Back to The Fund Raising School

Posted on September 28, 2022 by Gilbert Flores

Insights for fundraising this fall and beyond

By Pat Danahey Janin, Genevieve G. Shaker, & Sarah K. Nathan

A graphic design of the book cover for Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, 5th Edition. — Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, 5th Edition

As many friends of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy know, Achieving Excellence in Fundraising (first published in 1991) has become a bedrock text full of solid, practical advice for fundraisers and philanthropic practitioners. The 5^th edition, released last spring, is no exception. The editorial team has rounded up some insights from the book to help jump-start your fundraising this fall.

Be empowered through self-reflection and rejuvenation. Make it a regular practice to recharge by revisiting your personal mission connection and your unique contributions to the organization, while also finding ways to keep growing and learning as a professional. Organizational leaders can lend their support through regular recognition, affirmation, and budgeting for professional development.
Keep an eye on community alignment. Pay attention to whether and how current community and beneficiary needs are shaping the fundraising case for support. Do beneficiaries have opportunities to provide input and are they represented in respectful and meaningful ways? Make changes accordingly.
Plan, plan, plan. Then work the plan! Fall is a great time for organizations to plan and budget for next year. Think ahead about what’s needed in the next twelve months. The fundraising team should be part of the organization’s overall planning process to ensure the fundraising lines up with strategic efforts.
Keep doors of communication open within your organization and don’t get siloed. Be a bridge builder among departments. This will enable you to understand evolving organizational needs and respond, while developing key internal relationships to facilitate your work.
Monitor ongoing innovations in the field—after all technology never rests. Keep updated with new tools and strategies to resolve problems, take opportunities, and stop your fundraising from becoming stale.
Pay attention to the external environment. Use data and research to inform your approach and be on the lookout for relevant resources. Don’t be afraid to change strategies. Experiment and use what you discover to adapt your approach.
Expand your knowledge about philanthropy in diverse communities. There are more resources than ever to learn about the preferences and priorities of diverse donors. Reflect on how your organization integrates and attends to donors of all backgrounds. Consider how creating a welcoming environment for volunteers contributes to inclusive fundraising.
Consider donors’ many motivations for giving. As you connect with donors, you may find some have evolved in their priorities and are ready for new conversations. Provide meaningful ways donors can experience your organization’s mission and impact.
Cultivate long-term relationships with institutional funders, including foundations and businesses. If your work is local, look locally. If your reach is national, look locally and nationally. Conduct research, link aligned interests, build relationships, and persevere. Incorporate attention to donor advised funds (DAFs) and their providers within your fundraising activities.
Keep inviting gifts! Remember that almost all donations come after a request of some kind. These last few years remind us that donors give even in challenging times. Continue telling stories of impact and proudly provide donors opportunities to contribute to your important cause.

Looking for more ideas? Check out the new edition of Achieving Excellence in Fundraising and podcasts with the authors as part of The Fund Raising School’s “First Day Podcast Series.”

Philanthropy By Any Other Name

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Aja Pirtle

by David P. King, Ph.D.

Dr. David King poses for a professional shot. — Dr. David King is the director of the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving and associate professor of philanthropic studies.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet utters the famous line, “What’s in a name? … a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Sometimes I wonder if that is true for philanthropy as well. Making sense of philanthropy is not easy. First, it can be a difficult word to pronounce and spell! Second, it can be difficult to define and discuss. I am learning that some of our most critical work may be in listening, opening up conversation, and helping make sense of what we mean when we turn to the topic of philanthropy.

I have just returned from sabbatical where I spent part of 2022 at the University of Edinburgh as a U.S. Fulbright scholar to Scotland. The purpose of the Fulbright program is to promote cultural exchange through building mutual understanding between nations, advancing knowledge across communities, and improving lives around the world. For me, that meant studying faith and philanthropy in comparative perspective. And in conversations, my first task was most often to explain what I meant by philanthropy and make the case for why anyone would study it.

Philanthropy in Context

Understanding context is extremely important. Across the United Kingdom there is a long history of philanthropy, but it is often still viewed through the lineage of a Victorian past under the auspices of the wealthy or the patronage of the royal family. With the rise of the welfare state in the early twentieth century, there was the hope that the U.K. could eliminate the need for any reliance on charity and philanthropy. Yet, in recent decades, with a decline in government funding, public leaders have called on the need for private giving as well as the need for voluntary agencies to play a key role in providing services and sustaining local communities. While the U.K. is observing similar trends to the U.S., with relatively flat growth in giving and a decline in the number of givers, its philanthropic footprint remains much smaller. When residents of the United Kingdom engaged with me in conversations on philanthropy, it was often out of a sense of curiosity, contradiction, or critical reflection.

