A recent ACLU campaign beefed up its major gifts and planned giving

2 Important Takeaways  From the ACLU’s Leading  Freedom Forward Campaign

1. You have to have a very crisp idea of what it is you’re trying to accomplish and be able to really boil that down in a very clear way.

Once you get donors hooked on that, then [your case for support] is very easy to describe, especially if you can  talk about it programmatically. We talk about a red state strategy for political donors. We talk about how civil liberties are in the most danger in certain areas with certain governors. For donors who want to see the impact on big populations, we talk about Florida and Texas. If their interest is in racial justice, we point to New Mexico and Arizona.

2. You have to remain tenacious.

If you’re a reluctant fundraiser, then you’re a reluctant CEO. Unless you’re enthusiastic about the program and about bringing money to build it, then [running an organization] is not the right fit. I know great program people who I would never suggest become CEOs because they don’t want to raise money. People need to own that and understand what it means for their career choices.

There are always disappointments, where people don’t come through the way you expect, where you work very hard and it withers on the vine or they give you some token amount. Go back — especially if they give you something. It’s a beginning, and you have to appreciate that whatever they are able to give, it’s more than you had before.

— Anthony Romero, executive director, ACLU

In 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union was up against it. Its membership had hit the 550,000 mark, yet its major-gifts strategy was anemic at best and planned giving wasn't exactly a priority. And despite the fact that it was on the front lines of what some feel was the greatest civil-liberties crisis in the United States since World War II, the highly visible and aggressive organization was operating under an internal inferiority complex that was undermining its ability to raise a sustainable source of income.

Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director and — by his own design — chief fundraising officer, was struggling with an endowment-building campaign that was missing its mark. So there was no great cry of despair when Director of Institutional Advancement and Special Projects Donna McKay suggested the organization close it out.

But before Romero could exhale, McKay was greasing the wheels for the next campaign, which promised to be bigger, bolder, more comprehensive and — yes — probably more exhausting than the  last one.

"George Bush was in the White House, and John Ashcroft was our attorney general," McKay says. "We [felt we] were in the midst of one of the greatest civil-liberties crises in the country's history, a crisis of epic proportions, a crisis that is still going on today.

"It's not a time to be putting money away for tomorrow," she says, explaining a possible reason for the organization's difficulty in raising endowment monies.

Soon after, the Leading Freedom Forward (LFF) campaign was launched. With an unusual dual focus of increasing both major and planned gifts, it raised $407 million over the past five years, surpassing its original goal of $250 million. The campaign launched in January 2005 with the goal of raising $100 million in cash gifts and $150 million in planned giving. When it closed in mid-September, it had brought in more than $150 million in cash gifts and more than $250 million in planned  giving.

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American Civil Liberties Union

Leading Freedom (and Fundraising) Forward