donor – Page 7 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Expounding upon the idea of “Quality Donor Touchpoints”

May 2, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising

Yesterday’s post titled “Non-profit donors: “Should I stay or should I go?” built upon a recent post over at “The Agitator” blog about donor retention. One of the things they said was that retaining donors goes way beyond doing a good job of talking about your mission and your organization. They argued that every touchpoint needs to be quality and inspire a sense of satisfaction for donors.

To put this in context, let’s use a for-profit analogy.

When a consumer goes to Walmart to buy towels, their experience is affected by so much more than just the satisfaction of finding the towels they desire at the price they want to pay. While these are indeed two factors, the following things also influenced that experience and play into whether or not they come back to Walmart next week:

Was the store orderly and easy to navigate?
Was the store well-lit?
Was the physical environment too warm, too cold, or just right?
When they couldn’t find the towels that they were looking for, did the employee who helped them do so in a friendly and efficient manner?
Did the store smell nice?
Did the other customers behave and conform to the social norms of shopping?
Did the shopping cart wheels stick and make it difficult to use?
How much time did customer spend in the check-out line?
Was the cashier friendly and helpful?

There are countless other little details that when added together can result in a great experience which results in repeat business and customer loyalty. Or they can also add up to an unsatisfied customer who won’t return, but will likely bad mouth you to their friends and post horrible things about you on Facebook and Twitter.

The same holds true for your donors!

Non-profit donors need to hear more than just good news about your mission and programs. They also need to hear more than how efficient your organization operates.

Your non-profit organization’s goal needs to be “putting a smile on the donor’s face” every time you cultivate them . . . every time you solicit them . . . and every time you steward them.

Now that is a TALL ORDER when you start thinking about it because there are so many factors (just like in the Walmart example I used). Some factors are easy to influence, and others can be very difficult to impact.

The following are just a few ideas to keep in mind as you contemplate how to ratchet up your donor services:

Communicate with donors as often as they tell you they want to be communicated with.
Communicate only those things the donor has said they want to hear from you.
Only send fundraising volunteers and employees with whom the donor has a GREAT relationship (and this goes for cultivation, solicitation or stewardship activities).
Send donors( who give frequently and recently) a birthday card.
Celebrate anniversaries for “weddings” and “becoming a donor to your agency” (focus these activities on major gifts prospects and donors).
Include the donor’s spouse whenever possible and make the cultivation, solicitation or stewardship experience feel like “family experience” (as long as it feels appropriate).
Let the donor tell you where they are most comfortable being solicited and then solicit them there.
Train volunteer solicitors about the finer points of soliciting a charitable contribution by going beyond the 12-step process of “closing the gift”.

This approach is not intuitive for many non-profit organizations. So, my final suggestion to those of you are very serious about improving donor services is to invite a small group of customer service professionals to participate in a focus group. During the hour that you have them together, educate them about how you communicate and interact with your donors. Ask them how they would go about improving the experience. You might just be surprised at what you learn.

Let’s add to my list of suggestions. Please scroll down and use the comment box to share JUST ONE IDEA on how to improve donor services and increase the quality of donor touchpoints. We can all learn from each other.

By the way, thank you to all of you for helping DonorDreams blog exceed 10,000 page views in less than one year. This milestone is a testament to you and your thirst for engagement. The next big goal is to reach 300 subscribers by December 31st. In celebrating today’s accomplishment and looking forward to the next one, would you please reach out today to one friend, non-profit professional, volunteer or board member and tell them about DonorDreams and encourage them to subscribe? Thanks again for tuning in, and I hope you continue enjoying this online community that we’re building together. 🙂

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
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Non-profit donors: “Should I stay or should I go?”

May 1, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising

A few years ago I discovered two fundraising bloggers from “across the pond” who collaborate on a daily blog called “The Agitator“. I fell in love and told all of my friends to subscribe if they knew what was good for them. A few weeks ago, The Agitator published a post titled “Flat Earth Fundraising: Ignoring The Leaky Bucket” that was so outstanding that I fell in love all over again.

While Roger hits a lot of hot buttons for me in this post about donor retention, one point struck me particularly hard when he said:

“This means half of your retention battle has nothing to do with your mission features and organizational benefits. A large part of the reason a donor will stay or go is not mission or message or premium offer, it is how she/he is treated when encountering donor services. The opportunity here is not avoiding bad experiences (that is obvious), the real opportunity is recognizing that service can actually improve the relationship and is a critical touchpoint, one that can help to further monetize the relationship with cross-sell and upsell.”

