The Danforth Philosophy
Our Mission, Our Character
Danforth Development, founded in November 2001, provides fundraising support services to non-profit organizations. Danforth Development is a regional leader in the provision of board and leadership development processes and individual major gift cultivation and solicitation strategies.
Twenty years experience in marketing and development combined with a spirit of innovation have fashioned a regional reputation of excellence among corporate and individual philanthropists, foundation leaders, and peers in the field of fundraising.
Working with organizations in development planning, feasibility studies, capital campaign and endowment campaign support, leadership development and cultivation strategies, Danforth Development creates strong relationship-based fundraising programs for its clients.
Gifting often improves immediately through the straightforward articulation of mission and programmatic successes to carefully identified constituencies.
President and Founder Dana Kimberly, CFRE
Philanthropy offers individuals a way to communicate their personal values and beliefs to others. Understanding what unique motivation each person (or constituency) has for making a gift to a particular organization, and encouraging that response, is the differentiating mark of Danforth Development.
During the last seven years, Danforth Development has attracted and built a roster of important non-for-profit clients in the upstate, New York region. Working in collaboration with voluntary and administrative leadership, each client is handled personally and professionally to meet financial goals and achieve a new standard of philanthropic excellence. The practical and beneficial effects of enhancing a development program through expert consultation are far-reaching and long-lasting.
Association of Fundraising Professionals
President and Founder Dana Kimberly is a member of the International Association
of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), and her firm subscribes to the AFP code
of ethical principles and standards of professional practice. This code and
these standards provide guidelines in the areas of professional obligations,
solicitation, uses of charitable funds, stewardship, presentation of donor
information, donor confidentiality, and professional compensation.
The Giving Institute
Inducted in 2007, Danforth Development is a member of the Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Non-Profits. The Giving Institute, formerly the American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) was founded in 1935 to promote the need for professional and ethical standards of practice, and to influence the creation of laws governing philanthropy.
Danforth Development holds the distinction of being one of only two member firms in the nation founded by women.
Giving Institute has been involved in many milestones of philanthropy, developing the widely accepted Standards of Professional Conduct, helping to fund the start-up of the United Way, and working with the New York State Legislature to develop and enact the Charity Registration Act, the basis for a nationwide model. Several years later, it created the Giving USA Foundation, formerly the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, providing America with an annual publication reporting philanthropic trends.
[top]Our Core Competencies
Danforth Development provides a full range of services, and supports each client according to individual need. Key areas of expertise include methodologies to:
- Create an atmosphere of donor trust.
- Enable your primary ambassadors to the community to report your excellence to future donors… naturally.
- Broaden annual support,
- attracting new donors and improving gifts from current donors.
- Acknowledge generosity with genuine appreciation.
- Use creative ideas uniquely suited to recognize philanthropists.
- Cultivate new donors,
- inviting them to learn more about your mission and programs.
- Identify leadership among your annual donors.
- Know how and when to involve future leaders of your organization, readying them for a role as primary ambassador.
- Conduct feasibility and planning studies.
- Speaking one-on-one with your donors or prospective donors is a delicate and vital enterprise. Learn how to build need awareness, understand individual responses, and extrapolate results to larger constituencies in preparation of a major campaign.
- Develop grants and case statements.
- Writing the grant document for a foundation is often the final step in the process of securing a major contribution. Use language to impress readers with your programmatic credibility and organizational panache.
- Develop successful major gift strategies.
- To be effective, major gift strategies often require a unique understanding of the philanthropic community, donor motivation, and the balance between voluntary and administrative leadership. Organizations who care for the well-being of their donors will ultimately serve their missions better than those who don't.
- Calculate fundraising cost effectiveness measures.
- How much you spend to raise money for your organization is of vital concern to donors. Learning how to encourage volunteer involvement effectively in major gift and annual giving programs can significantly reduce fundraising costs, while building loyalty.
- Supporting planned giving and deferred giving strategies.
- Create or build on current programs to ensure the financial future of your organization for generations to come. Stay current regarding federal legislative changes affecting deferred giving options.
An Appreciation for Regional Philanthropic Culture
Understanding Rochester's extraordinary history of philanthropy and the distinct individuals and families who fostered this value is a unique characteristic of the services provided.
This awareness of the gifting culture, personalities, and relationships within generations of philanthropic enthusiasms is the singular trait that differentiates Danforth Development from out-of-town consulting firms.
The relationship between the Rochester philanthropic community and the organizations supported by it is marked by subtlety and dignity — and in equal measure, a passionate concern for making life better for residents.
More expensive national development consultancies can not and do not offer
this fine advantage.
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Professional Code of Ethics
- Member Firms of the Giving Institute believe it is in the client’s best interest that:
- Initial meetings with prospective clients should not be construed as services for which payment is expected.
- No payments of special consideration should be made to an officer, director, trustee, employee, or advisor of a not-for-profit organization as compensation for influencing the selection of fundraising counsel.
- Fees should be mutually agreed upon in advance of services.
- A flat, fixed fee is charged based on the level and extent of professional services provided. Fees are not based on the amount of charitable income raised or expected to be raised.
- Contracts providing for a contingent fee, a commission, or a fee based on percentage of funds raised are prohibited. Such contracts are harmful to the relationship between the donor and the institution and detrimental to the financial health of the client organization.
- Fundraising expenditures are within the authority and control of the not-for-profit organization.
- Member Firms feel it is in the best interest of clients that solicitation of gifts is undertaken by Board members, staff and other volunteers.
- Subsequent to analysis or study, a Member Firm should engage a client only when the best interest of the client is served.
- Members Firms should not profit directly or indirectly from materials provided by others, but billed to the Member Firm, without disclosure to the client.