Glenda Russell named Chief Operating Officer at Robert Swaney Consulting, Inc.

Indianapolis, IN—Robert Swaney Consulting, Inc. (RSC) announced today the appointment of Glenda Russell as Chief Operating Officer.

“Glenda is a critical addition to our leadership team as RSC continues its rapid expansion of working with non-profit partners.” Bob Swaney, RSC’s Founder and CEO, said. “Her achievements in organizational advancement and client 

Glenda Russell

development make her the perfect choice for our next stage of growth and client service.  As we expand our efforts helping non-profits achieve highly-productive fundraising programs, Glenda’s track record in developing effective business cultures is precisely what we need.”

Russell will help lead the development of RSC’s business structure and client services to advance the operational growth of the firm. “I have followed the remarkable achievements of RSC for several years,” said Russell. “The firm’s commitment to excellence, integrity and a client-first mentality is the primary driver of this success. RSC is positioned for growth and expansion and I look forward to playing a role in future successes. It’s an exciting opportunity and just the type of challenge I welcome.”

Russell most recently served as Regional Director for the Minneapolis-based firm, The Dolan Company, a provider of business information and professional services to legal, financial, and real estate markets, where she successfully developed vision, leadership, and accountability in markets across the United States. As Director of Development for The Dolan Company, Russell founded and designed and curriculum for the Dolan Leadership Institute. At the Indianapolis Business Journal Media Corporation, Russell was founder and publisher of Indiana Lawyer and co-founder of the Women in Law Conference.

Russell’s non-profit and civic involvement includes six years of service to the Indiana Pro Bono Commission, and service on numerous boards, including CHOICE, Stanley K. Lacy Leadership Alumni Association, Hoosier State Press Association, Outrun the Sun, and St. Francis Hospice.

Russell has been recognized by the Indianapolis Bar Foundation for outstanding devotion to community projects and as Journalist of the Year by Indiana Trial Lawyers Association. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Indianapolis Bar Association President’s Award, the YWCA Salute to Women on Achievement Professional Award, and the Indiana Commission for Women Torchbearer Award in Media and Communications.

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About RSC: Established in 2006, Robert Swaney Consulting, Inc. (RSC) is a national provider of contributed revenue growth strategies, turnkey fundraising direct mail programs, and executive searches for arts and cultural institutions. The firm has offices in Indiana, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, serving clients across the country. RSC’s client list includes more than two-thirds of the Group I U.S. Orchestras.

Keep Direct Mail In Your Fundraising Repertoire

I’ve never heard social media so neatly summarized as it is in the TV spot for Walmart’s Family Mobile plan. A teenage girl excitedly tells her father, “We can pin, post, tweet, snap, tag, check, and share!” Think, for a minute, about how a “family mobile plan” would have been described in the early 80s: We can call each other on our cordless landline phone and send letters through the United States Postal Service!  It sounds like a sentence from the Stone Age, doesn’t it?

Comparatively, the number of shiny new digital marketing tools at our disposal

is growing by leaps and bounds. Let’s face it, direct mail doesn’t carry the same panache as a clever Tweet, low-cost email, or “like” button. The idea of printing and mailing an Annual Fund letter belongs in #ThrowbackThursday for some folks. Many have even suggested that direct mail solicitation is “dead.” The low-cost lure of social media and the desire to stay on trend is understandably tempting. So why should you use a medium that some consider way past its prime?

The answer is simple: Direct mail remains one of the most high-leverage/high-yield fundraising opportunities available.

While social media should be an integral part of your overall marketing plan, direct mail should remain the centerpiece of your fundraising repertoire, or you’re putting your Annual Fund program at risk.  No other medium can convey the personal warmth and amplify the mission of your organization as effectively as a well-written letter. A comprehensive direct mail program is mission-critical to a fundraising campaign’s success. Are you practicing all of the direct mail fundamentals? Read this partial checklist and find out:

• Is your institution positioned as an effectively-run organization that’s enriching and supporting the community?
• Do you have a mission-based message?
• Is your segmentation strategy well-planned and executed?
• Are you testing against a control letter?
• Is the Ask stated early in the letter with confidence and passion?
• Are you sending enough letters through the course of the campaign, at the right time, to the right people?
• Is the letter well-formatted, with generous margins, a readable serif font, and sufficient length?
• Are you completing a post-campaign analysis with observations and recommendations for the next fiscal year?
• Is your direct mail program well-integrated with all of your communication platforms? 

I can hear your protests: What about the cost of direct mail solicitations? The declining response rates? The work involved in implementing the program?  And, those mounting “do not mail” requests?  

RSC says, “Keep doing the hard work to get the best results.” RSC manages entire direct mail programs for non-profit institutions, and our experience is that results are actually improving, as are the gross and net revenues for our clients.  

