Bridging the Gap Between Development and Humane Education

By: Nick Kohner, CHES, Donor Relations, Lollypop Farm

Hi there! Before we jump in, I just want to give a little context to this article. I’ve worked at Lollypop Farm for the past five years, first as our Humane Education Coordinator and currently as part of our donor relations team, where I’ve been the last year and a half. My hope in writing this is that it will give you some insights and helpful tips to better collaborate with the development team at your organization. Having worked in both departments, I’ve seen how siloed both can become as they work long hours and juggle various projects, but there are a lot of ways that we can work together. If you have any questions or want to hear more about specific strategies I mention, please feel free to reach out to me via email. It always brings me joy to support the great work that all of you amazing humane educators do!

Demystifying Development!

For every non-profit, generous support from our community is what makes our work possible. Whether your organization calls it development, advancement, or something else, most non-profits have at least one development officer whose primary focus is to make sure that money keeps coming in. It may sound simple, but that money often comes in through many different channels: major gift solicitation, corporate partnerships, grants, bequests, direct mail, email, and the list goes on. For all of these channels, there are two primary strategies (that you can help with!) that we use to “steward” these generous gifts: sharing impact and engaging donors. 

Sharing Impact. When it comes to our donors, it doesn’t matter whether someone is giving twenty dollars or twenty thousand. When they’re giving money to our cause, they want to know what that money is doing. Any way that we can SHOW the impact of their giving, whether through stories, tours, or events, will increase the likelihood that a donor will continue to give and to give generously. After all, who’s going to continue to invest in something when they never see any kind of return on their investment?

Engaging Donors. While many donors are perfectly happy to give their money and chat with their gift officer once a year, many other donors like to be more involved. This could mean coming in for tours, volunteering, shadowing programs, attending events and webinars, or really anything that engages them directly with the organization’s mission. To keep it simple, we engage donors to keep our organization top of mind, and we steward them to say thank you and keep them updated with the work they are supporting.

Here’s Where You Come In

Now that we’ve discussed engaging donors and sharing impact (and given you a tiny glimpse into what the heck those dev people even do all day), let’s get into some real-life strategies for humane education and development collaboration!

Invite Your Development Team and their Donors to Shadow Your Programs

A big part of any dev officer’s job is sharing impact with donors, and nothing beats seeing you and your team in action! Inviting new (and existing) development team members to shadow your program will give them a deeper understanding of your work and allow them to more easily communicate to donors how your programs are making an impact in the community. For donors who are passionate about education, an offer to shadow your programs could be just the thing to get the donor out to the shelter, or even better, make a gift. And even if the donor doesn’t make a gift right then and there, seeing your work will deepen their connection and build long-term investment in your mission. You might also find donors that want to volunteer with your programs or even fund special initiatives. Keep your dev team up to date with your programs, especially the high-impact, mission-based work that will get donors excited about what you’re doing! 

Nick teaching the No More Bullying! curriculum at Craig Hill Elementary in Rochester, NY. Photo courtesy of Kelley Hildmeyer.

Share Stats

If you’re not already, track everything that you are doing! Every classroom visited, every participant reached, every school field trip. Track it all! Stats are important for a lot of reasons, but they are also an invaluable tool for your dev team to share a snapshot of your team’s impact with a donor. In fact, most grant applications require concrete stats to even consider awarding the grant, so if you’re not tracking your impact, you could literally be leaving money on the table!

Grant Work

Speaking of that, let’s get into grants! With individual donors, feel-good stories and hands-on experiences are usually much more impactful, but grants are much more likely to be funded when you provide concrete stats and evidence. If you have someone at your organization who writes grants, the best way to partner with them is to provide them with program data, stories, curriculum details, outcomes, and a clear articulation of community needs. It may also be helpful to meet regularly to share goals, plans, and measurable impact. Measurable impact is critical for grant proposals and could include things like the number of students served, alignment with state education mandates, and pre- and post-program evaluation results. Basically, the more of these things you can provide, the easier it will be for your grant writer to craft persuasive proposals.

If your organization does NOT have a grant writer, it’s not really something that you’ll want to take on yourself. Trust me, you’re doing enough already! Instead, see if you can find a volunteer who would be willing to write grants. This could be a college intern who has interest in your organization, but your best bet is finding a volunteer who already has some grant writing experience. That may be easier said than done, but if you do find the right person, here’s how you can get them started. First, you’ll need to work together to start identifying some humane education grant opportunities. Research different foundations that fund youth development, social-emotional learning, violence prevention, animal welfare, or education. Databases like Foundation Directory Online are a great place to get started. You can also review the 990s of peer organizations to see who is funding similar programs there. And if you have a local community foundation, definitely start building a relationship with them! 

