A Personal Touch Helps the Y Recruit Affluent Donors to Its Cause

Behind the Y’s 7-percent growth in donations last year are local fundraisers like Gary Laermer in New York City and Cheryl Reynolds in Monrovia, Calif., who are relentlessly focused on finding affluent people who can afford to give at least $1,000 a year.

Mr. Laermer says he and his fundraising colleagues have boiled down their fundraising advice to four words: “No meetings, no money.”

Ms. Reynolds is doggedly persistent. “I don’t give up on people,” she says in explaining how she raised $1-million in the past four years, a sharp rise from the $150,000 the local Y collected when she started as its chief fundraiser in 2007.

The collective efforts of Y fundraisers from across the country was powerful, enabling the nonprofit to raise $823-million last year, more than all but 10 other nonprofits in the United States.

Keep It Simple

Mr. Laermer says he stepped up the focus on big gifts as soon as he took his job as chief development officer at the YMCA of Greater New York almost three years ago. He recruited high-profile donors to join a giving circle called the Leadership Council and asked each member to give at least $1,000 and cajole up to a dozen of their friends and colleagues to give that much each year.

He wanted to give this extremely busy group of people a fundraising task that was relatively easy.

“It didn’t require a whole lot of meetings, but it helped make them feel like they were making a difference,” Mr. Laermer says.

In 2011, the council’s members grew by 25 percent, to 45, and Mr. Laermer plans to expand the council to 100 this year. Already, the charity takes in more than 800 gifts of $1,000 or more every year, which has helped boost overall giving for the New York chapter by 8 percent, to $6.3-million, in 2011.

To make sure donors don’t stop thinking about the organization, Mr. Laermer says he is always in “cultivation” mode.

Apart from inviting Y members to cocktail mixers, he also introduces them to what the charity does best: He’ll take them on a visit to a day camp in Chinatown or Harlem, where kids take advantage of the Y’s sports facilities and youth programs—and where donors can, he says, see “the money they’ve given.”

Such field trips also help donors and potential supporters recall their own experiences using the Y, he says. The memory-lane approach works. “You’re helping people reconnect with those wonderful memories of them growing up,” Mr. Laermer says. “That’s great fun.”

For potential donors who have not had any direct experience with the Y, Mr. Laermer casually directs the conversation to their dreams for their community, such as seeing more kids graduate from high school or get better jobs. This opens the door for the fundraiser to say, “Let me tell you a little bit about what we do in that area.”

Belief and Passion

Across the country, Cheryl Reynolds spends almost all her waking hours opening doors to conversations with donors.

Ms. Reynolds, director of development at the Santa Anita Family YMCA, near Los Angeles, is now so well known for her work that she was awarded an “Outstanding Nonprofit Employee” commendation by the state legislature. Ms. Reynolds says that she doesn’t have a secret behind her fundraising success except to focus on “creating relationships.” She does that by showing up—at every community function she can.

Fundraising, she says, involves “a lot of identifying the businesses in the surrounding areas and finding out who the key player is.”

As a member of the local Chamber of Commerce, she keeps close tabs on which companies are new in town. She prepares carefully for Chamber-related mixers, figuring out whom she needs to approach first and whether they are connected to anyone on her charity’s board. She then invites them to the Y for a tour and to see its programs up close.

In 2011, Ms. Reynolds, who has just one assistant and no other fundraising colleagues, raised $402,000, a 59-percent jump from the year before. The increase in annual gifts resulted mainly from her work to attract donations of $5,000 and above. She credits much of the success to finding new prospects: Her organization hired a consulting firm to build a list of potential donors, which reignited fundraising. The Y also received a bequest of $100,000 from a supporter who had been involved with the charity since 1984.

“She left us a percentage in her estate, and she had no family,” Ms. Reynolds says. “The Y was her family.” The donor stipulated that the money be used to support programs for the elderly.

“When I talk to people, my belief and passion just comes out,” says Ms. Reynolds, who spent 15 years at other Y branches before she moved to Santa Anita. “I just talk, and I believe wholeheartedly in what we do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t still be here today.”

Even if a potential donor turns her down, she takes comfort that she told the story of the Y; the person knows more about the Y and what it does.

“I have been told ‘no’ thousands of times; my feelings do get hurt, but it’s not about me,” Ms. Reynolds says.

And to maintain donors’ interest, she makes sure to follow up within a week or two, and to connect with them throughout the year. It could be a letter, or a quick note, or a photo of the kids who went to camp this past year. She says, “I kind of don’t let them forget about the Y.”