A unique approach to an annual appeal with Ann O’Brien

Extraordinary times call for creative approaches to getting your message out. This fall, we were joined by Chris Lysy to talk about unconventional communication. We learned how effective pictures can be.

On Friday, we learned about how pictures are being used in one organization to amplify their annual appeal. Ann O’Brien of IRIS joined us to talk about their creative approach to communicating with their donors and telling the story of how they have adapted in 2020.

We heard:

• The story behind the annual appeal
• How it has affected their campaign, and
• What it takes to drive a successful fundraiser, especially during these times?

Click below to watch the full episode or find it here.

Join the conversation live on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DataInformedPrograms/

Transcript

Cynthia Rojas:

Hi everyone. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. And the one sector that has had to use extraordinary measures during this time is the nonprofit fundraising sector. A couple of weeks ago, if you remember, we had a gentleman on the show by the name of Chris [Lesee 00:00:28]. Chris was unique. He is an evaluator who has spent most of his life dealing with data. And one day it came upon him to use his creative side and begin to tell stories about data through cartoons. Well, we thought Chris was unique and we had to have him on the show.

Cynthia Rojas:

And then we met Ann O’Brien. Ann works with IRIS, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, a nonprofit organization in New Haven. And in an attempt to find a unique way to do their annual appeal during these times, which are very difficult to fundraise, the team at IRIS decided to use cartoons. Well, we had to have Ann on the show. We have a lot of questions for Ann.

Cynthia Rojas:

And so today you get to join us on Coffee Time for Masterminds. Welcome everybody to our 30 minute talk show about nonprofit leadership during these really difficult times. And if you are joining us today, please put your name and where you’re from in the comment box, because we always like to hear where you’re coming from. And so, let me introduce you to my co-host. So, let’s start with Rebecca. Hi Rebecca, how are you?

Rebecca Tuttle:

I’m well, Cynthia, how are you? Good morning.

Cynthia Rojas:

Good morning.

Rebecca Tuttle:

I’m Rebecca Tuttle. I’m the founder and principal of Grant Write Now and grant writing for good.

Cynthia Rojas:

Oh, welcome Rebecca. And here is Pieta. Hi, Pieta, how are you?

Pieta Blakely:

Good morning. Well, thanks, how are you?

Cynthia Rojas:

Good. Good.

Pieta Blakely:

I’m Pieta Blakely, and I’m the founder and principal of Blakely Consulting.

Cynthia Rojas:

Yeah. Thank you. I am Cynthia Rojas and I’m founder and principal of To Your Growth. So, there are a few things we’re going to learn today, we’re going to explore what was the story behind Ann’s annual appeal, and what inspired her to do this out of the box thinking. Also, is it having an impact? Are people really relating to the cartoon style storytelling? And what does it take to drive a successful fundraising campaign, especially during these times?

Cynthia Rojas:

Ann is your person, she has been with IRIS for four years. She has over 20 years experience in the nonprofit sector. And for those who don’t know the extraordinary organization that IRIS is, they have resettled over 1,300 refugees in the last four years, and they work with over 2,000 refugees and immigrants annually. So, let’s bring on Ann O’Brien. Hi, Ann, How are you?

Ann O’Brien:

I’m doing well, Cynthia. Thanks everybody, Rebecca, and Pieta as well.

Pieta Blakely:

Good morning.

Rebecca Tuttle:

Good morning.

Cynthia Rojas:

Good morning.

Ann O’Brien:

Good morning.

Cynthia Rojas:

All right, let’s get started, Rebecca.

Rebecca Tuttle:

Good morning, Ann, thanks for joining us today. So, we heard that there’s a story behind the decision around using a cartoon for your annual appeal. So, we’d love to hear it!

Ann O’Brien:

Absolutely. So, it’s actually a story that began four years ago, and it started with an outreach from a wonderful journalist, some may recognize the name, Jake Halpern, who has written for years as a correspondent with the New York Times and happens to live in New Haven as well as around the world when he’s on assignment. But he reached out to our executive director in 2016 wanting to reconnect with one of our refugee families, to be able to tell their story and to follow their story in partnership with a good friend of his who is an illustrator, and that illustrator is Michael Sloan .

