • Your mission’s alignment to broader policy changes, whether that is agile service delivery, public advocacy, or other
  • Your steadfast commitment to serve your community during times of change

Intuitively, different constituencies of donors are motivated to give for a variety of reasons. Tailored messaging for different types of donors will only further strengthen your communications and fundraising materials as you seek support in FY21 and beyond.

Strategic Donor Engagement

Donor retention is central to a strong base of annual support and the cultivation of major gifts. New donors that contributed to your organization for the first time during COVID-19 should receive messaging that communicates the value proposition of your organization. Many of these new donors joined you out of a sense of duty to support their community in a time of urgent need. As this urgent need remains, thanking these new donors for stepping up and asking for their continued support is essential. Consider answering: What were you able to do with their support? How big is your addressable population? How dire is the need? What is your measurable impact on the community?

Repeat donors and major donors are often your greatest sources of significant gifts and multi-year pledges. These donors, especially those considered your nearest and dearest, should receive personalized messaging that underscores the continued importance of their support and the very specific impact of their generosity. In addition to sharing impact, offer them specific action steps that they can take to support your plan in response to the policy change. Appreciating the impacts of ending the eviction ban may have long term implications, seeking special two-to-three-year pledges can help provide reliable support you can count on in an uncertain and ever-evolving environment.

Other Thoughts and Considerations for Nonprofits

In addition to seeing the need for and impact of their support, donors want to know what else can be done to address homelessness and housing stability. Beyond raising awareness through communications and publicity, and strategically engaging donors, all nonprofits in this space should explore how new or stronger partnerships with other public, nonprofit, and corporate entities can be used to address homelessness and housing insecurity within their community.  At the state and local level, nonprofits should also explore how donors can tap into grassroots advocacy efforts to change the system and ensure access to stable housing which is paramount to ending the cycle of homelessness for individuals and families.

A strong major gifts program requires well-composed portfolios. While donor conversation is and will always be critical for confirming their inclination to give and gift capacity, many issues in constructing portfolios can be resolved ahead of time with data captured in a CRM system. These five tips will help your development department leverage the data in its donor database to ensure the right prospects are in gift officers’ portfolios.

1) Capture and update contacts within your database

Every year, the employees of your nonprofit come across hundreds, if not thousands, of potential donors, advocates, and supporters for your institution. To make the most of these relationships, it is critical to ensure their information is accurately captured at the relationship’s onset. Consider setting practices and processes around systematically adding new contacts into your donor database and storing relationship information not just within your gifts officers’ or program officers’ heads, in a notebook, or in Excel, but also within your current CRM.

What if one of your program coordinators regularly engages a volunteer who happens to be the significant other of a Fortune 500 CEO? What if you discover in passing that a new single ticket buyer is a board member of a community foundation on your target list? Capturing contacts within databases helps ensure your organization is not missing opportunities to identify and strategically engage fundraising and friend-building prospects.

As you enter contacts, basic database hygiene is key. Capture correct names, salutations, addresses, gift records, and contact information. If you have not already, you should also note the date of your last wealth screening activity.

2) Wealth screen regularly

As your organization adds potential supporters to its database, engage in a wealth screening at least every three years to gain insight into the overall giving capacity of your organization’s contacts. For higher education institutions, consider conducting a wealth screen with every new class of admitted students. For hospitals, which generally have a higher volume of face-to-face interactions with potential donors, consider completing wealth screens more frequently as part of a grateful patient program.

3) Conduct a segmentation analysis

It isn’t enough to simply add new contacts to your database, or regularly complete wealth screens. Good portfolios are created through segmentation.

Segment your donors with a recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) analysis to help target which donors should be elevated to a gift officer’s portfolio and which may be a better fit within your annual fund communications pipeline. Recency considers the last gift a donor made to your institution, frequency considers how often gifts are made to your institution, and monetary value considers how much the donor has given to your institution. Combining RFM scores and wealth screening data can help define segments of donors to add or remove from a gift officer’s portfolio.

Depending on the size and complexity of your institution’s database, you may also consider undertaking predictive modeling to segment your donors. This approach entails looking at a broad swath of internal data points as well as wealth screening information to help optimize gift officer portfolios.

