PF Whiteboard

Ten minutes ago, a man just walked in to our office. He was wearing a slightly weathered Panama hat and kind of looked like he’d stepped right off a sailing boat in the Caribbean. He pulled out a bright blue padded envelope. ‘This is for Dave Peery’.

Dave was sitting opposite me at the time, so the guy swiftly handed Dave the envelope and hotfooted it out the door. The blue envelope had snowflakes on it and was marked with a black sharpie: ‘Private and Confidential’. Given the unusual drop-off and the intriguing presentation we were both pretty anxious to see what was inside. It was a printed slide deck pitch for a youth organisation seeking funding. We can only assume the anonymous delivery man was the founder of the org.

I’m not suggesting this is how everyone get in touch with us, but this definitely wins the award for most mysterious first impression. And we will, of course, get back to them.

We just offered to make intros/recommendations to 7 different funders/supporters on behalf of one of our SE partners. This doesn’t happen every day, so how did it occur?

It was check in time for one of our Global Partners this week. They sent us over internal materials (already prepared, not specific for us) for review before the call. One of the documents was an asset map -a full list of all the potential and current asset providers on the org’s radar. Sending this was a very smart move.

It’s only the second time we’ve had a SE send us their asset map in full -often times partners highlight a few key relationships they are focusing on building, or give us a verbal run down of the funders they are preparing proposals for. A full asset map lays it all out there: Organisation, Primary contact, Deadline, Current status, Funds expected, Likelihood for success, etc. It included both current and potential supporters, financial and non financial supporters. We had a complete picture of who this organisation had talked to, who they decided it was not worth talking to, and who they were currently talking with. We also saw who they had approached but had not been a fit.

As a funder who adamantly believes in the missions of the organisations they support, wants to be supportive beyond simply cutting a cheque, and is operating with a lean team, this information is huge. We looked down the list and immediately saw a bunch of people in the ‘high likelihood’ category, with whom the Peery Foundation has strong enough relationships with that we’d be happy to make a recommendation. Some of those people are folks that the SE did not know we knew -they would never have known to specifically ask us for a connection to them. Sharing everything helped us see what was most needed (that we might not previously have been aware of) and thus where we could really help.

It’s also impressive from a funder perspective. We have a greater belief in this SE’s self-awareness, level of strategic thinking and relationship savvy.

I’m trying to think of situations where you wouldn’t want to share this info… but if you have funders that you trust and who trust you then it might be worth sharing your full asset map with them. You never know what networks they’ll be able to open up for you.

Here’s a great idea that we’ve been able to see in action and are now recommending to anyone who will listen!

In 2009 VisionSpring, began to let their funders know that they would be hosting reporting calls on a quarterly basis. They would prepare their slide deck report, with updates on their key metrics and organisational developments, send it out to their funders, and present it with commentary on the conference call. All the funders who called in got the most up to date information, and could then ask questions about the report or other things not included in the report. VisionSpring also asked for feedback on what else people would like to see in the report.

This was great for a number of reasons: 1) VisionSpring answered the common questions only once for everyone to hear, 2) we all got to connect with each other as funders with common priorities, 3) we got to learn from each other’s line of questioning, 4) everyone stayed on schedule. It saved us all time, but especially the VisionSpring team, who hopefully got to spend less time telling us what they did and more time doing what they do: reducing poverty through preparing Vision Entrepreneurs. I asked Malini Krishna, VP of Business Development for their perspective on other benefits or challenges this process brought VisionSpring.

“From VisionSpring’s perspective, the overall value of the quarterly dashboard calls is efficiently communicating our operational progress and collecting feedback to strengthen our programs and fundraising, which is critical to a small, resource constrained organization. I think the biggest challenge for VisionSpring with the calls is ensuring we have all the data in place to ensure we are transparent to our major donors. However, the time invested in this process is well worth it with the benefits we gain. Some of our funders have required/requested additional reporting to meet our grant terms, but we are usually better prepared because of this consistent communication and can better plan for additional presentations.”

There you have it. An organisation, for the most part, dictating the reporting terms for its funders. More efficient, more effective, perhaps even more fun. If you already do this/or decide to give it a try let us know how it works for you.