The COVID-19 Crisis & Nonprofits: Are we being honest about how to evolve out of our reliance on events?
Weeks three and four of quarantine have brought us through the initial shock, the onset of quick check-ins with donors, and a fast race to bring our audiences digital content. We're resetting our budgetary and calendar-related expectations and getting creative with how we bring content to our supporters and communities. Now what?
Now it's time to face the truth about how we need to be spending our time. Something noteworthy from our leadership interviews with other leaders of philanthropy has been optimism about how organizations will be increasingly innovative on the other side of this crisis. Will organizations change their perspectives on how to raise support and engage constituents? Before this challenge hit, Phil and I had spent years with clients and in workshops speaking to the importance of making major gifts work a priority above all else. Now more than ever, I am shouting from the rooftops: your longterm game plan needs to include this, and it needs to start now.
It is unclear when large events will happen again, but we know for certain that they won't be taking place over the next several months. Some are worried about rescheduling events into the summer, fall and winter for fear of choosing a new date that is once again impacted by this virus. For many communities (our own included), spring is "event season" and organizations who rely on that support for their annual operating budget are in a scramble. While this state of scramble feels new for some, the risk associated with an event-heavy fundraising budget is not. In recent years, rising professionals and relatively young individuals who support nonprofits have pointed to demanding work and travel schedules and less time with their families when they explain why their generation spends less time at galas. It's not just the logistics, though, because we know that the generations coming up in our workforce now are more worried about how to have impact than they are about where they are seen. Read that last sentence again. You might be saying "spending money on your gala ticket DOES have impact! It makes our programming possible! It helps us turn our lights on!" Yes, but it can still feel transactional for those who attend the event or for those who purchase sponsorships. We know: events aren't possible right now, there's uncertainty around when they will be possible, and that trends may have been suggesting they are losing momentum. There's no better time than the present to get serious about what you do with this knowledge.
This crisis is creating an even larger disparity in wealth in our country. What does that mean? Those who have significant capacity to consider making investments in nonprofits now (or two months ago, rather), may have an even greater opportunity to impact nonprofits with larger gifts on the other side of this. If those with capacity may have more, and those with less capacity may have less, we can expect that populations who traditionally support broad-base appeals and events could be supporting them less. Devote your time to building a major gift program from your computer. Yes, this work has typically been done in-person, but it still can be now with tools like Zoom immediately available for use. Get your team together (virtually), and talk about how you can change your perspectives and inspire one another to devote time in both the near term and longterm to cultivating high-capacity individuals. It's not just important right now, it's critical this year and for the next five. You've probably said to yourself or a colleague over these last few weeks "we really need an endowment" or "we really need a larger endowment." Major gift philanthropists care about your longterm sustainability. Many are eager to engage in a conversation about that with you. If you've waited on this front, you can act now.
Spending time with just one person can yield five-, six-, and seven-figure gifts that fuel an entire initiative or make a transformative difference in your plans for the future. Think of spending time individually with 20, 50, or even 75 of those people. Get serious now about investing in your relationships and being intentional about how you drive them. When your events can happen again, you may think twice about the time you spend on them, how many you hold, and what your expectations are -- can we raise more money if our time is spent differently? Your favorite video chat tool awaits you.
*If your organization is new to Major Gifts, consider taking part in our virtual major gifts offerings: Meg's Introduction to Major Gifts Work training tool; she'll walk you through a PowerPoint that outlines what you need to know to be prepared and ready to jump in.
