As a fundraiser, part of the deal is showing up.  My clients know that on New Year’s Eve, I call each of them.  If I get them, I offer them my best holiday wishes and cheer.  If I don’t reach them, they get THE LECTURE.

Believe me, you don’t want THE LECTURE.

Here is the nice version.

As an eager young fundraiser working for Washburn University, I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to work on December 31.  So I was there.

A law graduate of the University, John Shamberg, had told me all year long that he was going to gift some land to his synagogue, his private K-12 School and Washburn Law School.  I didn’t think much about it other than I remembered his promise.

On December 31, John called me.  He told me a story that has made millions of dollars for institutions all over the world.  Typical of lawyers, he had put off his gift of land until the very last minute.  His 40 acres was on the outskirts of Kansas City - 119th and Blackbaud Road – and it was worth $450,000.  His intention was for each institution to get $150,000.

Guess what?  When he called the synagogue, no one answered.  When he called the K-12 School, again no one answered.  When he called Washburn, Bob answered.  John, who has since passed away, said, “Bob, you just won the jackpot!”

Washburn got the land.  Not that we didn’t have to work for it.  I had to go to John’s office; there was paperwork that had to be filed.  It was New Year’s Eve and the Register of Deeds had closed, so we couldn’t file the transfer.  Those of you close to the law will understand - we had to go to the property and claim it.  Our Dean, Carl Monk, came to Kansas City from Topeka and he, John and I went to this then remote location.

John and Carl went to the center of the property, where John said, in his loudest voice, “I declare that this property has been given by me, John Shamberg, to Washburn University Law School and its Dean, Carl Monk.”

Carl then moved to the center of the space and announced to no one, “I, Carl Monk, Dean of the Washburn Law School accept and receive this land on behalf of the School.”

We then all had a glass of wine and celebrated.

Well, Washburn kept that land for many years and sold it for nearly $4 million a couple of years ago. Not a bad gift, John.

When I was a fundraising staff person, that story kept me by the phone at the end of the year for my entire career.  Bob, who owned a manhole company, called and gave $47,000 in closely held stock.  Frank and Patsy made a million dollar payment on their pledge.  Sylvia finally decided it was time to endow that opera scholarship and wrote a check for $100,000.

Every year, something happened and it still does.

Well, you don’t know when, you don’t know how, you don’t know why.  But if you are my client, I will be calling to see if you nonprofits are open and ready to accept an end of the year gift.

Trust me, it might be worthwhile to be in.  There’s a good chance your John Shamberg will call.

Dan Moore, a great friend of Hartsook and former senior executive with Guidestar and now the owner of his own consulting practice–cleverly called Dan Moore Consulting—was the most recent visiting lecturer for the Hartsook Institutes Masters in Fundraising Management class at Avila University in Kansas City.

Dan is the “go to” resource for an understanding of government regulation of both the fundraiser and the fundraising professional in America. I first met Dan at a Blackbaud joint-sponsored program in DC last year.  After the first of the year, I need to write a blog on Dan’s view of regulation and how nonprofits need to manage it.  Like they have so often, our students at Avila get to talk to the prominent people of our profession. Dan is one of them.

Usually, by the second paragraph I’ve gotten to my point.  Let’s get to Dan’s point.

The charitable deduction is at risk.  Readers here know that while we are obviously against such a move, we are at least talking about it, unlike so many that put their collective heads in the sand.

Dan told a story that is an old fable, but is pertinent in this context.  If you think about breakfast (I am on Weight Watchers, so I think about breakfast all the time) there are two major players in your eggs and bacon: the chicken and the pig.  The chicken is involved; but the pig is committed.  That is literally “skin in the game.”

Well, for the charitable deduction, we as fundraisers have skin in the game.  Thank you, Center on Philanthropy and others who have done analysis of the impact of the President’s tax increase on wealthy people by changing the tax deduction.

They report that about one billion will be lost in the first year and a couple or more in subsequent years.  That has been characterized in the nonprofit media as modest.  Where were those headlines when giving went down in 2008 and 2009?  You would have thought the world was coming to an end when giving went down the same percentages.

My point isn’t to take sides here.  No, wait . . . I am taking sides.  We allow our political leaders on both sides to begin to erode the charitable deduction, and it is a slippery slope to reduced philanthropy in America.

And more important it is naive to be giving up on the deduction loss so early in the debate.  One writer with the Nonprofit Quarterly commented, “Since the loss is so modest, is it worth the fight?”  As a former lobbyist, I submit that in these early days of a serious debate, that position is a strange one for us to take.

Those who say we should take our share of the cuts are forgetting that the burden of our society is being passed on to the nonprofit world by the government cuts that are taking place.

Finally, this is going to go on for the election year.  I don’t see this change occurring before the election and if it did, it won’t impact until 2014.  But headlines announcing the deduction has been saved are over stated and premature.