Ann O’Brien:

So the two of them had the idea of chronicling the story of a refugee family once they arrived in the US. So, what it’s like to be a refugee family, trying to resettle in the US, but to do it through the frames of a graphic novel style series or comic series. And so, we were able to connect them with a family who miraculously agreed on the spot to work with Jake and Michael. And the reason it was miraculous is because they actually agreed to it from the minute their feet hit US soil at the airport when the first day that they arrived.

Ann O’Brien:

And the day that they arrived was actually election day of 2016. So, when they went in the air to come from Jordan, where they had been living after having fled Syria, for many years, there was a different United States from when they landed at the close of the election in 2016. So, that’s another element of this story where the family, it’s actually two families, two brothers, their wives, and their children, the [inaudible 00:05:48] and the [inaudible 00:05:50] that have been followed by Jake and by Michael. And they actually agreed on that first night to work with Jake and to work with Michael, to have their journey and their lives in the US chronicled.

Ann O’Brien:

It first started as part of an op-ed series that was featured in New York Times. And then they got a book deal. And when they were in the process developing the book, they also won the Pulitzer Prize for the op-ed series and the amazing artwork. So, that book that was based upon the op-ed series that ran in the New York Times, just happened to coincide with the release in publishing in September of this year.

Ann O’Brien:

We did not control that, that was totally out of IRIS’s hands. But when it happened, there was a stroke of genius from our executive director, and he said, “Let me just see whether or not that amazing illustrator would be willing to illustrate, in just four or five brief frames, the story of IRIS during the pandemic, during 2020, for the second page of our annual appeal.” And I have to tell you that I cannot take any credit for that piece of it, we had a totally different second page planned, but he said, “Let me just reach out to them and see if they can do it.” And Michael Sloan, this amazing Pulitzer Prize winning guy said, “Absolutely.” And he turned it around in two days.

Ann O’Brien:

And so, that’s the image that you see. We took the simple concept of what has been occupying and driving our operations, and our lives at IRIS, and our clients’ lives for the past year. It has been a food pantry that has literally now more than quadrupled in size from 80 families a week, now we’re over 300, to providing rental assistance so that immigrant families are not evicted when the moratorium is lifted. It’s also been trying to do all of our services through Zoom. And IRIS, we never closed, we may have closed our office, but we continued to provide all of our services, whether tutoring children, whether it was continuing to help people find jobs, everything has happened via Zoom, or at a distance you see in the images.

Ann O’Brien:

And then with the election that happened this year, now we are trying to prepare for a rapid increase next year of new arrivals under the Biden-Harris administration. And so, Michael Sloan depicted that for us in five succinct frames. We provided the words, but he created the images and there you have it. It was really rather serendipitous, but at the same time, it was a long time in the happening, as far as the relationship with Jake Halpern and Mike Sloan.

Cynthia Rojas:

Wow.

Pieta Blakely:

And [inaudible 00:08:55] been the impact. How is it working for you?

Ann O’Brien:

So, as of right now, obviously our annual appeal is still rolling in, the checks are literally still coming into the office, and we’re doing different online, social media, and otherwise outreach. But we’re running about 17 or 18% ahead of this time last year. So, on one hand, you can’t attribute that all to the beautiful cartoons, because even though we have used elements and frames of it in our MailChimp newsletter, as well as on social media, IRIS has also been seen because of what you saw in the photos or the illustrations, IRIS has been viewed as a provider of essential services during this time because we have been doing our food pantry at such a rapid rate, and we have been providing rental assistance so that families aren’t evicted.

Ann O’Brien:

So it’s probably a combination of all of those, but I can tell you, this is the first time that we’ve received unsolicited emails saying that the second page, not the first page, which was the story of these three amazing sisters, but the second page really touched people. And it’s been all generations. I know of a particular donor who’s well into her late 70’s that sent us an email saying, “Love the use of the cartoons.” As well as somebody in their 30’s. So, it definitely touched people and got their attention.

Cynthia Rojas:

Well, I have to tell you, I was one of those people who reached out to the executive director. I used to sit on the board many moons ago, loved the organization, and reached out to Chris and said, “Oh my God, this is amazing. I love page two.” Yes. Page one is great, and I love that story. But page two really brought it home for me. It was easy. It was entertaining. I think I read it three times. Because the first time I’m looking at the pictures, and then I started looking at the words and the pictures, and then I sit back, and I’m like, “This is really brilliant.” I got a lot of information out of five frames, which I think is the appeal.

