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.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
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, 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 opportune 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.
Thanks so much, David. Great tips, and what an excellent approach!
Hi Christiana,
Great article and glad you like Chris – thanks for the mention.
I’m a big fan of his writing and have learnt a lot from his approach to life. Going to add the article to my fortnightly round-up.
Thanks,
Craig
Thanks so much, Craig.
Indeed, a “thank you” is a wise investment. It gives energy to *you,* as well as the person receiving it. And it fortifies the kind of person each likes to think they are.
But wait, there’s more. Even more than the good ideas you’ve listed, Christiana.
I’ve come to see how our expression of gratitude can also go a little deeper and mean more. That is, if we get into what the person’s contribution means to us personally — yes, even if as a staff member, we can take off that hat and write as one who’s highly invested in the cause. Or even better, as you suggest to engage face-to-face.
This kind of engagement aligns us even more with Pavarotti’s “love the audience” idea. To make it personal, not just official.