There are big non-profit organizations out there that are well-oiled machines. These types of organizations have fundraising departments and use complicated direct response strategies that would make many for-profit organizations proud. They employ fundraising professionals responsible for managing a caseload of donors and use Moves Management strategies. I suspect “donor services” look very different at a large non-profit agency than it does at a small organization. I’m not saying that it should (maybe it should and maybe it shouldn’t) . . . I’m just saying that it does.

After reading Roger’s thoughts about “donor services” and the role it plays in donor retention, I started thinking about what this means for small non-profit organizations that focus more on in-person, face-to-face fundraising and less on targeted and direct mail.

What does it mean?

It means that the volunteer solicitors your agency recruits to work pledge cards becomes one very important touchpoint for the donor.

Duh . . . right?

As I think back upon my days on the frontline of a small non-profit agency working with volunteer solicitors on annual campaign implementation, I am embarrassed to admit that the thought farthest from my mind was “how enjoyable and fulfilling will that solicitation meeting be” for the donor. In fact, I was more focused on tactical issues such as:

do I have enough volunteers?
where can I host a good kickoff meeting?
how can I inject accountability and urgency into the campaign so that we can finish “on time” and run along to the next fundraising event?

Sure, I provided volunteer solicitors with “training” at the kickoff meeting, but it sometimes felt like an after-thought. As I look back over some of the campaigns I’ve run in the last decade and think about some of the volunteers I recruited, I now wonder how well some of those solicitation meetings went.

Ugh! I would describe some of my favorite volunteers as “major closers”. They are task oriented and would “hunt down” their assigned donors like a dog hunts down their favorite bone. While that approach might have been good for me, I am now worry about how the bone . . .errrr . . . donor felt.

I would also describe some of my other fundraising volunteers as “highly reluctant” and only agreed to participate because I was charming and persuaded them to do so. In spite of all the training, I can imagine that their solicitation calls felt uncomfortable for everyone involved.

I suspect that prospects/donors have the classic song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” by The Clash running through their heads every time they are sitting down with a volunteer solicitor. This encounter needs to be good. In fact, it needs to be great!

The following are just a few thoughts running through my head this morning on how to get a little closer to achieving this objective:

put lots of time and thought into recruiting “the right” volunteer solicitors who are comfortable and excited about asking other people to consider making a pledge to your annual campaign;
be thoughtful and engage your volunteers during the prospect assignment phase of your campaign and focus on matching people based on good solid relationships;
go beyond the typical training focused on how to make the ask and use the case statement by including tips on how to improve the quality of the meeting itself; and
ask the volunteer solicitor to engage their prospects/donors in a conversation around what their preferences are for post-solicitation communication by the agency.

What is your agency doing to improve the quality of interaction between solicitor-donor and agency-donor? How are you evaluating and assessing the effectiveness of those encounters? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health! (If you want to be “agitated,” go check-out Tom & Roger’s blog posts over at The Agitator. You won’t be disappointed!)

Non-profits under fire: Measure this! Measure that!

April 27, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, leadership, organizational development

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking more closely at a recent post from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

Today, we’re focusing on a post that John titled “How Much Do I Love Thee?“. In that post, he talks about the recent obsession in the workplace to measure EVERYTHING (e.g. SMART goals, Management by Objectives, etc) and pushes back on the idea that everything must be quantifiable. He starts his post with the following quotation from Albert Einstein:

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Every non-profit professional in the world knows that our sector is under extreme pressure to conform to the trends that John references in his blog post. Here are just a few examples:

measuring community impact,
program outcomes measurement,
employee performance (e.g. management by objective), and
measuring donor loyalty.

Neither John nor I (or Einstein) are saying that we must fight this trend; however, there are things that are not measurable that must be considered and brought in the equation.

More concerning to me is the impact that this trend seemingly has on fundraising practices. Specifically, I’ve heard more and more fundraising professionals talking about program outcomes and how it can be used to demonstrate “return on investment”.

Speaking as a donor, I love hearing that my local Boys & Girls Club’s homework assistance program resulted in 75% of kids either maintaining or improving their grades. However, I really want to hear the personal stories about little Jack and Jane; Jose and Irma; or LaShaunda and Xavier. There is something inspirational in those stories. More importantly, it helps me understand the impact of that program.

I think the Center of NonProfit Excellence stated it best in their marketing for a 2010 training titled “Narrative Philanthropy: Stories that Result in Gifts”:

“But the pendulum may have swung as far as it can in the direction of statistics and outcomes. Accountability is crucial, but cannot account for the fact of why people give. What explains the emotional impulse to give? Stories. One good story is worth at least 10,000 measurable outcomes.”

