| by Cynthia M. Adams, CEO, GrantStation
The Quiet Campaign
Part Six
Right about the time we decided to move forward with a quiet
campaign to create an endowment fund, we received the answers
to our questions from the Community Foundation. Their Finance
Committee addressed every one of the questions to our complete
satisfaction, which meant the President of our Board of Directors
could sign and return the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to
the Community Foundation and our fundraising could begin
in earnest.
Before the fundraising could begin, however, the Advisory
Board needed to hold a work session in order to set a short-term
goal of $100,000 for the quiet campaign, discuss potential
lead donors, and decide who would be asking whom for gifts.
I also thought it was time that the members of the Advisory
Board made their pledges to the initial quiet campaign. I
sent out a few emails to get a feel for what we might expect
and it became clear that the Advisory Board members would
contribute a total of at least $15,000 to $20,000 in outright
gifts and pledges.
We'll talk more about the agenda for this work session in
the next article. First, you need to understand how you decide
who you will ask for lead donations. This is usually done
by analyzing the organization's existing donors.
Because the most likely endowment donor already contributes
to the organization, it is important to have a clear picture
of the existing donor base. Start by gathering statistics,
such as the information on this worksheet.
Collecting this information will help tremendously in the
Advisory Board work session.
It takes time to gather this kind of information, especially
when the organization doesn't already have a good donor tracking
system in place. Unfortunately, it will take our organization's
staff days to create a spreadsheet that we can use in our
discussions at the Advisory Board work session. A process
that would have taken minutes if we had a good system in
place.
Just a word of advice: if you don't have a donor tracking
system in place now, get one! You may not need it today or
even next year, but eventually you will. Historical information
on donor giving is priceless, so starting to collect that
data today is a wise move.
There are still a number of loose ends that need to be addressed
before we hold an Advisory Board work session. We'll cover
those issues next week, set out an agenda for the work session,
and decide on next steps. |