For a couple of days, I’m going to “stick my head in the sand” and enjoy the holidays.  But I won’t stay there, and I hope you don’t either.  We have a powerful voice on this and other issues.  Let’s use it in 2012.

Holidays give me time to ponder.  I’m sure some of the Hartsook staff wish I wouldn’t think so much because I have a reputation of making more work for everyone.  But this Thanksgiving, I didn’t think of more we needed to do to grow philanthropy.  Instead, I was in a very reflective frame of mind.  I thought of three who are not merely making a difference in growing philanthropy, but who have reached “legend” status.

You know Hartsook Institutes gives the Growing Philanthropy Award to individuals and institutions that demonstrate fundraising success through innovation and creativity.  You have read their names, you have seen the announcements, and some of you have even been present when we gave the awards.

Just for a moment, I invite you to look at the back story of three of the legends who received the awards with lessons that can help us emulate them and grow philanthropy.

Most recently, Roger Lowe, retired Senior Vice President of Wichita State University, received the award.  Some of you may have thought, “CFO’s are usually pains in the neck to fundraisers, dismissing estate designations, discounting pledge values, and wanting only unrestricted money and money they can ‘book.’”  Right?

Well, Roger is different.  He does not impede the fundraiser; rather, he tries to remove obstacles so money can be raised.  Imagine!  Let’s say you have a restricted gift to do a project, but not quite enough.  Roger searches for ways to legitimately use other funds to help reach the goal.  Or what if your CEO wants you to raise money for a project that isn’t very flashy. Roger jumps in, looking at alternatives.  To him, where the money comes from isn’t as important as getting the project done. Roger is a rare breed of CFO.  He is a rare problem solver and a good fundraisers greatest ally.

Next, Harvesters, Kansas City’s Food Bank’s Karen Haren and Joanna Sebelien took an idea of creating broadly restricted targets – Initiatives – of Child Hunger, Family Feeding, Nutrition, and Senior Feeding to present their case.  Instead of whining about hunger, they demonstrated how they were going to solve a problem.  It was not a public relations stunt when they brought their CFO (another good CFO model) to the same table and worked on an Initiative Budget for the entire organization.  They presented the cost of each program from a comprehensive point of view.

As a result, they have grown annual fundraising from $2 million a year to $14 million in six years.  Their own national organization gave them an award for this, then didn’t follow their example.  While they’re having a big year in fundraising, they are laying off people because they didn’t do the budget relieving part of the strategy.   They didn’t understand that it’s not a gimmick.  It’s real, dedicated organizational change.

Finally, our own Chair in Fundraising, at Indiana University, and his colleague, Jen Shang gave us the research on bequest pledging.  Among the findings is a simple, transformative idea that everyone can make a bequest just as they can an annual fund gift.  This 2008 research is slowing catching on.  We have three bequest pledging organizations in which the numbers are fantastic all over.  In less than 10 months, Tulsa Boys Home asked each of their 44 board members to give through a bequest.  Only one turned them down and they have nearly $5 million committed in six months.

As a national organization, The Heritage Foundation has the challenge of communicating with their donors through direct response and then following up.  Asking for bequests, they have closed 221 bequests this year valued at over $20 million, almost three times the average of previous years.

Finally, the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City is in a campaign but has discovered the inclination of their membership to give has raised $5 million in bequests just from their Board of twelve.  In the Sargeant/Shang research you’ll learn that an agency is 17 times more likely to get an estate gift if they ask.

At Wichita State University, thirty million dollars was raised from 276 donors as a result of the Bequest Giving Strategy; over $75 million in fundraising growth because an organization was thinking from the donor’s point of view and established a partnership with the CFO instead of focusing on the competition.  This innovation changed the direction of a university.

Some may dismiss this as just another series of random stories and situations.  No, each of these was as a result of a strategy to grow philanthropy in America and in the world.

What is different here is that we observed, watched and recognized with the Growing Philanthropy Award, that each model of behavior can change fundraising in the world.

This past holiday, that’s what I thought about.  It was a great a Thanksgiving.

For now 11 years I have had the pleasure of being counsel to Harvesters - The Community Food Network for the 26 counties surrounding Kansas City.  I have been very vocal about their outstanding CEO, great Chief Resource Officer and the young, strong Development Director and her cadre of fundraisers.  They have been #1 in my book for many years.

Now Feeding America is lavishing praise on this organization.  At their national conference in Las Vegas last month, Harvesters was named the 2011 Food Bank of the Year by Feed America, the nation’s food bank network.  This national award annually recognizes the outstanding food bank in the country for exemplifying the highest standards in fulfilling its mission to feed the hungry.  Harvesters was recognized with awards for top CEO, top fundraising, and top many other things.  The strength and determination of their leadership made them the #1 Food Bank in America.

Congratulations and well-deserved!

