Fundraising Perspective From a Complete and Total Novice: Guest Post by Emily Sliski

20 Oct 2020 2:07 PM | Jen Burch (Administrator)


I’ve attended the sessions at conferences where our colleagues encourage us in the methods, meaning, and practices of donor development. In all of these sessions I’ve heard something along the lines of, “You can do this! State your need and folks will give.” It all seemed very Field of Dreams, “If you build it, he will come,” to me. To extend the movie metaphor, I relate most to that girl in the stands choking on a hot dog, because the idea of me asking someone for their hard earned money has always been a bit terrifying.  


Enter COVID-19, a cancelled spring retreat season, a summer without campers, and a fall retreat season full of cancelling groups. Suddenly the financial need was very real, very evident, and very much needing the attention to get over my own fears of making an ask. 


In the Susquehanna Conference, our camp and retreat centers operate as one camping ministry together.  We share budgets and resources, and collectively we knew that this pandemic meant we would need to make spending cuts, dip deep into reserves, make hard operating decisions, and ask our community of supporters to give financially so that these sacred spaces could weather this unexpected storm.  The latter of these action steps was quite intimidating as, honestly, we’d never done more than send out an end of year appeal letter to raise money. Suddenly in 2020 we were facing the reality of needing to raise $100,000 in order to sustain the ministry. If, like I was, you are still metaphorically choking on the Field of Dreams hot dog, I am here to encourage you. 


Quickly and methodically, we formed a small Donor Development Team that included two board members, a conference staffer with donor experience, our conference Director of Camp and Retreat Ministries, and myself as a representative of our center director team. Next, we identified two obvious initial tasks: we needed a reliable way to track donors and our online giving platform needed an overhaul. Our dormant donor management software was rebooted and organized, and we secured a new user-friendly online giving platform that we added to our website. Finally, a campaign plan was laid out and we created a designated campaign page for the website to transparently explain what we were asking for and why we were asking for it. 


We launched our Camp Comeback Campaign on June 13, the day we should have been kicking off our 2020 summer camping season. Four months later, we are only a few thousand dollars away from that $100,000 goal. How have we done it? We’ve asked, and people have given. It really is that simple.  Maybe that’s why our donor development pro colleagues keep saying it!  


It has been humbling and deeply encouraging to see the support come in. From the spare change a six-year old camper sent in a hand-addressed envelope, to others giving thousand dollar gifts in honor of the life-changing personal experience they had at camp decades ago – every gift reminds us that amidst this challenging season and a summer without campers present, people continue to need, love, and radically support camp. In truth, fundraising in this season has been a major motivator to me. Camp was way too quiet this summer, and I was deeply missing the summer faces, memories, and experiences. It was hard to remember why I do what I do when my summer tasks had turned from afternoon slip-n-slides and campfire worships, to cutting brush and clearing out the depths of the dreaded camp closets. Every gift that has come in during the Campaign has been a reminder of why I do this. Each giver was a witness to the fact that camp continues to matter, even when we can’t gather. We will come back after this pandemic ends, and it will be because people who love camp got us through a really challenging time. 

 

One of the most unexpected and highly successful methods we’ve found for raising funds has been the use of matching gifts. The Campaign kicked off with Matching Monday, a simple social media driven event over the course of seven weeks. We asked folks to put up matching gifts starting at $50, gradually increasing to the final amount of $5,000. With the seven weeks of giving planned and the donors to offer the matching amounts secured, we knew we could raise $18,800 over the course of the campaign event. Every Monday on our centers’ Facebook pages we announced the matching amount with a Canva-created graphic, and every Monday our community of supporters donated any amount they could to help us meet the match, understanding that their gift was doubled as soon as they gave it because it was a matching gift. We assumed it might take us several days to reach some of the matching amounts, but our community showed up week after week and met the matching amount in mere hours every Monday. After seven weeks we had raised well over $20,000, we had stayed engaged with donors over a significant span of time, and the donors started off the Campaign with the knowledge that they could make a significant impact by giving together.


Take it from me, as a complete fundraising novice who was massively uncomfortable with the thought of asking people for money: you CAN do this! The donor pros are totally right – you just have to ask people to give. Truly, it’s as simple as picking up the phone to connect with a volunteer, staff alum, camper parent, retreat leader, local church leader, or family member, and asking them to support the missions of these sacred spaces. 

 

We are camp people. We are a creative bunch!  We are also often pressed for time, money, and resources. Surround yourself with a team of other creatives willing to develop and lead mini giving events, tap into free and available resources (hello, Canva! hello, colleagues with donor insight), and get your plan in place. Make the ask, and as each donor gives, may you be reminded that your ministry is needed, beloved, and important….and that seriously asking folks for money isn’t nearly as terrifying as it sounds. 



Emily is the Center Director of Wesley Forest Camp and Retreat in central Pennsylvania. A longtime camp person, Emily’s favorite camp activities are campfire worships, building relationships with summer staff and campers, and eating Gushers from the Snack Shack. She’s a big fan of backpacking, Dolly Parton, and baking. She lives at camp with her husband, their two Springer Spaniels, and a few chickens.  



Comments

  • 23 Oct 2020 6:45 PM | Jennie Dickerson
    Emily! So excited for you all. This is great! Thanks for sharing your experience.
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