An Experiment in Collaborative Fundraising

Giving Compass' Take:

• Sejal Choksi-Chugh, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper, a small nonprofit that battles pollution in the San Francisco Bay, shares her triumphs with collaborative fundraising. 

• How can collaborative fundraising alleviate some of the pressure of funding competition in the sector? 

• Read about how creative collaborations lead to nonprofit innovation. 

As a recovering lawyer, I wasn't professionally trained in development when I became an executive director three years ago, yet my Board expected me to get to work fundraising...fast.

But I soon began to wonder: what if embracing abundance instead of scarcity yields both better fundraising results and impact?   I had a chance to test this theory in my organization.

San Francisco Baykeeper is a small, local nonprofit organization that has worked tenaciously to stop polluters in San Francisco Bay for three decades. Right now, we're facing a huge threat to the Bay's health. The folks at Stand.earth had the wacky idea of doing a joint fundraising event to raise our visibility with some big foundations; specifically to co-sponsor a boat tour of the Bay with representatives from a wish list of funders who might support our work. The refinery is not easy to see from land, but the threat is instantly clear from the water.

This collaborative fundraising effort opened doors for all of us that could not have otherwise been accessed. Funders have shared their appreciation of us working together to advance a shared objective.

Many of the principles of fundraising I learned early on really are true: listen to prospective donors to connect them to your cause; build relationships to move supporters to the next level of giving; and thank donors more often than you ask for money. These do result in better fundraising outcomes. But based on my recent experience, I'm wondering if the scarcity-based approach of holding your funding sources under lock and key could use an upgrade.