I received an unusual email from charity:water, one of my favourite nonprofits, the other day. It admitted failure.

They had grand plans to celebrate and promote the fourth year of their massive September fundraising campaign. Their plan was to broadcast their drill for water live via satellite from Moale in Central African Republic. However, the live drill didn’t go as planned. In fact they failed. Here’s how they explained it in that email to me:

It was going to be an amazing story, and charity:water’s 200th completed project in the country. The people of Moale had been waiting for water for more than a decade. After two failed attempts to reach clean water many years ago, our local partner ICDI brought in a new drilling rig that could dig up to 700 feet. Unfortunately, they never made it that far. In what was by far the most challenging drill we’ve ever witnessed, the team came up short after 30 straight hours when the second borehole caved in.

It was a heartbreaking and messy day. We’d hoped to show you footage of a joyful village celebrating a successful drill, but we didn’t achieve that today. We’re committed to transparency at charity:water, so instead, our Live Drill video will show you the reality and challenges we face on the ground.

Tomorrow, we’ll start drilling in another nearby Bayaka village. We haven’t given up on Moale. For now, the people there will have to wait a little bit longer for their well — but we will be back. In the meantime, with your help, we can provide clean and safe drinking water for every Bayaka through this year’s September Campaign.

You can see it all on video, too. Here’s what they had planned and here’s what actually happened. It’s a great story, even though they didn’t succeed the first time.

Now I’ve just finished reading Adrian Sargeant’s wonderful Tiny Essentials of Donor Loyalty. In it, Adrian explains why he believes that building donor loyalty is the biggest challenge facing our sector. He goes on to explain exactly what fundraisers can do to improve donor loyalty through building donor satisfaction, commitment and trust.

And on that last point, Adrian says, “As donors develop their trust in a nonprofit they will exhibit higher levels of loyalty.”

One of the key ways to build trust with donors is to be honest when things go wrong, as Adrian explains:

There is no need to try and gloss over failure or only partial success. Aside from the fact that donors will find the honesty refreshing and respect you more as a consequence, it is often the case that the reasons for the only  partial success are fascinating and can add real value for donors seeking to understand the complex challenges the organisation might face. It is an odd quirk of human behaviour that when people are willing to admit mistakes and seen to learn from them, they generate significantly higher levels of trust than if they’d got things right first time.

No doubt charity:water had a plan to communicate to donors if the live drill was unsuccessful. I am sure they thought through their communications for this campaign very carefully. Very refreshing indeed.

This post was originally published on the Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration (SOFII) Blog. You’ll find some excellent fundraisers from the four corners of the world contributing to SOFII’s Blog.

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.

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]