Cultural Heritage Matters

My last post outlined a basic strategy for building endowments. If you are trying to take the very first step in building an endowment for your cultural heritage institution, developing your “case for giving” should be it. Your “case for giving” is the statement you can take to all your current and potential donors to ask them about their participation in building an endowment. The Association of Fundraising Professionals has an excellent guide to help you develop your case for giving.

It is important to get a handful of big gifts for your endowment before you take your campaign to the outside world. The reason for delaying general promotion of your effort is to give your endowment a chance to be a success. If you already have half of your target goal in your endowment, other donors are going to be much more likely to contribute. It is likely that the first half of your endowment will come from one or two major donors; donors who are already committed to your cause and who also have extensive resources.

The next 25% will probably come from gifts that are still fairly significant in size. The last 25% will consist of small gifts ($500 or less). This is a standard pattern of development for endowments, according to the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Endowments have an essential place in cultural heritage institutions because they’re among the best vehicles for your donors to leave a legacy. Many major donors are interested in legacy giving. Be sure to give them ample chance to do so with your institution.

Building an endowment is one way to ensure a cultural institution’s success. But it takes time. And a lot of effort. Your entire organization will have to get on board if an endowment of any significant size is to be developed.

You’ll need to make some preparations before you go out and ask major donors for endowment money. Start with these:

• Strengthen your institution’s case for giving. Announce to donors the measures the institution has put in place (say, over the last three years) to save costs and increase productivity and relevance to the communities you serve.
• Set ambitious new goals for the director and/or major gifts officer to spend more face-to-face time with their donors and prospects. Enlist willing board members and key staff to join in the effort and provide additional support for the director/major gifts officer. Ensure that all major donors are contacted personally every three or four months and brought fully up-to-date on what’s happening in your institution.
• Make the greatest possible use of online communications such as the website, blog, electronic newsletters, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit new supporters at low cost. Reinforce messages to members and the public through other channels (such as events), and convert online activists to library donors.
• Step up donor cultivation activities and events.
• Find low-cost ways to learn more about the most loyal and generous donors, and integrate new information into personalized appeals to them.

These are the ingredients to building a strong organizational foundation for your endowment. I’ll write more about each of these components later.