Welcome to so many new subscribers, who I’ve met on my recent trip to New Zealand. And apologies to my long term subscribers for my recent silence – I have never been busier! But getting back into the swing of things with a change of style: Q&A! I recently received this question from one of my readers:

Question: This week, our organisation was fortunate to receive a $200,000 contribution from a donor. This donor had previously given annual amounts of $10,000 (2008) and $15,000 (2009) and then, in a phone conversation earlier this week, she informed she would like to give up to $200,000. Obviously, more went on before and during her announcement, but my question to you is:

“What’s the appropriate way of recognising such support?” I’m not talking about a certificate done via Powerpoint or a media release to a local paper – what are some of the unique and special ways charities recognise the generosity of major donors?

Answer: I decided to seek some advice from the ultimate relationship fundraiser, Ken Burnett, author of Relationship Fundraising. Here are Ken’s thoughts on donor recognition:

It’s certainly true that charities recognise their donors in a variety of different ways: crassly, inadequately, poorly, foolishly, inappropriately, slowly, hesitantly…

Charities also rarely recognise their donors in the following ways: personally, promptly, properly, cleverly, opportunely…

So if this fundraiser avoids recognising his/her donor in the way that most charities do it, but instead opts for some of the ways they don’t, he or she will most probably get it more or less right.

Best practice in this area is an oxymoron. The Americans are streets ahead of the Brits in this area – better by far than we Brits are. They can be a bit cheesy about it, of course, but then many American donors don’t seem to mind cheesy.

Herein I believe is the answer – it pays to know your donor, and what he or she will consider appropriate. By that I mean really know. Many donors will say that they don’t want recognition, but they are fibbing, bless them. They want to save you trouble and cost, so you must persuade them, gently, that you really, really want to recognise this important gift, for very sound reasons.

All donors are different (really, they are). They will react to being recognised in different ways. So, I suggest that this is the perfect opportunity to start a regular dialogue with this donor (at $200k, she’s well worth it). This fundraiser should tell the donor he wants to recognise the importance of this gift  appropriately because a) it will make a huge difference to the cause (and people should know that), b) to encourage you, dear donor, c) to encourage all other donors, including some who might do likewise, d) to encourage staff and volunteer supporters, e) whatever else you can think of.

Make a big deal of it. But above all, seek the donor’s guidance as to specifically what’s right for her. Some people prefer low profile. Others will go for a bigger splash. Let the donor choose and you’ve done half of the job at least, because you’ll have shown you care, and that it matters.

Clearly your correspondent wants a specific answer to the question, ‘How should I recognise my donor?’ Maybe he wants an answer like, ‘By taking her to Disney’s World of Adventure, or tea at Fortnums, or whatever. But the right answer here isn’t specific, except to that donor. The right answer is, ‘By doing it properly.

Thanks for the question, dear reader. And thanks also to Ken Burnett for his sage advice. You can find out more about what Ken’s up to by visiting www.kenburnett.com.

Free book giveaway: Now it’s time to open it up to all subscribers and readers. Would you care to share your thoughts about donor recognition? What have been your success, your challenges, and stories of the times that, as Ken says, you’ve done it properly? Please share your comments by clicking below. And on Saturday 11 June, I’ll be looking at the comments and offering a special book prize to the most helpful suggestion. The winner will recieve a copy of Switch: how to change things when change is hard, by Chip and Dan Heath.

I’d like to share with you an inspiring response to the ‘Love your Audience‘ article. David McGovern from Catholic Mission shares his own approach to showing love for donors. Over to David:

Having embarked on a campaign I’ve called 20/20 (making significant, or meaningful, contact with 20 donors in 20 days), I found the challenges posed by this posting quite pertinent.

It reminded me of the adage that “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Although cited in management texts, I think it has a lot of relevance for fundraisers and the relationship we share with our donors.

For what it’s worth, these are the following ways I am looking to express my ‘love’, or appreciation, for our donors:

1. Having an attitude of gratitude – letting them know that we value them, and their support.

2. Treating them as partners in our ‘mission’ – we can’t do what we do without their support and they also need to feel they are making a difference.