4) Monitor annual fund appeal responses for sudden or gradual gift amount lifts over time

Donors may signal readiness to be moved into a major gifts officer portfolio based on the trends of their giving. Keep a close eye on the average return for cyclical annual fund appeals. Are any donors generally giving significantly above the average for your appeals? Has a donor’s giving steadily increased year over year? Has there been a seemingly random four or five-figure gift from a donor unassigned to a gifts officer portfolio? These are all signs that the institution might consider engaging this donor on a more personal level.

5) Have candid conversations on moves management

Does a donor sparsely return calls, emails, or contact? Has a donor not responded to a gift appeal in the past few years? It might be time to remove these donors from a gifts officer portfolio. However, before this happens, be sure actions are being adequately tracked within your database and taken into consideration. Who was the last point of contact? Who is the primary solicitor?  When was the last contact—and with what partners, materials, and talking points? These details are critical for diagnosing cause and effect and developing institutional knowledge rather than operating from anecdotal observations.

The journey to successfully collecting and using CRM data to make decisions on portfolio strategy can be complex and time-consuming. However, it is well worth the investment to elevate your major gifts program and scale your fundraising capacity.

Is your organization considering how to build an effective fundraising data and reporting structure? Learn more about CCS’s Systems and Change Management services.

CCS Fundraising is thrilled to share the tenth edition of Snapshot of Today’s Philanthropic Landscape. This report compiles and contextualizes research from across the field of philanthropy to help U.S. nonprofits wade through the available data and create informed fundraising strategies.

“For the past ten years, CCS has aggregated the latest research on the state of U.S. philanthropy in our Snapshot of Today’s Philanthropic Landscape report,” say the publication Co-Editors, Tom Kissane, Principal and Managing Director and Natalie Skinner, Senior Vice President. “It is heartening to see the resiliency of philanthropy reflected in this year’s edition, as Giving USA estimates that Americans gave a record-setting $471.44 billion in 2020. At the same time, we must recognize that this outpouring of generosity sits within a complex and turbulent landscape. It is more important than ever for nonprofit leaders and fundraisers to understand the philanthropic terrain and be diligent and intentional as they connect with donors. We are elated to share this tenth-edition report as a resource to help mission-driven organizations uncover philanthropic trends and develop data-informed fundraising strategies.”

The report discusses essential findings from across the field of philanthropic research, including:

  • Individuals, foundations, and corporations donated $471.44 billion in 2020, a new record and an incredible demonstration of generosity and resilience in a complex year.[1]
  • Donors are responding to the unique conditions of today’s world, making philanthropic gifts and pledges of more than $21 billion to U.S. COVID-19 relief and more than $14 billion to U.S. racial justice efforts in 2020 and 2021 to date.[2]
  • Donations in support of pandemic relief and racial justice did not diminish overall philanthropic giving in 2020; donations to eight of the ten charitable causes tracked by Giving USA increased in 2020.[1]
  • Individuals continue to drive U.S. philanthropy, contributing 69% of giving in 2020.[1] An increasingly large portion of giving comes from wealthier individuals: 80% of charitable dollars come from 20% of households.[3]
  • Foundation giving grew faster than any other source in 2020, at a rate of 17%.[1]
  • Though corporate giving decreased by 6.1% in 2020, [1]  corporations stood out for significant philanthropic commitments to U.S. racial equity efforts and pandemic relief. [2]
  • The wealth of high net worth individuals grew in 2020, as did their giving; 2020’s top 53 donors gave a combined $24.7 billion.[4]
  • Nonprofits accepting non-cash donations grow nearly five times faster on average than organizations accepting only cash gifts.[5]
  • Digital giving increased by 21% to comprise 13% of all charitable giving in 2020, a new height.[6]

Read the full report for more findings and insights on the data from CCS’s fundraising experts. To download a copy of Snapshot of Today’s Philanthropic Landscape, 10th Edition, click here.

[1] Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2020 (2021).

[2] Candid, “Philanthropic response to coronavirus (COVID-19)” (Accessed July 16, 2021) and “Funding for racial equity” (Accessed July 16, 2021).

