As thousands of Calgary area jobs vanished throughout 2009, some employees were so anxious about their future that they didn’t even notice their workplace United Way campaign was on. Three of Calgary’s largest companies laid off hundreds of workers in a key week of the campaign.

Yet by year’s end, the United Way of Calgary and Area had not only reached its goal of $47 million, but passed it – and squeaked by the previous year’s take of $49.5 million for good measure.

Just setting the 2009 goal was challenging enough, says president Ruth Ramsden-Wood. The board had to balance the growing needs of agencies facing their own shortfalls with the struggles the business community faced. “Calgary was firmly in recession. The signs of recovery were not evident as soon here as in other parts of the country. Input from workplaces and the business community led us to step back on our goal. It was a tough, heavily debated decision.”

Many if not most of the fundraisers I know are scrambling in what I call ‘technique frenzy’ again. By that I mean that we’re off chasing some magic bullet that’s just come onto the scene – hoping against hope that it will solve problems like attracting new donors, renewing old donors or convincing existing donors to give more.

Today’s technique frenzy, from what I can see, is almost all e-related. We had a client a few years ago who decisively declared, “By this time next year, I want all our donations to come in online.” This client had a robust direct mail program, which meant that three-quarters of their donors were age 65 or older. Given that the majority of this age group doesn’t even use email, this was a pretty unrealistic idea. Yet, he was swept up by the latest idea.

Today’s hot fundraising topic is social media. Charities everywhere are rushing to set up on Facebook, MySpace and to open Twitter accounts. There’s this hope that getting onto Facebook will bring young new donors rushing in with cash bursting from their wallets. This temptation is understandable.

If you’ve consoled yourself one too many times with the thought that a special event “raised our profile” even when it didn’t raise much money, you’ll be interested in these four tips from Event 360 to help you turn your awareness event into a fundraising event.

Craft a clear ask

Creating an effective request, says Event 360 president Jeff Shuck, is the most neglected part of any program. You must be able to describe in one sentence how your charity improves the world. Describe in one more sentence how the event will help achieve that goal. Then start asking “Will you help us by participating or donating?”

In my last article, Attracting Top Talent to your Board (CF&P, December 15, 2009), one of the points made was that top talent will assess and scrutinize an opportunity to sit on a board as diligently as they might any management position. But what criteria and issues do they look at in that assessment?

Recently I had the great pleasure of chatting with Rem Langan, a top performer from the marketing and communications field. He brings with him a wealth of experience from his key roles in one of the world’s most successful companies. His senior roles in marketing and communications include stints as chief marketing officer, then VP for McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited, and as president & CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC).

Rem is currently chairman of RMHC and is at a point in his career where he doesn’t have to do anything. But, like many top performers, there is still a lot he wants to do. He is adept at developing and implementing strategy, creative, insightful and – most important – still passionate and interested in helping great organizations.

Writing for Fundraising Success (www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com), Jeff Brooks offers these tips to improve the copy you write (or approve).

Write the call to action before you do anything else. Fundraising, says Brooks, is more about the destination than the journey. You’ll arrive a lot more successfully if you know where you’re going.

Think of 25 reasons why a donor should give to you. Then, he counsels, get rid of all the reasons that are about you and not the donor.

Ask, “How would The National Enquirer write this?” According to Brooks, The Enquirer knows the value of the amazing, the lurid, the outrageous, the unexpected — and it milks it. Are you doing that, he asks, or is your writing as colorless and purely factual as possible? The Enquirer’s approach gets more readers. It raises more funds too.

I just sat through another bad PowerPoint presentation. This one by a person with over 20 years experience in branding and marketing. Huh? How does this happen?

I’d arrived that night excited, anticipating new and interesting information on a topic I cared deeply about. After all, why else would I voluntarily submit myself to another “after work meeting?”

Why, then – two minutes into the PowerPoint – did I find myself ready to chew my own arm off to get out of the trap that was the presentation hall that night?

This predicament inspired me to tap out the following tips on behalf of future audiences everywhere. We have a short attention span, a lot on our minds, and you’ve only got us for a few minutes. Make it count.

Leadership: every nonprofit needs it. Current leaders say it’s in short supply. Recruitment experts tell us it will be in even shorter supply in the future. Staff members leave nonprofit organizations to develop their own leadership potential elsewhere. If it’s so important, why is almost no one working on it?

Ketchum Canada Inc. president and CEO Marnie A. Spears looks at the issue in the latest issue of Philanthropic Trends Quarterly. “There is no more important time than now [to address leadership development], for as we have seen over the past year, it is those organizations whose leadership is strong and who are continuing to invest in their human resources that have remained effective and progressive,” she states.

