Nonprofit Fundraising: We Have a Semantics Problem
No matter your politics, this is crisis time for many nonprofits who rely on federal grants and loans (about 30% of all charities).
It’s also crisis time for the beneficiaries of many nonprofits, who are scared, stressed, depressed and otherwise at loose ends due to the rapidly changing environment. Many of the resources on which folks once relied have disappeared or are at risk. For some of your constituents, it feels as if the rug has been pulled out. Or the other shoe is about to drop.
During times like these, people want to come together and help. It’s your job, as a philanthropy facilitator, to help them in this communal endeavor. Stay calm, carry on, and communicate your particular needs.
Resist the temptation to throw your hands up in the air, assume people feel too uncertain to give now, and simply leave folks (donors and clients) to their own devices. We know from past experience this won’t end well.
During the 2008-09 worldwide recession, many charities cut back on fundraising and marketing. Some of them still haven’t recovered. Something similar happened in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. People thought (assumed) it was unseemly to ask for contributions.
Be careful what you assume.
If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Research collected from donors in response to the coronavirus pandemic showed:
- Giving, and fundraising, was increasingly seen as good. Even donors who had been hit economically remained remarkably generous.
- Charities with little relevance to tackling coronavirus still received support from donors that valued them – as long as they asked for help (otherwise they were perceived as not in need of funds).
“Many of the donors we spoke to report that they just don’t know what they should be doing or who they can trust. This led to a rise in levels of insecurity… Of course, they understand that things are changing and that plans will always need to adapt. But knowing that a strategy is in place will provide the security that they need. They also want to know what their role – as supporters – will be. And, most importantly, they are ready for a frank conversation about what is required of them.“
Donors want to help – and will help – but they need leadership.
This means telling people what you do that addresses the problems that worry them. For people feeling helpless, this can give them a sense of control. Show them how they can join you, and become a part of a community of like-minded people who share their concerns and values.
It all boils down to a need to put together both short and long-term plans to connect meaningfully with your supporters right now, using the correct approach and tone. Towards that end, I’ve put together five ‘to-do’s – one for each day of the work week. I suggest you put aside a little bit of time this coming week to consider how you might actualize each of these suggestions, if not in whole at least in part.
Ready for your five timely tips?
TIP #1: 4-Step Message Formula for this Uncertain Time
Whether it’s a marketing or fundraising communication, keep these four basics in mind.
- Clarity and confidence. Get clarity on your reason (WHY) for sending this particular message; then assure your message is a confident expression (WHAT) of your rationale. Make these two characteristics part of every message you create. And don’t muddy the waters. Each message has a singular overarching goal. If may be information… a solution to a problem… or even a welcome escape for your constitutents. Highlight what it is, and why it matters, in all your communication channels.
- Steadiness. Although this crisis likely isn’t going away soon, neither are you. Steady, calm, and measured language will help constituents understand you’re there for them — now and in the future. This does not mean gaslighting folks or ignoring the elephant in the room. If you steadily obfuscate, or offer platitudes, you’re not offering clarity. Nor are you getting across the message your stability depends upon. Which is you and your community coming together.
- Urgency. There’s a lot of fundraising noise; you must cut through it. While keeping calm, highlight the urgency of a donation in clear terms. What will a gift accomplish? What will happen if you don’t meet your goal? Help the donor visualize precisely how their gift will make an impact. And, of course, have a plan in place to report back to donors who respond to your call to action so they can trust their gifts were put to work as intended.
- Normalcy. As you create and promote content, keep in mind many people are looking for temporary escape. You do need to acknowledge the crisis to be credible, yet not everything you say needs to be about it. Find something about what you do that feels like what you’ve always done, more or less. Continue to showcase the parts of your mission people have always cared about and supported, even though some of the ways you’re implementing programs and services may be evolving.
TIP #2: Be the Bearer of Good News
Donors don’t want to go down with a sinking ship.
Share any good news you have to offer. It may be a new plan to pivot programs to a different format. It may be ways you’re working with elected officials to fight some of the newly enacted executive orders that negatively impact your constituents. It may be a town hall to share recent mission-related wins. Good news will offer donors hope, and make them feel better about the prospects for survival of all they, and you, hold dear. This will make them more likely to stick with you and continue to donate.
If you don’t have good news, find some. In 2020 I received a fundraising email from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. At the bottom, I was pleased to see them include information informing supporters about new tax deduction benefits made possible through the CARES Act. After all, what donors don’t know, they won’t take advantage of – and that is to everyone’s detriment.