[3] Blackbaud, Vital Signs, Part 3: How Major Donors Are Shaping Philanthropy (2020).

[4] The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “The Philanthropy 50” (2021).

[5] Dr. Russell James III, Cash is Not King in Fundraising: Results from 1 Million Nonprofit Tax Returns (2018).

[6] Blackbaud, Charitable Giving Report (2021).

For nonprofits, customer relationship management (CRM) databases are libraries of donor information that enable essential activities like contacting donors, accounting for financial history, and noting primary relationships with an institution.

Your database only functions as well as the staff managing it. Building human-backed processes and systems for CRM maintenance will help your nonprofit strengthen its library of institutional knowledge on donors and empower fundraisers with the information they need to succeed.

DO educate your staff on the importance of tracking the information of friends and donors within a single platform.

Fundraising is a team sport. Whether you’re a frontline fundraiser or a program manager, a culture of philanthropy is important for identifying long-term relationships that lead to larger gifts for your institution. Tracking relationships within a central database is key to this success, and wards against losing knowledge over time with the natural transition of staff to new roles and responsibilities.

Train your fundraising staff to:

  • Understand the importance of inserting timely, accurate, and compliant information into the database
  • Engage in conversations with programmatic staff to identify and build knowledge on potential donors, referral sources, and partners for strategizing gift requests
  • Correctly input donor interests, actions, relationships, proposals, and other materials within your CRM

DON’T assume that database maintenance or usage is just one person’s job.

In high-functioning development offices, all staff members have basic knowledge of how to use the database to do their specific jobs. Whether you’re a frontline fundraiser, development assistant, prospect researcher, events coordinator, or administrative support staff member, all have a role to play in keeping institutional knowledge up to date.

Ensure all staff members are aware of basic information the institution gathers from donors, what to do when they learn a donor’s name and information are incorrect, and how to search for donors and pertinent information within the database.

DO develop a process for regularly updating and maintaining donor contact information.

As the adage goes, what gets measured gets managed. Become familiar with the percentage of donors within your database for which you have incorrect emails and mailing addresses recorded. Create a plan to proactively improve the quality of data within your system.

  • Inquire with your CRM provider to learn if your software includes a direct mail/email address validator or a feature to review deceased records. If your database does not, seek an online batch address validation tool.
  • Regularly screen your database for incomplete contact information and encourage relationship managers to help fill in the gaps. Note what percentage of entries are incomplete.
  • Assign one or more point person(s) for inserting new donors into your system, updating donor contact information and salutations, noting donors who are deceased, and documenting the assignment of primary solicitors and relationship managers.

DON’T assume all employees have equal technical skills and time to learn your database.

Usually, some staff members are more technologically adept than others. And frontline fundraisers prioritize engaging donors more than data entry! But the good news is that baseline database skills can be acquired with intentional and targeted training. There are also batch data upload tools and tricks you can employ to help streamline data entry and save end-users’ time.

It is important to meet staff where they are and gradually build their capacity with continuous, ongoing training and informational refreshers. Tailor the training to cover reports the staff member would be accountable for inserting data into and/or need to utilize regularly. In addition, supply easy-to-use glossaries of terms and quick how-to documents to help staff recall learnings.

Is your organization considering how to build an effective fundraising data and reporting structure? Learn more about CCS’s Systems and Change Management services.

Oftentimes, nonprofits seek to resolve their database issues by buying a new CRM (customer relationship management) software subscription. Not all CRM problems are technical in nature, however, and the human element of data systems shouldn’t be ignored.

Before changing your donor database, carefully consider the problems your organization is attempting to solve and whether a new system is needed to remedy them. These five considerations can help your organization get to the root of its CRM issues and understand what it needs from the software.

1. Goals and objectives

Choosing the “right” CRM depends on knowing your organization’s needs. Your CRM selection is analogous to choosing a car—the required seats, gas mileage, horsepower, cargo size, and towing capacity depend on how you intend to use the vehicle.

