How to Fight Nonprofit ‘Resting on Laurels’ Syndrome
Are you planning to do, more or less, the same thing you did last year for your annual fundraising push?
I mean things like:
- Recycling the exact same appeal letter
- Mailing to the same list
- Failing to segment your list
- Failing to clean up addresses and de-dupe your list
- Using the same donation landing page
- Mailing only one appeal letter
- Sending only one or two emails
- Failing to link to your appeal on social media
- Failing to ask your influencers to share with their peers
- Failing to encourage recurring gifts
- Failing to suggest specific ask amounts
- Failing to ask major donor prospects in person
- Failing to send a prompt, personal thank you
- Failing to have a donor love & loyalty plan in place to retain these supporters
- … the list goes on!
I was moved to write this article after recently attending an excellent production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” at the S.F. Playhouse. I found it surprisingly moving, especially the final musical number: “Move on.” And, being me, I was able to relate it to something I find all too common in nonprofit work.
Something insidious that kills innovation and inexorably drains spirits.
It’s almost a disease.
The recent Equifax hack has millions of people worrying about the security of their personal data. While this was a particularly egregious and dramatic attack, it’s certainly not the only one. And nonprofits are not immune. Which is why I asked an expert for advice as to what nonprofits can do to protect themselves and their donors. Ged Mackey is Chief Technology and Security Officer of MobileCause. He told me about a problem I’d never heard of called “Card Testing.” Here’s what he had to say.
