At least if shouldn’t be so hard. After all, the commercial sector manages to retain 94% of their customers. Then why does the nonprofit sector only manage to retain 41%? Even worse, new nonprofit donor retention is only 19%, down from 27% in 2011. That’s abysmal. What’s going on?
Why are our for-profit brethren beating the pants off of us when it comes to retention?
Philanthropy; Not Fundraising
In many ways, what’s new is old and what’s old is new. I read a lot of Brian Solis who speaks persuasively about The End of Business as Usual in an era where technology is advancing more rapidly than our ability to adapt. Yet we must adapt, or die. How do we do this, and what does this mean for fundraisers? I found food for thought in Solis’ recent article, The 9 Laws of Affinity in an Era of Digital Darwinism.
Rapid change can be dizzying. Ground yourself by remembering that though technology has changed, people have not. We have the same drives… needs… yearnings as prehistoric tribes. It’s not just about survival. Darwin wrote about survival of the most empathic. We long for connection and meaning. In other words, it’s not just about the “fittest” but about the “fitting.” Philanthropy provides that “fit opportunity” in spades (or, more aptly, in hearts).
Has your organization adopted a networked mindset? If not, your future success and relevance may be in jeopardy. Because in our increasingly connected world, only a networked approach enabled by social technologies will allow us to fully occupy philanthropy. Your E.D./Board President wants that to happen, right? Well… A network mindset emanates from the top. To…
It can’t all be about ‘push’. We’ve also got to ‘pull.’ Recently I’ve been writing a lot about social media. It’s an important tool for engaging with our supporters. But let’s not forget that what makes technology sing is not the technology; it’s the people behind the technology. Successful technology is about bonds, not bells…
Last evening I attended a panel, hosted by The Bay Citizen and The Bosmith, about the foodie culture in the San Francisco Bay Area – and beyond. Inevitably, the conversation turned towards the transformative impact social media has had on the foodie movement. With just a simple tweet, hundreds of people can instantly learn where…
Beware of a half truth; it may be the wrong half. This has always been a favorite proverb of mine. And a recent blog post of Top 10 Business Trui by Scott Gillum, which I referenced yesterday, caused me to wonder how black and white (or possibly gray) these trui might be – particularly as…
I recently came across a real goody: A blog post by Scott Gillum, contributing author to the Forbes network, offering wisdom collected over 20 years of work with some of the best, and worst, companies in the world. He found certain consistent themes regardless of company, industry or geography. It got me thinking about how…
My original title was: Asking the Questions; Doing Something with the Answers. A corollary would be “plan the dive; dive the plan”. In other words, we shouldn’t be diving into things (think about what you’re doing with your brand, website and social media in particular) without first asking some critical questions. I added “clueless” to…
Can there be any innovation where we fail to accept the fact that the status quo is no longer acceptable? Just read an interesting article about when to leave status quo behind and do a paradigm shift. It got me thinking about how challenging it is to find the right balance. We’ve all heard that “when it…