Any database’s primary objective is to store and retrieve information. Before embarking on a crusade to switch your CRM, consider:

  • What information does our organization need to store and retrieve to meet its objectives?
  • Which departments and people currently input and maintain this information within our database?
  • Which departments and people currently retrieve information from the database, and how?
  • When and how does our organization use this data to meet objectives?

2. Training issues

Your CRM software could be the equivalent of a high-powered sports car, fully loaded with all the bells and whistles, but your staff may lack a license to drive.

Before investing thousands of dollars into a new CRM, first determine if your institution has committed to and invested in ensuring that staff members can complete accurate and timely data entry. To assist with data entry training, be sure to create an established process and procedure for defining terms and using information for organization-wide and team-specific reporting. Finally, have a plan for ongoing data management, onboarding, and training for fundraising teams. Think through the plan for training users to obtain data and reports and have proactive working relationships with Advancement Services for additional support.

3. Data source complexity

Nonprofits can have complex, multi-layered operations that use several software systems and flows of information. For instance, in healthcare, fundraising departments receive data from clinical software systems and other third-party sources.

When choosing a CRM, consider its ease of fit with your current infrastructure and workflows. How many additional steps are required to make these systems work together? What are the demands on staff time to migrate data from one system to another? For example, multiple payment processing systems may require staff to complete various intermediate validation steps to reconcile donor information, which slows down reporting efforts. Is the additional staff time or resourcing required worthwhile for the CRM under consideration?

4. Organizational siloes

In an ideal world, all users of a CRM have a common understanding of the terms used throughout the database. In the real world, terms have different meanings depending on the user.

As you consider a CRM switch, investigate if all departments and users of your CRM are on the same page.  In the case of one of our clients, fund code and account code were used interchangeably in conversations within Advancement Services, which caused confusion when they requested information from Finance. By discussing and creating a dictionary for database terms, the two departments operated more efficiently.

5. Data integrity

Bad data in means bad data out. This is the rule of thumb for any information gathered, stored, and utilized for making reports and predictions.

Nonprofit organizations need processes and controls in place to determine what donor data or transactional data should be inserted into your system, by whom, when, and how. Creating processes for consistent, accurate, and timely data entry will help your organization identify revenue-generating activities and make the most of its fundraising and marketing efforts.

Is your organization considering how to build an effective fundraising data and reporting structure? CCS Fundraising can help. To learn more about our Systems services, contact Allison Willner, Vice President of Data Strategy, at systems@ccsfundraising.com.

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In the last year, human services organizations have experienced an increase in philanthropic giving as a result of donors’ heightened awareness of the pandemic’s economic consequences and racial inequities faced by marginalized communities. Human services organizations, thanks to the influx in giving, were able to transform their work seemingly overnight to heroically meet drastic increases in demand for their support.

As organizations continue to deploy fundraising windfalls to meet ongoing heightened demand, many are revisiting their strategic plans with the goal of leveraging surplus funding to center the voices of their clients and more deeply address the root causes of the challenges facing their communities.

What We Are Seeing

Contributions to the human services sector compromised 14% of all donations received by U.S. charities in 2020. According to the recently released Giving USA 2021 report, giving to human services organizations grew 9.7% in 2020, totaling $65.14 billion.[1] Adjusted for inflation, sector giving grew by 8.4% between 2019 and 2020. Contributions to human services in 2020 totaled the highest inflation-adjusted amount recorded to date. Not only are more people giving, but they are sustaining or increasing their level of support. A Fidelity Charitable survey found that 9 out of 10 donors maintained or increased their giving because of COVID-19, with 46% of respondents giving notably more than before.[2]

We have also witnessed an influx of leading philanthropists making transformational gifts within the human services sector. According to a recent study by Bank of America and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, nearly 90% of affluent Americans gave to charity in 2020.[3] Human services organizations were a focus of MacKenzie Scott’s $5.7 billion in giving in 2020, including 42 food banks and 30 Meals on Wheels programs.[4] Jeff Bezos made a $100 million gift to Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization, in addition to considerable philanthropy throughout the human services sector and beyond.[5] Charles and Helen Schwab and Joe Gebbia gave generous gifts to support people experiencing homelessness, with homelessness being the top cause among their total 2020 contributions of $65 million and $27 million, respectively.[6] These mega-gifts, alongside many others, demonstrate that donors recognize the critical role human services organizations have had in supporting our most vulnerable populations throughout the pandemic.