3. Seizing unexpected opportunities to communicate with them – for instance, if I see an article in a paper, I consider which of our donors might like to read it and then pop it in the mail with a little (post-it) note, drawing it to their attention.

4. Identifying significant milestones – this is something I want to get much better at but if you can identify when donors first started supporting your organisation, you can acknowledge the milestones as they occur. For instance, we have 42 donors in the Brisbane Archdiocese in Australia, who have been supporting us for more than 20 years. My next goal is to come up with some appropriate way of recognising such loyalty.

5. As a lot of our donors comes from a ‘church background’, it also can be opportunity to engage with them at significant times of the church calendar. At Easter, I sent a number of donors cards wishing them a safe, happy and holy Easter, and thanked them for their support. No doubt there will be other occasions (besides Christmas) when I can interact accordingly. The challenge is to make such communications cost-effective, so that donors do not feel you are wasting precious funds ‘wooing’ them.

For what it’s worth, I sense that donor management is a bit like being in any sort of relationship: I am finding that it takes a lot of discipline to communicate with donors regularly (daily, weekly, monthly, annually). In this sense, it’s like being married or being a parent – you have to let the other person know you ‘love them’ constantly and ongoingly.

Of the many non-fundraising blogs I subscribe to, Chris Guillebeau’s The Art of Non-conformity Dispatch is one of my favourites [thanks, Fundraising Detective, for the tip!]

Chris’s recent post, Luciano Pavarotti’s Secret to Online Success, got me thinking. To cut the story short, here’s the secret:

Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience. -Luciano Pavarotti

Many nonprofits want (and expect) people to love them. Yes, the organisation does good work, yes it may be a worthy cause. Then why aren’t people falling over themselves to donate?

Do you want your donors to love you? Or do you love your donors? There’s a big difference!

The concept of involvement is so important when it comes to long-term growth. I’m impressed by new nonprofits such as the Childs i Foundation. They genuinely want people involved in their mission (the ‘i’ stands for interactive).

I’ve recently met with a some smaller nonprofits who want to get into public fundraising to quickly raise much-needed funds, particularly when government funding or corporate sponsorship has suddenly dried up. That’s a good start. But then the reality kicks in: How have they worked to involve people in their mission?Where might that public support come from? Who is their audience? Have they made any effort to involve or love their audience?

And for many nonprofits, they may think and genuinely believe they love thier audience, but sometimes thier actions don’t demonstrate it.

Here are just five ways to love your donors:

• Have regular meet ups where you invite your donors to come together to help you. Check out Child’s i Foundation’s approach to meet ups.
• Invite your donors to see your work. Give them a really inspiring tour or presentation. Even if they can’t attend, a genuine and personal invitation means a lot.
• Share more about the impact of your work. I really love UK charity, Missing People’s impact reports.
• Write to donors one or two times a year to say thank you. Give them the opportunity to tell you what they think, or to share thoughts with you. This can be done by including a simple reply form and reply envelope, without asking for donations.
• Ultimately, if you don’t think you love your donors, you need to identify the big and little changes to make it so.

Would you like to share your tips about how you love your donors? Please feel free to include your actions or ideas in the comments section of  this article.

@aidwkr: landed in Port au Prince today – this place is chaos, devestation is profound and this is going to be a long haul ..11:03 AM Jan 16th from web

@aidwkr is Dominic MacSorley, a Concern aid worker in Port au Prince, Haiti. His tweets from 16 January onwards tell a remarkable story of sadness, hope and humour.

I heard about Dominic yesterday morning, when I received a thank you email from Concern, in response to a donation I made a few days ago. They suggested I follow him on Twitter. Reading his tweets brought a tear to my eyes and reaffirmed the importance of my donation to Concern.

It’s great to see Twitter being used to tell stories. You can see Dominic’s tweets here (for those new to Twitter, start from his 16 Jan post and read upwards).