Share Stories

Let’s be honest—a lot of people, even our coworkers, don’t really understand the great work that humane educators do. Some of them may even think that humane education is just birthday parties with kittens. On the other hand, YOU see the impact of your work all the time. You see kids develop new ideas, change their perspectives, and practice vital skills like empathy and perspective-taking. 

In your day-to-day, keep an eye out for these highly impactful moments that could make for a great story, and share them with your dev team (preferable with a cute photo included!). Here’s a few examples: 

• You take a bearded dragon to meet a classroom of second graders. Most kids are very excited, but a few are scared of the strange animal. After seeing their classmates meet and learn about the lizard, the kids who were initially scared build the confidence to meet them and develop empathy and understanding for them.

• You have a long-time camper become a junior camp counselor and take on a special project to share their love of animals with the new campers.

• Your students make special enrichment items for a large group of animals that came in from a law enforcement seizure, turning their compassion into action. 

• An Eagle Scout makes an amazing project that helps the animals at your shelter.

• A young animal lover starts a lemonade stand to raise money for the animals at your shelter. 

Now, don’t worry about crafting the perfect story that is so well-worded and moving that a donor will decide to leave their entire estate to your organization. Just share the basic details and, if they’re interested in turning it into a donor story, your development team will follow up for more information and turn it into a moving story. 

Nick, his bearded dragon Rex, and a pair of Lollypop Farm summer campers. Photo courtesy of Lollypop Farm’s Facebook Page.

Share Pictures and Videos

Not every touchpoint a development officer shares is going to be a whole story! Simple things like an adoption poster or a cute picture of a kid reading to a cat make wonderful, easy touch points for donors. A brief summary or a quote from the student or parent is definitely an added plus if you have the time. Sending an email about upcoming programs to your email list? Don’t forget to CC in the dev team! They can share the great programs you’re doing and, let’s be real, a LOT of those donors have grandkids that would probably like to join in the fun.

Participants of Lollypop Farm’s Homeschool Heroes program and Diesel the dog. Photo courtesy of Lollypop Farm’s Facebook Page.

Incorporate Philanthropy into Your Programs

As non profits, philanthropy drives our life-saving work. Most kids in our programs have some experience with philanthropy through fundraisers at their school or church, but they don’t necessarily connect it with non-profit work. At Lollypop Farm, we’ve incorporated philanthropy into our camp programs in a few ways. 

When kids come to Lollypop Farm camp, a big part of the experience is hearing from various guest speakers throughout the week. Campers hear from different staff members about their job and how they help animals. When someone from the dev team speaks, most of the campers have no idea how much money it takes to run a shelter OR that professional fundraising is even a thing! Campers learn that donations are critical to everything that we do and we even discuss various fundraising ideas that they could try out at home. 

For artistically inclined kiddos, we’ve had them write and decorate donor thank you cards, and to no one’s surprise, donors LOVED them. For older campers, we’ve had them make promotional TikToks about specific animals or needs in the shelter. We’ve also had teachers have students practice their writing skills by writing letters to donors. This could be thank you letters, but a request for support is a great way to practice persuasive writing. If you have a development staff member who really likes kids, get them involved and work together to plan a fun philanthropy-focused activity! 

Presenting at Special Events

Another big part of fundraising is hosting special events for our donors. This includes appreciation events, fundraising events, and informational events. Informational events are important tools to share our work with donors and engage them with our mission. At Lollypop, we host “Insider Updates” twice a year, but many organizations have different names for these. They often focus on a specific facet of the organization’s mission, making education a perfect focus for one of these events. Our education department has presented at multiple development events, and donors are always surprised to hear how much great, impactful work they do. Our ed and dev teams have even collaborated to create special donor experiences that are basically just “aged up” versions of various camp activities. Simulation-type activities are great for this. For example, we ran this activity for our Legacy Society that simulates a day in the life of an admissions counselor. 

How Development Can Help YOU

Okay! Before we talk about funding, let me break down a few things. I’ll try to be brief, I promise!

First, let’s define “restricted” and “unrestricted” gifts. While it varies from org to org, the large majority of all donations are given as “unrestricted” gifts, meaning that the funds go to the “general operating budget” and can be used wherever they are needed most. This differs from a “restricted” gift that must be used for a designated purpose, i.e., veterinary care, farm animals, humane law enforcement, etc. We tend to avoid restricted gifts when possible, mostly for accounting/budgetary reasons, but most organizations have at least a couple restricted funds. Some organizations (including Lollypop Farm) have restricted humane education funds, but different organizations have different ways of handling restricted funds, so you’ll definitely need to talk with your dev and accounting teams to see if a restricted education fund would make sense for your organization. 