Deploying Funds to Meet the Need and to Invest in the Future

The increase in philanthropic support provides a historic opportunity for organizations to strategically expand their vision and means of achieving their mission. What was once a moonshot idea may now be within reach because of unrestricted philanthropic support. Across the sector, organizations are deploying their funds in three overarching ways.

1) Immediate Need

At the peak of the pandemic, the World Bank projected that global extreme poverty (living on less than $1.90 a day) would rise for the first time in over 20 years.[7] And as communities were reeling from the repercussions of the pandemic, human services organizations had to completely restructure their operations to meet safety measures whilst finding a way to significantly increase their outputs.

Increased levels of philanthropic support enabled organizations to create innovative solutions to meet the immediate and incredible needs of their communities. We have seen food banks across the nation feed millions more neighbors through first-of-its-kind drive-through distribution sites of prepackaged food. Partner organizations such as the Salvation Army were able to strengthen their efforts to break cycles of generational poverty by providing extraordinary utility assistance and access to shelter. The job of a human services organization is never complete, but as the pandemic created a heightened need, increases in philanthropic giving have been vital to providing critical services.

2) Sustainability

Human services organizations are often hyper-focused on the issue at hand, and for good reason! However, an increase in philanthropic support has enabled organizations to think strategically around investing for long-term success.

The influx of cash that many human services organizations have received enables them to ensure the longevity of their work through the creation of an endowment fund and reserves. Whether through the creation of a general endowment fund, endowing a specific need such as technology, or creating or expanding a “rainy day” fund, organizations can now apply surplus funding to sustain client services.

Organizations have also invested in their staff. Through the addition of a new development team member or impact officer, nonprofits can focus on retaining new donors and have the means to sustain their mission. Nonprofits in the human services sector now have a greater ability to ensure their work continues well into the future.

3) Catalyst Investments

Some human services organizations that now have the funds to address immediate needs and build reserves are considering bold and visionary ideas. From expanding their scope of work to include wraparound services and/or advocacy, to streamlining processes to make services more readily available to their clients, human services organizations are exploring how they can make deeper inroads to addressing the root causes of their communities’ challenges. Additionally, many organizations are considering capital investments to achieve their work more effectively and efficiently and impact their community in a more meaningful way. An increase in philanthropy has allowed human services organizations to act on ideas they had previously dreamed about but did not have funding to realize.

Centering the Voices of Those You Serve

As human services organizations strategize the most impactful way to deploy surpluses from fundraising windfalls, they are uniquely positioned to double down on efforts that empower the most vulnerable populations in their communities. This comes during a time when donors are asking, “How are you helping to solve the challenges facing the populations you serve?” Organizations are finding that amplifying the voices of their clients is a critical step to truly meeting the needs of their community and creating a deep and lasting impact. We are seeing human services organizations approach this work in three key ways:

Understanding the Challenges of Their Respective Communities

Human services organizations are keenly focused on solving biosocial problems that impact people from an extensive range of socio-economic backgrounds. Thus, the needs of different communities can vary widely and present distinct factors that will inform how service organizations can deliver the most effective services. Organizations are meeting with community leaders in their service areas to learn more about the people they serve: their unique needs, hurdles they face in accessing support, and measures that can be taken to overcome them.

Some nonprofits have taken this work a step further by targeting their outreach to the most vulnerable populations, recognizing that socio-economic challenges disproportionately impact specific segments of their communities. These conversations and listening sessions inform how nonprofits can tailor their strategic plans to ensure funds are deployed in a highly intentional and impactful way.

Questions to consider when seeking to understand the challenges faced by the communities you serve:

  • How can your organization engage in conversation to co-create solutions to issues facing your service areas?
  • How can your organization prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable in your planning and realization of your mission?

Creating and Expanding Partnerships

No one organization can address every issue facing its community. Through complementary partnership, nonprofits, governments, and corporations can together create an incredible network of support that leverages the brain trust and skills of experts from different facets of human services work.

