Failure and Fundraising: The Right Kind of Fundraising Failures
When we apply learning from Amy Edmondson’s book to Feasibility Studies and other fundraising risks, it helps us fail in an environment where we can save the failing efforts before they become a massive failure. This learning really instructs our organizational leaders on which fundraising risks are worth failing for and what can be learned from a small failure before launching something massive. - John Sullivan, on Edmondson's (2023) "Right Kind of Wrong
Cognitive Psychological Scientist, principal of The Learning Scientists, and professor, Dr. Cynthia Nebel would have something to say about how infrequently I include retrieval cues in this blog. (Retrieval Practice in the Classroom: Is Asking Questions Enough?)
“How are your readers supposed to actually ‘get’ this stuff if you don’t practice retrieval?” Those aren’t her words, and Dr. Nebel hasn’t been critical of my blog, but I get the feeling she’d want to “see a little more” retrieval and learning. **Similarly, she wanted to “see a little more” in a few white papers I turned in last year.
So here is our retrieval practice before we learn something new. And don’t just say “oh yeah, I knew that.” Dr. Nebel already put us on to your game. (*see footnote)
Yeah! or Nah! | Risk must not be avoided or minimized in organizations.
Yeah! or Nah! | Risks are not all the same. And neither are the consequences.
Yeah! or Nah! | The best leaders rarely protect and shield teams from risk.
Yeah! or Nah! | Board members have responsibility in discerning risk-taking.
Yeah! or Nah! | Risk taking can only occur in the unknown or uncharted space.
Yeah! or Nah! | Risk aversion is safe-zone leadership and Safe zone leadership cannot grow.
Answer Key HERE
Our new topic is a tactical one. We’re coming down out of the clouds of theory and grounding the Right Kind of Wrong conversation in fundraising (you may call it Advancement, Development, Revenue Line Item Number 2). We are going to visit two common failure items and then stare down Feasibility Studies before we wrap up. If you don’t want to read the whole blog, then this TLDR is for you: In the end, failing relationally is better than succeeding transactionally.
Getting Told “No”
Getting told “no” must be a common reality in your world if you are asking frequently enough for a gift, a commitment, or a deeper partnership. Rarely being told “no” is your first clue to ask more. But asking always includes risk. Being told “yes” or “no” is always in the context of some risk being taken. And when the answer is “no,” then that truly is a failure. [sigh…we’ve all been there.]
So, being told “no” is a failure. But is it an intelligent failure?
That’s the best question to ask. Because it depends. Let me be clear. Being told “no” when the ask isn’t an intelligent risk…that is a bad failure and not an intelligent failure. So, what is the difference?
Relationship
Research
Records
I didn’t create that list. But it’s comprehensive enough for purposes in this article.
*Since many fundraising professionals follow this blog, I am sure many of you have drafted a better “what makes fundraising successful” list than the 3 r’s.*
No matter what your alliterating words are, there is a method and process for getting to intelligent risk with a donor. Intelligent asking comes after relational investment has been made, proper understanding of the donor and her/his/their desires, and you have made a time and energy investment in them. If you get told “no,” then you took an intelligent risk and have made an intelligent failure.
Ghosting and Communication Gaps
I would be willing to bet that if you are in a role where you have been told “no” a number of times, then you have been ghosted or screened way more than told “no.” Ghosting may or may not be an intelligent failure - I keep changing my mind on whether it is or not actually. But I do know this. It feels like an intelligent failure.
In our work with leaders, capital campaigns, and advancement strategy, we almost always deal with the realities of broken communication–often without warning. Being ghosted or broken off always intersects with the loss that comes with failure and the curiosity that maybe it isn’t actually a “no.” Talk about liminal awkwardness. If you’re anything like me, you have probably written mental script after mental script as to why the person ghosted you. The Richie Rich scene where they’re all in the boat after the sniffer detects the TNT is my go to. My contact wants to make a donation, enroll, sign an agreement…it’s just that their plane went down in the ocean and everyone is in an inflatable raft trying to get back to me…erg…my company.
When ghosting happens, our advice is this: Sorry. They may call back. Probably not. But if they do, try to be a little less awkward than I was the first time [my now wife] Brittany called me. You’re going to feel like a failure. Time for failure recoil.
Fundraising Failure Bonus: The WRONG Kind of Wrong in fundraising is and always will be ‘failing to ask.’
“You do not have, because…”
Feasibility Studies & the Beauty of “Missing It” the First Time
There is one kind of intelligent failure in Advancement (or Development if you call it that) that I want to argue should be the counterpart to every major initiative or campaign - Feasibility Study. Think of the Feasibility Study as a new initiative handcuff. There is no initiative without conducting a study first. They are as inextricably linked as purchasing one left shoe and one right shoe.
