November 13, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Many nonprofit groups spend time developing elaborate advocacy campaigns and crafting fund-raising appeals. But Occupy Wall Street, which has raised more than $450,000 in one month and spawned hundreds of like-minded protests throughout the country, shows that clear messages and strong emotions matter more to donors than polished appeals.
Occupy Wall Street operates with “an absolute lack of a fund-raising bureaucracy,” says Nick Allen, a veteran consultant to many American nonprofits who now works in Barcelona, Spain.
“They don’t have a director of development. People see them on TV and get excited and want to help.”
Another reason so many people have wanted to support the group, says Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA, is that “they have really clear values, even if they’re asking for big changes. What’s more, he adds, “they’ve created a brand that resonates with 99 percent of Americans. How many nonprofits have succeeded at that?”
Among the other lessons charities can learn from Occupy Wall Street, say nonprofit leaders and consultants:
Listen to supporters. “We’re entering a bottom-up world,” says Mark Rovner, head of Sea Change Strategies, a Washington fund-raising consulting group. “If nonprofits are not listening closely to where their constituents’ heads and hearts are, they’re going to be left behind. Most nonprofits spend very little time letting their donors talk back to them.”
React quickly. Nonprofits should follow Occupy Wall Street’s approach of moving fast to respond to public concerns, says Madeline Stanionis, chief executive of Watershed, a online advocacy and fund-raising consulting firm in San Francisco.
“Standing in the street or occupying an area: That seems so simple, but it works,” Ms. Stanionis says. “So often nonprofits are so measured and looking at long-term change. They’re polite and rational and reasonable. Sometimes what it takes is to be really hopping mad and to be able to express that, and that’s not what traditional social-change organizations are particularly good at.”
Take risks. The Occupy Wall Street protest is attractive to many donors because it is unpredictable, says Mr. Radford of Greenpeace.
“There’s no real script here. People aren’t used to this story line, so everyone guesses what they think the story should be, and the protesters continually defy that,” Mr. Radford says. “So people keep watching to see how it will unfold. Nonprofits could think about how to be less predictable; they tend to stick with particular tactics that aren’t creative enough to be surprising.”
