Befriending donors or Using people?

I subscribe to fundraising-related emails from Guidestar, a great site for non-profits. After Shavuot I found a Guidestar email in my inbox, with a link to an article entitled, "Befriending Your Donors: Interview with Fundraiser Thomas Wolf".

The interview begins with the following question and answer:

Your book is about relating to donors, at times befriending them. A cynical person might say that's a manipulative ploy to snare money.

That's an attitude I've never understood. I like people. I like getting to know them whether they have money or turn out to be donors. Invariably, our relating makes them feel good and makes me feel good—especially when we strike a bond or find common interests. Why should there be an invisible barrier just because someone is a potential supporter?

I've known fundraisers who became close to donors in unlikely ways, and I've always wondered about this. My gut, after reading the answer listed, is that it's still manipulative. If you are a friend already, fine - but if you only become friends after you learn they are possible donors, that bothers me.

What do you think?

Competition is not a dirty word, even in fundraising

[I first published the following post more than five years ago; I still believe it.]

I disagree with pretty much every other shul rabbi I have ever met. I don't think that competition is a dirty word.

I don’t believe that properly-run Chabad centers, Kollelim or Batei Medrash will ever take a dime away from other properly-run Torah institutions. (I say "properly-run" as opposed to those which thrive on lashon hara, dishonesty or other unacceptable approaches.)

I have been a rabbi in a community with far more synagogues than we needed, and I have been a rabbi in a community in which Chabad entered a vacuum of institutions. I know what serious budget deficits are. To me, those deficits, and the consequent damage to a Jewish community, are not a result of competition.

I say this for three reasons:

1. The Free Market is good for a community
In the absence of competition, synagogues and schools and communities and, yes, rabbis, become comfortable. We become lazy. The same pattern of events year after year, the same classes, and innovation dies a silent death.

Introduce new institutions, and suddenly there is incentive - whether pride or finance or otherwise - for thinking up new ways to serve the community.


2. Ask more, and you’ll get more
Many boards are afraid to ask people for money. They think that repeated requests will seem like “nickel and diming” people. They think that people will give less, not more, if solicited more frequently.

But many people would give more, if they were on the right giving schedule.

If people are used to an annual fundraiser and a Kol Nidrei appeal, then that’s when they will give. If I am asked only twice per year, and each time the “norm” is $250-$500, then I’ll give the norm and get away with $500-$1000 per year, an absurdly small amount of tzedakah.

But if I am asked for meaningful tzedakah on a monthly basis, each time for a well-explained, well-founded cause, then I will become used to giving on that monthly basis. And I’ll end up giving much more.

So if a Chabad comes to town and hits people up for Gan Israel, a Sefer Torah, a new building, a pre-school, whatever, that will accustom people to reaching into their pockets more often. And that’s something I can use to my institution’s advantage, too, by getting into that schedule of giving.


3. The true “good of the community”Finally, I don’t think that the good of my institution is necessarily the same as the good of the community.

Let’s say we have an existing school, and it serves the community moderately well. Then a new school opens and it siphons off students, endangering the existing school.
My gut instinct is to be critical, but - might the new school be better for the community? Perhaps children might receive a better education there?

Let’s say my shul is the only bastion of Orthodoxy in my town. And let’s say a kollel opens up and draws my serious congregants into their sphere, and ultimately into their minyan. And let’s say that weakens my shul, to the point that my shul becomes a shadow of its former self. Who am I to say that this isn’t better for those who join that kollel?


Of course, you could easily argue the reverse.
You could easily argue that we need to stick together, and not build institutions to meet everyone's personal preference. I have certainly argued this point of view, in many different contexts.

You could easily argue that the associated strife in a case of school or synagogue competition will outweigh any spiritual gain. We may have better-educated children, but what will they be learning about Jewish communal life?

You could easily argue that drawing more observant families away from a school or synagogue will weaken the chance of exposure to observant Judaism for the remaining families. What happens to a minyan when all the people who like to discuss divrei torah leave for a different shul?

I won’t argue against any of those important points. But still, I wonder - how much of our fear of competition is fear for ourselves - our comfortable rabbinate, our supply of tzedakah, our own institution's good - instead of fear for the good of our communities?

Super Sunday and Tu B’Shevat (Tu BiShvat) 5769/2009: Celebrating going from $0 to $1

[Haveil Havalim #204 is here!]

Today is Super Sunday here in the Lehigh Valley; today, volunteers gather to call prospective donors for our Federation’s annual Campaign for Jewish Needs. Every year, the feelings I associate with the day are the same: Trepidation, followed by Exhilaration.

Trepidation, because I always call a lot of $0 cases, people who have never given to the campaign. That includes people who actively dislike giving in general, or who actively dislike the Federation, as well as people who just could not be bothered. People who hear, "This is Mordechai Torczyner, and I'm calling as a volunteer for the Jewish Federation of the-" and hang up.

I wish I could say I take these cases for some noble reason, like wanting to inspire tzedakah in the hardest of hearts, but the truth is less dramatic: There’s nowhere to go but Up. In the worst case scenario, it’s still the same level as last year.

But there's Exhilaration, too, because I have an okay success rate, thanks to a Divinely inspired shtick I developed a few years ago:

If I can actually get past the first sentence, I introduce them to the uses of the Federation’s campaign – the 50% or so that goes to Israeli needs, the money for our school, for Jewish Family Services, for our synagogue education programs, for our JCC, for our Hillels, etc.

If they explain that things are rough for them economically, I shift gears and try to connect them with services that might help them. But if they just come back with a No, I ask them if they might agree to give one dollar. Just one dollar. Who can say No to one dollar?

Of course, it will cost the Federation more than a dollar to solicit payment of that pledge, but:
(a) people who agree to $1 on the phone may give more when writing the check, and
(b) it’s much harder to get a $0 to go to $1 than to get a $1 to go to $10. Just look at the difference in percentage-increase! So now, the hard work is done.

This aspect of Super Sunday reminds me of Tu b’Shevat, which is coming up tonight and tomorrow.

Tu b’Shevat celebrates Terumah, Maaser, Maaser Rishon and Maaser Ani, those tithes of Israeli produce we give to support the Beit haMikdash, to beautify Yerushalayim and to help the needy. We pick this day because it’s the day when the tithing cycle begins anew for the year; the previous year’s produce is complete and has its own taxes to separate, and now we start accumulating for the new year and its tithing.

So we celebrate with a quasi-Yom Tov on Tu b’Shevat – but on Tu b’Shevat itself the new fruit is still in its most nascent stage, and no edible fruit has emerged yet. And yet, we celebrate the fact that we have gone from nothing, barren tree branches, to the beginnings of a crop.

Of course, we will also celebrate when the fruit matures – we bring Bikkurim (first fruits) with a big parade, and then at the end of a full three-year tithing cycle we have Viduy Maaser (declaration of proper tithing, in the Beit haMikdash).

But Tu b’Shevat is the day when we go from $0 to $1, and, apparently, that’s reason to celebrate as well.