Also: clearing the decks for an important announcement in August
It’s the end of May, which means that too many nonprofit arts organizations are beginning their annual “end of fiscal year” push for additional donations. There’s a lot on the line for these charities to meet their financial revenue goals and stuffing as much asking as you can into that final month might help you reach those lofty objectives.
Of course, once you’ve done that, you can’t hit those same people up for emergency funding when there is, in fact, an emergency.
Not hitting your revenue goal is not an emergency to your community. It may be sad or frustrating to your board or anyone else who wants to yell at you, but the community doesn’t really care. The whole point is that June 30 is an arbitrary date on their calendar, even if it’s important on yours. Don’t cry wolf every June 30 (or whatever is the last day of your fiscal year). If your success as an organization depends on the news that your revenue goals have been hit — rather than your impact goals in revitalizing and improving the lot of those in your community that need the help — then you are working for a lousy organization.
Instead, take a month and do these things, as suggested by an article in Bloomerang:
Clean up your database. Purge the names of donors who haven’t given for five years or more. Don’t purge them (that’s illegal, except in sci-fi movies), just their names and contact info. Face it, they’re not going to give to your company any more.
Correct addresses. Run a National Change of Address (NCOA) update. It’ll cost a few dollars but more than make up for it in eliminating bad addresses, correcting street names, and [gasp] data entry errors. Look, roughly 17% of your people move or die each year. Don’t send solicitations to dead people. They rarely give, and besides, it’s tacky.
Take this time to research institutional donors. Are the same leaders there? If not, where have they gone? Are there people known by your board members or volunteers? Have you ever sent them information about the company without asking for money? You know, like a friend instead of a customer?
Of course, if your organization is only putting on art, you might skip this whole endeavor. What your donors want to know is “Why should I support you?” and the answer has to be some version of “We solve our community’s [problem or issue] by [the core work of your arts organization] and here are our [quantifiable, tangible, measurable – from the point of view of the community you serve, not your own point of view] results.
Make it a point to start the new fiscal year fresh with good data, good prospects, and a good reason for someone to give. If you make sure to line up your reasons (and impact data) with the definitions given by the IRS, you’ll have a better case than “because art nurtures your soul,” a lame and wholly ineffective claim.
For the months of June and July, I’m going to enjoy something called “Summer in Seattle.” Don’t tell anyone, but there is nothing as beautiful, temperate, and relaxing as summer in Seattle. We both deserve a break, I’m thinking.
During that time, I hope you’ll take a fresh look at your nonprofit arts organization with these things in mind:
Nonprofit = charity. I used to think otherwise. Like many of you, I never considered my own nonprofit arts organization to be a charity, because I thought of charity as that altruistic thing that makes people better off. I made up meaningless words — as many of you do — such as “not-for-profit,” “non-commercial,” and “community-based.” Nonprofit is the legal term for every 501(C)(3) corporation in America, and charity is what they’ve been mandated to do. Pure and simple.
And while there is a special, odd exception for nonprofit arts organizations (which, by a court ruling and not the IRS code itself, gained the right to be nonprofits at all), it doesn’t mean that they are effective or worthy of a donation. People give to good charities. It doesn’t matter if they can give to you if you’re not worthy of a gift. If you don’t like the word charity, then just stop being a nonprofit; there are literally thousands of real nonprofit arts organizations from whom you are vacuuming needed funds to serve human beings in their times of need. And there is no moral high ground or advantage to being a nonprofit when you are performing for-profit duties. Get investors instead of donors. Pay them back to get them to invest again. Produce the kind of art that turns you and them on. Sell a ton of tickets. Ask yourself whether a commercial arts setup works better for you. It might.
Your art isn’t yours; it’s theirs. In order to claim your community as “your audience,” you have to do work that benefits them, not you. You don’t serve your area just because you say you do. “The most important orchestra in Seattle” is just false if there are literally millions of people who do not benefit from your existence. And there are.
Rather than using a mission (forget the mission statement, we’re talking about the real mission here) to tout your own works, use it to define your company’s impact. Look at it from the community’s point of view, not your own. No one cares what you do or how well you do it. They care about why, and that answer had better be about them.
Have fun by changing things up. There is nothing more exciting that having something to do with bettering the lives of people who need it (not just those who want it). If you run a large organization, a regional arts council, or a foundation that supports the arts, now is the second-best time to become a producer of charitable impact instead of a producer of what someone decided was art. (The best time would have been twenty years ago.)
Impact is tangible (and measurable); art is ethereal (and subject to opinion).
For help on all this stuff, buy Scene Change: Why Today’s Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact and Scene Change 2: The Five Real Responsibilities of Nonprofit Arts Boards. You can buy them through Bookshop.org where, when you click on “Choose a Bookstore” on the upper right, you can pick a wonderful independent bookstore in your neighborhood to get their share. If you don’t care about such things, they’re on Amazon.com as well.
While you’re there, you’ll see a surprise that’s available for pre-order, which you might as well go ahead and do. More about that in August, when I return with more energy, more ideas, and, when appropriate, vitriol.
Have a lovely summer. If you need me, just shoot me an email (alan@501c3.guru) or, heaven forfend, give me a call at (425) 298-8099. Happy to help in any way I can, as always.
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