SuddesGroup

February 8, 2010 | Nick Fellers

Funding Guide Directory – at ForImpact.org

We’ve posted a new page on our website for ‘Funding Guides‘ — this is a selected and sorted list of about 150 funding nuggets posted to the website over the past eight years along the lines of:

Vision and Entrepreneurial Strategy
Leadership and Boards
Funding Model and Funding Plans
Message and Case for Support
Sales (Major Gifts) Process
Making the ASK
On Prospects
Visual Engagement Tools
Personal Development

You can find the funding guides at any time by clicking on ‘Funding Guides’ from www.forimpact.org.

Enjoy!

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January 28, 2010 | Nick Fellers (admin)

Open Letter to Foundations

I love FAST COMPANY. Great articles this month on ‘Creativity & Chaos’ (Steve Nash); Change (Heath Bros.) and more.

The real kicker for me was ‘Open Letter’ to FOUNDATIONS from Nancy Lublin of DO SOMETHING. (Either she’s ‘channeling’ me or I’m ‘channeling’ her!)

Starts with a great opening ‘hit’: “By one recent count, you have $628 BILLION that you could dole out (to us).”

You’ve got to read the article “We Really Need to Talk” and the 4 stops…

1. Stop thinking you know everything.

2. Stop mistaking marketing for overhead — and stop hating on overhead.

3. Stop funding redundancy.

4. Stop thinking that newer is better.

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January 27, 2010 | Nick Fellers (admin)

Your ‘3 Numbers’

In Ireland recently for those two days of training, I asked each organization to share ‘THEIR 3 NUMBERS’:

1. The TRANSFORMATIONAL NUMBER. This is the amount of money needed to transform the organization. Change the game. Allow for a massive re-designed, re-envisioned and re-imagined organization.

*I strongly suggested that this might (should) come from one investor.

2. The SCALE & GROW NUMBER. This was the amount of Income (Investment) required to Fund the Vision over the next 3 to 5 years. To provide the resources to SCALE & GROW your IMPACT.

*I suggested that this Scale & Grow number could be a function of 33 Gifts (3/10/20 or 1/2/4/8/18 for a classic Funding Pyramid.)

3. The ANNUAL OPS NUMBER. This is the amount of funds needed to make this year’s operating budget work. (I think it’s called ‘turnover’ in Ireland.)

*I recommended that this number be obtained from the primary focus on Strategic Partnerships and Sponsorships, a high-level Leadership Society such as a President’s Circle ($10,000 a year) and a significant bump in $1,000+ Gifts.

Action: What are your numbers? If you don’t know what they are, it’s really hard to reach them.

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January 26, 2010 | Nick Fellers (admin)

Money Is Not the Problem

Read 52 RULES OF THUMB by Alan Webber over the holidays. Really good stuff. (More later.)

I was particularly struck by this powerful nugget:

If the only thing you need to solve a problem is money, then it’s not a problem.

I’ve used this quite a bit in the last few weeks with a myriad of organizations. Here’s my interpretation:

IMPACT drives INCOME. The IMPACT/SOLUTION/IDEA is the hard part. Once you demonstrate that, there is plenty of money for good or great solutions.

Here’s a great example of this Rule of Thumb that has received constant international coverage for the last few weeks… the Haiti earthquake.

The problem is really not money or aid… it’s INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORTATION, WEATHER, etc.

The problems in Haiti demand creative and innovation SOLUTIONS… not more money.

To me, this means they need smart people and bright ideas. The whole ‘disaster relief’ is really a DESIGN PROBLEM. (What do we fix first? What we do with the deceased? How do we get all of the donated supplies from the airport to people who need them? Etc.)

If it were me, I’d send the best design firm in the world, IDEO, to figure out how to make this work. The SOLUTION needs to be FAST and SIMPLE! (Note to Tim Burn and David Kelley: ‘Skinny Dip’ not a ‘Deep Dive’.)

Note: As a side note to the whole money/problem thing, Haitian money is worthless. The most valuable commodity in Haiti? Clean water.

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January 25, 2010 | ksuddes

Back By Popular Demand

Back by popular demand – Teleseminars! Tuesday, February 2 from 1:00 – 1:45 pm Eastern Time.

For Impact teleseminars are 45 minutes of fast paced, motivational and immediately applicable nuggets to help you fund your vision.

Our intro teleseminar, Casting and Funding a Vision, is designed to share the key concepts and ideas that have helped The Suddes Group to raise more than $1Billion and coach organizations to raise $1Billion more.

Development officers, senior staff or board members seeking to build a sustainable funding model should participate.

