June 4, 1998 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Closing That Gift! How to Be Successful 99% of the Time
By Robert F. Hartsook
This slim volume, intended to aid solicitors in securing gifts and designed for a quick browse, offers the advice of a veteran fund raiser and the lessons he learned from successful campaigns.
Mr. Hartsook, a consultant in Wichita, Kan., begins by citing a survey that claimed that the average beggar has a 50-per-cent success rate asking for gifts. “Each fund raiser should expect and receive a higher level of accomplishment,” he notes.
A near-perfect batting average is possible, he says, if one follows the “29 secrets” to closing a gift and avoids the “top 10″ mistakes. Among the former: Use humor. Never put down other agencies. Among the latter: Fail to follow up after a solicitation. Talk too much.
Mr. Hartsook organizes such snippets of advice — with elaboration — under five chapters covering the basics of solicitation, estate gifts, creative ways to raise funds, prospect research, and the solicitation itself.
He concludes with case studies of five recent successful fund-raising drives and how different strategies paid off. For example, Mr. Hartsook writes, in a $59-million campaign for St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., arranging several small campaigns within the drive yielded big donations from the hospital’s doctors, who appreciated being able to direct their gifts to specific projects.
Publisher: ASR Philanthropic Publishing, P.O. Box 782648, Wichita, Kan. 67278; (316) 733-7470; fax (316) 733-8458; e-mail asrpublish@aol.com; 125 pages; $14.95; I.S.B.N. 0-9663673-0-8.
Grantmakers Communications Manual
By Christopher McNamara
This guide is intended for grant-making organizations with few or no communications staff members that wish to broaden their relations with the public and the press.
“Getting the word out is also a form of doing good work,” writes Mr. McNamara, an account supervisor at Porter/Novelli, a public-relations firm in Washington. He writes that foundations should not be deterred from starting a communications program because they fear bad publicity or an avalanche of grant proposals. “If you describe your foundation’s interests with some precision, you might actually get better and fewer proposals,” he writes.
He covers hiring staff members, recruiting volunteers, writing press releases, putting together information packages, fielding questions from the press, and crafting a plan for crisis management.
The book also explores government relations, publications, videotapes, public-service announcements, speeches, e-mail alerts, and Internet sites.
Mr. McNamara’s advice includes both all-encompassing directives (“Recognize the importance and power of the language and symbols used in your messages”) and technical tips (“On camera, the spokesperson should keep hands off the table microphones”).
The manual contains numerous case studies, among them the Pew Charitable Trusts’ 10-year effort to develop a communications program, and reproductions of such materials as the Council on Foundations’ “Planning Congressional Meetings: A How-to Kit,” from 1993.
Appendixes include self-evaluation worksheets, a list of resources, and contacts in the philanthropy trade media. The manual was produced by the Council on Foundations and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers.
Publisher: Council on Foundations, 1828 L Street, N.W., Washington 20036-5168; (202) 466-6512; fax (202) 785-3926; World-Wide Web http://www.cof.org; 299 pages; $50 plus $7 postage and handling.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Mapping a Path for Evaluation: A Planning Guide, by Stacy A. Wenzel and Elizabeth Brill, is a joint effort from the Girl’s Best Friend Foundation and the Center for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Designed primarily for use by groups that work with girls or young women, the guide provides a step-by-step model for evaluating programs and objectives while improving operations and winning over grant makers. “Mile markers” along the way point out how a group can write clear project objectives, ask appropriate questions of itself, and conduct research for the evaluation. Appendixes include tables intended to aid data collection and research, a list of resources, and three worksheets. Publisher: Girl’s Best Friend Foundation, 900 North Franklin, Suite 608, Chicago 60610; (312) 266-2842; e-mail gbf@ix. netcom.com; 32 pages; $12.
Rethinking Public-Nonprofit Relations: Toward a Neo-Institutional Theory of Public Management, by Peter Frumkin, argues that most partnerships between private charities and government agencies suffer from outdated management that fails to recognize non-profit organizations as more than service providers. What is needed, he says, is a system that allows non-profit groups autonomy when they receive government funds but holds organizations accountable for results. One example of this “neo-institutional” system occurs in Oklahoma, Mr. Frumkin writes, where the state Department of Rehabilitation Services stopped paying charities hourly rates to provide services and began a system of payment that required certain goals to be met. The result was a more-efficient system that gave non-profit groups greater latitude to meet their aims, according to Mr. Frumkin. Publisher: Program on Non-Profit Organizations, Institute for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, 88 Trumbull Street, P.O. Box 208253, New Haven, Conn. 06520-8253; (203) 432-2121; fax (203) 432-7798; 44 pages; $4.50; ask for PONPO Working Paper No. 248 or I.S.P.S. Working Paper No. 2248.
The Russian Non-Profit Sector 1997 comprises a year’s worth of articles collected from the weekly bulletin published by the Agency for Social Information, in Moscow, and translated by the Center for Civil Society International, in Seattle. The materials spotlight the work, conferences, and fund-raising efforts of dozens of Russian charities and are intended to document the accomplishments, priorities, and impediments that surround what the compliers say is a renewed sense of giving in Russia. Indexes include lists of both the non-profit organizations that are cited, as well as the cities in which they are located. Publisher: Center for Civil Society International, 2929 N.E. Blakeley Street, Seattle 98105; (206) 523-4755; fax (206) 523-1974; World-Wide Web http://www.friends-partners.org/~ccsi/; e-mail ccsi @u.washington.edu; 105 pages; $16.
