Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANNA)

What goes into preparing and executing a fundraising campaign?

Throughout the year, we do four direct mail pieces and a telemarketing campaign. They are roughly every six weeks from each other so there is a steady flow of revenue throughout the year. We try to space them out to avoid donor fatigue.

When planning for each campaign, some have themes. In the fall, we do a campaign focused on Thanksgiving with pies. At the end of the year, we tie it into the holidays. In March and May, it is more flexible but some that are more timely like with COVID and supply chain issues. For planning, I will sit with our CEO to brainstorm what topic we want to use. I’ll draft the letter, and have it approved and send it to the company that will send out our letters. Once donations come back, I process the incoming gifts. I get the whole full circle of giving: planning, execution and collection of the gifts that come back. I then do a lot of reporting with our finance director to do finance reconciliation.

Do you find that there is a specific campaign or specific thing that really speaks to donors?

I try to vary the messaging because everyone is different, and things speak to people differently. In the past, there was a thought that sob stories were the way to go. People will feel bad and become donors for the clients in the program. There has been a shift in the last couple years in the philosophy of how

we fundraise. We’ve moved away from taking pity on people. It is one thing to feel bad about people, but to use their illness as the catalyst for giving is kind of misappropriating what they are going through.

We’ve started to shift to community centered fundraising which is this idea that all of us have a part in making a difference in our community. It used to be that a lot of our themes were client stories. Now it’s more about issues in the world. For example, during the beginning of the pandemic, we emphasized that you and I are going through the same restrictions as our clients. We try to use shared experiences and frame our letters so donors can see how an issue affects you and I and then make them imagine how it affects our clients. We are not highlighting a specific person or disease, but we are tying the reality of the situation into the real world around us to make it more relatable.

We are addressing issues that not only affect people on the program but things that affect all of us. Highlighting our program in a way that makes it real or relatable beyond talking about how sick our clients are has been the focus the last couple of years.

We’ve also done letters that were entirely statistical or ones about how MANNA has lowered an HbA1c level. We found that our donors actually responded better to stories that are real-life/big picture and statistic based information than they ever did the client based stories. I realized that since our donors responded better to statistical data and real life issues, we had to rethink how we fundraise.

There is nothing wrong with telling an emotional story. But you don’t want to make someone’s life the poster child for your program. It brings up questions like are we taking advantage of their story. You need to be sensitive when you use someone’s personal story. This is why we are starting to move away from angel donors or sob stories. It’s not about how YOU can make a difference or that YOU can save the world or highlighting the person that donates a million dollars. We want to focus on “you” the community not “you” the individual

What is the significance of fundraising for the organization?

Fundraising makes up a third of our budget along with contract relationships. From a typical nonprofit, most of the revenue comes from fundraising. I think we must actively fundraise so that people won’t forget about us. In some cases, fundraising events are the only way that people support us. We have to have these vehicles in place so that they have the opportunity to support MANNA. Our goal is to have event attendees to start giving outside the event. If they convert to contributing more meaningfully outside of events, the donor base is only strengthened. However, it is tough to have event conversion. Most people’s affinity to give is tied to the event, so the challenge comes from changing people from just caring about the event to caring about the cause. For the most part, the retention rate of donors is high. For converts, MANNA typically becomes one of the charities that they regularly donate to every year.

What do you love about MANNA? What makes MANNA unique?

There are a million food banks and pantries. They all do good work but it’s pretty generic. MANNA is not a “feeding” organization but a “nourishing” organization. Being a feeding organization, it is more difficult to advocate for fundraising since there are so many other food banks that people can donate to. MANNA is the only organization in the greater Philadelphia area that provides medically tailored meals and that is unique. On top of that, our research and contracts are above and beyond our sister organizations. I am proud to work here because I am able to sell a mission that is one-of-a kind.

MANNA is also very diverse and it’s good that I can interact with people with different backgrounds which is often very reflective of our client base. This allows for different opinions and viewpoints to shape MANNA’s vision.

What do you want people who don’t know about MANNA to learn about it?

From a fundraising perspective, I want people to know that even though we have contract relationships and grants, their support as a volunteer or donor is just as valuable. Your gift as a person is more meaningful than a large gift from a company. We still need people and want them to know that their contributions are noticed. We have our CEO hand sign all of our thank you letters that we send to donors. It is my job to make donors feel valued and I can do that by thanking donors right away. It shows that we took this seriously and thanked you in a timely manner.

Generally, I want people to know that MANNA is such a unique place. It is different than anything I’ve ever done or seen. Nutrition matters to everyone and what we do resonates with everyone. When you are around MANNA for a while, you begin to see how many volunteers continue to show up or donors that continue to give and that makes you realize there is something really special about this place. The fact that every single meal that goes out has been touched by a volunteer is a really cool thing that I am proud to talk about. This is an over 10,000 volunteer-driven organization and I am proud of that.