In contrast to the “read it now, forget about two seconds later” climate of electronic media, a well-executed direct mail program offers a more measured, paced, and longer-living solicitation that often prompts gift responses weeks, and sometimes months, after it’s been received.

As our culture continues to embrace and evolve in social media, direct mail may eventually take on a different role or level of significance. But for now, it remains among the highest-producing and cost-effective fundraising method available, and should be the anchor for your Annual Fund program.   The “pin, post, tweet, snap, tag, check, and share” tactics have a place in today’s NFP solicitation program, too – just not one of prominence.

RSC can help you create an integrated, multi-channel fundraising plan. If you’d like to learn more about the success we’ve had helping non-profit organizations build successful direct mail programs, just click here and we will be happy to follow-up. 

Holy Mega-Goal! Chief Development Officers and the Superhero Environment

The welcome email lands in your inbox: A new Chief Development Officer (CDO) is starting at your non-profit. When this fine fledgling bursts though the lobby, she’s donning a mask and cape. She is, after all, a Development Superhero who excels at everything: asking, planning, rallying the board, grant writing, and donor retention – she’s exactly who we need to save our non-profit.

With the expectations placed on today’s fundraising professional, is it any wonder a CDO position has an 18-24 month average tenure at most institutions?

We Don't Need Another (Super) Hero!

“We’ll hire a really good fundraiser and then our organization can move on to other things” is not a good strategy. If your fundraising program rests on one person’s shoulders, then the risk is high, the goals will be in jeopardy, and burnout is nearly inevitable.

Skilled development professionals can be good leaders and solid fundraisers, but they cannot single-handedly save your world.  In response, RSC says, “Change your expectations and thereby change your results.”

So, if not a superhero, what type of CDO do you hire? There are two distinct types: 1) the bold and assertive major gift officer always asking for money, and 2) the “never leave the office” tactician who effectively coaches others to raise money.  Who is right for you?

It’s important for the Board to determine what type of CDO best fits the organization, then leverage her strengths and build a team around her.  Once hired by a Board, the CDO is a key fundraising leader in the organization; she is hired to produce a team, while communicating and motivating others along the way.  If attempting all of these roles of fundraising and leading on her own, she’ll become a superhero for a short time, then flame out fast.

The CDO can strike a balance between leadership and super-heroism. Here’s how:

1. Know why you were hired and play to your strengths;
2. Build a team whose culture embraces the institution’s mission and complements you;
3. Develop the “fundraiser” in each team member; and
4. Be a leader who communicates fully and regularly

If you are the CDO, it doesn’t matter if you’re the major gift type or a tactician, or whether you have a staff of 12 or a staff of two. It’s your job to determine which camp you fall in, identify strengths and weaknesses–and above all–fill in the gaps. The CEO, board chair, and CDO must all be in alignment.

Communication and leadership, however, are also the responsibilities of the CEO and the Board. Here are five steps they can take to help ensure success:

1. Share relationships: introduce the CDO to community influencers and decision makers;
2. Value your CDO’s  experience: listen carefully and treat this person as a peer;
3. Err on the side of asking: the privilege of asking belongs to the team, not just the CDO;
4. Avoid procrastination: when the CDO asks you to do something, do it right away; and
5. Share the responsibility: spread accountability throughout the organization

The good news is that it’s never too late to apply these principles within your organization.  Let’s save the superheroes for the big screen.

RSC can help build your fundraising program and your fundraising team. If you would like to learn more about how RSC successfully helps arts and cultural organizations reach their fundraising goals, call us at 317.300.4443 or visit our website.

Performing Arts –– Why is Marketing More Important than Fundraising?

Working with performing arts clients, I frequently observe a competitive tension between the marketing and development departments. Instead of an esprit de corps, I see yin and yang. If these two departments can’t play in the sandbox together, it will eventually show up at the board level–and even more disastrously, at the donor and patron level.

So what’s causing the rift? It’s largely due to the finite resources available in these

organizations, coupled with the sizeable growth goals each department is tasked to achieve. The problem with this “us versus them” attitude is that it hurts the organization, deeply, and it’s absolutely avoidable.

Many institutions choose the wrong course. To avoid the pain, they place marketing as the alpha and development second in command, sacrificing contributed revenue opportunities and strategies for a perceived increase in ticket sales. This eventually chokes off both efforts. But how can the relationship be synergistic when the goals for each department are so aggressive?

Step one: understand and accept the balance between the two departments and create a productive environment that helps both thrive.

The ticket buyer is not the primary customer; the other department is the primary customer. You’re both in the “acquire, retain, upgrade” business, right? The development office should keep in mind the large majority of donors are also ticket buyers, and should therefore greatly respect the marketing process.

