I’ve been getting nervous es from colleagues who attended the 2023 AFP ICON conference in New Orleans, all bemoaning the fact not just donors but also donations are down. You see, information was presented from the full 2022 Fundraising Effectiveness Project report, and the results were sadder than usual. I want to share this with you,…
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Are you throwing your former board members out like yesterday’s trash?
This may not be your intention, but you’re kind of guilty of this if you don’t continue to (1) let them know how special they are, and (2) build personal relationships with them. After all, one of the foundations of Penelope Burk’s groundbreaking work in Donor-Centered Fundraising is the finding donors want one thing first and foremost: “Show me that you know me.”
CONSIDER THIS:
Every single communication with a former board member should let them know you know who they are.
If you treat them like they’re toast, don’t be surprised when they start sending you little bread crumbs instead of the whole slice – or loaf – they once sent. People want to be appreciated. It’s just human nature. And facilitating philanthropy (the word literally means “love of humankind”) is a very human endeavor.
Don’t stop loving your former board members.
Stop blaming them for stopping to love you. Blaming is a cop out. Instead, look in the mirror and see what part you may be playing in their changed behavior.
SPECIAL TIP: You can apply much of the suggestions in this article to former staff as well. I often marvel at the hands-off way I’m treated by some of the places where I once worked, sometimes for many years. Places where I donated too, because I believed in the mission. Now I’m just a “prospect” or “lapsed donor” to them, and the communications I receive come across a bit infantalizing. After all, I know this stuff. I wrote a lot of this stuff! It just feels like they’re telling me “since you don’t work here any more, you mean nothing to us.”
Former board should be one of your top segments for cultivation!
IN A NUTSHELL:
- They have a deep understanding of your vision, mission and values.
- For years, they made your nonprofit one of their top philanthropies.
- They have numerous connections with your cause, including relationships with staff, each other, and even beneficiaries.
- At one point you were part of their identity and family.
- You likely have a special place in their heart.
- They may even have included you in their estate planning!
Don’t stop making beautiful music together! Continue to treat them personally, unless they specifically ask you to stop. Don’t simply relegate them to your impersonal e-news mailings or mass annual appeals. Treat them like major donors and develop a love and loyalty strategy that invites them to stay engaged with you, albeit in a new way.
Early in my career I received a piece of fundraising advice that has stuck with me to this day:
People are all people.
And what do you do with people if you want to build a relationship?
You get PERSONAL!
In fact, if I had to tell you how to win over donors with just one word, “personal” is the word I’d choose.
Let it underscore everything you think about and do.
Your annual appeal writing. Your special events. Your newsletters. Your blog posts. Your proposals. Your reports. Your social media. Your donor cultivation.
If you take just this one word to heart — PERSONAL — you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.
Though we we give lip service to the importance of practicing empathy and donor-centricity, truly valuable tools in building donor relationships, these terms are subsumed by the umbrella of the ‘person’ to whom they apply. Start there.
Visualize your person, and before engaging in any strategy or tactic, ask yourself:
Is there a more personal way to deliver this message?
Make sense?
Today, in a still-disrupted, socially distanced, increasingly virtual environment, with striving for greater diversity, equity and inclusion at the forefront, how you get personal and how you define people are more important than ever.
Today I’d like to flesh out the multiple meanings of this word, and discuss how getting personal can help you achieve your nonprofit fundraising and marketing goals.
DetailsDo you write anymore?
I don’t mean do you type.
I’m talking about good old-fashioned handwriting.
You know, that very human practice most of the world seems to have abandoned post digital revolution?
It may seem practical and smart. After all, using a keyboard is definitely quicker.
But something critical gets lost in translation.
Not just to your audience, but to yourself.
Could keyboarding be causing you to disconnect? To lose your passion?
This is why writers including J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Danielle Steele, John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates have rejected word processors and computers in favor of writing by hand. At least for their first drafts.
CAVEAT: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking these “handwriting people” are all just “old,” “old school,” or “stuck in their ways.” Rather, they intuitively discovered things about hand writing. All subsequently borne out by neuroscience. Once upon a time I intuited this as well. I couldn’t imagine giving up my yellow writing pad and pens of various colors. How would I think expressively if forced to type everything? Gradually, I was persuaded (shamed?) to jump on the bandwagon of modernity and efficiency. And, lo and behold, it was incredibly efficient. So fast! I got used to editing as I went along. Pretty soon I couldn’t envision ever going back. BUT…
But… after many years on the wrong track, I’m coming to understand the documented benefits of composing by hand.
You can learn more about some of these benefits from specific studies here (improves memory and promotes deep encoding); here (bolsters learning), and here (advances idea generation), to name just a few.
Today I want to share six of these benefits I think you’ll find most relevant to your nonprofit work.
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You are known by the company you keep.
No nonprofit stands alone.
It may be born alone, or die alone, but it stands together.
That’s because it’s not about “I,” but about “we” and “us.”
Your nonprofit not only fulfills a demonstrated need, but it addresses problems other folks agree need addressing. All of you are “in” on addressing the problem and making the community and world a better place.