In this seminar we share:

• A different perspective on fundraising that changes the game
• Ways to simplify your funding message — making it more attractive to potential funders
• Ways to leverage the board and champion support
• A challenge to THINK BIG! We discuss $1Million success stories
• How to generate more (qualified) prospect names

Beginning tuesday, we will offer this teleseminar once every month – Check the Events page for upcoming dates.

Learn more and register.

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January 22, 2010 | Nick Fellers (admin)

Senator Brown: Authenticity

Set your politics aside. Most of the pundits agreed that one of the keys for his victory was his AUTHENTICITY. ‘Tell it like it is – drive an old pick-up truck – get out in the streets with the common man/woman.’

In our FRAMEWORK for the Presentation… that word AUTHENTICITY is in gold and it hangs above the triangle of DISCOVERY – SHARE THE STORY – PRESENT THE OPPORTUNITY.

As I told the group in Ireland last week, ‘AUTHENTICITY’ is the magic elixir/secret sauce of great presentations.

You cannot mess up a visit or presentation as long as you are AUTHENTIC.

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January 12, 2010 | Nick Fellers (admin)

Return On Energy

I’m heading off to Ireland today for some coaching and some training.

One of the ‘VISUALS’ that we did was the idea of ROE and ROI… RETURN ON ENERGY and RETURN ON INVESTMENT.

Here is the CURRENT ‘Model’ for most nonprofits and non-governmental organizations.

Here’s the way it should look… in the FUTURE!

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January 11, 2010 | Nick Fellers (admin)

Rules of Engagement

This is the year. All of us are coming off a challenging, to say the least, 2009 (and 2008!). Now is the time to RE-FOCUS… RE-DESIGN… RE-ENGAGE!

Nick and I are RE-COMMITTING to provide all of our ‘followers’ (new and old) as much support, encouragement and motivation as possible in 2010.

To get you started, here’s a free copy of our revised e-pamphlet on RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. This was a big hit last year… and we hope it gives you the boost you need to make 2010 a great year of ENGAGEMENT!!!

VIEW our e-pamphlet here.

PRINT your own pamphlet here.

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January 11, 2010 | Nick Fellers

Momentum Rounds

Time is money – true enough… but what if you don’t know the relationship between the two? What if you’re embarking on a new major gifts effort – engaging leadership for the first time? How long will it take to reach the goal?

Sometimes it makes more sense to reverse the question.

How much money can we raise in X amount of time?

In three campaigns we’re working on right now we’ve implemented a ‘momentum round of funding’. In some ways, you could find parallels to the old ‘silent phase’ of a campaign – the idea there was that you were trying to see how much money you could raise before ‘going public’ – but typically you had a set time frame, say 6-12 months. The momentum round is a little different – not about ‘silent’ – all about momentum.

• “We’re asking each person to make a commitment by March 31, 2010.”
• Note: doesn’t have to be ‘THE’ commitment. You could keep working toward a million dollar figure while securing a $200K commitment.
• Can say to your very best, “We’ve met with some 20 prospects and have numbers on the table. I can leverage your commitment – IMMEDIATELY – with 19 others.”
• Provides a TIMEFRAME in the rationale. HUGE! Otherwise, gifts could be pending FOREVER and you don’t know what to make of them.
• Also gives you a great baseline on which to build your major gifts / campaign / funding model (goal and timeline).

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January 10, 2010 | Nick Fellers

Mailbag: If you know prospect has a number, do you ask first?

Got this one from a boot camp alum.

QUESTION: When is it appropriate to do a preemptive BIG ASK?

Going into this visit I knew [prospect] was going to offer $10k. I knew I didn’t even have to ask. In fact, I didn’t ask b/c I was concerned that if I did go for $100k he would say, “Geez, I came here to offer you $10k! Isn’t that pretty generous for a 1st-time gift?”

I don’t think it’s about trying to be preemptive vs. reactive.

I think the answer, instead, is all about nailing the funding rationale.

To make a point that will translate via the blog to all readers…

Let’s say you needed $100,000 to fully fund a project that would save 30 lives. You (for whatever reason) need that money from one funder. You meet with this funder – and know he has capacity. He agrees that this is an important project and gives you a check for $10K before you ask.

What do you do????

Say, THANK YOU. And then proceed to make the case for $100K — because you can rationalize it.

Or, let’s say you’re running a $1M funding round that needs a $100K leader. You meet with someone, he says he loves what you do and you feel he’s your absolute strongest candidate to represent that lead funding position. You need to tell him as much and rationalize to him why you would like to be so bold as to see about the $100K — because it will allow you to bring in other funders… have XYZ impact, etc.

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