If you get a chance, I encourage you to click here and read more about Jim Grote and his ideas around Narrative Philanthropy.

I also like what Norma Cameron said a few weeks ago in her blog post titled “The Power of Legacy Stories: A Daughter’s Love“. You should check out an awesome template that Norma created to gather legacy stories from your donors. A link to this tool is embedded in her blog post.

Circling back to John’s blog post — “How Much Do I Love Thee?” — he drives home his point by posing a simple question: “How much do you love your spouse?” Of course, there is no way to answer this question in a quantifiable manner.

The same holds true for the non-profit version of this same question:

How much do your donors love your organization?

While you may be able to look at your donor database LYBUNT reports and review the results from a recent donor survey, I suspect none of this data will ever truly answer the critical question that I just posed. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that you stop trying to answer the question.

So, what should donor-centered fundraising professionals do???

I suggest picking up your phone, calling that donor, and inviting them out for a cup of coffee or lunch. When you are sitting across the table from them, do what Jim Grote suggests . . . tell them stories (and pepper in a little outcomes and impact data). Make them smile. Make them feel good about their last donation. Once you get to this point, you may want to take Norma Cameron’s suggestion and ask the donor about collaborating on the creation of their “legacy story”.

Yes, I know how busy many of you are. I am not suggesting this approach with all of your donors or the folks who buy raffle tickets to support your mission. Surely, you know who your most important donors are. Right? For small organizations, this might be a great project for your Top 5, 10, or 25 donors. For large organizations, the sky is the limit. This might even be a great cultivation/stewardship project in which fundraising volunteers can be trained and included.

I suspect this is can be woven into all organization’s Major Gifts and Planned Giving programs.

Where is your organization at with all this “measurement” stuff? What are you doing to adjust to the trend and ensure that you’re not over compensating? Are you having success aligning with United Way’s “Community Impact” model? Do you employ any of Jim Grote’s or Norma Cameron’s Narrative Philanthropy suggestions in your resource development program? Please scroll down and use the comment box to share a little bit of your experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Wow . . . Non-Profit Donors are Naked!

April 25, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, technology

Yesterday, I wrote about the power of donor database software in a post titled “What can’t your donor database do?” In that post, I marveled at the availability of powerful tools such as WealthEngine and Blackbaud’s Target Analytics that have the capability of interfacing with your donor database systems. Of course, these service cost money and for a number of non-profit organizations with scarce resources, sophisticated prospect research can feel out-of-reach.

The reality is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Much of the information that data mining companies provide comes from public sources of data. All your organization has to do is dedicate a little staff time to this project, and you’ll be able to develop fairly complete prospect/donor profiles.

To test this hypothesis, I selected one donor from a local non-profit organization who I don’t know very well and used online resources to find out as much as I could on him. In order to protect the innocent, I will refer to this donor as “John Doe” throughout today’s blog post. In completing my prospecting work, I used a number of free resources that are available to everyone with an internet connection.

Google. It is amazing what you can find out about a person using Google. I typed in my prospect’s name using quotation marks and plus signs. It looked exactly like this:

“John Doe” + Elgin + Illinois

Using the quotation marks and plus signs helps narrow the Google search and improves the search results. With just that simple search, I found the following information on this prospect:

Place of employment
Address of workplace
Phone number of workplace
Work email address
Job title
Number of employees in workplace
Company sales volume
Last five employers
Other non-profit boards upon which they serve

Anywho.com or 411.com or Beenverified.com or Intellius.com. These types of sites can help you secure information like home address, phone number, estimated age, and names of relatives. You can also find information on previous home addresses, which gives you more to search on Google.

Zillow.com. Once I found this prospect’s home address, I went to zillow.com and found out what those people believe his house value. (If you are feeling brave, you can check on your house’s value. I am feeling a little ill after doing exactly that. Apparently, out house has dropped $92,000 in value since we purchased it six years ago. Ugh!)

Sec.gov/edgar.shtml. Publicly traded companies are required by the federal government to disclose a lot of information. I went to this site to learn more about the company for which my prospect works. I also clicked around to see if he is a significant investor or owns large chunks of any publicly traded companies. Unfortunately, he did not.

Guidestar.org. Non-profit charities are also required by the federal government to disclose a lot of information. So, I looked up the 990 forms of the non-profit organizations for which my prospect sits on their boards. I also did a search on my prospect’s name to see if there are any foundations that have been set-up in his name or his family’s name.

Facebook. Even though this prospect and I are not “Facebook friends,” many people don’t understand this social network’s privacy policies. As a result, a number of you have more personal information hanging out there than you care to know about. In this instance, I found out where my prospect graduated from high school. So, now I know where he grew up. I also found out where they went to college and what they studied.

