Fundraising Voices from RNL

There is no denying that higher education campaigns have been transformative. These comprehensive efforts help us build buildings, fund scholarships and even boost current use support. And they are growing. It's more and more common for us to see campaign totals exceeding 1 billion. Almost every institution is either in or thinking about a campaign.

So we wanted to know what fundraisers feel about the future of campaigns in higher education. We surveyed almost 600 fundraisers and got their opinions about what is working and they key challenges to campaign success. I got on the line with RNL expert Caryn Stein to break down the results of this latest edition in our Advancement Leaders Speak series.

Download the full report here

We know from the survey that you are either in a campaign or working on starting one soon. A few things we learned from this survey: fundraisers do expect campaigns to increase their advancement budgets. But they are under big pressure for big totals, and unless we can think a bit differently, those resources may not be enough. It's time to reinvent fundraising, and how you organize your campaign, using the best tools and data-driven technology, will make all the difference. That's what we're focused on here at RNL, so if you're ready to take you campaign to the next level give us a call. We're ready to help.

We've just released our seventh chapter in the RNL Advancement Leaders Speak series, where we ask you, the fundraisers about your challenges, successes and best practices. This release is focuses on annual giving multichannel strategy – or how we contact annual giving donors through all the various fundraising channels. The report revealed some interesting things about how annual giving is judged and evaluated by institutions, how fundraisers are timing appeals, and what we feel are the best ways to capture, retain and upgrade donors. You can download the full survey at ruffalonl.com. I got on the like with Shad Hanselman, RNL's annual giving guru, to talk about the survey and what it means for fundraising strategy.

Download the full study at RuffaloNL.com

Looking at the results of this survey of 300 fundraisers, it does look like there are some opportunities to optimize our multi-channel outreach to donors. As Shad mentioned, making your appeals work together like a symphony will really help engage donors. This takes technology, and careful analysis of your results, two things that fundraisers wanted to be utilizing more.

Giving Days – Campaigns that focus a groundswell of donations to a specific day, have really made a splash in the fundraising world. Using online portals that track donations as they come in, as well as offering challenges, match donations and real excitement for donors, giving days have been a game changer.

We've just published a new study on how giving days can transform your fundraising. The RNL Giving Day Index looks at over $32 million in giving to answer key questions about average donations, campaign totals and donor counts, as well as the impact of volunteer ambassadors. You can download the full study at RuffaloNL.com right now to see how your giving day stacks up.

I got on the line with my podcast pal Josh Robertson to unpack the results and talk about what they mean for your giving day success.

As Josh explains, giving days are one of the best opportunities to get donors excited and to build a sense of urgency around giving. Outside of calendar or fiscal year end, they're really the only other option to answer the key question "why give now." And giving days do this simply, with the answer – because everyone else is doing it.

In order to have a successful giving day, you need the right technology and a provider who knows how these complex campaigns work. With RNL Giving Days, powered by the ScaleFunder platform, we've integrated the best technology to make donors feel comfortable giving to YOUR institution, and make it easy. It's important to integrate giving from all channels in your platform. We've also implemented key donor engagement tools like heat maps, challenges, matches, and leader boards to make it fun. Contact us today to see how RNL Giving Days can help take your special event to the next level.

Digital Engagement – it's important for any fundraiser, especially those of us who want to engage younger donors. Whether it's targeted digital advertising, social media, or great new methods like crowdfunding and online giving days, we have a great menu of options. But we hear from fundraisers that they haven't always been able to really optimize their digital outreach. So we wanted to know more...

We are about to release part four of our series Advancement Leaders Speak, and this edition is the results of a survey and conversations with advancement professionals about how they are doing digital outreach, and how they feel they connecting to young alumni and young donors.

I got on the line with Caryn Stein, one of our top digital experts, to go through the results.

You can download the full report here.

It's great to hear that ¾ of fundraisers feel that digital communications are effective. But with only one fifth of fundraisers using these communications as part of a defined young alumni campaign, it's not surprising that we've seen giving participation really lag with Millennials. As Caryn suggests, the solution is to get more personal, and harness the power of digital.

The right message to the right donor at the right time, that's what we're shooting for. And if we can get our multichannel game in gear, we can really transform fundraising.

We'd love to tell you about how we're having success with RNL partners doing just that. If you're ready to transform your digital donor outreach, give us a call. We're ready to talk.

Crowdfunding has become very popular over the past few years. Following success in the commercial world, funding new products, artistic endeavors and other projects, we've seen hundreds of charities create crowdfunding campaigns and full portals with multiple campaigns to attract donors to specific needs.

Higher education, with a wealth of student, faculty and athletics opportunities, has really benefited from this optimized, online and socially integrated technology.

We've just released a comprehensive index of results from over 4,000 campaigns Ruffalo Noel Levitz charitable crowdfunding powered by the Scalefunder platform. And the results show that crowdfunding has really made a difference with our partners—over 22 million dollars actually. You can download the 2017 RNL crowdfunding index at RuffaloNL.com/crowdfundingsuccess.

Today on the podcast, I talk with Josh Robertson about what we discovered as we looked a these great campaigns.

If you are looking to attract new donors, particularly younger donors, and give your long time supporters something exciting with active feedback they can support, crowdfunding is a great tool. We've seen millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of donors engaged through RNL crowdfunding. You can offer campaigns that support new initiatives, student and faculty needs, and even market your traditional annual giving program through crowdfunding.

