The first decade of the 21st Century began well enough but ended very badly for fund raising and investing. Two thousand AD started with a strong stock market worldwide, a new crop of million- and billionaires, the transfer of wealth from the WWII generation to their children and grandchildren, the emergence of social entrepreneurship as a major sector and an alignment of the stars for online fund raising and mobile giving.
And then it all crashed – well, a lot of it did. Beginning with the toxic mortgages and derivative investment products created by reckless - mostly American - banks and sold worldwide. The net worth of individual donors plummeted as jobs and even homes were lost, foundations saw endowments cut in half or more, and some NPOs simply went out of business. To make things worse, the Maddox pyramid scheme literally destroyed foundations and took a long list of major donors out of the picture.
But on the bright side, the decade ended with online and mobile giving finally working. This was combined with a new generation of activists and young donors who opened up what I think will be a revolution and democratization of the NGO world. More donors, more activists donors, and more small donors may free NGO's from some of the influence of the big check writers and cumbersome foundation guidelines.
So what does the next decade look like. Here are my predictions for the major trends of the next decade and the 10 fund raising tools that development officers will need to take advantage of them.
The Big Trends
Climate change will accelerate, causing expensive, tragic and worldwide impacts like flooding and crop failure. It will play growing havoc with agriculture, infrastructure, travel and markets. Water will become the oil of the 21st century, partly because of climate change and partly because of overuse, waste and pollution.
More states will fail, sucking up both aid dollars and military resources and generating refugees and conflict.
Terrorism will continue to be a global problem with an increasing level of violence by militaries trying to prevent it, leading to a constant low-level war/police action globally. Terrorists will not get nuclear weapons but will get better at delivering death and mayhem anywhere they choose.
Cyberwar and cyber terror will impact daily lives in the west. Computers controlling airports, water systems, utilities, banks and other essential infrastructure will come under constatnt attack and the defenders will always be one step behind the attackers.
Religious fundamentalism and tribalism/nationalism will continue to grow in both intensity and scope. This will lead to the emergence of large religious and culture-based parallel cultures worldwide.
Despite the growth of religious fundamentalism, women will make a major leap in both political and economic influence, even in the most religious, repressive and male-oriented countries and cultures.
The mobile phone will become the ubiquitous communication, sales and media device of the world. Landlines, desktops and even laptops will slowly disappear.
The trend of major corporations paying more attention to sustainability will continue, and a new world of socially aware companies will emerge and challenge pure greed-based corporations in some markets.
The next decade will see China and India emerge as global economic and technology leaders; but Western culture – led by the US – will remain influential, although with nation by nation modifications.
Baby Boomers in the West will retire or die leading to a wealth transfer to NPO and foundation endowments and to their children; but longevity and impact of the market crash of 2009 will limit the amount of the transfer.
Fund raising tools in the next decade
1. As baby boomers retired and die, some of their wealth will be transferred. Development officers should track their 60-plus donors and look for new financial tools and grow the use of CRT's and social investment to capture some of the transfer.
2. As immigration leads to the large scale development of parallel societies – immigrants living in a large religion/language/culture enclave in a majority nation - parallel foundations and charities will form. Development officers should work to ensure that their board and staff are diverse to allow them to work and fund raise in the parallel societies.
3. Foundations will need five or more years to rebuild their endowments, assuming the stock markets continue to rise. Grants will be more restricted and more targeted as the needs generated by climate change, war and immigration grow faster than income. Development officers should work hard to retain their foundation funders, but work even harder to diversity their funding streams as foundations become a smaller piece of the donation pie.
4. Social entrepreneurism and hybrid organizations will do best in the next decade as they diversify vertically into for profit income streams as well as horizontally into more types of non profit income sources. NPO development officers and their staffs should be well-trained and experienced in FPO/NPO hybrid combinations, social entrepreneurism, and FPO asset monetization (new ways to use what we have to make money).
5. Women, already a major force in NPO and foundation management, will become a major force in giving and they will give broadly, not just to "women's" causes. Development officers need to focus more of their time and resources on their female supporters, especially "self-made women" who start and grow corporations.
6. Online and mobile will be the dominant wide-scale fund raising tools of the next decade. Direct mail will become a highly specialized and rarely used tool. Telephone solicitation will die out as people prefer the "opt-in" of mobile aps to the interruption of a phone bank. Development officers need to stay abreast of online and mobile fundraising technologies and organizations, train their boards or bring in savvy board members, create apps for their organizations, and insure that their staffing is very strong in online and mobile fund raising.
7. Social networking will (has?) become tightly woven into daily life for much of the world. The social networking consultant will replace the direct mail or fundraising consultant. Social networking, Causes, etc. make campaigns a constant part of everyday life. Capital campaigns will give way to constant networking.
Development officers need to develop ongoing, working relationships with networking specialists like Fission Strategy, or add networking specialists to their staff to embed social networking in their annual development strategy and workplan process
8. Internet and social networking access will be done mostly through mobile phones. Development officers will need to understand that the cell phone is a fund raising device that every donor and every would-be donor carries around; they must get supporters mobile numbers and text address and educate supporters that they can use their phones to give anytime, and anywhere.
9. Socially responsible corporations started by social entrepreneurs will become the leading source of corporate funding, but they will also offer much more than money. Development officers should retain their current greed-based corporation grants, but work hard to establish visibility and relationships in the social venture world, and ask for more than money – partnerships with the company that might involve sales of company products, advising the company on emerging markets, etc. New models of for/non profit like Tech Soup will emerge.
10. New needs will present themselves in the next decade and NGO's will have to be nimble and flexible to respond to them and to educate donors. EDs and DO's should be prepared to consider changing focus or constituencies, merging with other NGO's or even merging with a for profit social venture if this seems to be the best way to survive and meet their larger mission.
Live stream Dr. O's radio show, The Fairness Doctrine on www.wdisam.com or download the podcast or go to iTunes and search "The Fairness Doctrine".
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