Cynthia Rojas:

But one of the things you said, Ann, which is really interesting, you say you were ahead of your fundraising by about 18% this time last year, and that you don’t think it has all to do with page two. But I also know that IRIS must’ve been very challenged the last four years, given the administration that we were under, and their opinion about refugees and immigrants. And so, the fact that you haven’t shut down, that you’re stronger than you were last year, that you’ve had a leader who has not [inaudible 00:11:43] your cause, and has followers who probably hasn’t, tell us what fundraising has been right for you in the last four years?

Ann O’Brien:

That is a great question. So, life in refugee resettlement in general, over the past four years, I would say, has felt nothing short of a war. Literally, every year, multiple times a year, we have felt under attack by our federal government. We have literally… I can remember multiple days, particularly in 2017 and 2018 when I literally felt our own political system had sucker punched us. And that was just an unbelievable feeling as a not-for-profit, to feel we’re being attacked by our own government.

Ann O’Brien:

And so, in a nutshell, that’s what the environment has been in terms of trying to fundraise as well as just operate in the past four years. And in previous administrations, there had been times when the federal resettlement program has been slowed or even after 9/11, there was a six months complete hiatus, right?

Cynthia Rojas:

Yes.

Ann O’Brien:

That felt different for some reason. And in those times IRIS said, “For those periods, we will shrink, we will not fill positions, we will wait until it starts back up.” This was different, in the past four years, every time that an attack happened, first of all, the management team responded with, “We will not back down. We will not shrink. What can we do to be stronger? What can we do to uplift our clients more? What can we do to serve more clients?”

Ann O’Brien:

And so, we started expanding where it made sense, where there was unmet need. We started serving the undocumented population in a very, very overt fashion. We started hiring Spanish speaking case managers, expanding our legal practices. And we also went definitively into this space, “Gosh, if the administration is going to broad brush all immigrants as being somehow not welcome, then we’re going to overtly embrace all immigrants as being absolutely welcome and the best part of our society.”

Ann O’Brien:

So, that is a little bit of a different tactic because we felt like we had to. It’s like, “Why was this happening?” And so what’s interesting is that, at the beginning, when the first travel ban happened, there was massive rage giving. Our Run for Refugees, which is our big 5k, our only big fundraiser that happens at the end of January on Super Bowl Sunday. In 2017, it quintupled because the timing was right with the travel ban. Literally we brought in over a quarter a million, it was insane.

Cynthia Rojas:

Wow.

Ann O’Brien:

But that rapidly declined over the next two years because as the press started covering all the other causes that were being attacked. And then so many people began running for political office themselves, the rage giving completely went away. So, we saw this huge momentary blip, and then we had to fight and struggle for every dollar thereafter to be able to back up the approach we wanted to take to remain strong and grow during this time.

Rebecca Tuttle:

Can I ask a question before we move forward, which I think will really help-

Cynthia Rojas:

Yeah.

Rebecca Tuttle:

… clarify for people who are joining us? Can you just define what you mean by refugee? I think putting it-

Ann O’Brien:

Oh, absolutely.

Rebecca Tuttle:

… in a little more context for us is really going to help people understand why this is so important.

Ann O’Brien:

Absolutely. So, a refugee is someone who has fled their homeland and they’re doing so because they are fleeing persecution, conflict, they cannot return home. This is somebody, a family, largely, over half of the refugees in the world are actually children under the age of 18. So, these are families that have fled situations where they literally can not go back to their homeland. And so, that is the population that IRIS has served for decades, and is the population for which IRIS was brought into existence to serve.

Ann O’Brien:

And then over the years, we recognized that there were so many other families living within the US that had fled their homelands for the same reasons, but didn’t fit that definition within immigration law in the US. So that definition that I referred to is someone that is fleeing persecution, conflict, that’s actually a definition within immigration law. Asylum seekers, they are the same as refugee families in terms of human need, right?