We'd love to help you get started or accelerate your existing crowdfunding program. Drop us a line and we'll help you take your donor engagement to the next level.

We've just released part two of our major research series Advancement Leaders Speak here at Ruffalo Noel Levitz. This time, we surveyed and spoke with 270 major and planned giving officers to find out how they do their jobs and how they feel about productivity.

You can download the study at RuffaloNL.com—we included questions about average prospect pool sizes, number of visits with donors, key frustrations and challenges for gift officers, as well as what they think would make their jobs easier.

I got on the line with Caryn Stein, Vice President here at RNL, to go through the results and talk a bit about what we are hearing from gift officers about their important work with donors.

Download the Report here

Productivity—it's not always the first topic that major and planned giving programs jump on. For a profession primarily focused on personal relationships with donors, we're not really drawn to metrics and deep data on our solicitation effectiveness. But given the increase pressure all charitable organizations are facing, and definitely for higher education, putting the right tools in place so your major and planned giving team can have success is crucial. And as Caryn and I mention, focusing on the right contact to the right donors at the right time is a key donor-centric practice that will keep your top supporters happy and increase their joy in giving. You can download the full study at RuffaloNL.com. We'd also love to hear from you about your major and planned giving program. Drop us a line, and we'll talk about how you can improve your team's productivity and book more gifts, immediately.

Student philanthropy continues to be a hot topic in higher education. Just about every institution hosts some form of student philanthropic engagement. The goal is to engage students in causes that they are passionate about, help students thank current donors, and if we do it right, help students understand the importance of giving back as future alumni.

Josh Harraman and Felicity Meu are experts with years of experience with successful student philanthropy programs. I'm proud to serve as faculty with them in the upcoming Engaging Students in Philanthropy Symposium, put together by CASE this coming August. I got Josh and Felicity on the line to talk about the state of student philanthropy, what we're talking about this year, and what the future holds for this crucial higher education effort.

Josh and Felicity offer great insights on how to engage students in philanthropy. We're talking about a lifetime relationship with your alma mater here, and increasingly, institutions are working to start that deep philanthropic relationship before students graduate. Engaging students with the causes they care about, and inviting them to thank current donors can go a long way to making that happen.

Join us at the 2017 Engaging Students in Philanthropy Symposium, August 3-5, as part of the CASE Conference for Student Advancement in Columbus. It's the biggest event of the year for student philanthropy programs.

And if you are hearing this podcast after the symposium, head over to CASE.org to find resources on accelerating your student philanthropy program, including the CASE ASAP network, the premier network for student philanthropy.

Check out the Symposium program and registration at:

http://www.case.org/CSA17/ESPS17_Home.html

Emotion—it's a key part of fundraising, and definitely impacts the response we receive from donors. We don't talk about emotion in fundraising enough, really. We're usually more concerned with what segment we're calling or mailing or what we need to tell donors. We don't often think about how donors feel when we reach out to them.

Francesco Ambrogetti has a long career as an international fundraiser, and his groundbreaking book Emotionraising: How to astonish, disturb, seduce and convince the brain to support good causes, really gets at this issue.

He's combined the best concepts in emotive response, including research in neuroscience and psychology, to provide some great examples and tips for fundraisers. I got Francesco on the line to lay out a few of the concepts and tell us what he thinks them mean for the future of fundraising.

Emotionraising, and the concepts introduced by Francesco Ambrogetti in this provocative and insightful book, could just be what your fundraising campaign needs. The science of emotional response is important to your success. As fundraisers, we shouldn't be afraid to investigate and embrace this new research and try it out on our appeals.

You can find Emotionraising at Amazon.

What's keeping advancement leaders up at night? Find out what 40 higher education advancement leaders told us. Ruffalo Noel Levitz recently commissioned a major research project to better understand advancement leaders' priorities, challenges and strategies for the future. Through in-depth interviews with leaders across the country, we uncovered what chief advancement officers are really thinking about the future. The results of 40 hour-long interviews with Chief Advancement Officers are discussed in this podcast. Jim Rogers, RNL CMO, talks about the budgeting priorities of today's higher education leaders, what leaders are judged on, and where they are shifting resources. We also talk about what this means for your fundraising strategy and what's next for the higher education fundraising industry. You can download the full study here.

Getting great content in front of your donors, things that are interesting and invoke a passion for giving, is a sure fire way to build your base of support. Robert McGuire of McGuire Editorial knows this well. He's spent years helping top non-profits and higher education institutions put together great content strategies. Increasingly, we're hearing that the communications you provide that are outside of the ask are crucial to engaging and retaining donors. I got Robert on the line to explain what content marketing means for fundraisers, and have him provide some tips on how to accelerate your content.

Marketing, communications, multichannel, omnichannel, whatever you decide to call it—it's for sure that you'll want be providing great content to your donors if you want to keep them engaged. In a digital world, where you can track and respond to what donors are viewing, clicking on and clicking through, you can even tailor content to specific donor interests. You've heard us call it a personal journey here at RNL, and content is a crucial part of that journey.

You can check out some great content strategy resources from Robert at mcguireeditorial.com.

Getting those messages delivered is another big part of your content strategy. At Ruffalo Noel Levitz, we have a ton of experience crafting these multichannel plans. If you'd like to accelerate your content and message delivery strategy, give us a call. We're ready to help. And thanks for listening to the podcast.