Fund Raisers Find Mix of Personal and Professional Support at Local Round Tables

It’s a few minutes before noon on an overcast Wednesday, and the chairs in the spare basement conference room of a housing charity here are beginning to fill. Sheets of paper taped to the walls remind people of the meeting’s theme: evaluating fund-raising performance.

But the conversation before the session gets started is more personal. There’s talk of finishing the last of the course work for a master’s degree, and surprise at learning that a friend just got laid off as a major-gifts fund raiser.

That mix of personal and professional conversation typifies the “small shop round table,” a monthly gathering of fund raisers who work for nonprofit organizations that lack the big budgets — and development staffs — of nearby Johns Hopkins University or the National Aquarium.

Started four years ago by a handful of local fund raisers, the round table is a place for people to exchange fund-raising techniques, ask questions, or simply air their frustrations in the company of people with a sympathetic ear. It numbers about 70 people who trade ideas as part of an e-mail group throughout the month. Roughly 25 people attend each meeting.

Fund raisers say the round table is a rare opportunity to glean information specific to smaller charities, which are often overlooked by conferences and publications.

“It’s a chance to get out of the isolation of your own set of circumstances,” says Ray Herman, annual-fund director at the Everyman Theatre. “To hear other people talk about how they’re coping can so often trigger a thought that you can take back to your own organization.”

Adds another fund raiser: “No matter what you’re going through, someone here at the round table has already gone through it, and survived.”

Tracking Results

Each meeting has a different theme. Jennifer Pelton, director of development at the Public Justice Center, who is helping to lead this particular session, introduces this month’s with a question: What word would the fund raisers sitting around the table use to describe how they feel about evaluation?

Mr. Herman offers the word “beneficial.” Tamara Zavislan, director of development at Ignatian Volunteer Corps, gives two: “crucial and confusing.” Wanda Irving, who joined the People’s Community Health Center as director of development a few months ago, chooses “overwhelming.”

Ms. Pelton, a 17-year veteran of fund raising for small organizations, runs through a 20-minute explanation of how her charity determines the success of its fund-raising efforts.

She and a colleague at the Public Justice Center describe how they use software to figure out how many donors keep contributing again and again and other giving trends over the past five years. Props include a spreadsheet that seeks to help fund raisers determine how much value specific fund-raising activities have brought to the organization and how much time to devote to each task.

When Ms. Pelton opens the discussion to questions, Kathleen Elliott, philanthropic-services officer at the Baltimore Community Foundation, poses this one: How does a fund raiser evaluate success in building ties to wealthy people, given how much time can pass before a person makes a contribution that could justify the fund raiser’s effort?

Heads turn to Peter Dunn, a fund raiser whose last job focused on major gifts. He suggests recording the number of visits and other contact with a donor. But measuring success can be hard for small charities because they receive very few big gifts, he says, so a single large donation could change the group’s totals significantly.

“We had a donor who gave $5,000 every year, and one year his Aunt Lucinda died and he gave $40,000,” says Mr. Dunn. “And as he used to tell me, Aunt Lucinda doesn’t die every year.”

‘Allowed to Be Cranky’

Talk turns to how to delegate responsibility for seeking big gifts. The fund raisers discuss what it’s like to work with executive directors who are uncomfortable asking for donations, or unwilling to take the time. And then there’s the opposite extreme: the director who is reluctant to let fund raisers attend meetings with the charity’s biggest donors.

By this time, the salads and sandwiches that the fund raisers have brought to the meeting are mostly eaten. But they continue to mull over ways to demonstrate to directors and board members that events designed primarily to build awareness, not raise money, are worth the effort.

Ms. Pelton describes how her organization recently received its biggest single gift from an individual — $10,000 — from a woman who first learned of the group after coming to one of its breakfast meetings.

Karen Griffin, director of development at St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, points out that there’s a “boatload of literature” written about the fund-raising techniques they’re discussing, and that the fund raisers shouldn’t be shy about noting that to their colleagues.

“We’re allowed to say, This is my career, I’m invested in it, so I found out about these things and they work,” she says, admitting to being “cranky” after having to remind another staff member of that just a few days ago. “You can either trust me that they work or question everything I do, and, by the way, if you do that, I’ll walk away.”

“You’re allowed to be cranky,” another development officer says. People laugh. That camaraderie and willingness to back each other up is another reason why people come to the round table, the fund raisers say.

“There’s a lot of power in outside expertise,” says Ms. Zavislan, of Ignatian Volunteer Corps. “There have been many times that I’ve come back and gone into my executive director’s office and said, Guess what I learned at the round table today. And even if it’s something I’ve been doing for six months, when it comes from outside the organization, it’s just more meaningful.”

Others talk about the noncompetitive nature of the round table — a rare thing in the fund-raising world — and the safety of being able to say or ask whatever they want without fear of receiving odd looks from colleagues. One fund raiser says there’s a “12-step component” to the round table, eliciting laughter.

Alleviating Burnout

There’s time for a few more questions before the meeting concludes at 1:30. One woman announces a job opening at her organization; another asks about other people’s leave policies because her employer is modifying its own.

Ms. Pelton has a final question for the fund raisers: Do they think the round table helps fight burnout?

Yitzchok Lowenbraun, national director of the Association for Jewish Outreach Programs, says he has been looking forward to the meeting since learning about it weeks earlier.

“I feel like the walls are closing in,” he says. “Knowing that I was going to come here and speak with people who know what I’m going through just energized me.”

Ms. Irving, another newcomer who recently left a job at a corporate grant maker to become a fund raiser, says she’s already starting to see the round table as something of a lifeline.

“In less than three months at the organization I was experiencing burnout and thinking, I cannot do this. The expectations are too great and there aren’t the resources,” she says. “Then I found out about this organization and I thought, okay, maybe I can do this.”