Cynthia Rojas:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ann O’Brien:

So, people that are crossing our US border at the South, they are fleeing their homelands because of gang violence, because of persecution by their own governments. But because they get here of their own accord, the US immigration laws recognize them as asylum seekers. So, their case is processed here in the United States, instead of being processed like refugees overseas, that’s the only difference. And so, refugees is considered one pathway of immigration, asylum seekers, and undocumented families are just another pathway of immigration. We at IRIS see them all the same. They are families seeking safety and self-sufficiency.

Cynthia Rojas:

That’s a great question, Rebecca. Thank you. And thank you, Ann.

Ann O’Brien:

Sure.

Rebecca Tuttle:

That was what’s coming to my mind is the conversation we had last week about being drawn in by emotion. It makes perfect sense why your development would be up by, would you say 13%, because you’re tapping into people’s emotions. You’re creating a safe space for people where, right now, a lot of people don’t feel safe. I mean, pandemic aside. So it makes perfect sense why your cause would resonate with people. And I’m really glad that you clarified that just now, Ann, because I think you could draw even more people into your safety net. So, thank you for casting it wide.

Ann O’Brien:

Absolutely. And it felt unsafe for us as an organization to do that in 2017 and 2018, but the way we viewed it is, “If we’re not going to do that, if we’re not going to cast a wider net, who is?”

Pieta Blakely:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rebecca Tuttle:

Right. We have to. Yeah

Cynthia Rojas:

That is a great question. Yeah. Pieta, do you have a question?

Pieta Blakely:

So, given all of these shifts, and I think it’s very interesting how the organization decided to respond to the increasingly political climate, in the public’s awareness. So, given that, how did you plan your campaigns differently?

Ann O’Brien:

So that’s a great, great question. It was kind of funny. In development, I think we all try really, really hard to plan things, because events themselves can be so episodic and stress filled and otherwise, but also because the organization is depending upon that revenue stream, whether it be from the annual appeal, whether it be from the events, whatever the program is.

Ann O’Brien:

And so we have tried really, really hard over the past two years. I can’t say that there was extreme planning in the first two years. In 2017 and 2018, we were constantly just reacting to the latest attack, or the latest Supreme Court decision. But in the past two years, it really pushed us hard to begin thinking four and five months in advance, of what stories we wanted to focus on, and to make sure that we thought deeply about whether those stories for those appeals would be nimble enough if the political climate changed.

Ann O’Brien:

And each year that meant something different. So there was the midterm elections. So the stories that we were planning at that time, we wanted to make sure, because so many of our supporters were actually running for office themselves, that the story would make sense when we were pitching it, whether things were going one way or another.

Ann O’Brien:

This year, interestingly enough, at the beginning, in February and March, when we were planning for our Spring appeal, which is part of the Great Give, we had one story in mind and then the lockdown happened. And if we all kind of like dial back and think about the phycology of this pandemic, and how we’ve all been operating in it. At the end of March, none of us knew whether or not this thing was even going to be a thing. This COVID, this pandemic, come May or June, right?

Cynthia Rojas:

That’s right.

Ann O’Brien:

So when we were picking a story that we wanted to feature in May, as part of our Spring appeal, we made sure that we chose something that would have staying power, whether COVID was still around or not. Because it had massively affected our operations at the time. But we just didn’t know, and so we made sure we picked a story that could have wraparound, or not, with what we were currently experiencing as a country at the time.

Ann O’Brien:

The other thing that IRIS has experienced over the past few years is a lot of our supporters have moved away from the Connecticut area, but remained supporters of IRIS. So, we have needed to keep a mind’s eye to that as well. So, is what we’re putting forward consistent with what we’re experiencing in Connecticut and nationally? Unfortunately it has been, so whether it’s the pandemic or the administration, but we’ve had to keep that in mind as well.

Cynthia Rojas:

You remind me of Rebecca who wears the fundraising lens, and this trio is constantly reminding us, relationship building is key, planning is key. And I love the way you said, you are planning for months in advance-

Ann O’Brien:

Oh, yes.

Cynthia Rojas:

… the execution of your appeals. And I heard you say you have three, you have the end of the year, you have the Great Give in this Spring, and then you have the Run for Refugees, which by the way, a quarter of a million dollars is a very impressive number. I want you to know, for a race. [inaudible 00:22:42].