LinkedIn. It is amazing to me what people post on their LinkedIn profiles. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find my prospect on this social network. However, if I had, then I probably would’ve had access to information such as: employer, past employers, job functions/responsibilities, interests/groups, and possibly even his birthday. If I was “linked” with the prospect, I would’ve likely been able to view their network of friends and business associates.

So, the point I am driving at is that you don’t need lots of money to afford the services of data mining companies because there is already a lot of information out there on your prospects and donors. All you need to do is find time to gather the information and enter it into your donor database.

Ohhhhhh . . . I can already hear many of you saying that your organization is too thinly stretched and don’t have time. OK, I get it. I’ve been there and done that. However, how many prospects and donors do you really need this level of detailed data on? For small and mid-size non-profit organizations, it might only be your Top 10, 25, 50 or 100 donors. If you set aside a few hours each week, you will have detailed donor profiles for your most important donors in a very short period of time.

Ohhhhhh . . . I can also hear many of you saying that this feels like an invasion of privacy. Or maybe stalking? I also know some of you doubt the need for this level of detail.

Let me simply end by saying, fundraising is all about relationships. The more you know about your prospects/donors, the more likely you are to deepen those relationships, connect with them, and raise money for your mission. While this might not be necessary for “transactional fundraising” programs that rely on special events and annual campaigns, it is an absolute necessity once you start moving toward donor-centered fundraising and development of a major gifts program.

Still not convinced? Birthday and age information impacts planned giving strategies. Home value is one data point that can contribute to assessing wealth and philanthropic capacity. Understanding a prospect/donor’s social network, friends, and professional relationships will help you with volunteer solicitor assignment strategies.

Online prospecting work will never replace good old fashion relationship building. It is amazing what people can and will share over a cup of coffee, but doing your homework by using free online tools or paying data mining companies certainly helps and it makes your resource development efforts a little easier.

Does your organization use fee-based data mining companies like WealthEngine to do donor screening or compilation of donor profiles? If so, what has been your experience? Have you used some of the aforementioned free online tools? If so, please share your experiences and thoughts by using the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

What can’t your donor database do?

April 24, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, technology

I left the non-profit frontline back in 2006 for an internal consulting position with Boys & Girls Clubs of America. So, it has been a long time since a donor database has “run my life”. A few weeks ago, I participated in a webinar focused on the Results Plus database product produced by Metafile in Rochester, Minnesota. It was during that webinar that I was reminded about how powerful donor database software packages have become.

For the “average non-profit” out there, a donor database is the software package they capture the following data:

Donor name
Donor address
Donor phone number
Contributions (amount and to what campaign)

It is less common for non-profit organizations to capture other information such as: solicitor names, spousal information, occupation & employer, social networks, wealth indicators, interests, etc (and this list can go on and on and on because there are more than a hundred data fields in most database packages that can be filled with information).

What I’ve found to be common for many non-profit organizations is they purchase a donor database system, invest in training, and lose institutional knowledge as employee turnover naturally occurs. As new fundraising professionals are hired, the desire to throw the old database out the window is magnified because they weren’t involved in database set-up and the systems built around the database weren’t designed by them. Most commonly, new fundraising professionals come to the table with biases toward database systems with which they might be more familiar.

Naturally, the drums start to beat and the mantra becomes “Buy a New System” rather than: 1) invest in training, 2) clean and deepen the data, and 3) fix the systems built around the database.

While I participated in that “refresher webinar” hosted by Mark Gerber at Results Plus, I was awestruck with what some donor database can do nowadays.

Credit Cards processing. Many donor databases have built functionality into their products where you can swipe and store a donor’s encrypted credit card information. This can make events (esp. auctions) really easy. It also makes recurring contributions (e.g. monthly giving program) to your annual campaign really easy. I’ve seen some database companies (e.g. events.org) build credit card processing right into the services they provide their clients. Other databases like Results Plus allow you to hook-up to external merchant account companies like Moneris and credit card processing happens with just one keystroke.

Event Management.For a long time now, fundraising professionals have been able to do a lot associated with event planning from inside their donor database, but the functionality and features continue to multiply. The following is just a short list of what is possible: seating assignments, auction management, creating/sending invitations via snail-mail or email, budgeting, creating/managing project management task lists, tracking entrée selection, managing gift acknowledgement letters with appropriate IRS disclaimer information for the value of services received (e.g. quid pro quo gifts), and the list goes on and on and on and on.

