Thursday, 10 Apr 2003

PORTLAND, Ore.

Fundraising is one of those tasks that always seems to get pushed to the bottom of the list of things to do. Most people who work for nonprofits take on the low pay and long hours because we want to make a difference. It is often difficult to pull myself away from the work I feel so strongly about to go in search of money, even though I know that fundraising is undoubtedly the most important task for our organization. Without funds we cannot work!

So today was my day to catch up on fundraising. I am working on our spring appeal, a report, and new proposal to a foundation that funded our endangered-species program. Luckily, I have Dave Johnson on staff as membership and development coordinator. Dave manages all of our membership databases, handles all of the mail, enters all of the donations, ensures that mailings go out on time, and researches potential foundations and major donors. We work together on our spring and fall appeals, major donor letters, and proposal writing.

The spring appeal is sent to all of our members who did not respond to our fall appeal. Members that have given us dues in the last few months don’t receive the spring appeal, either. (If any members are reading this — send in your contribution today and save us the time and resources of sending you a spring appeal!)

Usually, it comes together like this: First, Dave and I brainstorm an idea for the appeal. The fall appeal revolved around the notion that many invertebrates spend the winter hibernating as larvae or overwintering as pupae or eggs. But unlike many of these invertebrates, the Xerces Society works through the winter to accomplish our mission. For the spring appeal, we decided on a straightforward approach. “Xerces has embarked on what will be a very ambitious season of invertebrate conservation and we need your help!” Once we have the idea, I write up the draft and Dave helps craft it into the final product. I have just sent the draft off to Dave to edit.

For proposals, the ideas come straight out of our program planning. Project staff write a draft of a proposal (in the case of endangered species, I write the proposals) based on our strategic planning. I then work with them to hone the product and shape it to meet the needs of funders. Dave helps further edit and refine the proposals as well.

In between my work on fundraising today, I have many small issues to deal with, including a long conference call with the steering committee of the Butterfly Conservation Initiative. The Xerces Society has joined with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, National Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense, and numerous zoos and butterfly houses to bring together nongovernmental organizations and government agencies to aid the recovery of imperiled butterflies in North America. The goal is to restore endangered butterfly populations and work to protect vulnerable butterflies from becoming endangered.

Today’s call centered on developing a strategic plan for the initiative, which is still in its formative stages. Unlike other conference calls involving lots of people, the BFCI call ran smoothly and we were able to make progress. (Still, we didn’t make it through the whole agenda, even though we spent an extra 25 minutes on the phone. That’s often the way with these kinds of calls.) In the end, we agreed on a format and timeline for the strategic plan, and we picked people to ensure that each section of the plan will be completed in a timely manner.

We also discussed the “matrix of needs” of the imperiled butterfly species, which the Xerces Society has been developing for the coalition. We need to gather information on threatened, endangered, and imperiled species so that the BFCI can maximize the impact of its recovery work. We discussed how we might fund this work and how we would complete the project. We did not resolve the funding issue, but I did enlist the help of a couple of other people on the steering committee.

So, yet another fundraising task looms: looking for funding to protect imperiled butterflies. That seems like a nice segue for me to get back to my proposal writing and sign off until tomorrow.