Bear with me for a minute while I tell you about the link between my visit to Japan and the learnings I took from the recently launched =mc awards for excellence in arts fundraising.
Last year I went to Japan to talk about the latest techniques in fundraising. While I was there I decided to go on a sushi making course, thinking it would be fun and easy. So I booked a lesson with an ex-sushi chef who now taught this ancient culinary art to tourists.
I arrived at the house of the woman who was going to teach me to make this wonderful dish keen to get started. She took me out to the local fish market. We returned 30 minutes later with beautiful pieces of different fish and I got excited at the idea of learning to slice it exquisitely and thinly into artistic shapes.
Three hours later I was still waiting to practice my samurai skills on the fish. We hadn’t been sitting around chatting or drinking tea. Instead we had had four attempts to make the rice needed for the sushi perfectly. On the first three occasions my tough but skilled teacher had insisted we throw away the rice I had made. She politely pointed out it wasn’t perfect.
She explained to me patiently that the secret of great sushi is not in the tricksy cutting of the fish, or even the exquisite artistry of arranging it look pretty. The secret is in getting the rice exactly perfectly cooked. All the great sushi chefs, she told me, spent up to three years in junior roles learning to be able to make sushi rice perfectly every time.
It was a more than slightly Zen moment for me. But since then the mantra ‘first make rice’ has stuck with me, as a way of saying learn to do the simple things first and do them well above all.
Emcees Awards
Fast forward to the National Arts Fundraising School Emcees Awards. The awards were set up by =mc, who run the National Arts Fundraising School, in order to recognise and reward excellence in private fundraising for the arts, culture, and museum sector. Our team of judges studied various entries from all over the UK and from every artform, over a period of a month. We argued back and forth about the virtues of this campaign or that appeal. It wasn’t easy, since there were very many great entries. But in the end we came to an agreed and sensible set of awards.
As I look back on the award winners, and even the many great entries which didn’t win, the phrase, and the philosophy underpinning ‘first make rice’ comes back to me. I see some common characteristics in great fundraising of simple things done well rather than sexy tricksy activities. I think I can see five simple characteristics that might stand you in good stead if you’re thinking about planning a fundraising campaign.
Be personal
All of the really excellent campaigns we studied had a personal dimension.
Perhaps my favourite was, ironically, part of the award for best digital campaign which went to Battersea Arts Centre. But the cool bit of their campaign wasn’t actually the new digital platform they used.
Interestingly this was the only campaign that was actually nominated – twice! – by donors.
And both donors mentioned not that they had had a great secure online donations platform, or some really interesting emails, or 360° virtual reality impressions of the rebuilt great hall. Both of them praised the fact that they had received a simple handwritten postcard saying ‘thank you for the gift.’ On interviewing the art centre’s fundraiser I discovered the fundraising team had handwritten a wrist-spraining 4000 of those postcards.
The key to success was that they made the communication with donors feel personal. We can all recognise a CRM system dropping our name in. In a digital world the analogue can feel very special.
Engage donors
The Royal Opera House also did some very clever things as part of their award-winning campaign. They live streamed a performance, and had famous figures from the dance world tweeting in the breaks about the importance of giving. They also had a great proposition, to donate £35, the cost of a pair of ballet dancer’s pointe shoes. This proposition helped get around the perception of the Royal Opera House appearing only to be capable of accepting and spending huge sums of money.
Dancers hang messages of support from donors on the Royal Opera House’s Christmas tree. Photo: (c) Royal Opera House
But the very nice piece of engagement that won our votes was that donors were sent cardboard cut out pointe shoes which they could write a message on, and give back. These messages of support were then hung on the Royal Opera House’s Christmas tree for all to see. That simple act of engagement made donors, and the judges, feel involved in a very practical solvable challenge. And it showed very publicly to others and in a social way how donors felt about the cause. Great engagement is always simple.
Making it Real: for my next principle we have to go further north. Scottish Opera were trying to raise money for a refit to part of their building – specifically the entranceway and foyer. One part of the money was to make access easier. So how did they make the case for support real? The Scottish Opera team brought prospects in small groups, and asked them to walk up the three flights of steep stairs that would take some members of the audience to their seats.
Three flights of stairs is a lot. And it made each cluster of prospects aware of how challenging it would be for someone less fit, or older, or with a disability to make that journey. The act of making the stairs themselves the case for support, and undertaking the cultivation in a ‘live’ situation, is a powerful alternative to a photograph, video, or even the very best written case for support. Hats off to Scottish Opera for finding the perfect way to make someone else’s experience feel ‘real.’
Use reciprocity
Reciprocity is a key principle in all philanthropy – by doing something for someone you create a desire, and even in some sense an obligation, for them to do something for you. This is especially important in sponsorship where if you do something for a company that they really value, and want, you will secure not just a vague ‘do good’ gift or an low level CSR investment, but a significant contribution that matches the value the company receives.
So the Halle put together a really clever scheme with their corporate choirs approach. This obviously picked up on a popular theme, choirs in companies, brought to TV by Gareth Malone. The Halle set up their own version and approached a number of companies offering to help them set up corporate choirs. The companies, by and large, loved the idea since it offered a way to address a number of challenges that businesses face – low motivation among staff, breaking down barriers between teams, bringing together shopfloor workers and managers. It also provided a great way for the Halle, having given the companies something they valued, the chance to talk to companies about wider sponsorship opportunities. This innovative approach produced one brand new sponsor and a number of leads. ‘Begin with an offer not an ask’ might be another way to think of it.
Keep trying
The awards took place in the Science Museum, thanks to a very generous offer of support from one of our judges, and one of the UK’s outstanding fundraisers, Sue Fisher, until recently the director of development there.
I was reminded of a story she told of ‘pursuing’ a prospect for seven years trying to find the right moment, the right proposition, the right gift. She tried many approaches, all of which failed, but her intuition told her that she would eventually succeed. She did indeed one night – putting together an exhibition idea, a chance encounter in an elevator, and Prof Stephen Hawking with the prospect. The result was a seven figure gift.
Almost all our winners could tell similar tales of trying numerous times with prospects and not giving up. And Artichoke, who created the extraordinary festival of light in London, which won our corporate award, shared their story of the solicitation effort it had taken to secure 25+ corporate supporters who between them contributed over £1 million. You have to kiss a lot of frogs… and make a lot of rice.
Let me be clear. I’ve only had a year of learning to make rice. So I wouldn’t accept an invite to come round to my house for world class sushi… not just yet. Give me another couple of years and I’ll be starting to be good. (But hey, my current tuna pasta, practiced since student days is awesome.) But if you’re planning to do some fundraising, my suggestion is spend some time focusing on the basics and don’t get too carried away with the shiny new thing whether it’s crowdfunding, or impact investment, or millennial millionaires. First Make Rice.
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