We have seen nonprofits who work to reduce food insecurity partner with local healthcare providers to tackle multiple social determinants of health at once. Financial guidance nonprofits, career training teams, social workers, and hunger relief organizations have combined forces under one roof to provide a one-stop shop for individuals experiencing poverty. Partnering with other organizations allows for increased impact, more amenable services to those you are serving, and providing a space for innovative ideas to come alive.

Questions to consider when looking to create or expand partnerships:

  • What partnerships can be deepened or built to more deeply address the root causes of the challenges your clients are facing? 
  • How can partnerships create more accessible services for your clients?

Reassessing a Client’s Experience

The past year has placed much-needed emphasis on breaking down racial stereotypes to build inclusive and equitable access. At the heart of this reckoning is the need to honor the dignity of individuals who access support. Human services organizations are uniquely qualified to make progress on these priorities. One of the ways they are doing this is by assessing how clients experience their support. For some organizations, this has meant distributing fundraising surplus as grants to immigrant-led nonprofits to ensure the deployment of culturally relevant support and services. Other organizations that have a prominent seat at the figurative “table” – whether that be with a government, nonprofit alliance, or professional association – are creating an opportunity for immigrant and marginalized community leaders to ensure true representation. Respecting and creating agency for the people you serve fortifies relationships, increases trust, and deepens your mission and impact.

Questions to consider when exploring ways to create agency:

  • Where can your organization focus on equity versus efficiency?
  • What shifts can your organization make to be more amenable to the clients’ needs, in turn meeting them with dignity?

Final Thoughts

Increases in philanthropic support to human services organizations provide a historic opportunity for organizations to explore bold and visionary investments. With immediate operational needs and financial reserves addressed by spikes in fundraising, nonprofits should leverage their additional surplus to explore catalyst investments. Engage, partner, and empower the communities you serve to inform how your vision should be pursued and how impact can be measured. Donors trust your organizations to be the experts in your respective work. Your commitment to centering the voices of the communities you serve will instill further confidence and enthusiasm in those who support your mission.

[1] The Giving Institute, Giving USA 2021: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2020

[2] Fidelity Charitable, “A Year Unlike Any Other: How Donors Plan to Approach Giving at 2020’s Year‐End”

[3] Bank of America, “Helping Your Neighbor: A Story of Generosity”

[4] The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott, and Michael Bloomberg Top List of America’s 50 Biggest Charity Donors” and Food Bank News, “42 Food Banks Prepare to Spend Mega Gifts from Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott”

[5] Feeding America, “Feeding America Responds To $100 Million Gift from Jeff Bezos In Support of Food Banks During COVID-19 Pandemic”

[6] The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “The Philanthropy 50”

[7] The World Bank, “COVID-19 to Add as Many as 150 Million Extreme Poor by 2021”

The recent headlines surrounding an increased focus on reducing the cost of higher education through the Biden Administration’s American Families Plan, along with the launch of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), have spiked curiosity among institutional leaders on how this could affect their overall fundraising strategy and donor messaging.

Private philanthropy is, and will remain, a crucial component of higher education institutions’ funding mix as it helps ensure overall access, excellence, sustainability, and growth. Philanthropy has historically complemented and accelerated government funding, allowing institutions to focus private dollars on ensuring student success through investment in programs, buildings, and people to help build the workforce of the future.

For years, private philanthropy has decreased barriers to educational access through scholarship support. Philanthropy, however, is so much more than scholarship dollars; it is a pipeline to innovation that allows institutions to implement bold new approaches that accelerate contributions to the social, technological, and economic growth of their communities. This steady revenue stream into scholarships, buildings, programs, and people allows institutions to fulfill their mission, regardless of what state and federal funding provide. And to be sure, these amounts fluctuate so while it might appear that the system is flush today, tomorrow might present a dramatically different view.

The foundation of successful fundraising is still based on the trusting, authentic, and respectful relationships you build with your board, your community, and your donors. Below are some high-level insights and key messages to consider when conveying the gap in funding and the continued need for private philanthropic support.

