Thank you Jeff Brooks!

I read a lot.

I enjoy studying/reading about our profession.  In so doing, I'm a fan of many of today's fundraising gurus: Ken Burnett, Tom Ahern, Marc Pittman, Robert Swanson, Jim Greenfield, Penelope Burks and  Jeff Brooks.

This is an excerpt from a blog Jeff did...

"What is it about fundraising that makes people who know nothing about it so confident they can do it better than the professionals? People who've never read a single book about how to do fundraising right ... never read one of the hundreds of blogs that focus on the topic ... never been to one of the conferences that are rich with useful content about it ... never labored under a mentor who knew profession inside and out -- they're completely sure that they can do better than those who've done all that?

We have a problem.

It's costing us millions of dollars in lost revenue."

WOW.  

This is a call to action.  Fundraisers, learn, study, read, and apprentice.  Let's bring professionalism that is valued to our organizations by our conduct, practices and actions.

The True Financial Impact of Philanthropy

We have done a study recently on the impact of fundraising on our institution.  This was done by asking the question, "How much would a department have to raise to add $10,000 net profit to their bottom line?" 

Here are the calculations:

What is your hospital’s (or other department, college, institute) margin? Our operating margin has been 1.7%.  Using 1.7%, that means that a $10,000 gift to the foundation is equivalent to the Hospital having to bill out $588,235.29 ($10,000 / .017) to achieve the $10,000 net profit.

However, there’s another twist to this equation. We don’t collect 100% on our billings. Actually, the number is more like $.41 for every $1. Therefore to realize the actual $588,235.29, we would really need to bill out $1,434,720.23 ($588,235.29/.41)!

Therefore, that $10,000 gift is equivalent to having to bill out in excess of 1.4 million dollars. What an impactful fact for the donor and the Foundation. Use this rationale all the time in solicitations.

Take away - EVERY dollar given has a huge impact on the beneficiary institution.