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Kathy Hay
President & CEO
The Credit Valley Hospital Foundation

When people think about fundraisers, I can almost hear what they are thinking, “watch your wallets everyone!”  Or worse, I can hear them thinking about what they perceive is important to me as a fundraiser , “show me the money”!   Better yet, I can hear my colleagues at the hospital (or at the university in my former world) thinking “can’t they just run an event or make a quick phone call, I need a linear accelerator”. 

Here is the real deal, and I will speak for all my development colleagues out there, “we are not fund-raisers, we are not event planners, we are not friend-raisers, we are not salespeople”.  We are in fact a highly professional group of strategists that are charged with ensuring that our institutions are fully funded to deliver on their mandate – whether that be as a first class hospital like The Credit Valley Hospital, or Big Brothers Big Sisters, or The University of Toronto.  While we may raise funds, plan and/or attend events, align “friends”, close “deals” – that is just part of what we do, as a highly professional group of strategists. 

Most importantly, we look far afield into our various stakeholder groups to build relationships with volunteers, donors, community leaders, political leaders, and advocates – bringing each group together in support of our mission.  And that takes strategy, tenacity and vision.

It takes a great deal of strategy to raise funds and close gifts to achieve our goals.   A pipeline is simply a piece of that strategy, a very important piece of that strategy.  In fact, a solid and vibrant pipeline should be a reflection of your own village and it should “be on the move”.  When you think about your own village, do you think of it as a flat line, static and staid group of stakeholders – I doubt that.  Your village is filled with opportunity, ideas, possibilities and a strong commitment to your mandate – because of that shared a common goal. 

Your village is the connector to a full-bodied (okay, I admit it, I am enjoying a glass of wine while I write this), active and very robust pipeline!  Yes, there are mechanics around building a pipeline, a strong need to apply strategic thought to those prospects that are within your pipeline and you will need to work very hard within your village to keep them engaged and part of your shared goals.  We all need to fuel pipelines, we need to build deep pipelines, we need to have a pipeline “on the move”.  There is nothing worse than a pipeline that is fantastic and filled with potential – and then nothing…nothing closes…nothing moves! 

So, let’s get back to our village!  At the end of the day, any successful close does not happen because we have a great pipeline, it happens because we have built longstanding and highly committed relationships with our stakeholders- our village. 

So the next time you think someone doesn’t really understand what we do as highly professional strategists, remember we are highly engaged professionals who specialize in building long term relationships that will make a difference in communities that we serve – that is our village.

And remember, it takes a village…to get that linear accelerator! 

Kathy Hay will be presenting “It Takes a Village to Build a Pipeline” at AFP Congress 2011.

Leah Eustace, CFRE
Principal and Managing Partner
Good Works

Here are my top eight tips for getting the most out of your Congress experience…using twitter!

1. You don’t have to be on Twitter to follow the conversation. Congress has its own hashtag (#afpcongress) and the conversation is already heating up. What’s a hashtag? It’s basically a way of labeling tweets so that they can be easily found. Starting now, add Monitter as a tab on your web browser. Type “afpcongress” in the search bar and, voila, you’re monitoring the conversation. For those twitter pros out there, you can also add #afpcongress as a separate column in Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.
2. See an #afpcongress tweet that begs a question? Does someone have a point of view that you disagree with? Don’t be shy, just jump in and join the conversation.
3. Make new friends: Start following folks who are active in the #afpcongress stream. Chances are that they’re also interesting outside of the Congress timeframe!
4. Are there two sessions that you wish you could be at in the same time slot? Chances are that someone is tweeting the content of the one you aren’t in. You won’t miss a thing…awesome!
5. Let’s face it; the volume of tweets is likely to be pretty high. Worried you’ll miss something important? Twapperkeeper will save the day. The #afpcongress tweets are archived here.
6.  Don’t hesitate to meet tweeps IRL (in real life). Keep an eye out for tweetups (those are IRL meetup for tweeps). They are *always* fun.
7. Twitter can be a foreign language. Get in the groove by checking out what all the abbreviations mean.
8. Follow the Official AFP Congress Social Media Ambassadors. We’re here to help you have a twitterific Congress experience: 

• AFP Toronto – @afptoronto
• Paul Nazareth – @UinvitedU
• Emma Lewsey – @EmmaLewzey
• Ann Pathammavoing – @Pathammavong
• Jim Martin – @gingerheaddad
• Jen Love – @agentjenlove
• Clare McDowall – @MrsMcDowall
• Leah Eustace – @LeahEustace
• John Lepp – @johnlepp
• Rebecca (Flood) Dutton – @rsflood
• Ligia Pena – @lpdiversa
• Sybil Choles – @Sybil_Choles
• Paula Atfield – @Paula_Attfield
• Brock Warner – @brockwarner
• Sylvie Labrosse – @Sylvieintoronto
• Jeff Gignac – @JeffGignac

Have other ideas to share? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Leah will be presenting “Hands-on Social Media” at AFP Congress 2011.

