How will you and your nonprofit make it through these trying times? Two words: EMPATHY. INNOVATION. These are the two qualities most needed in today’s topsy-turvy world. And they’re by far the best way to connect meaningfully with your constituents. I’d like you to think of them as your newly essential fundraising and communication strategies.…
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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.
Research collected from donors in response to the coronavirus pandemic showed:
“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.“
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?
DetailsI’m making this the year of helping people reframe their approach to things, both personally and professionally. We can’t always change the external, but we can change the internal. And that can be than enough. It’s a LOT. Shall we talk first about callings, or breathing? How about breathing? Among the definitions of the…
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Everyone’s been saying this, just about daily, for some time.
“These aren’t ordinary times.”
If the anthem for the Boomer generation was Bob Dylan’s “The TImes They Are A’Changin’,” what’s the anthem for today? History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. We’re living in the face of a firehose of breaking news, and much of it is difficult to digest. Let alone know how to face, handle and get through it with safety and sanity intact.
We can retreat, live in limbo or figure out a way to navigate through this reality and find opportunities to do our work in new and better ways.
It’s a difficult assignment, because it’s not easy to know where to begin.
As social benefit organizations, we want to come from a human-centered, community-centered place, but… what exactly might that be in this extraordinary time?
I think it’s humanity and trust.
Usually we have to guess at what will feel relevant to our supporters. Today, we pretty much know. Because we hear it all the time. On the news. On social media. When we zoom with colleagues. When we talk to our friends.
Social benefit organizations have a secret advantage.
Survival in the civil sector is based on the philanthropic exchange, and ‘philanthropy’ means ‘love of humanity’. Yet sometimes it seems all we see and hear is hatred of humanity. Us/Them. Left/Right. Red/Blue. Young/Old. Good/Evil. Insiders/Outsiders. I could go on…
There’s a better way. When you infuse your nonprofit work with humanity, you’ll reach trust.
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Confession: This is something I struggled with in my 30 years as a manager.
I wanted to reward folks, but I tended to focus on things like money rather than gratitude, praise and recognition. And positive reinforcement didn’t come to me as naturally as pointing out weaknesses. I had both a boss (and a mother) who role modelled this for me.
This same critical boss also told me, whenever I wanted to give someone a raise, money didn’t motivate people. All sorts of other things mattered more, including work environment.
At the time, I didn’t really believe this. I was constantly advocating for well-deserved raises because I thought it was the best gift I had to offer. And, by golly, it seemed like the right and fair thing to do! She told me resources were limited, and the satisfaction from a raise is fleeting, compared with things like greater authority, autonomy, praise and recognition.
You know what? She was right. Not about leaning into criticism, but about what is most meaningful to employees in a workplace.
I found, as much as the people who worked for me enjoyed a good raise, they complained a lot more about lack of advancement opportunity, responsibility without authority, a top-down infrastructure, lack of job fit, unrealistically high expectations, shortage of support and an overall stressful work environment.
If money is really bad, of course, it will get in the way. However, it’s worth noting money is only fourth among the top five reasons people cite for leaving a job. In fact, the preponderance of research into the value of money as a motivator notes it is a motivator only up to a certain point; once folks reach that level, more money has a negligible impact on their satisfaction.
[Background: I was fortunate during my career not to work at places where folks were expected to buy into the “starvation cycle” mentality and live below minimum wage. Where I worked, people generally were fairly and well-compensated. Sure, they’d likely tell you they wanted more money. But this was not the reason they left.]
“In a nutshell: money does not buy engagement.”
— Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, author, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and How to Fix It)
Employee engagement is a product of overall work environment (culture) and specific management support (feedback, praise and recognition).
A huge part of what employees will describe as “work environment” has to do with meaningful engagement, or lack thereof. And there are two ways to promote this engagement:
I talk a lot about the former. Today I’d like to hone in on the latter.
(1) Because… for engagement to stick, the two types must go hand-in-hand.
DetailsIn fact, research reveals
Recently, fundraising writing and thanking guru, Lisa Sargent, posted a list of “small stuff” it’s absolutely important to sweat. It to me decades – decades! — to learn this on my own in the trenches, and I’d have given anything to have had a mentor like Lisa to clue me in from the get-go. Lucky…
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Years ago I happened on a Forbes article describing 5 Ways to Make a Killer First Impression. LIke a bolt of lightning, it struck me: It’s not only prospective employers or on matches who form an instant opinion of you! It’s also true for prospective philanthropic supporters. You should be dating your donors! Were you…
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Really, donors definitely want to rock and roll with you. It brings them joy and meaning!
Yet, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s doubtful you’re rocking along with your donors unless you’re making robust use of your donor database for this purpose.
In other words, you must make donor engagement and retention a TOP priority.
Retention lives or dies in how effectively, or not, you use your database to support your relationship-building, loyalty-driving efforts.
If you think of your database as a largely undifferentiated mailing list, you’re not going to realize your potential to:
Really, I just can’t bear to think of you not maximizing return on your investment.
And that won’t happen unless you focus on donor lifetime value.
And lifetime value will be very, very small — unless you retain and upgrade donors over time.
This week the groundhog told us it’s going to be an early spring!
Spring is always a good time for re-awakening, rebirth and just plain dusting away the cobwebs. And what a dreary, grave, cobwebby period it’s been.
We’ve got a lot to clean up, reorganize and rethink. So much, in fact, it’s downright overwhelming. So, as I sat down to write today’s article, I thought about what you actually have within your power to do. Right now. And all throughout the coming months.
I know it’s been pretty hard to focus with everything going on in the world.
So I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to pull together the various challenges I’ve seen nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, and marketers grapple with in the past year. Actually, the past years. Through elections, pandemic, climate catastrophes, shootings, war, unprecedented demonstrations of cruelty and inhumanity, and more. It’s a LOT.
But, the show — your good work — must go on.
In other words, your mission must move forward. People rely on you to do the critical work of the social benefit sector.
I thought: what can people do now to set themselves up for success as we move forward into high fundraising season at the end of this coming year? It may seem early to think about this, but it’s never too soon to put your best foot forward.
I’ve ended up with four tips I hope you’ll find relevant and timely.
Whether it’s a marketing or fundraising communication, keep these four messaging basics in mind.
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You likely collect a lot of data in your donor database, but is it really valuable to you? It’s not if you just let it sit there, rarely lo at it, and never run reports based on data that will help you with meaningful donor segmentation for appeals. And by that, I mean meaningful from…
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