MIE Fundraising + Directors Conference

Meet at hotel bar for drinks and to make dinner arrangements with colleagues.

Meet up at the hotel bar for drinks and to make dinner plans with colleagues.

With César Torres, Chair, MIE Board of Directors, and Executive Director, Northwest Justice Project, and Meredith McBurney, Resource Development Consultant to MIE and Patricia Pap, Executive Director, Mangement Information Exchange

“Change the Story, Change the World”

From Andy's website, http://www.thegoodmancenter.com:

Since we first began talking to each other, telling stories has been a powerful way to capture attention, engage an audience, and motivate them to act. As we learn more about how our brains work, we’re also discovering that stories are intrinsic to decision-making and shape our view of the world. In “Change the Story, Change the World,” Andy Goodman will explain why storytelling remains the single most powerful communication tool you possess, and he will offer specific ways your organization can use stories to advance your mission.

A panel discussion that draws together pairs of Executive Directors and Development Directors to reflect on creating and sustaining an effective partnership. John Nethercut and Jennifer Pelton have doubled the budget of the Public Justice Center in their 14 years as a team. Antonia Fasanelli dreamed about, then hired a development director who could share and expand the work of raising funds for the Homeless Persons Representation Project. She and Tami Zavislan have been working together for 2 years. (Moderated by: Jennifer Pelton, CFRE)

Major gift fundraising is an important component of a development plan.  But how do you fit it into an already full plate?  Together, we will explore tactics and strategies for starting and strengthening your major gift program.  Our discussion will cover implementing the major gift plan, building a prospect pool, managing prospects, and involving your board and senior leadership.  We will review a variety of best practices and share tips for effective major gift program growth.

This session will provide the latest predictions about non-LSC federal funding for legal aid in the future, with a focus on the likely on-going source of funds from the Victims of Crime Act’s Crime Victims Fund. Panelists will discuss important trends and state representatives will describe their successful strategies for developing statewide programs that ensure coverage throughout the state and greater integration of services and trainings.

In this interactive session, you'll explore with other participants how to prioritize and articulate your organization's needs; learn how to evaluate the features you'll encounter; and discuss tips for creating a next-steps action plan. For example, how do you match what you do now with tech jargon? What features matter most? How do you plan an evaluation and implementation process? The session leader, Chuck Hays, worked for 9 years with thousands of fundraising professionals helping them navigate these issues and more!

Conventional wisdom suggests that donor acquisition has a low ROI, is high risk-low reward, that you should be more focused on the donors you already have, etc. However, because attrition is inevitable for every program, there needs to be a concerted effort to secure new donors to make up for it. But how do you do it? Where do you start? How do you cultivate new prospects and turn them into long-term donors? This session will help answer these questions and offer creative ways to build and sustain your donor base. 

[NOTE:  Those planning to attend this session are highly encouraged to attend the Major Gifts overview session immediately preceding this one.]

In the earlier major gifts session, Pam Larmee worked with us on best practices and strategies for starting and strengthening a major gift program.  Now, let’s focus on how to make it work in our day-to-day life!  Three legal aid development directors or executive directors who are doing some major gifts work will talk briefly about what they are doing, their successes and problems.  Pam will provide them with feedback - what they are doing well, what they might do differently, what their next steps might be.  Then, those of you in the audience will have your chance to present your own scenarios and get advice from an expert!

Have fundraising experience but new to legal aid?  Come chat with two experienced fundraisers who are only a year into their work with legal aid.  Participants will share experiences and best practices about working in this unique atmosphere, tips for relationship building with attorneys and how to apply fundraising technique in organizations with threatened funding sources.

This very popular feature of the conference provides you with the opportunity to get some one-on-one time to discuss a fundraising problem with another conference participant with experience successfully dealing with that issue.

[Note: To participate in this opportunity, you must have regis­tered for the conference by June 26 and requested a mentor. By the time you are reading this, you will have already received the name and contact information for your mentor/mentee.]