Ann O’Brien:

We did it once. To be clear, we did it once. And I don’t [crosstalk 00:22:46] repeat it.

Cynthia Rojas:

That means it can be done.

Pieta Blakely:

[crosstalk 00:22:49] do it again next year because we’re all just going to be so excited to be able to run 5K’s again.

Cynthia Rojas:

Yeah, Yeah.

Rebecca Tuttle:

Or just run outside? [crosstalk 00:22:55].

Ann O’Brien:

[crosstalk 00:22:55]. You can still run with ours, we’re just going virtual.

Pieta Blakely:

Yeah.

Ann O’Brien:

And that’s [crosstalk 00:23:03].

Cynthia Rojas:

Really?

Ann O’Brien:

Yeah, we’re going virtual. So, we’re going to have it. And that’s another thing, why it forced us to start planning for that event that usually happens on Super Bowl Sunday morning. Crazy time to be running in New England.

Cynthia Rojas:

I know. But that was Chris’s idea the ED.

Ann O’Brien:

Exactly.

Cynthia Rojas:

I think he loves the Super Bowl and he thought we should get out to exercise before we start eating wings and drinking beer.

Ann O’Brien:

Exactly.

Pieta Blakely:

[crosstalk 00:23:32].

Ann O’Brien:

It also had been to be the one day of the year that the race director that we work with, there were no other 5K’s on that day.

Cynthia Rojas:

That’s interesting. That’s interesting.

Ann O’Brien:

So, but even for the Run for Refugees, we did so well by starting in July of last year planning for it in 2019, that we wanted to do the same. Yet the pandemic caused us, the fluctuations with the pandemic. If you dial back and think about where we were all at the end of August, we were all kind of hopeful that things were going to keep opening up. Some people were saying, “No, there’s going to be a second wave.” But there were a lot of people that were quite hopeful.

Pieta Blakely:

Yeah. I think [crosstalk 00:24:16].

Ann O’Brien:

[crosstalk 00:24:16], right?

Pieta Blakely:

Yeah.

Ann O’Brien:

And so, we thought that might happen. And so we actually developed two plans. One was totally virtual, and one was virtual plus the small set of four, 100 person, in-person races that were separated by two hours with all of these social distancing plans.

Cynthia Rojas:

Wow.

Ann O’Brien:

Then at the beginning of November, we had to scrap that piece of it. So, you have to plan-

Cynthia Rojas:

But [crosstalk 00:24:43] been thinking this, which is awesome. I mean, we’re working with nonprofits who are lost. They really are. I mean, it’s just tough, it’s tough to start from the ground up, especially if you have a plan that’s been working for years. And including all the other dysregulation that’s happening within the organization. So, you really have a model down. You’re making Rebecca proud. I can see her smiley.

Pieta Blakely:

[inaudible 00:25:12] interesting to me, to watch here is, there’s planning going on in the context of both internal and external changes. So, we’ve talked about just the logistical challenges of COVID. We’ve talked about refugee and immigrant becoming a political issue, and IRIS having to make a decision, “We’re not going to back down from this, we’re going to embrace it, we’re going to take on a political element to how we present.” Down to little details, like our donors have moved to different areas.

Pieta Blakely:

So, what this shows me is you got a great handle on your information, right? I mean, just to know that your donors have moved demonstrates some significant sophistication in your database management, but also your ability to take all this information, integrate it, and be constantly learning as an organization is very interesting.

Rebecca Tuttle:

That is what we talked about [crosstalk 00:26:18] bring up Mayra’s comment here before we go to… Mayra is from New York City. She said, “Planning and being proactive is always the key to being effective.” Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ann O’Brien:

That’s a really good point. I kind of feel like planning is my way of knowing what we’re going to depart from when we have to a change later in the flow. Just to have something to hold onto as I make the decision we need to depart.

Pieta Blakely:

[inaudible 00:26:50] things that we have talked about a lot on this show, and also in presentation together, is documenting learning, and documenting all these adaptations as people and organizations are making them so that next year you can go back and test, what did we like? What did we not like?

