Tom Belford penned a post several years ago for The Agitator entitled “Donor Retention … Why Is It So Hard?”
Still a great question!
I’d like to explore this a bit, and I hope you’ll join me.
First, are you finding it difficult?
If so, why do you think that’s the case?
If not, and you’re being successful getting repeat gifts,
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They’re meant for each other. Yet it may take a while to bring them together.
Here’s what I mean:
Peanut butter was first introduced at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. It didn’t get mixed with jelly until 1901, when the first PB&J sandwich recipe appeared in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. It was served in upscale tea rooms, and was exclusive food. Until the world changed.
The 1930 Depression made peanut butter, a low-cost, high-protein source of energy, a star. But not the combo sandwich. Not yet.
Then…WWII.
Peanut butter and jelly were on U.S. Military ration menus. Soldiers added jelly to the peanut spread to sweeten the sandwich and make it more palatable. When soldiers came home from the war, peanut butter and jelly sales soared.
Suddenly this marriage became the norm. Why separate them? After all, they went together like… PB&J!
We never looked back.
They didn’t start out married, but they belong together.
Here’s what I mean:
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People are more generous when they feel more connected.
Like members of your community. Or, if you will, your family.
This isn’t just an opinion;
In fact, it’s documented in a study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
The study found people have three basic psychological needs: relatedness, competence, and autonomy.
Today I want to examine relatedness and autonomy as they connect to success in fundraising.
Relatedness is particularly important for promoting pro-social behavior. Like philanthropy. The study found certain words — community, together, connected, and relationship — invoked feelings of relatedness.
Sharing feelings of relatedness also promotes pro-social behavior. This is why asking donors to share their own stories about why they volunteer, give or help in any other way is an effective fundraising strategy. Likewise, when you share with donors how you feel related to them this will make them feel good about how they’re affiliating with you.
Here are strategies to engender feelings of being part of a family or community:
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If I had to tell you what you need to do to succeed with major gift fundraising in one sentence it would be this:
Identify major donor prospects… qualify them so you know they want to build a deeper relationship with you… cultivate them… visit with them… listen to them… reflect back to them what you heard… ask them for something specific that resonates with their passions… steward their gift and communicate in an ongoing way to make them feel like the hero they are!
Whew – that was a mouthful!
A shorter way to say this is: Meet with donors. Listen to donors. Ask donors. Thank donors.
See — it’s simple!
It’s definitely not rocket science. It’s just good old hard work. Satisfying and rewarding work. And it’s a type of work anyone can learn to do. [If you want to learn, please sign up for the upcoming Certification Course for Major Gift Fundraisers. Use my exclusive Clairification School discount CODE Early10CA to save. It may be the most important investment you make all year. Just one major gift will more than cover the cost].
Over my 40 years in fundraising, 30 of them working in the trenches as a director of development for organizations with budgets ranging from $1 – $40 million, I have asked for a lot of major gifts. I know what works, and what doesn’t work. Today I want to give you:
(1) some of my best words of wisdom, and also
(2) answers to some of the questions folks frequently ask me .
I hope these tips will help you tweak your mindset and invigorate your systems so you can be more successful fundraising in the coming year!
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Most fear of fundraising boils down to two factors:
(1) fear of rejection, and
(2) fear of looking stupid due to insufficient knowledge/skills.
It turns out these fears are relatively easy to overcome. But it requires some serious reframing. A move away from begging and towards offering a gift of opportunity. The opportunity to feel joy, meaning and purpose.
The hard part is overcoming our deep-rooted psychological aversion to talking about money.
Most of us were raised to believe this is impolite. We’d rather talk about anything else.
In fact, many scholars argue money is the number one social taboo in America (see also Krueger, The Last Taboo). Even religion, sex and politics are better discussion topics as far as most of us are concerned. Where money is concerned, we tend to come from a place of “no.”
Here’s what I mean: Say the word “fundraising” and look at people’s faces. Their mouths will pucker up in a grimace. Their eyes will squinch closed as if in pain. Their brows will furrow. I recently tried this with a board of directors, asking them each to give me the first word they thought of when they thought of fundraising. Here are the (all) negatives:
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When organizations aren’t raising as much money as they need, they’ll often tell me: “We need to recruit new board members.” This is very often true, but it’s only a piece of the puzzle as to why they’re not being successful with fundraising. So if you’re about to embark on some board recruitment, I…
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Probably not as much as you might think.
Yet people tell me all the time how much they’re afraid to ask wealthy people for major gifts. If you share those fears, it’s time for a little “Charity Clairity:”
Contrary to what your gut may be telling you, NOT asking is not making would-be donors feel good. Quite the opposite, in fact.
In this article, I’ll cover why you must stop short-changing your would-be major donors by not offering them opportunities to be the change they want to see in the world. Why you must stop robbing them of chances to feel good about themselves.
And we’ll explore how you can use six major donor triggers to make donors feel so good they’ll want to say “yes” to your solicitation.
Bottom line: When you don’t make donors feel good, they’ll go elsewhere.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is famously supposed to have told Ernest Hemingway that “the rich are different than you and I.” “Yes, Scott,” Hemingway supposedly retorted. “They have more money.”
It’s good to remember that major donors are, first and foremost, just people.
Many of them actually don’t even feel “wealthy” (just as often so-called seniors don’t feel “old.”) In fact, a survey of 4,000 investors by UBS found that 70% of people with investible assets of $1 million or more do NOT consider themselves “wealthy.”
What most donors share (no matter their net worth) is
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If you’re like most nonprofits, you probably wish you had more major donors.
Guess what?
You can have them!
Today we’re going to look at a great tool for building those important relationships with top prospects over time.
And we all know that is what will result in the big gift.
You know how important it is to put a plan in place to build relationships, right?
It’s super-de-duper important if you want to secure major gifts.
And there’s a name for the strategic process of building meaningful relationships with potential major gift donors.
I’m talking about “Moves Management.”
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Nonprofits pay a lot of attention to donor acquisition. Then?
They largely ignore these donors, unless…
They become worthy of attention by virtue of being ‘major’ donors. Then?
Nonprofits pay a lot of attention to major donor relationship building.
But between new donor acquisition and major donor cultivation, solicitation and stewardship, what happens?
Usually not enough.
This is a BIG missed opportunity.
You’ve likely got great donor prospects hiding inside your own donor base, and you’re essentially treating them like, well, poop.
What if you were to begin to look at your mid-level donors as the transformational fundraising opportunity they are?
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If I had to tell you what you need to do to succeed with major gift fundraising in one short paragraph it would be this:
Identify prospects. Qualify them so you know they want to build a deeper relationship with you. Cultivate them. Visit with them. Listen to them. Ask them for something specific that resonates with their passions. Steward their gift. Communicate the impact of their gift, more than once, to cement the relationship and make them feel like the hero they are.
It’s definitely not rocket science. It’s just not something most of us are taught. Ultimately, success depends on doing the right things the right way. Once you know what is required, success comes from good old hard work. Satisfying and rewarding work. It’s a type of work anyone can learn to do. [If you want to learn, please sign up for the upcoming Certification Course for Major Gift Fundraisers that begins January 25th. It may be the most important investment you make all year. Just one major gift will more than cover the cost].
Over my 39 years in fundraising, 30 of them working in the trenches as a director of development for organizations with budgets ranging from $1 – $40 million, I have asked for a lot of major gifts. I know what works, and what doesn’t work. Today I want to give you some of my best words of wisdom, and also answer some of the questions folks tend to ask me frequently.
I hope these tips will help you tweak your mindset and invigorate your systems so you can be more successful fundraising in the coming year!