Omar, Monthly Giving and the Hedgehog Concept

Who is Omar? What's the Hedgehog Concept?

Omar, a 9 year old Honduran boy, is our family friend and one of more than 310,000 children, youth and aging persons that are sponsored through the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA). 

Drawing on an ancient Greek parable, Isaiah Berlin in his renowned 1953 essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” split the world into two groups, hedgehogs and foxes. Jim Collins brought this discussion to the forefront again in Good to Great, his 2001 leadership classic. Collins coined the term “Hedgehog Concept” to describe an idea that makes money, something that the hedgehog can be very good at and a mission for which the hedgehog has a passion.

Founded in 1981, CFCA receives more than 90% of its revenue through its “Hope for a Family” monthly giving program.  In 2008, CFCA’s total revenues and contributions exceeded $103.9 million. Their fundraising expense was an astonishingly low 2.9% (See financials at www.cfcausa.org). Most non-profits have a fundraising expense of at least 8% and the national average is closer to 20%. 

In Hedgehog fashion, CFCA fundraises almost exclusively through a single channel. Founded by a group of Catholics as a lay person non-profit, they have a comfortable entree with Catholic churches. Virtually all CFCA sponsors learn about the program through guest homilies (sermons) delivered by CFCA-hired traveling priests. On any given weekend, a traveling priest will sign-up an average of 140 sponsors between the three to five parishes that he visits. 

Other child sponsorship organizations, including World Vision and Children International, use multiple marketing channels including direct mail, magazine ads, television appeals, key word buys, etc. Not surprisingly, their results, while still impactful, are not nearly as cost effective.

CFCA’s Hedgehog fundraising efficiency is remarkable as is the way they facilitate relationship building between each sponsor family and sponsored child….

We know Omar, our CFCA child, from the personal letters and photographs we have exchanged with him since becoming his sponsor through our parish 3.5 years ago. The experience has been so rewarding for us that we see the $30 monthly support to Omar as an “untouchable” family budget item.

That kind of professed loyalty and the resulting revenue stream, point to an extraordinary opportunity for non-profit organizations. Sustainer programs, as they are also called, provide something that virtually all non-profits desperately need, predictable cash flow.  Consistent cash flow (four years for the average monthly giver) allows non-profits to pause, to think and to adjust long-standing and often inefficient fundraising methods. Monthly giving programs offer leaders peace of mind and enable a long-term operating and planning horizon. 

Peace of mind. It's hard to argue with that.

Is it time to find your Hedgehog? (Read more at Hedgehog or Fox?)