Ann O’Brien:

Right. No, that’s a really, really good point. And I have to say that we have been incredibly fortunate that we’ve been able to attract really great talent. We have, within our development and fundraising now, a person by the name of Tabitha [Sudeo 00:27:28], who manages all of the processes of the annual appeal, and the processes of the donor stewardship.

Ann O’Brien:

And that is critical, in the past it was all of the developments are on one person. And when you have the episodic things of the press and the events colliding with needing to plan, guess what happens? The planning doesn’t happen and then everything feels scattered.

Ann O’Brien:

So that was one of the key things that we had to talk the organization into in 2017 is to add more resources to the development function, to the communications function, so that we could separate the episodic from the [inaudible 00:28:06], the grants, the campaigns, things like that so that we could absorb changes that were needed. And it has been critical. Absolutely critical.

Pieta Blakely:

Another thing we’ve talked about a lot is how much donors want to be connected with the organizations that they’re giving to, whether they’re giving their time, or their money, or running a race for an organization. Especially [inaudible 00:28:33] right now in this time of uncertainty, and especially during the last administration when immigration was such a political issue, and making [inaudible 00:28:48] capacity in your organization so the development staff and the communication staff are just overwhelmed and everywhere helps people feel connected and they need that.

Cynthia Rojas:

Yeah.

Ann O’Brien:

Yeah. Oh, you’re absolutely right. We’re really excited with how we were able to make that happen this year, because in the past, the IRIS personality of the organization, the organizational culture, we call it a personality, because it feels like more of a person, was to welcome new donors and interested people, “Let’s take you on a tour.” Just show up, kind of that open community center feel. And when the pandemic happened, we’re like, “How do we function without that? That’s in our blood.” And so, one of the first things we did was just held an open community conversation. And we literally just invited anybody that wanted to join our Zoom. And the first one had about 75 people at it. And then the next one that we did two months later had over a 100 people.

Cynthia Rojas:

Wow.

Ann O’Brien:

And we continued at that rate. So, we did three or four open community conversations to volunteers, supporters, we put it on Facebook, obviously with control, there were no Zoom bombers, but that was critical, it was critical for us to see our people, and it was critical for them to feel they had a beat on how our families were doing, because so much of the community is really attached to that person to person connection, and they couldn’t get it so we had to figure out how to just kind of hot wire that for everybody.

Cynthia Rojas:

I have to tell you, Ann, first of all, we could talk to you for another hour. This has been really interesting and we’ve learned so much, but I have to tell you that your takeaways, your perseverance through the political climate, through the downsizing of fundraising, through having to re strategize, everything you had already developed, it’s really inspiring to know that you’re coming out on top. I would want to bring the graphic back up. We’re coming to a close, but I have a question for you. How do you top the cartoon? What are you going to do next year?

Ann O’Brien:

I have to be completely honest that I have one idea, but I have no idea whether or not it’s going to work.

Cynthia Rojas:

Okay.

Ann O’Brien:

And I feel that’s how we go about it. We have an idea, but we also have to be open to a different idea that might present itself. Yeah. So, I don’t know for certain, [crosstalk 00:31:37].

Rebecca Tuttle:

[inaudible 00:31:38] fail forward theory right there.

Pieta Blakely:

Yeah. We’re looking forward to seeing [crosstalk 00:31:44].

Ann O’Brien:

[crosstalk 00:31:44].

Cynthia Rojas:

Yeah.

Ann O’Brien:

[crosstalk 00:31:45].

Cynthia Rojas:

We’re going to be watching you, Ann, we’re going to be watching you. And so, usually we end with takeaways, but we are over time. One of the greatest takeaways that you have just explained is think outside of the box, is what you’re saying. Take risks, and think outside the box, these are extraordinary times, and they call for extraordinary measures.

Ann O’Brien:

Absolutely.

Cynthia Rojas:

Thank you so much, Ann.

Ann O’Brien:

Thank you for inviting us.

Cynthia Rojas:

Yeah.

Ann O’Brien:

Thank you.

Cynthia Rojas:

All right, thank you to our community on Facebook and everywhere else. And we will see you next week. Take care everyone.

Ann O’Brien:

[crosstalk 00:32:24].

Cynthia Rojas:

Bye.

Pieta Blakely:

Have a great weekend.

Rebecca Tuttle:

Bye!