Volunteer management. A recent study released by Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund and VolunteerMatch reports two big things: 1) 67% of survey respondents said they “generally make their financial donations to the same organizations where they volunteer” and 2) Volunteers tend to donate an average of 10-times more money to charity then people who don’t volunteer. This is why it is so very important for your non-profit organization to use your donor database to track and manage your volunteers. You can track and do all sorts of things such as: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Interests? Time volunteered . . . value of that time . . . background check information . . . generate cultivation/stewardship letters . . . and the list goes on and on and on!

Prospect research. Third-party data mining companies have done a remarkable job integrating their services in such a way that you can run their applications from inside your donor database and even pull that data directly into your system. These services are costly, but it is amazing what you can find out about a prospect or donor from public records. Wow! And it can all easily be done from inside your donor database. If you have some cash to spend, talk to your database provider about whether or not information from WealthEngine or Blackbaud’s Target Analytics can be easily brought into your database system.

These were just a few functions and features that had me on the edge of my seat throughout that webinar. My best advice to all non-profit organizations with donor database systems is to:

Call your database provider and ask a sales professional to provide you with their “nickel tour”. Even though you already own the system, you will likely learn a lot about what you already own. The sales pro will play along because they might just sell an upgrade or add-on module.
Invest and continue re-investing in training. The donor database world is constantly evolving and you really need to stay on top of what your system can do.
Pay attention to the systems you build around your database (e.g. staffing, contact reports, event registration forms, pledge cards, etc). These system have a lot more to do with the data you’re capturing than the software you’re using.

I wonder when the donor database companies will build enough functionality into their systems so all I need to do is press a button on my computer and the database will brush my teeth for me? 😉

Please scroll down and use the comment box below to share one of your favorite features or functions associated with your donor database.

Here’s to your health!

Stop hating on the donor because its not their fault that you’re broke

April 20, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, organizational development

Today, we’re focusing on a post that John titled “My Other Two Dogs“. In this post, he shares an old Native American story about two dogs as it is told by Harold Kushner in his book Living a Life That Matters. It is a great story about how every day most of us struggle to maintain a balance between good and bad.

While John’s post is complex and can easily take you in many different directions, I immediately started thinking about donors. You know . . . those generous people who write checks to your non-profit organization because they believe you’re going to change the world.

I have seen this tendency to blame the donor for our woes. It doesn’t happen all of the time. It typically happens during our darkest hour when a fundraising campaign is falling short of its goal or our agency’s annual budget is projected to slip into deficit.

I’ve seen it often enough to know that this behavior is not atypical. If you’re still trying to get your arms around what I’m talking about, here are a few examples:

“If all of our donors just sacrificed a little harder and donated what it likely spend on Starbucks coffee every week, then our agency would have more than enough funding to do everything that needs to be done!”
“If every person who lives in our community would just give us $5 per year, then . . .”
“Oh yeah, sure . . . who does that guy think he is blaming the economy and the housing market for his inability to donate $50 to the annual campaign. It isn’t an inability, it is an unwillingness. Geez, it’s just fifty bucks!”

I can go on and on with examples of where we blame the donor for our woes, but I think you get the idea.

I need to also confess that one of those examples came right out of my mouth yesterday. Yes, I am a bit embarrassed because I like to think that I am a bigger person than that and a more savvy fundraising professional. However, this realization simply confirms for me that John is right on target in his post “My Other Two Dogs“.

ALL OF US (or at least most of us) are faced with this struggle for balance every single day of our lives. It manifests itself in our personal relationships, and it is likely present throughout the work day. We must work at maintaining balance because it will not naturally occur. If you’re not vigilant, then you run the risk of slipping. In the case of fundraising, you run the risk of saying something in front of a donor, board member or volunteer that could have lasting repercussions.

If your non-profit organization is struggling with fundraising, you need to look internally. The following are a few questions I suggest you ask yourself:

What does your written case for support look and sound like? Does it convincingly “make the case” for donors to write a check or can it use some tweaking?
How do your fundraising volunteers use your agency’s written case statement? Are they using it? Or does there need to be more training provided?
Do you and your fundraising volunteers look and sound like they’re having FUN while soliciting for a special event or pledge drive? Or is the energy level down and do people sound like they can’t wait for it to be done and over?
Structurally speaking . . . what tactics are you using to inject a sense of “mission-focus” into your fundraising efforts?

As John suggests in his blog post, we need to keep “feeding” the good dog so that the “bad dog” doesn’t win. I hope some of these suggestions provide you with some “food”.

Have you ever found yourself channeling that bad dog? How do you guard against it? What do you feed that good dog to remain focused on all of the right things associated with your resource development program? Please scroll down and share a few of your tips and tricks in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

If you want donors to be loyal, then be loyal to your donors!

