Raising funds

For years, not-for-profit organizations of all stripes were able to rely on just a few sources of income. Not anymore. Today, keeping diverse revenue streams up and running is necessary for success and sustainability.

Scientific research organizations were fueled by NIH grants; conservation organizations could depend on membership dues; tuition almost equaled the cost educating a student; and a performing arts organization's ticket sales came close to meeting expenses.

But in today's crowded, competitive non-for-profit landscape, with the ebb and flow (mostly ebb) of traditional funding sources, all mission-driven organizations need to keep a portfolio of income sources healthy. This means communicating and building relationships with more (and more varied) constituent groups than was necessary in the past.

Our approach

At Sametz Blackstone, we work with a wide range of mission-driven organizations to develop the strategic brand platforms and targeted tactical communications needed to build different sources of income. We collaborate to increase sales of tickets and memberships, monies from corporate partnerships and sponsorships, funding from foundations, and philanthropic dollars from individuals—through annual giving, major and planned gifts, and capital campaigns.

A strong brand helps all these efforts. A recognized, understood brand helps to get your main messages out in front of a meeting or a phone call; connects your value and values to those of prospects; and goes a long way toward proving that you're the best organization through which a prospect can invest to realize a shared vision.

But because neither your organization nor your constituents are monolithic, we collaborate to define different "ways in" to an organization, different points of resonance that open and advance dialogue, different "tilts" of main messages. For different constituent groups, we help to define the intersection of what you do well and seek to advance—and what these prospects and organizations care about and will support. We then help clients to make the most of this correlation of vision and value by crafting values-based messages and materials that deepen connections and relationships.

In practice…

Long-reliant on a large number of small gifts, the American Cancer Society (New England Division) needed to turn that equation around and develop capabilities and materials to support major giving in order to realize their capital campaign. We collaborated to distill their messages, develop strategies and materials that help people with different interests connect to the campaign, and provide the thinking and tools to make leadership, staff, and volunteers better ambassadors to major donors.

Working with Mass Audubon, we helped identify new areas of potential support for their capital campaign, and then built a flexible, modular case that would appeal to this broader base. We created messages—and collected the stories to prove them—that would advance conversations with people who care about birds and land, as well as with people who approach the environment from a systems point of view, care deeply about nurturing the next generation of environmental leaders, or who are passionate about ensuring that all children experience nature first hand.

For over a decade we've worked with the Boston Symphony Orchestra to both reinforce its brand—and the brands of Tanglewood, Boston Pops, and Symphony Hall—and to create the visual system and targeted communications that support diverse income streams: materials that support subscription, single-ticket, and group sales; annual, major, and planned giving; and corporate sponsorship.

At the Office of Resource Development at Harvard Medical School, we worked with an interdisciplinary team to develop different donor entry points: some prospects are motivated to support research aimed at alleviating suffering caused by a specific disease; some are interested in leveraging the strength of Harvard Medicine to bring about sweeping, transformational change in health and healthcare across the planet; others connect to training the physicians and researchers of tomorrow; still others want to invest in the fundamental research that drives concentric rings of discoveries, treatments, and cures. For all these different people, we collaborated to provide a path—one that is at once donor-centric and mission-focused—that connects individual motivations and passions to the School's institutional priorities.

Advance the conversations

Long-term success, sustainability, and the ability to effect positive change, require diverse revenue streams. A strong brand—and a communications program that engages each funding source in a voice that resonates—can make all the difference.