What makes a leader?

What exactly is leadership? Spears cites Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, who says leaders are ambitious for the institution, not for themselves. They blend personal humility and professional will into a quality he calls Level Five Leadership. 

We’ve grown up. “There’s greater maturity in the sector now,” explains Ontario Trillium Foundation CEO Robin Cardozo as he reviews the progress of over 100 Ontario grantees through 2009.

There’s no doubt that funding declines have hit charitable programs hard. During their late fall check-in, the charities Trillium monitors shared great concern about the challenges of meeting greater needs with less money.

Yet Cardozo concludes that more skilful governance, board effectiveness and experienced management, combined with a determination to “roll up our sleeves and make it work” rather than blaming governments or funders, are carrying those organizations more confidently through the current recession than through previous economic downturns.

On January 19, 2010, Justice Lax of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice certified a class proceeding brought on behalf of 2,825 individuals who participated in the Banyan Tree Foundation Gift Program (the “Gift Program”) against the promoters of the program and a law firm that provided legal opinions in support of the program.

This decision is significant because it is the first certification of a class action relating to leveraged donation gifting arrangements in Canada. The claim against the Gift Program promoters and the law firm will now proceed as a class action.

A new and empowering way of looking at and organizing social change! How can we move from serving soup until our elbows ache to solving chronic social ills like hunger or homelessness? How can we break the disastrous cycle of low expectations that leads to chronic social failures?

The answers to these questions lie within Momentum, a fresh, zestful way of thinking about and organizing social change work. Today’s digital tools – including but not limited to email, the Web, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), even iPods – promote interactivity and connectedness. But as Momentum shows, these new social media tools are important not for their wizardry but because they connect us to one another in inexpensive, accessible, and massively scalable ways.

Fourteen of the 29 new appointees to the Order of Ontario have been chosen at least in part for their activities in the nonprofit sector. The winners include:

Dr. Philip Berger of Toronto, a physician and leader in the fields of urban medicine, addiction, homelessness and HIV/AIDS care. He is one of the founders of OHAfrica’s Tsepong clinic, which delivers HIV/AIDS services in Lesotho.

Lawrence Bloomberg of Toronto, a businessman noted for his volunteerism and philanthropic contributions to health care, commercializing innovation and education in Ontario.

Lesley Jane Boake of Barrie, an educator and founder of Canine Opportunity, People Empowerment (COPE), an innovative service-dog training program for persons with disabilities and youth at risk of leaving school early.

Seventy million dollars and counting. That’s how much money the Canadian arms of three major aid charities (Médecins sans frontières, the Red Cross and World Vision) raised for Haitian relief work by January 25. Other international relief and development charities report unprecedented results as well. The Salvation Army received $120,000 in just a few days in its first ever text messaging campaign. The backroom technology that made it possible comes from the Mobile Giving Foundation.

What does all this mean for your charity’s prospects in 2010? We can look to the 2004 tsunami for clues. Arguably, that disaster occurred at a time when it might have had the greatest possible effect on overall fundraising – the crucial last week of opportunity for catch-up giving, scrambling procrastinators and tax-savvy donors. Yet the Association of Fundraising Professionals reported that in both Canada and the U.S., nearly two-thirds of nonprofits raised more money in 2004 than in the previous year (Canadian Fundraiser, August 31, 2005).

Golf Tournaments 101: the basics and Golf Tournaments 401: advanced tips, Frank McGrath, Golf Tournaments Incorporated. Rescheduled to Thursday, February 25, 9 a.m. – noon and 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. respectively, Osgoode Professional Development Centre, Toronto. Bonus materials include free copy of “The Complete Handbook for Planning and Implementing a Successful Fundraising Golf Tournament,” (retail value $37). Early bird $147 +GST for each workshop until February 4; $177 +GST afterwards.

http://www.canadianfundraiser.com/workshop_viewer.asp?workshop_ID=374

Donor Insights: a dull name for getting the real lowdown on what your donors want, think, believe and will respond to, Jonathon Grapsas, Pareto Fundraising. Thursday, March 11, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Osgoode Professional Development Centre, Toronto. Early bird $237 +GST to February 18, $290.85 afterwards.

http://www.canadianfundraiser.com/workshop_Viewer.asp?workshop_ID=377

There’s a new website to help the baffled executive director, chair or treasurer through the maze of regulations around receipts, records and reports for charities. Charity Tax Tools (http://charitytax.imaginecanada.ca) was unveiled January 26, the product of nearly two years’ collaborative work between Imagine Canada and Canada Revenue Agency.

It’s intended to support Canadian charities in the areas of receipting fundraising activities, maintaining books and records, and reporting accurately to CRA.