Leadership in Focus: David Love
By Elisa Birnbaum
June 7, 2010
This month in our Leadership in Focus series we feature David Love, executive director of the Conservation Foundation of Greater Toronto. A fundraising veteran, David dedicated the past 40 years to "the ask," half of those at the World Wildlife Fund. He then moved on to Stephen Thomas, a top Canadian fundraising company before joining the ranks of the Conservation Foundation where he sits today, passionately and tirelessly advocating the Living City.
CharityVillage™: How would you describe the fundraising landscape in the nonprofit/charitable sector today?
David Love:
I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and I’ve seen three recessions, but I’ve never seen it as bad as what’s going on right now. The economic decline is outrageous; those who work in the charitable field are living on people’s discretionary income. And when things go completely south, we have a hard time keeping our heads up. There’s the economy and competition is ridiculous. Healthcare and education, two of the things we just have to look after first are either being abandoned by government or government simply can’t afford them or needs to re-think how to pay for them. All I know is I’m now competing with people dollar for dollar who need to buy textbooks for their kids and provide healthcare for their parents. And it’s never been that way before. It’s just frightening. It’s always been tough but it’s even tougher now.
And recently there’s the issue of costs. People are still living under a rock that say fundraising should only cost between 15 and 20%. In the book Uncharitable by Dan Pallota, he suggests that we need a whole overhaul of how we think about doing good in the world. One thing he says is we should start treating charities like we treat businesses. For example, instead of making cars, I’m trying to save the environment in the GTA and I should have the same advantages such as: 1) if I get a 10% return on my money, everyone’s delighted; 2) if I could spend a ton of money on advertising I should; and 3) if I can pay the CEO what the CEO of The Royal Bank gets, I should. So I’m a big fan of those arguments and I think all this chatter about it is problematic.
On the other hand, fundraising has never been better. First, there are some very bright and passionate people doing this work. Second, the new tools we have to raise money have opened up a whole new branch of creativity. In the old days, this was done face-to-face with friends. Then in the ‘60s they invested direct mail, which essentially democratized philanthropy. Suddenly, you didn’t have to be rich to make a difference — that was a huge breakthrough. That’s when Amnesty and Greenpeace was born. You learned that even 40 bucks can go far and that’s how they built some of the strongest organizations in the world.
CV: So it’s still evolving?
DL: Yes, now the tools have exploded. So even thought the environment has never been so difficult, there are bright people and spectacular tools which will continue to help us make the world a better place. People say direct mail is dead but I think it’s in its golden age because it can deliver the goods to older people (I’m a direct marketer by nature which means I tend to want to do something when you can measure results instantaneously). You have older people who read mail, you have younger people who go to events, others who Twitter, some who text, etc. Suddenly you have all these different markets and we’re doing all this research. We’ve discovered there’s at least five demographic markets to talk to. And now we have all these different tools to match that demographic. If we just relied on direct mail we’d be in big trouble. But, at the same time, we don’t want to lose the fact that direct mail has the chance to deliver more money over the next 20 years that we can possibly imagine.
We talk about the transfer of wealth from generation to generation and it will happen. It’s just a question of who is going to get it. In the old days the only people who got that money were churches, hospitals and universities. These days the good news is if we do it right the environment, human rights, women’s issues, poverty, or other social justice issues will get some of it, we hope.
CV: Explain the Conservation Foundation’s vision for the Living City, including why it came about and how it’s working to pursue that goal.
DL: If blow whales need clean oceans and grizzly bears need wilderness, then human beings need cities that work because that’s where we all live. As of 2009, more people lived in cities in the world than anywhere else. So the city has become the habitat for people. And we need to make them liveable. You can argue that some are and some aren’t. The Conservation Foundation has been working in the city for almost 60 years trying to make it a liveable space so we’ve now coined the phrase the Living City so that people can live in the city and not completely destroy the natural surroundings and have clean rivers, breathe clean air etc.
I spent 20 years at the World Wildlife Fund but the real battle for sustainability is happening at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton or downtown Vancouver. It’s still happening in the woods but the real tough decisions need to be made in cities.
We’re trying to get cities to become sustainable, which we define as “enough for all forever” (a fabulous definition, used by an African delegate at a UN conference). It’s a profound statement because it means you have to change the way the world works if you’re going to do it.
CV: What do you wish you can teach young fundraising professionals starting out in this sector?
DL: In this business, if you don’t love what you do, you’re going to do something else. First, you’re not getting paid that much, especially in social justice or the environment. And second, as I like to tell people, I’ve had more people say no to me than anybody in the human race. People have been saying no to me since 1969. And if you spend your life with people saying no to you there has to be something that makes you get up in the morning with some vigour in your step. And, of course, it’s the fact that the odd person says yes. And that the world is slowly but surely becoming a more humane and better place.