A Feasibility Study is research. It is discovery. It is a reconnaissance mission. It is gift surfacing.
Well, that’s what it does. It IS a carefully planned qualitative study (with some mixed in quantitative data) that affords organizational leadership some early insights in campaign success before a campaign is waged. When done well, the organization carries some predictability into the very important work of capital fundraising.
What does Feasibility Study have to do with Intelligent Failure?
The Feasibility Study is designed to cultivate and get feedback from a small sample of donors. This is an intelligent risk strategy due to the limitation of key partners that get to “see behind the curtain” of your plans. This smaller cadre of missional partners, when their feedback is sought, can give you generalizable input that represents your larger donor universe.
The Feasibility Study is designed to be inquiry first. Think about how many times your donors are engaged with the big 3: an ask, a thank you, an impact moment. Those are critical aspects of donor communication; however, they won’t help your organization stand out in the same way an invitation for research does. “You want me to help you? You want to interview me? You want my feedback?” Again, see answer here.
The third thing that Feasibility Studies have to do with intelligent failure is a learning component. Suppose your building project included 4 components that your leadership is crazy about. Suppose again that 70% of your donors will be crazy about 3 components–but not the fourth. Conducting a Feasibility Study with a small sample of donors limits the swing-and-a-miss on that fourth component before your entire donor group sees a plan that isn’t likely to be funded. Simple math here, but let’s assume your donor base is 1,000 households. If 25 households are interviewed, 100% of them love the idea of components 1-3, but only 25% of them get excited about component 4, then your leadership can adjust or remove component four before you take it to 975 donors. Based on the ratio of the study, you are putting a project with near 100% support in front of 975 households instead of a project with 75% support in front of 1,000 households. You will learn your lesson that component four isn’t going to work; wouldn’t you rather learn that lesson from 25 rather than 1,000?
Your key partners won’t mind helping you arrive at a better project and plan. This is the relational piece to the Feasibility Study. When I tell you that I trust you enough to get your feedback, and when I tell you that your feedback has real influence over our decisions, then a key relational thing is being done. The negativity in “missing” the key interests of a donor household with the “perfectly” cast project is completely overcome by asking for them to help you shape the project better.
That shortlist packs a punch, but I think you’ll see the bigger impact when I present a case (based on the list above) where an organization DOESN’T conduct a Feasibility Study.
The campaign plan gets released broadly. It is the plan, and you’re standing behind it. If your donors are behind it too, they’ll support it. If they aren’t behind it, your significant campaign goal won’t be met. If it is a miss or a near miss, the collateral impact will be 100% of your donor base.
“With your good ideas, and our good financial ability…we might accomplish something together.” This is NOT what you want to hear from your donors. Even if they don’t say it, if that is implied by your interactions always revolving around money and not feedback, they will care (of course they will…you would too). The organization missed a remarkable opportunity for distributed leadership and feedback to occur in the campaign.
The project is good…almost. The case for support is excellent…almost. But about 20% of your donors don’t like one aspect of it. But that aspect is included in a full-throated way in your marketing materials. Uh oh. Your support is vastly lower from that 200.
Your key partners are seeing the project for the first time in its fully-baked form. When the donors see it, it is final. The pages are glossy. Your marketing team nailed the messaging and brand scheme. Imagine for a second that you are baking for a world-class chef. Imagine that chef wants to love your dish as much as you want her/him to love your dish. When do you show the world-class chef what you are making? We must not forget that our key partners (our donors) are actually really good at giving feedback and perspective. They have gifts (sometimes greater than our own) in design, shaping process, and making key master planning decisions. If the cake is baked, the chef can only taste it and decide if she/he likes it.
Conclusion
There is no good reason NOT to do a Feasibility Study for every significant fundraising initiative your organization pursues. There is cost in doing a Feasibility Study. Feasibility Studies aren’t inexpensive. But they are well worth the peace of mind that comes with knowing how your project will land with your broadest group of donors. The ROI on a Feasibility Study is massive if your donors protect you from launching an initiative that is unlikely to be supported. The relational equity gained in asking for early engagement like this will be valuable to your organization for years if not decades. Inviting your partners to join you in research gives your mission credibility and a sophistication of process that will impress and give confidence to your closest partners. And finally, it is intelligent risk that will succeed or end in intelligent failure. (Time for failure rebound).
*Taken from the Learning Scientists Blog: It is not enough to ask questions during lecture because students are unlikely to engage in covert retrieval unless they are pushed to do so. Instead, try having students write down an answer and then possibly share that answer with a partner or the class, but they need to engage in their own retrieval first. Simply asking students to engage in retrieval is not enough as many will likely wait for the answer and then engage in a recognition process (“Oh yeah, I knew that”) instead of recalling the response for themselves.