All that being said, there are some other funding options that your dev team might (MIGHT!) be open to. Sometimes, a specific need arises that was not accounted for in the annual budget. When this happens, development officers may reach out to specific donors to see if they would be interested in funding that need. This could be a new ultrasound for your clinic, a rabbit enclosure for your adoption floor, or a pathway for your memorial garden. It’s a great way for us to engage and solicit donors that have specific interests without setting up a million restricted funds. 

Now, similarly to restricted funds, this isn’t really something your development or accounting folks are going to want to do ALL the time. This would be for a special, one-time purchase that is desperately needed and will greatly impact your programs. Let’s say, for example, your smartboard or projector you use for a lot of your programs suddenly breaks. While a new projector wasn’t in the budget, it’s important to your programs and has an impact on the participants. This creates the perfect win-win scenario for a fundraiser—you get the technology you need for your programs and their donor gets to feel like a hero for making it happen! 

Another great option for donors is allowing them to offer scholarships for camp or other programs. By having a donor cover the cost of a week of camp, you’re giving that donor the opportunity to create an unforgettable experience for a kid that otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend camp. It also allows your education department to offer scholarships without taking a hit on your revenue. I will say that scholarships can work in a lot of different ways and may require a restricted fund, so work with accounting to see if/how this could work at your organization.

The last option I want to touch on is “in-kind” gifts. An in-kind gift is when an individual donates an item rather than money. They can then take the receipt for that item, and claim it on their taxes, just like they would with a monetary gift. Many non-profits keep a wishlist of high-need items like kitten food or pee pads that donors can purchase for them. These lists are for items the shelter needs a lot of and are probably not the right fit for most humane ed needs. However, a lot of dev teams also have a running list of other tangibles that they can reach out to individual donors with. For example, if I have a donor that is passionate about literacy, I might reach out to them and let them know that our education department has this great reading program and would love a box or two of new books to give away to participating classrooms. 

Don’t think small with these asks—a fundraiser probably won’t want to ask a donor for $60 for a new rug, but if you need $300 for “various classroom upgrades” or $1,200 for a new smartboard, those could be great asks where a donor can feel great about fulfilling a need. If you can provide tangible needs at a range of different costs, that will give your dev team special giving opportunities for more donors. The $300/year donor can feel great about providing every camper with a stethoscope and the $3,000/year donor can feel proud of providing new classroom technology.

A Few Things to Keep In Mind

Find the Best Way to Share Info with Your Dev Team

It’s wonderful to share your work with your dev team (and your donors in turn), but make sure you are sharing information in a way that is best for them. Many fundraisers are maintaining relationships with 150+ donors on top of their other responsibilities, so a quick hallway convo can easily be forgotten. For most fundraisers, email is the best way to make sure that this info isn't lost, but check with the fundraisers at your organization and see what works for them.

Spread the Love

I talked a lot in this article about sharing your work with the development team, but don’t forget about communications! Your communications team (or whoever does your social media/website stuff) would also love having more great humane ed content that they can then share with your org’s online audience. And as long as you're sharing a cute story with dev/comm, why not just share it with the whole staff? Our jobs can be really tough and we could always use another little reason to smile. Plus, they’ll get to see that you do WAY more than just birthday parties with kittens!

Get Creative!

It may surprise you, but fundraisers are often very creative individuals, coming up with new ways to engage donors and bring in new gifts. Some of our best fundraisers have engaged donors by writing poems, writing letters from the shelter animals, and making videos. After all, sometimes just getting a donor to respond can be an uphill battle, so a lot of fundraisers aren’t really afraid to throw something at the wall and see if it sticks. Don’t be afraid to share your wild ideas when they arise. They might be totally unfeasible, but they might also be just the thing that gets a donor’s attention!

Results May Vary

Like with most things in the non-profit world, the way a development team works can vary widely from one organization to the next. Because of this, things that work at our organization may not work at yours. On top of this, your development leadership may have strong opinions on certain fundraising strategies, so don’t be offended if you get a great idea from this blog article that gets shot down immediately. (But also, don’t be afraid to revisit it later!)

And Lastly, Stay Connected!

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this blog, it’s to stay connected with your dev team. Share stories, forward emails, stop by to chat, and don’t be afraid to share the needs of your education department. They might spend a lot of time glued to their work station and running around with donors, but they care about the mission just like you do. And remember that, at the end of the day, fundraising might be what makes our work possible, but it would be completely useless without you and the incredible work that you’re doing!