September 26, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
When Laura Walsh joined the BC Cancer Foundation in Vancouver Island seven years ago as its director of development, the center had recently completed a $7-million capital campaign and she was hesitant to ask big donors make additional gifts for other purposes, out of fear of causing donor fatigue.
But that was a mistake, she now says.
In a session at the annual meeting of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, she said she realizes she missed opportunities to bring in additional contributions and build upon relationships with donors who had already shown their support.
Securing major donations without the aid of a capital campaign’s energizing slogans, benchmarks, and lofty goals can be a challenge, she said. But it can be done.
When planning to seek money outside of a campaign, Ms. Walsh suggests using the same sort of aspirational language that is common in capital campaigns, such as promoting the organization’s more mundane needs as multi-year projects, and communicating a sense of urgency to donors.
For example, she said, instead of soliciting $350,000 to cover the annual operational costs for a hospice, why not quintuple the amount and call it a “campaign for hospice,” taking the opportunity to inform donors of the center’s five-year strategic plan.
Or, if you discover in your records that an elderly couple had made a large unrestricted gift to the hospital five years ago in memory of a son who had died 20 years earlier, said Ms. Walsh, consider reaching out to them again to tell them how their gift had been used and suggest they act as volunteers or make a 25-year anniversary gift to finance a specific project.
“As fund raisers, we need to challenge ourselves and our donors,” said Ms. Walsh.