By Celinda Lake, Lake Research Partners, with Mary McClymont, President and CEO, Public Welfare Foundation, and Charles Dunlap, Executive Director, Indiana Bar Foundation,  and Past President of the National Association of IOLTA Programs

Celinda Lake, of Lake Research Partners (LRP), who last presented to rave reviews at our 2014 conference, will discuss the results of just completed research aimed at helping us better understand how foundation leaders view civil legal aid. This analysis of a series of individual interviews with philanthropic leaders from a cross-section of family, community,regional and national foundations provides somenew observations about foundations that currently supportcivil legal aid and those that do not.

This research was conducted for the National Association of IOLTA Programs(NAIP), and funded through a grant from the Public WelfareFoundation (PWF).

Mary McClymont, President andCEO of the PWF, will provide a brief overview of this and other research conducted by LRP and funded by the PWF,all of which is aimed at helping us communicate more effectively with diverse audiences to raise funds for legal aid.

Charles Dunlap, Past President of NAIP, will briefly discuss the NAIP project and how legal aid programs can usethis research to expand their philanthropic outreach and fund development.

We all know that developing projects and programs with a special focus, which often combine legal services with services provided by other agencies, hospitals, shelters or community organizations, can lead to great outcomes for clients and open new funding opportunities. Successfully integrating these programs, and sustaining them, present challenges to senior management, including executive directors.  This session will explore some of the executive management challenges and suggest approaches for making partnerships successful.

For example, executive directors will gain awareness of steps to take to get partnership projects off to a good start – including important considerations before giving a green light.  You will increase knowledge of potential unanticipated consequences of entering into partnerships – such as implications of subgrants and contracted services, communications, and technology, perceived conflicts with program priorities, and challenges of project management.  And you will be more confident and better prepared to initiate, manage, and sustain successful partnerships, and other special projects.

There has been unprecedented work around foundation funding for legal aid in recent years:

• Foundation officers who are strong legal aid supporters have been talking about legal aid with their colleagues. 
• Funding from the Public Welfare Foundation has provided an opportunity for IOLTA programs to develop closer relationships with the foundations in their state. 
• Celinda Lake’s research tells us what leaders in philanthropy are thinking about legal aid today. 
  
  

In this session, we will take the knowledge gained from this work and put it to constructive use – determining what each of us needs to do to better engage potential foundation funders!  

This session will focus on what executive directors and development directors need to know and do to get their board members to be active participants and leaders in fundraising for your organization.  Come to this session to learn: steps to identify, engage, and cultivate a fundraising board who leads by example, ways to ensure that you are prioritizing the connection of your board members to the organization, and how to treat your board members like the major donors they are (or should be!!).

This panel will discuss perceptions & unexpected intersections of the development fundraising and pro bono staff to encourage both departments to work together collaboratively to benefit your mission. Attendees are to expect the uncomfortable negative and more helpful positive points of view on collaboration between pro bono and fundraising staff. 

Come explore creative ways to make your donor database work harder for you.  Session leaders will share ways they are practically using data to advance fundraising for their organization and invite discussion on what data points and projects have proven helpful across legal aid.

• What, how often, and how should I as an ED communicate?
• How do I build the communication skills and judgmentof the management team as they communicatewith others?
• With diversity in mind, how can I communicate effectivelyacross differences?
• What should I know about communicating in unionand non-union environments?
• What are the special challenges of modern communicationvehicles?
• What might we need to communicate this fall aboutthe losses of federal funding, from LSC and othersources?

There’s a vast world out there of potential donors from outside the legal community who would identify with your mission and would love to support your work, if only they knew what you were doing. Find out how to identify these prospects and how to communicate with them in order to set the stage for solicitations. This session will explore examples of programs that have had success in reaching donors outside the legal community. The session will also be heavy on group discussion, and is aimed both at programs that would like to start fundraising beyond the bar, as well as programs that have had some success in doing so.

When do you know it's time to expand your development staff? What staff do you hire? What buy in do you need to make critical development department hires? In this session, panelists from Bay Area Legal Aid, Greater Boston Legal Services, Legal Services NYC and the Michigan Advocacy Project will share their experiences and lessons learned when embarking upon development department expansion. Learn what steps you need to take and what data you need to analyze to build a professional fundraising operation crucial for long-term sustainability.