Alice L. Ferris, MBA, ACFRE
Founding Partner
GoalBusters LLC

Alice will be presenting “Fundraising Through a Different Lens” at AFP Congress 2011.

Siobhan Aspinall
Fundraising Consultant, David Suzuki Foundation

Are you drinking too much merlot and muttering that your board “just doesn’t get it”? Why aren’t they perfect fundraising ambassadors who make their own gifts first and champion every campaign?

Think of the way you treat a red-hot prospect in your major gifts program. That’s right – it’s like prom night but with better manners. Meanwhile, a board member is treated like the grumpy old chaperone. Where is the romance? No wonder they run when you mention fundraising.

Think about your board members as prospects themselves. They are prospective ambassadors, donors and champions of your fundraising activities and like every prospect, you need to develop their relationship with the organization. Think of this in terms of the major gifts cycle. Research your board members, cultivate a relationship with them, engage them in philanthropic activity for your organization and steward their actions and successes.

If this sounds time-consuming, it isn’t. I’ll talk more at the conference about how to engage your board as a group and get even the most reluctant members to think about fundraising in a different and positive light. 

Siobhan is currently working in major gifts for Junior Achievement and the David Suzuki Foundation. She will be presenting “Cultivating Your Board’s Interest in Fundraising” at AFP Congress 2011.

Bob Penner
President & CEO
Strategic Communications Inc. (Stratcom)

By now many of you have heard about or even participated in a Telephone Town Hall. Stratcom has been pleased to bring this to the Canadian marketplace, although, even for us, it took some persuading.

We do a fair bit of work in the United States and are a member of various American industry associations. For many years, some of my colleagues in the political arena have been telling me that we should use Telephone Town Halls. They are a great communications tool and clients love them, they said. 

But for whatever reason, I didn’t immediately pick up on this suggestion. It was a different sort of tool for us, we were already busy and I didn’t immediately see the value. But they persevered and when an opportunity with a new vendor with superior technology was presented to us, we decided to give it a try.   

But it wasn’t until our own first Telephone Town Hall that I fully got it, and became a believer. This event was for a candidate for mayor of a major Canadian city. There were more than 10 candidates in this mayoral race and our candidate, although an experienced politician, was not particularly well known and was in the middle of the pack. So, we conducted a Telephone Town Hall and invited most of the city to participate. We were amazed to have him speaking to an audience of more than 18,000 people, and at one point 4,000 were on the line. What else could I do cost-effectively or in fact in any way to find our relatively unknown client an audience of this size? Many of the people asking questions during the Telephone Town Hall were saying how they’d never heard him speak before and how impressive he was to hear and also that they liked to be asked to participate in this way. So clearly, the Telephone Town Hall was, as my American colleagues had said, a strong campaign communication tool. Our client didn’t win, but he ran a strong campaign. 

However, while we do have political clients, most of our business is in the non-profit sector. So, we starting to think, in the same way, about how many of our clients’ donors have never heard that organization’s leader speak. The non-profit market is also a crowded field and the same fundamental premise exists. If you call a public meeting, you might attract a few hundred local people or fewer. But, with Telephone Town Hall technology, you can reach thousands of people across the whole country to listen to your message from the comfort of their own home. It’s easy to set up and provides great communication, great interaction, great feedback and, in my experience, the audience is always enthusiastic about them.  

It’s not rocket science, it’s just basic communication that’s made easier because of advances in technology. And, it’s now affordable because of the significant way costs have been reduced in the telecom system, and how the Telephone Town Hall can make use of this opportunity. 

Although we’ve done a lot of Telephone Town Halls by now, we’ve only just begun to experiment with it and its endless possibilities. Watch this space to learn more. And, at our presentation at AFP Congress, I will discuss some of the more interesting Telephone Town Halls we’ve done so far. We’d also like to hear from you – if you had an experience with a Telephone Town Hall or if you have an idea for how it might be utilized to meet the objectives of your organization, let us know and we’ll discuss it in our blog and at our session. Looking forward to seeing you at AFP Congress. 

Bob will be presenting “Telephone Town Halls: A New Way to Engage Supporters and Donors” at AFP Congress 2011.