Now my challenge to Harvesters, as well as the many others who are recognized for your achievements, is to not squander the opportunity to describe to your constituents why you are special.  To humbly accept the heartfelt but trite comment I made above about you always being number one to me is an insufficient response.  We have our donors, our political leaders, and our community’s attention.  Now, let’s use this opportunity to tell them why we are special.

Several years ago I had a hospital client that was named in the top 10 of its specialty in the country by a major international publication.  They wasted this opportunity with a nice press conference thanking employees, board, community all good things, but not highlighting the impact they had in their field of medicine and illustrating what advantages their community has—not because of the award, because of what it took to achieve the award.

Just a few months ago one of the major benefactors of this institution asked me why this award was not better acknowledged nationally and internationally, and I told him the story above.

It is not self promotion or egotistical to illustrate your strengths.  Our capitalistic system is based on distinguishing one business from another.  The nonprofit world is no different.

Many of you know I am from Kansas so grew up knowing Bob Dole. I prepared a recognition piece based on an experience with Bob just recently.  When he ran for President, the Saturday Night Live skits about him jabbed the way he talked about himself in the third person.  “Bob Dole thinks this,” he would say.  Mocking our political leaders is great sport for SNL and I am the last to criticize it, since I laughed and repeated the highlights on Monday like everyone else.  But as I think about it, I wonder if his habit isn’t based on deep-rooted, Midwestern modesty that says it is impolite to talk about oneself.  My mother insisted that I was to always to write “we” rather than “I” so as not to draw attention to oneself.  As most of you know, I have failed miserably at that second part.

My point is that perhaps the reason we don’t effectively use awards like this is that we don’t want to appear to be self-serving.

Okay, here is why Harvesters won this award.

• Developing the largest BackSnack program in the world, bringing weekend food to over 13,000 elementary children during the school year annually.
• Increasing the distribution of food to its member agencies by nearly 40% during this recession.
• Creating a work environment that has an 82% retention rate for employees.
• Adding a new distribution site in Topeka to meet the needs of a growing hunger problem in Kansas.
• Increasing fundraising by 115% during the Great Recession when many other nonprofits are wringing their hands about declining giving.

Now I could go on and on, you can bet Harvesters will spread the recognition for this achievement to everyone.  And while their doing so, but will talk about the one out of eight persons in Kansas City who benefits from the community’s support of its top ranked food bank.

When you receive an award, remember that while you deserve it, the real opportunity to bask in the limelight lies not with you, but your mission.

You are the best.  For those you serve and for the future of your organization, say it loud and proud.

As an outspoken fundraiser, I have no choice—I have to address the NPR fundraising scandal.  On the heels of an unscientific, online survey posted on the AFP website that was heralded as the ethics challenges facing the profession . . . well, maybe ethics are worse than I thought.  Clearly stupidity is.

I’ve earned a reputation for pushing the envelope as far as anyone in the profession.  I am outspoken, so I am sure I have said things I shouldn’t have.  This might be one of those times, but I’ve got to say it: where is common sense?

Ninety nine percent of the time, donors are professional—business men and women who love what you do and support the mission of your work.  As a matter of fact, they are overwhelmingly great human beings.  But every now and then, they are not.  In fact, a few are scum.  And what is your tolerance of scum?  That is when the ethics come into play, and nothing beats sticking close to the mission, common sense and the law.  Oh, and thinking.

What is bad is when the fundraiser is also scum.  And because of this very small percentage of fundraisers, the entire profession gets a bad rap.

I was featured in the Inside Higher Ed discussion about the Congressman Charlie Rangel solicitation of a corporation for which he had congressional oversight.  I was asked to comment on the ethics of the university fundraiser as the gift was being solicited.  I defended the fundraiser because Rangel approved, the donor corporation approved, and the college president approved.  Where does the fundraiser’s degree of responsibility begin and end?

But with NPR, the fundraiser is leading this mess, so let’s point our collective finger at him.  Yeah, I know it was a set up and we can talk about that all day.  But the Governor of Wisconsin was set up by a liberal guy; NPR was set up by a conservative guy.  Even?

Do I agree with the tactics of either?  Of course not.  But hey, where have you been?  This is reality.
What shouldn’t happen is a retreat from aggressive and creative fundraising.  The NPR people made it personal, and personal opinions began to drive the conversation.  That was unnecessary, inappropriate and out of place.

While gift reporting—or lack of—might seem unseemly, it isn’t.  Plenty of donors, for various personal and other reasons, don’t want the gift reported and acknowledged.

Ethics isn’t the issue.  The fundraisers I’ve known and respected don’t need to be taught ethics—they know how to be and how to do business.  The issue is who we hire to represent and raise money for us.

In my company, along with hiring the best fundraisers in the world—those who are interested in growing philanthropy and their own profession—we have solid, non-negotiable criteria for employment: THINK.

It seems NPR should have made that the first job requirement.