(more…)

The first professional doctorate for philanthropy and social impact leaders from all sectors is now accepting applications

Posted on August 4, 2022 by Gilbert Flores

Professor Cindy M. Lott will direct the new Professional Doctorate of Philanthropic Leadership at Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

Accomplished professionals who want to make social change and have experience leading philanthropic, business, government, or other organizations can further hone their leadership and applied research skills to address complex, real-world problems by earning their professional doctorate in philanthropic leadership.

The Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI is opening applications today for its new online Professional Doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership (PhilD), the first professional, doctoral-level leadership degree in the field. The new degree program offers seasoned leaders a world-class educational experience tailored to elevate their professional roles as innovative senior executives and thought leaders within philanthropy and in cross-sectoral initiatives, both domestically and internationally.

Amir Pasic is the Eugene R. Tempel Dean of the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

“Our new Professional Doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership is a deliberate investment in the philanthropic sector’s leadership capacity and civil society to make social change. It will equip accomplished, thoughtful individuals to deepen and accelerate impact in philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and beyond,” said Amir Pasic, the Eugene R. Tempel Dean of the school. “Today’s leaders are under growing pressure to integrate and apply knowledge with a deeper understanding of the context that shapes their world and the world that philanthropy seeks to affect.

“The PhilD program’s creation is in response to ongoing demand for an accessible way for leaders in the field to apply research-based knowledge to the issues they deal with daily, while also achieving a doctoral-level credential designed especially for them,” Pasic said. “We have already received many expressions of interest in the PhilD from prospective students. We look forward to welcoming the innovative leaders who will comprise our inaugural cohort.”

(more…)

Imagining a More Abundant Community

Posted on July 26, 2022 by Gilbert Flores

by Elise Erikson Barrett

Last month, I had the opportunity to represent Lake Institute (wearing my graduate student intern hat) and participate in a convening that was held here in Indianapolis, focused on faith-informed models of “neighborhood economics” that have the potential to help move economic structures and relationships in more life-giving directions. (To engage more with the conversations and work of this collective, you can start here.)

Economic structures are complex, increasingly so in this era of technologically-mediated finance capitalism–and simplistic ideological responses are more likely to trigger defensiveness than to solve problems. Thus, for me, the most helpful aspect of this conference was this: people of hope gathering to engage with the realities of our economic contexts, often at the level of neighborhoods and local communities, and imagining creative and highly practical ways that our existing economic structures, tools, and products could be leveraged in service of justice and care.

(more…)

What’s the science of philanthropy and why does it need an initiative?

Posted on July 14, 2022 by Amir Pasic

The Science of Philanthropy Initiative (SPI) is an initiative encouraging experimental (field and lab) research on charitable giving.

Whether it’s about asking or giving, effective professionals and volunteers rely on rules of thumb and well-worn conventions to get the job done. Experience, after all, has been a trusted teacher for eons. What can science add that is so special?

First, science uncovers general patterns that span more experiences than any one person or institution can have. Experiments are the gold standard of science, and John List has used them to demonstrate that matches work to increase the likelihood of a gift and its size. Does the proportion of the match matter? Will a 2-to-1 or even 3-to-1 match yield better results than a 1-1 match?

If you are curious, you can attend the Science of Philanthropy Initiative Conference this September 21 and 22 and ask John List, who is not only a prominent member of the University of Chicago Economics Faculty but also Visiting Hartsook Chair in Fundraising at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

John List is pictured in a classroom setting. — John List is the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago.

Joining John in organizing the conference are his colleague Christopher Clapp from the University of Chicago, Luigi Butera from Copenhagen Business School, Sarah Konrath, Mark Ottoni-Wilhem, Richard Steinberg, and myself from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. There will be three terrific keynote speakers, beginning with Cecilia Conrad, of Lever for Change and the MacArthur Foundation, who is a leading practitioner but also an award-winning researcher in her own right. Daniel Hungerman an economist from Notre Dame, is an expert on philanthropy and religion. Finally, Azim Shariff from the University of British Columbia is a social psychologist who researches how morality intersects with religion, cultural attitudes, and economics. They will be joined by scholars sharing their latest research and practitioners keen to engage in systematic approaches to the practices they have implemented in the field.

(more…)