Step two: acknowledge that marketing’s success is also development’s success.

Marketing has to be focused in the proper area – namely, subscriber growth.  If the marketing department successfully creates a pathway for patrons – from single ticket buyer, to a multi-ticket buyer, to a subscriber, then they are creating patrons. Patrons, who are not only good for frequent concert attendance, but also good for making philanthropic contributions. Once converted to a donor, we know that the value of a patron increases, as does their lifetime value. 

Step three: acknowledge that development’s success is also marketing’s success.

So, when do we convert a subscriber into a donor? While conventional wisdom says three years, RSC rejects that premise; we find it most effective to convert them almost immediately. Since a new subscriber has not fully defined their role, it becomes paramount to get an entry-level gift right away. This allows your organization to tell its story from the very beginning of the patron relationship and to reinforce it over time. By starting early, you’re able to share your mission and worth, and turn what would otherwise be purely an ‘entertainment option’ into a highly-valued, prized organization, worthy of support. 

If marketing and development want a harmonious relationship, they must look at each other as their single largest customer. Then, together, they can accomplish their larger mission: serving their community.

RSC can help integrate your organization’s development and marketing planning strategies to build a successful fundraising program. If you would like to learn more about how RSC successfully helps arts and cultural organizations reach their fundraising goals, call us at 317.300.4443 or visit our website.

Twenty-Four Hours of Magic in Omaha

contributing writing by RSC Senior Consultant Jeremy Hatch, cfre

At RSC we are frequently asked to counsel on the viability of online giving efforts, Facebook solicitations, special auctions and other “gadget” fundraising activities. As our clients can attest, we are often skeptical of these “innovative” fundraising approaches. Why? Because innovation is sometimes used to replace the fundamentals of a disciplined and well-executed annual campaign, leading too often to predictably poor results and critical time lost. We define the annual gift as – say it with us – Reliable and Renewable Support.

That said, we recently witnessed a wonderful example of creative – and yes innovative – community engagement by the BLUEBARN Theatre in Omaha, Nebraska where RSC is providing counsel to the Progression capital and endowment campaign to support building Omaha’s first new multi-purpose theater in a generation.

Omaha Gives, a first-year program of the Omaha Community Foundation, presented a 24-hour challenge with all gifts made online via credit card in a one-day blitz. Organizations competed for the most new donors, most dollars raised (based on budget size) and other benchmarks, with matching funds on the line from foundation and corporate sponsors. The results? An astonishing $3million was raised from more than 19,000 donors in 24 hours!

BLUEBARN Theatre pursued the opportunity with flourishing creativity, encouraging their patrons, fans and friends to give by promoting the 24-hour campaign via curtain speeches at performances, imaginative storytelling in email, social media and other channels, and through a motivated leadership group that wanted to see a smaller non-profit compete (and succeed) against some of Omaha’s largest organizations.

By May 23 the results were in, with an amazing $15,000+ raised from 140 donors, many making their first-ever gift to the BLUEBARN. “We were optimistic based upon the enthusiasm of our board and the buzz the program generated in the week before May 22 but this surpassed everyone’s expectations. We are thrilled to have dozens of new donors to cultivate over the next year,” explained BLUEBARN Director of Development Kevin Mahler.

As we celebrate this inspiring and effective idea you may ask, “Should my organization pursue some similar innovative approach -- especially in the closing weeks of our fiscal year?”  RSC says, “Only if you are ready like the BLUEBARN!”  Read on:

• The BLUEBARN was already poised to reach this year’s fundraising goals.  Special fundraisers rarely fix a broken goal or budget, so they are best used for a campaign that already has momentum. Understand that these efforts also take preparation and can sometimes distract volunteers from cultivating relationships and making leveraged asks from their peers. 

• Make sure there is urgency. BLUEBARN knew that the Omaha Gives effort would be effective because the compressed intensity of the campaign (24 hours) and the chance to receive matching funds would resonate. Conversely, longer “special campaign” efforts of 30-45-60 days (or more) often lose steam, so it’s better to stick to your Annual Plan.

• Keep it Simple. BLUEBARN did a great job of promoting the blitz while not being drawn away from their “core” annual and capital campaign solicitations.  They also successfully used the tools that were already at their disposal – people, performances and p.r.

• Always say “thank you”.  BLUEBARN showed genuine appreciation to their donors. No matter how you get the gift, make cultivation and stewardship your hallmark, with personal thank you calls, handwritten notes, and follow up activities to engage new patrons.

RSC can help your arts organization navigate the bold new world of technology and innovation in fundraising, while keeping focused on fundamentals and proven methods for long-term growth. Give us a call (or send us a tweet) today!