April 17, 2012 DonorDreams Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

I know, I know . . . I keep coming back to the issue of loyalty, but I think this is the biggest issue for this generation of non-profit organizations. In fact, I think it will determine who is going out-of-business or being forced into merger/acquisition talks in the upcoming years. It is just that transformative of an issue!

What set me off and down this path again, was an email I received in my inbox yesterday from Gail Perry titled: “Don’t Be a Fundraising Dinosaur: 5 Big Ideas to Adopt Right Now“. It was such a tantalizing and catchy title that I couldn’t resist clicking on it. In about 5 seconds, I felt just like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole all over again. LOL

Gail’s second “big idea” was “Donor retention is more important than cash totals“. I read that header and thought to myself “DUH,” and then I read the following sentence:

“If you can only measure one thing in your fundraising program, then measure donor retention.”

Think about THIS for a moment . . . “only measure one thing” . . . isn’t she essentially saying donor retention is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to gauge how well your resource development program is succeeding or failing?

I think that is exactly what she is saying . . . and that is what got my attention.

It also begs the question: “What should non-profit and fundraising professionals focus on doing to encourage donor loyalty?”

Gail suggested the following few things:

ask your donors for video testimonials, and
ask your donors to do more than just write checks . . . get them involved through advocacy and volunteerism.

Both are great suggestions and you couldn’t go wrong if you decided to take those roads.

However, the words of Mahatma Gandhi keep ringing through my ears this morning as I read Gail’s blog post:

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Essentially, this translates into what I titled this blog post. If you want donors to be loyal to your mission, then you need to be loyal to your donors. What does THAT mean? Well, I turned to Adrian Sargaent for help in answering this question. In 2003, Professor Sargaent wrote an article in The NonProfit Times titled “Keeping Donors Loyal: How to Minimize Attrition on the Fundraising Database“.

In that article, Sargaent makes two great points:

one-third of lapsed donors surveyed said they stopped giving because they found other charities that were “more deserving,” and
engaging donors in HOW they are communicated with and WHEN they are communicated with and WHAT they want to hear is an effective and important strategy in the fight for a donor’s loyalty.

For those of you who read this and think: “We can’t do that. We’re too small. We don’t have the resources to pull-off that kind of donor communication strategy.” Sargaent cuts you off at the knees and suggests that even today’s smallest non-profit organizations can implement a strategy like this because donor database technology is very affordable and powerful.

I, too, was once an executive director of a very small non-profit organization. Back then, I am sure that I would’ve read that database-related comment and immediately come up with more reasons as to why he is wrong: staffing, budget, time, etc, etc, etc.

So, here is my challenge to you today. Rather than focus on the WHY NOT, I challenge you to focus on the HOW. I challenge you to engage board members in this discussion. I challenge you to engage donors in this discussion. While I won’t predict that it will get you to a specific place when it comes to donor-centered fundraising, I will dare say that it will get you closer to answering the question: “How can your organization demonstrate loyalty to donors so that they’ll be better positioned to reciprocate the gesture?”

There must be a million ways for your non-profit organization to show its loyalty to donors. Please scroll down and share a few of the things you’re implementing from a donor loyalty perspective. We can and should be learning from each other. Please share just one idea today!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Gail Perry shared a link to a great resource . . . a sample dashboard that resource development teams could use to measure and capture important donor loyalty metrics. Click here and you will see the two slides by Peter Drury that Gail shared in her blog post. A good friend of mine at Boys & Girls Clubs of America used to say: “Inspect what you expect”. (I suspect he borrowed this quote from someone more famous. LOL) However, the point is still valid . . . you need to have a monitoring and accountability strategy in place as you start heading down these roads that aren’t traveled often enough by non-profit organizations.

Good luck, and as I always: “Here’s to your health!”

Marketing does not equal resource development, usually

April 10, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising

A very good friend of mine from Ohio emailed me last week and said that her soap box topic for the month of March for any non-profit who would listen was: “marketing is not resource development“. Oddly enough, I too spent the month of March telling many people the exact same thing. So, this morning I decided to climb to the top of my online soap box and yell as loudly as possible that “Marketing does not equal resource development, usually“.

First, let me address the issue of why I used the word “usually”. Simply stated in two words . . . “Cause-related Marketing”.

For those of you who are still wrestling with what cause-related marketing is all about, I point you in Joanne Fritz’s direction. She has written a number blog posts on the subject including “Five Best Cause Marketing Programs For Local Nonprofits“. In this instance, cause-related marketing is a solicitation tool and can become a part of a non-profit organization’s comprehensive resource development plan.