The company you keep should reflect your community.
Community based. Significance-based. Story-based.
Friendships. Deep connections. Relationship building.
This all creates the nonprofit brand.
Put another way, as my friends at The Ross Collective say: “People who are closest to the problems are weighing in on the solutions.”
Have you ever received confoundingly terrible customer service? Maybe at a restaurant, hotel, fast food restaurant or retail outlet? It happens all the time and, likely, you’ve thought to yourself: “Why on earth are they treating me like this? It’s so stupid! Don’t they realize I’ll never come here again?”
Sadly, this is exactly what many donors feel when:
“Customer service, like everything an effective organization does, changes people.”
Think about it. When you experience poor service in the for-profit world, it’s likely because the person with whom you’re interacting has no stake in the business. They see their job as just a job, and really don’t care about the business as a whole. Whether or not a customer returns again means little to them.
This also happens at nonprofits without a donor-centered culture of philanthropy. While the customer, or donor, may not always be exactly “right,” it is imperative everyone in your organization recognizes and appreciates the value donors bring.
“Each person directly associated with your organization should value donors and implicitly or explicitly express that value with gratitude and appreciation. No exceptions.”
— Brian Lauterbach, fundraiser, consultant, entrepreneur
“Without tackling internal issues head-on, we believe the prospects for major fundraising progress are limited. In most organizations, fundraising is limited more by organizational culture and structure than by lack of strategic or tactical know-how.”
— Alia McKee and Mark Rovner, Founders, Sea Change Strategies
DetailsNOTE: How to instill a culture of philanthropy is a topic for another article (like this one), but at base it has to do with how people treat each other in your organization.
Want your donors to sustain you? Then you can’t consume them in five minutes.
Yet all too often nonprofits treat their donors exactly like a gumball dispensed from a machine. Chew it up. Spit it out. Done.
Oh, yeah… maybe you send a quick thanks to whoever gave you the change to buy the gum. But that’s as far as your gratitude takes you. You’re over it. You never even think about that gumball again. You probably can’t even remember what color it was. You’re off hunting down your next snack.
Little snacks are nice. But they won’t sustain you over time.
One-time donations are the same way. And they’ll stay that way – one time – if you treat them the way you treat your gumballs.
DetailsIn my last article, It’s Fundraising Malpractice Not to Build Future Reserves, I introduced the subject of having both an organizational checking and savings account so you don’t risk going belly up when people rely on you. I talked about building a case for endowment and bringing your board on board. Then I tried to…
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Just like it’s prudent for individuals to have both a checking and savings account, it’s prudent for nonprofits to have both operating funds and endowment reserves.
Living paycheck to paycheck is less than ideal, especially when constituents rely on you for services that really matter. Seriously ask yourself:
If your answer to any of these questions is affirmative, you’re living on quicksand. When you’re not actively safeguarding your future, you’re robbing your community of precious resources.
Does this sound like a prudent, caring way for your nonprofit to behave?
Not if you see yourself as a community.
Without caring, you’re just a zip code or a building, not a community.
Make this the year you demonstrate your caring by planting seeds for future harvests.
You can’t care for people, animals, places, things or values without nourishment and fuel. As a recipient of philanthropy, it’s your job to steward the resources others give so you’ll be there for the community when they need you most.
You fail.
Your community fails too.
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There’s a lot of potential legacy giving out there in the universe. Per Giving USA 2022, giving by bequest was an estimated $46 billion, (an increase of $5 billion from just two years previous). What are you doing to assure some of it will flow to your cause?
I cover this subject in depth in Where Are Our Nonprofit’s Legacy Donors? Contrary to the way most nonprofits behave, legacy gifts don’t simply fall from the sky. They’re not delivered by storks carrying baskets filled with wills, trusts and beneficiary designations. You need to do something proactive.
You can’t simply rest on your reputation, however solid it may be. You could be raising tons and tons of money annually, and it won’t necessarily translate to bequests. It’s not because your donors aren’t the will-writing kind. That may be true for some of them, but there are other simple ways to leave a legacy accessible to all. Donor willingness is not the problem.
You are!
No charity succeeds simply waiting by the phone for folks to call. You’ll receive a bequest or two, perhaps. But nowhere near what you could receive if you took the bull by the horns and created a program that speaks to why people make legacy gifts.
There are two main reasons: (1) they’re asked, and (2) it feels meaningful to do so. So, given this, what do you incorporate into your program? What if I told you there’s a way to take charge of your own destiny, as you simultaneously help donors take charge of theirs?
STEP #1: Figure out a strategy to get folks thinking of you as a recipient of their philanthropic largess after death. There are elements to include in a full-fledged legacy giving program, and I’ve written about that plenty (e.g., see here and here).
STEP # 2: Help donors connect their giving to their personal identity and meaning. People may believe you’re awesome. But when it comes to distributing the hard-earned income accrued over a lifetime, they just don’t think of you that way. As an extension of their family, deepest values and essential identity. This is where many nonprofits fall down on the job, and it’s what I want to discuss today.
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