"And the other thing you have to keep in mind is that fundraisers put people in touch with their dreams. We’re mediums between a person’s soul — their yearning for self-actualization — and something they can actually do to self-actualize, to put it in Maslow’s terms." |
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And the other thing you have to keep in mind is that fundraisers put people in touch with their dreams. We’re mediums between a person’s soul — their yearning for self-actualization — and something they can actually do to self-actualize, to put it in Maslow’s terms. So I have this wonderful job that helps people connect with their legacy, whether it’s immediate or long-term and there’s never a better moment than when you make a really strong link between a person and the world they’re caring for. That’s a pretty nice job. Gotta love it.
That’s why you stay in fundraising a long time. Because even though people say no so many times, there will be two or three times they say yes and you say “I’ve made some person’s dream come true.” How many people get to do that?
But you do need to stay in touch with the passion; you need to know what charges your batteries because you spend a lot of time having people say no to you so you need to find some way to balance that. You can’t allow all your energy to drain out, something has to be put it in. And the sooner people connect with what that is, the better they’ll be at getting out there and asking for money.
The last thing people like to do is ask for money because they’re afraid of hearing no. So you need to find a way to be positive or at least find out where your strength comes from and clutch it to your soul. Stay in touch with what keeps you going. And keep cultivating it. One thing we do at TRCA is we have something called Greatest Hits. It’s a monthly meeting with all management. And we spend first 20 minutes talking about the victories of the month; what went right. It really captures the three or four or five moments where we got closer to a better world and it completely energizes the room. You need to be able to tie into success. This is a lesson about life for everyone, not just fundraisers.
CV: What is this sector doing “right”; what can it improve upon?
DL: I think our professionalism is great. And there’s good work by AFP, CharityVillage and our strong networks. We realize that we need support from each other since we don’t always get support from our cause because it’s hard to get money. And we also have learned that by understanding people’s motivations we can learn to get people to give some more. The third sector is trying to make the world a better place and there’s a number of strong mentorships, conferences and other things that help us do this better.
One of the things that used to amaze me is that you go to an all-day fundraising seminar and someone gets up and talks about all the things that worked with his campaign and people are taking notes so they can do it themselves. Could you imagine Coca-Cola sitting in a marketing seminar and giving away all their best marketing secrets? But the nonprofit sector has no problem doing that. We share all this information with each other because in the end we’re all there for the same reason. And the sector has always been really good at that.
As for what can be better, there may be more potential in networking, potential to finding ways that are even better at strengthening each other. And someone needs to take on this whole cost of fundraising issue. The way charities operate, what they’re allowed to spend, it’s backwards. The laws are outdated. The sector needs to take a whole new look at intelligently investing in this nonsense about costs. Of course, you don’t want to spend money on fundraising that doesn’t work. But the world operates under a complete fallacy where we don’t understand that if the Polio Society wants to rid of the world of polio you need to think differently than just allowing it to spend only 20% on fundraising costs. That’s a looming challenge for the sector. Essentially we’re looking at what we spend instead of what we do and the effect we have on the world.
CV: Are we doing enough to foster young leaders?
DL: I’m a mentor at CAGP (Canadian Association of Gift Planners) and they have one of the best mentors programs going. And I’ve been to Ken Wyman’s wonderful course at Humber College where he’s doing wonderful work. Yes, I think we’re doing enough. But I also spend a good deal of time learning from them because if it’s about markets and tools, they know their stuff. It’s a two-way street.
CV: What makes a leader successful?
DL: Enthusiastic followers. I did teach leadership at the World Wildlife Fund and spent a lot of time with conservation leaders. And I’ve found that if you find someone who has a bunch of people who can’t wait to break the door down and follow them, you’ve got a successful leader.
More about David Love... |
First nonprofit job: Raising money for a school in the Yukon in 1971
Education: Honours BA from York University and a teaching degree from the University of Toronto.
Annual budget: $3 million
Number of employees: 3
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CV: Do you have any mentors who’ve inspired you over the years?
DL: There are a few. There’s Steve Thomas, a direct mail guru in Canada. I worked with his agency for five years. He taught me direct mail and as a result helped me raise a lot of money for WWF and other things. I have immense respect for him. And George Smith who wrote a book called Asking Properly that I still think is still the best fundraising book on the market. A brilliant copywriter, he worked for Greenpeace and, was just a wonderful guy. And a guy named Roger Kramer from the US, who took part in the civil rights movement. He sent out 1000 letters and got 20 back with money in them. And he said, “You know what, there’s something happening here that’s interesting.” He was a brilliant direct marketing fundraiser. All three of them are.
CV: Can you name any books or resources on leadership that have been useful to you?
DL: There’s Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m a big believer in that book. And Good to Great by Jim Collins. And there’s Seth Godin who writes a lot about the new markets and opportunities and that’s great too.
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is also president of Elle Communications and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.
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