And if you’re looking for more information about donations and fundraising in response to the earthquake in Haiti, check out the regular updates and news roundups from Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Have you thought about sending a nice ‘end of year’ thank you email to your donors? Or maybe you’ve already got one planned.

Here’s a nice, simple example from Defenders of Wildlife, a terrific US-based organization. While it has a thanksgiving theme, it can easily adapted to whatever it is that you celebrate, or just an ‘as the year draws to a close, I wanted to take one last opportunity to thank you…’ approach.

You can view the full email here.

And if you’d like to find out more about DoW’s online and offline fundraising, check out this SOFII exhibit.

[image credit: Defenders of Wildlife]

The other day, I looked back on the emails I’ve received over the past few months from charity: water. They’re all very good, but there was one that got me right where it should. In fact, I think it’s one of the best charity emails I’ve received all year.

I’ve been following charity:water’s meteoric rise for some time now on twitter and through their website. Since their inception three years ago, they have raised about US$10 million from approximately 50,000 supporters. And as a result have helped almost one million people in 15 countries to access clean water. Their almost overnight success has come as a result of sheer determination, brilliant networking and excellent fundraising.  (BTW, they’re looking for a director of fundraising.)

They are the most followed charity on Twitter, with over one million followers, have raised substantial money by using Twitter (more about that another time) and are doing so much right online to build a strong support base, as this recent email demonstrates.

What’s so great about the email I received from charity: water?

Let’s start with the subject line. It didn’t say: Latest news update from charity:water. It said: Will the beautiful women of the world please stand up.

The picture at the top of the email was of a proud and striking woman. It was clear that this was her story, and that of Program Director Becky Straw. It looked interesting and again I read on.

The intro from founder Scott Harrison went like this:

Our Water Program Director Becky Straw recently returned from Northern Uganda, where it all began for charity: water. In 2006, donors funded the first set of wells in a refugee camp that desperately needed clean water. Today, thanks to your continued help, we have 88 clean water projects serving over 58,000 people in Uganda. I hope Becky’s story touches you as it touched many people here in our office. – Scott Harrison

And Becky’s story was very moving indeed – mission-centered, highly descriptive and intensely personal. Here are just a few excerpts:

From my vantage point in the truck, I watch women gather up their children and move to the edge of the road to let us pass. Their feet are gnarled and calloused: a result of thousands of miles walked barefoot over rocks and mud. With babies strapped to their backs, their brightly colored skirts sway and their knees quiver and brace under the weight of water and children. Most balance pails on their heads, while some grip 80 pounds of water with sweaty palms, a bright yellow 5-gallon Jerry Can in each hand…

… This is when I met Helen Apio. While most women hung back politely, Helen jumped toward me and screamed two inches from my face. Technically, it was singing. But the high-pitched shrieking was so loud and reverberated with such energy and emotion, I knew I had to talk with her.

She told me about the new freshwater well in her village.

“I am happy now,” Helen beamed. “I have time to eat, my children can go to school. And I can even work in my garden, take a shower and then come back for more water if I want! I am bathing so well.”

I’m in awe of how they manage. But of course, they have no choice. The average woman in Africa walks three miles every day for water. Often, it’s water from putrid rivers or disease-infested swamps. Worldwide, women are more than twice as likely as men to collect drinking water.

And it gets even better. I recommend you read the full email from beginning to end here.

It’s a great example of how you can share stories ‘from the field’. For your organisation, that might be through your nurses, researchers, trainers, counsellors or campaigners.

Finally a strong donate button on the bottom and, you guessed it, I pressed it. It’s interesting to note that all charity:water’s donations are processed through Paypal, including their regular monthly gifts. And it worked like a dream. (Their donate page is one of the best I’ve seen, too. So simple.)

Want more?

There’s a lot we fundraisers can learn from charity:water. Check out this New York Times article about founder Scott Harrison. Or watch this video about how it all started for charity:water and their 3rd birthday fundraiser, Born in September.

I’d welcome your thoughts, so please comment. Link to your own examples of brilliant fundraising emails or please send your examples to me.

[photo credit: charity: water]