So, what exactly is “resource development”?

Without looking up definitions in a Fundraising 101 textbook, I’ve always thought of resource development as a big machine with a number of cogs that work together. Those cogs have the following names:

Prospect identification
Prospect introduction
Prospect cultivation
Prospect solicitation
Donor stewardship

In recent months, I have come across a number of non-profit organizations (esp. board volunteers), who believe that their agency simply needs to invest in more marketing to solve their revenue problems. The implication is that there is a direct relationship between dollars coming in and the agency’s visibility.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not “hating” on marketing people today. In fact, I love the marketing profession and spent three years working as a newspaper journalist. I love my marketing friends; however, I really want them to stop telling my non-profit friends that they have the cure for their revenue ills.

Yes . . . yes . . . yes . . . It is true that better marketing will improve an agency’s visibility in the community, which can impact resource development activities like identification, cultivation, and stewardship. It is also true that in some instances like “cause-related marketing” that marketing becomes a solicitation tool. However, in the end, the reality is still:

Marketing ≠ Resource Development

Let me share a few examples of how marketing professionals and fundraising professions look at the same resource development issues and think differently:

Example #1: How to improve your existing annual campaign?

Marketing professional — give the donor something they really value (like a really nice premium gift). This will change the ROI calculation and result in more donors and increased dollars raised.

Fundraising professional — revise the agency’s case for support, provide better training and support to volunteer solicitors, recruit more solicitors to make more asks . . . these things collectively will allow for a higher quality solicitation as well as more solicitations all of which will result in increased dollars raised.

Do you see the difference in approach?

Example #2: How to engage more prospects?

Marketing professional — purchase advertising (or secure it for free using a public service announcement strategy) in local newspapers, radio and cable television. Tell people about your agency and those who are interested will opt-in using a telephone number, email or website address provided in the ad.

Fundraising professional — engage board members, volunteers, and existing donors in helping you identify their friends who share a common passion for your organization’s mission. Once those prospects are identified, ask those same volunteers and donors to invite their friends to participate in mission-focused activities like an open house, reception, event or cup of coffee with the executive director.

Do you see the different in approaches?

In the for-profit world, those corporations sell “things” (e.g. widgets), and those products are valued by consumers. So, when someone sees a marketing pitch around something they want, then it triggers this impulse to purchase. In my humble opinion, this is not the same dynamic at play when it comes to donors who make charitable contributions to non-profit organizations.

This is not to say that an impactful marketing program isn’t important because it surely is. However, I really want board volunteers to stop pinning their hopes of increased revenue solely on marketing efforts because:

“hope” is NOT a strategy, and
there is no substitute for board members and fundraising volunteers participating in a comprehensive resource development program.

I understand that sitting down and asking people for money can be scary, but it is the only thing in the universe that has ever worked. So, let’s stop “hoping” and looking for ways around it, and let’s start building a resource development machine that is supported by an effective marketing program.

So, do you disagree with me? I know there are tons of people out there who do. If so, please scroll down and share your thoughts using the comment box. Do you agree with me? If so, please scroll down and use the comment box to provide additional examples of how marketing professionals and fundraising professionals approach similar resource development questions from different angles.

We can all learn from each other. I am open-minded and willing to consider other viewpoints.

Here’s to your health!

Donors and board members also cast long shadows

April 6, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising

Today we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Dr. Pepper’s Shadow“. In this post, he uses the example of how a CEO’s off-handed cafeteria comment resulted in an inadvertent major change in what was being offered in the beverage cooler. As John masterfully explains, leaders need to be mindful that they are leaders who are always under the microscope just like the E.F. Hutton television commercials from the 1970s. (By the way, if you’re too young to understand the E.F. Hutton reference, click here for a YouTube reminder)

This happens ALL THE TIME in the non-profit sector. In fact, it is considered by some to be a best practice.

For example, when a donor off-handedly mentions that they value “education” because they were the first member of their family to go to college, many non-profit people are trained to recognize that as GOLD!!! The comment might get captured on a contact report and entered into the donor database. The mail solicitations start echoing messages about effective educational programming. The stewardship discussions with this donor start revolving around the agency’s educational programming. The major gifts proposals focus on supporting educational programs to support the organization’s mission.

Non-profit fundraising professionals are trained to be like the people who appear in the background of that E. F. Hutton television commercial. Of course, there are consequences to this behavior as John points out in his Dr. Pepper’s Shadow blog post.

