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For Land TrustsFor Land Trusts

Keep fundraising

Source: 
Saving Land magazine, Summer 2020
Author: 
Compiled by Christina Soto

The pandemic has dealt nonprofits around the world a significant blow; however, many nonprofits and the organizations that support them have sent out messages containing advice, resources and hope to help with recovery.

The Land Trust Alliance collected advice on navigating federal resources made available to land trusts to create its COVID-19 Resources for Land Trusts webpage and has been compiling other advice and lessons to put on the Learning Center gleaned from multiple sources, including that collected during meetings of land trust leaders.

To begin with a hopeful message, here’s one from a March 18 email from the National Council of Nonprofits. When the world was starting to realize just how bad things could get, the Council was calmly asserting the global need for nonprofits (emphasis added):

You matter. Indeed, the work that nonprofits do will matter even more in the weeks and months ahead as the novel coronavirus disease reshapes everyone’s daily lives. Yes, that work is being challenged in ways and at a scale we’ve not experienced before, with demands shifting while resources change in amounts (dollars) and locations (people). But the core of our work and values has not changed: we exist for people in our communities.

Keep in Touch

A common thread in advice we’ve been seeing is: Keep in touch. Donors need to hear from you. They need to hear that you care about them and they need to hear how the land trust they support is doing.

Impact Communications, a fundraising creative agency based in Washington, D.C., posted “10 Tips for Communicating with Donors During a Crisis” on its blog, opening with advice about “what can you do NOW to strengthen donor relationships and minimize the impact on your campaigns?” 

Here are two tips from Impact:

  1. Conduct a regular, short communications meeting that includes people, across multiple departments, who communicate with your donors and the public. This might be daily or two times a week. Especially now, it’s important for your messaging to be consistent from all departments.
  2. Make sure that the fundraising messages you are sending deliver a clear and compelling description of YOUR urgent need for funds. If donors are forced to support fewer charities, make sure they understand why your organization should stay on the top of their list.

“But urgent does not mean panicked,” clarifies Elizabeth Ward, the Alliance’s vice president of communications. “Donors want to know that you have a plan for advancing your work in the face of the crisis. They want to see that you are strategic. Yes, you urgently need support, but it’s not a message of ‘Help, we can’t make payroll.’ It’s ‘Our work is important, and with your support we can make it through this crisis.’”

Julie Whelan Capell of Mayes | Wilson & Associates, LLC, which has specific expertise working with conservation minded individuals, organizations and land trusts, writes:

… we’ve gone from business as usual, to social distancing measures that have forced most organizations to cancel or postpone the special events, lunches and donor engagement activities essential to meeting end-of-year income goals.

In this situation, it’s tempting to throw previous plans out the window, downsize fundraising staff, cut back on spending and wait the crisis out. In the 2008 financial crisis we learned organizations that reduced their fundraising efforts suffered the most. Organizations that did not stay in touch with their donors, were not transparent, or otherwise failed to communicate why they deserved continued donor support did not survive the downturn.

What to Say

David Allen, of Development for Conservation, has been a staple at the Alliance’s Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference for several years. Like Mayes | Wilson, he knows land trusts and land conservation. He has been writing blog posts on his website with advice on fundraising during this crisis, but he has also offered to be a resource, saying “pop me an email at David@ DevelopmentForConservation.com.”

In his post “Coronavirus and Fundraising – Letting Emotional Words Flow,” Allen shares his picks of language contained in emails he’s seen from land trusts to their communities and donors. He is practicing what he preaches. “Share. What are you doing that the rest of us can learn from? In the comments to last week’s blog, one writer was livestreaming the release of a red-tailed hawk. Another was sharing a monitoring visit on social media. What are YOU doing?”

A message from Tim Gliddon of the accredited Maine Coast Heritage Trust takes the long view:

I don’t know how this pandemic will play out—none of us knows—but there’s one thing I’m able to promise you: the land we’ve protected together will still be here when we are on the other side of this. And, in the midst of so much uncertainty, we continue to protect and care for land along this coastline we love.

Jill Boullion of the accredited Bayou Land Conservancy in Texas says that BLC is creating content such as a weekly “Ask An Ecologist” segment on Facebook Live and is also encouraging supporters to share photos of how they are social distancing in nature by tagging BLC on Instagram. She says:

As I write this from my home office, the thought of a walk in my neighborhood later today makes me happy. Like me, you know that access to outdoor space is important to our health and well-being, perhaps now more than ever. Bayou Land Conservancy’s public preserves, and the Spring Creek Nature Trail, have been a lifeline to families during the coronavirus crisis. Thanks to you for making these special places possible!”

 Heidi Habeger of the accredited Groundswell Conservancy in Wisconsin, tells Allen, “Our board specifically asked us to send something to supporters, in addition to what had already gone out (two good news announcements on project closings), so [Executive Director] Jim [Welsh] took advantage of our eNewsletter to do that. Our goal is to continue to provide ‘good news’ and show how their gift is being used.”

And Allen continues to hear from land trusts with good news. “One story was of an endowment donor who was making six-figure pledge payments. The outreach resulted in her releasing at least one of the payments from restrictions, allowing the land trust to use the money for more pressing operational needs,” he writes. Allen reminds us that donors care. One wrote to the land trust they support: “Thanks for the words of encouragement. I find strength walking these bluffs every day. The Conservancy has an enduring mission that will only gain more importance and appreciation on the other side of this crisis. May you and your staff and your families stay well.”

This is how you fundraise in a crisis.

Read the Summer 2020 issue of Saving Land here

Websites

  • Impact Communications
  • Julie Whelan Capell 
  • David Allen

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