NOTE: This tax benefit went away, but it pays to keep up-to-date as major changes are on the near horizon for charitable tax policy. As a philanthropic advisor, it’s helpful to be able to inform donors of the best ways to structure their gifts so they get the biggest bang for their buck. I always recommend you let donors know you are not in the business of offering professional legal or financial advice, and they should consult with their own advisors.
TIP #3: Use this Time to Conduct a Brief Donor Survey
Donor surveys offer you a “twofer.”
- One is for you (useful information).
- One is for your donor (a way to meaningfully participate other than giving money).
People want to be helpful right now, so they just may participate in larger numbers than would have been true in the past. It’s a way to connect without asking for money (you always want a balance of communication strategies), and this makes sure you don’t fall ‘out of sight’ (which can become ‘out of mind’ all too quickly). This information can be gold to you as you prepare your content calendar and campaign materials moving forward. [See 2 Reasons Donor Surveys are Valuable].
Surveys facilitate your transition from “organization-centric” to “donor-centric” communications. After surveying your supporters you’ll know what your donors want you to tell them (vs. what you want to tell them). This is a huge deal! In fact, Penelope Burk nailed this when she said, years ago, in her ground-breaking “Donor-Centered Fundraising” book: “Show me that you know me.”
TIP #4: Take Major Donor Research off the Back Burner
Don’t rely on guesses and hunches. Work smart!
There’s no more cost-effective fundraising strategy than major gifts development. It costs 5 – 10 cents to raise a dollar, compared with $1.25 to raise a dollar through direct mail. Or 50 cents to raise a dollar through events.
Giving USA reports 75% of all giving (lifetime + bequests) came from individuals last year. While a slightly shrinking piece of the giving pie, no other income source came close.
There’s nothing more effective than growing a pool of individual donors who will stick with you, in good times and bad.
But you need the right prospects for your organization. This requires methodical research.
Sadly, many nonprofits have this project way at the bottom of their ‘to-do’ list. Right now, with cutbacks in other areas, is a prime time to move this to the top of your list, where it always should have been.
You don’t necessarily need to purchase research or append predictive models to your database. This isn’t a bad idea, but I don’t want you to use the fact you don’t have the resources for this right now as an excuse to whiff on the entire project. Because when you have major donors they’ll often account for 70 – 95% or more of all your contribution income! You can learn a tremendous amount just by doing internet searches on prospects. Plus, you can query your board members and other major donors to find out what they know about some of your top prospects.
If you don’t look for major donors, you won’t find them. They aren’t delivered by the stork!
TIP #5: Time to Do Spring Database Clean-up!
Prepare your list for your upcoming campaigns.
Plenty of research supports the premise that direct mail vastly outperforms email. It drives higher response rates, instills greater trust, and people just like it. So, protecting the integrity of your snail mailing list should be of utmost concern. Did you know 10% of all U.S. nonprofit mail appeals won’t even be delivered?
That’s because nearly 45 million Americans move each year, and for many their mail is undeliverable because of incorrect addresses. Yipes!
Use services such as the National Change of Address (NCOA) at least once a year to keep up with current home addresses. This can save you a significant amount money as addresses change frequently due to moves, divorces and deaths. There’s another tool called TrueNCOA that will process any file for $20 using the NCOA records of the US Postal Service. They’ll also do address verification and eliminate duplicates — all for the single fee.
SUMMARY: Tip-a-Day-DO-Dah!
Monday
Review your next planned message and reframe using the 4-step message formula outlined above:
(1) Clarity; (2) Steadiness; (3) Urgency and (4) Normalcy.
If you don’t have a message cued up, plan to send one. Don’t go dark on folks now. Please trust me on this one. Out of sight is out of mind.
Tuesday
Consider what good news you might share. Pay attention to what’s top of mind for folks in the daily news. What do you do that may ameliorate some of the things keeping your supporters up at night?
Wednesday
Plan a donor survey. It can be very simple, with just a few questions, using a free service like Survey Monkey or Google Docs.
Thursday
Review your major donor prospects. You may have already been approaching existing major donors to ask for larger gifts. It’s time to dig deeper into your database and look at mid-level donors who may have both the capacity and inclination to give more.
Friday
Clean up your mailing lists! Your appeal is only as good as who it is sent to. Take off duplicates and bad addresses. Make sure your salutation fields are filled in appropriately (today, informal is better). Purge your lists of folks who haven’t responded to you in five years or more.
Week-End
Rest! You’ve earned it.
Photos are mine from walks around San Francisco neighborhoods during the coronavirus pandemic.