After all, isn’t it possible that in the fictitious example I just provided that the donor might “value” education but has fallen in love with your agency for a completely different reason? If so, then overreacting to the revelation that the donor values education might produce a chilling effect on the philanthropic relationship.

The solution is simple. Stop overreacting to isolated data points. Continue capturing whatever you can using contact reports. Continue collecting this interest-based information in your donor database. However, double down on stewardship activities and use this kind of data to drill deeper and develop stronger relationships with your donors.

For example, I can envision an in-person stewardship visit over a cup of coffee where the fundraising volunteer says to the donor, “I’ve heard you say that you cherish educational institutions and the idea of life-long learning, what do you think about some of the educational programs our organization offers clients?”

I can also see a fundraising volunteer in a pre-proposal cultivation meeting saying, “We would like to prepare a major gifts proposal for your consideration. I’ve heard you talk about your passion for education. Would you prefer we focus the proposal on educational programming opportunities or is there something else you’d be interested in hearing more about?”

I think John’s Dr. Pepper phenomenon is a real thing especially in non-profit fundraising circles. What are your thoughts?

In fact, I’ve also seen Dr. Pepper’s Shadow appear in the board room with something as simple as lunch. All it takes is one board member off-handedly saying that they wished there was a tuna sandwich option, and staff scurry around before the next board meeting dealing with menu changes. The consequence might seem inconsequential, but there literally can be a few hours wasted engaging people in tuna conversation. Don’t believe me? I’ve seen it happen!

Have you seen John Greco’s Dr. Pepper phenomenon in action at your agency or someplace else? What were the consequences of it? What do you do to guard against overreacting to comments from donors and board members that were only meant to be off-handed? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box.

Here’s to your health!

Would you please solve the REAL problem? Structure Drives Behavior!

March 23, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, leadership, organizational development

Today we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Close Cover Before Striking“. In this post, he uses the example of how matchbooks were re-designed to discuss an important organizational development concept — “structure drives behavior”. This is an important concept for all non-profit professionals to master if organizational excellence and mission-focused productivity is your goal.

At the Boys & Girls Club, I cannot tell you how many kids forget their barcoded membership cards every day. So, as I tried to apply John’s blog theme to this example, all I could think of is TATTOO that damn barcode on kids’ foreheads!

Needless to say, I abandon that blog post idea for something a little more rationale — donor contact reports.

Every time someone from your organization visits a prospect or donor, they should (in theory) fill-out a “contact report”. This report needs to find its way back to your agency, into the hands of the person entering data into your donor database, and typed into a contact record. Why? So, that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. More importantly, the information a donor shares with you can influence many other things (e.g. how much they will be asked for during the next campaign, designing a custom stewardship program, building an effective Moves Management program and approach, etc).

Of course, few non-profit organizations are ever effective in convincing their volunteer solicitors to complete this extra form.

Hmmmmmm? John’s blog post got me thinking. This is likely a “structure” issue. So, how could this process be re-structured to get the desired result?

This topic is one that has bothered me for a very long time. I’ve tried everything including: talking slower, pleading, printing more forms, lecturing, simplifying the form, etc. I’ve even thought about investing in mind reading. As you can see, a new line of thought is probably warranted.

Here are a few thoughts I’ve had since reading John’s blog post (some might still be off-the-mark but I think I’m getting closer):

What about putting the “contact report” on the back of the pledge form? This could also re-enforce the idea that volunteer solicitors shouldn’t leave the pledge form behind with the prospect/donor. This could be a “twofer” solution.
What about taking the responsibility out of the hands of volunteer solicitors? Your agency could email each prospect/donor a short questionnaire a few days after they complete the pledge form. You could ask a few questions (both open-ended and closed) designed to yield important insights into why someone contributed, what they want to see your agency do with their contribution, etc.
If you don’t like the idea of a questionnaire, what about recruiting a team of volunteers to follow-up via telephone a few days after a donor makes a contribution to your annual campaign? The call could include a personal “thank you” and end with the volunteer asking if the donor minds answer a few questions designed to help the agency do a better job managing their generous gift and the priceless relationship.

OK . . . I’ve started the ball rolling with a few ideas. Please go back and read John’s blog post titled “Close Cover Before Striking” and use the comment box below on my blog to share additional ideas on how “re-structuring the process” surrounding your donor contact report might get better performance and better donor data.

Come on! This is an issue with which I’ve seen even the biggest and best non-profit agencies struggle. A few minutes of brainstorming can have a huge impact on so many other non-profit and fundraising professionals. It is Friday . . . how about “paying it forward” today?

Or perhaps you want to join me in advocating a TATTOO solution for kids and donors? 😉

Here’s to your health!