Talisman Thinking Out Loud

#Fundraising Best of the Best #AFPFC

May 15, 2017 at 10:04 am Barbara Talisman, CFRE Leave a comment

The Association of Fundraising Professionals held their annual international conference in San Francisco at the end of April. I have to say, I’ve been to quite a few – this was one of the best. Check out the Twitter feed at #AFPFC – chock full of info and discussion.

In this post – an overview of what I thought (IMHO) were the best of the best sessions on fundraising based on presenter, content and information I can use – you can too if you want. For handouts from sessions click here.

Pivoting: The Secret to Successfully Handling Difficult Donor Conversations
Anne Melvin, Director of Training and Education at Harvard University
Anne was not only informative but entertaining. Go wherever you see her on the program. Her handouts are available on the #AFPFC website. Her key points to shifting a conversation BEAT+Q:

• Battle Change the field of Battle—values  is a great way to go
• Expand the prospect’s argument—don’t contract it
• And use the improv technique of ‘Yes, And…’ (not ‘but’)
• Tense Switch the verb Tense from past or present to future
• Question the prospect
Whatever you do…don’t stay and argue; BEAT? it, baby!

Data Got You Down? Simplifying Donor-Centered Fundraising Analysis for the Data Allergic
T. Clay Buck, CFRE, Director of Membership & Annual Giving, The Smith Center for the Performing Arts

Clay’s session was a “how to” own your data and use it to create data informed (not driven) campaigns, major gift portfolios, Board member donor assignments and talk with your database administrator in their language. His handouts are available on the #AFPFC website.
Beyond Best Practices: How Seattle Symphony Redefined Campaign Readiness to Exceed Goals
Craig Hightower, Vice President, Fundraising Consulting, Campbell & Company
Jane Hargraft, Vice President of Development, Seattle Symphony

The honesty in this session was unusual for an AFP session. Jane is hilarious (either that or she’d be crying) about their campaign. It was an unconventional capital campaign in which she said, “We built and crashed the plane a number of times.” This included forgoing the feasibility study, setting fundraising goals, firing staff and more. Spoiler alert: it all turned out okay in the end. Handouts are available.

Is Your Business Model Broken? The TRUTH About Fundraising and Capitalization
Brian Bonde, ACFRE, President at Advanced Certified Fundraising, LLC
Janet Brown, President and CEO Grantmakers in the Arts

Janet has been hosting workshops for nonprofit organizations and grantmakers to shift the conversation from the myth of nonprofit starvation to creating financially healthy organizations able to serve their community through a sustainable financial model. This includes grantmakers funding general operating, overhead that support the programs they so love to give money to. See session handouts – it was an enlightened session.

Entry filed under: Fundraising, Nonprofit fundraising, Resources You Can Use!, Stuff I Love. Tags: #afpfc, AFP International Fundraising Conference, Association of Fundraising Professionals, Fundraising and capitalization, Fundraising knowledge sharing, How to use data to inform your fundraising strategy, Shifting a difficult donor conversation.