1. Unmet student need is greater than just the cost of tuition.

The total cost of attending college today goes far beyond yearly tuition. In addition to the cost of classes, students must factor in textbooks and school supplies, housing, food, transportation, and personal expenses. Students working full or part-time jobs in addition to attending school also have to calculate the benefits and trade-offs of earning an income to meet their financial needs while earning a degree or certificate to pursue the career of their choice.

The headline benefit of many public and government funding proposals is free or subsidized tuition, seemingly removing the need for student scholarships at two and four-year institutions. Advancement offices will be well-served to remind donors that philanthropy amplifies the work that government funders hope to accomplish by addressing the wraparound support that students need to be successful inside and outside the classroom.

It is important to acknowledge that a student’s timeline to completion can vastly vary, as many are balancing work, a family, and other personal responsibilities. Since institutions know their students’ needs best, scholarship dollars can be redirected to the most vulnerable community members or those who fall outside of public funding parameters, such as community college students enrolled in workforce training programs. In many cases, unmet need will still be a major challenge facing college students even with free or reduced tuition.

For one CCS higher education partner, the cost of tuition is a fraction of the total cost analysis facing the 60,000+ student body at the community college. Innovative scholarship funds and programs have been developed in recent years to creatively lower students’ financial burdens and are growing rapidly as donors see that need and impact clearly align with helping students achieve their academic goals. While having government funding absorb tuition fees would be a significant benefit to the students, transferring savings to another financial priority still doesn’t resolve the average unmet need of over $9,200 annually.

2. Share with donors the need to innovate and implement bold new strategies that will directly impact students.

Regardless of whether scholarship dollars are going to be as essential to future students as they have been to current and past students, the need to provide funding to stay up to date on emerging programming, technologies, and resources will remain crucial to ensure students are career ready and employable. Consider what the in-demand industries are in your region and what programs your institution has in place that directly funnel graduating students into these key industries. Are there programs that can and should be enhanced to better prepare graduating students for newly emerging industries? Continue to remind the donor about the role your institution plays in your community’s economic growth and share the success stories of your students.

3. Keep student stories front and center.

People connect with stories, and donors are no exception. We also know that people give to people. With every opportunity you have to get in front of a donor, whether that be announcing a new program, providing impact updates, or simply saying thank you, the act of including an individual student’s journey at your institution brings an irreplaceable human element to your work. Encourage students to go beyond the standard background information and share the hopes and dreams that lie ahead for them! Everyone loves to feel inspired by the next generation and the work your institution is doing to make their big dreams a reality.

4. Philanthropy can ensure long-term security of institutions.

Federal and state dollars fluctuate every year, usually with strict policies or timelines in place for specific spending requirements. Private philanthropy ensures flexibility and consistent resources are available well after federal dollars are spent. In light of this, consider the following forward-thinking opportunities:

  • Grow Your Endowment: Building your endowment by asking donors to leave a legacy that will allow for your institution to carry out your mission for current and future generations is a strong ask. By focusing on endowed gifts, you will show the community that you are thinking long-term and building an annual stream of income that can support the institution, its programs, and its students in perpetuity. The strength of your endowment also shows the financial health of your institution. The larger your endowment, the stronger you will be perceived as an institution.
  • Meet the Unexpected Needs of Students: As we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, new student obstacles emerged, and philanthropy created opportunities to solve those challenges. The higher education landscape is fluid, and the economy and other external influences change the arc of stories all the time. Through the flexibility and immediacy provided through private philanthropic dollars, emerging student needs can be addressed quickly and on an ad hoc basis. Private dollars allow institutions to put the student first, which ensures a stronger opportunity for successful outcomes.

Philanthropy is here to stay. While ambitious public funding proposals to support higher education institutions evolve over the coming months, we must all remain focused on cultivating the private funding sources that will sustain our work. We must continue to meet students’ needs and help them achieve their goals.

At the same time, being proactive and flexible with your messaging is necessary. The heightened focus on student support through greater public resources puts higher education institutions in a positive spotlight but also requires institutions to be thoughtful about communicating the value of scholarship support and private support for higher education needs more broadly. Communicating the well-known value proposition of your institution’s mission will ensure its future long after public dollars are spent.