BOO!
Halloween is creeping up on us, so I’ve got some really scary stuff for you!
Don’t get too spooked. There are also a few treats.
In fact, you’ll get eight delicious goodies — in the form of “to-do’s.”
But first… the bad news.
No bones about it, you’re frightening folks away if you’re committing any of these 8 boo-boo’s!
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Imagine what it would mean to your mission if you doubled the lifetime value of all of your current supporters.
Do you know even know what percentage of donors you’re retaining?
According to Jay Love, founder of Bloomerang, less than 45% of fundraising offices know this answer!
So, you’re not alone. But you can do better.
Because knowing your retention rate enables you to move it to something better.
And I’m going to guess, if you’re like the majority of nonprofits, you probably need to improve your donor retention.
At least if you want to grow.
Or maybe even just survive.
Just a small change in retention, up or down, can mean thousands of dollars.
It’s your choice whether they’re your gain, or your loss.
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The Unfair Exchange Bernadette Jiwa, The Story of Telling.
That will be eight dollars,’ the woman, who is carefully weighing and wrapping two serves of freshly made fettuccine for us to take home, says.
As my husband is about to hand her the cash, she takes another handful of the pasta from behind the glass and adds it to our package.
She doesn’t announce that she’s giving us twenty per cent extra for free.
She doesn’t even invite us to notice the gesture at all.
It’s enough for her that she knows she has added value.We think of value as a hard metric—the anticipated fair exchange of this for that.
But value can be a surprising, generous, unfair exchange.
Something that is given because we can, not because we must.
Ah… value.
Wow, wow, WOW!
This is what all fundraising, fundamentally, is about.
Yet one side of the exchange is a hard metric: The donor’s cold, hard cash.
While the other side of the exchange is something decidedly less tangible: Freely given gratitude from you and your organization.
Or at least that’s how it should work.
What does your donor love and loyalty plan look like?
Do you even have such a plan?
If the only reason you acknowledge donations is because you feel you ‘must,’ it’s likely your donors aren’t walking away from the encounter feeling much more than matter-of-fact. The transactional receipts many organizations send out are registered by the donors as “Ho, hum. Guess I’ll go file this with my tax receipts.”
This kind of exchange is fair, sure.
But it’s not generous.
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By now you undoubtedly know you’re losing too many first-time donors.
In fact, the most recent Fundraising Effectiveness Project report shows you’re losing an average of 68% of these folks!
Today I want to talk about a subset of new donors who don’t renew. They’re called “third party donors,” and they come to you through a variety of portals:
The good folks at Classy know most nonprofits are not doing a good job cultivating donors who come to them through third parties, so they’ve prepared The Guide to Courting Third Party Donors. You can download it for free (40 pages), but let me give you the highlights – along with some of my own thoughts.
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You want a smokin’ major gifts program, don’t you?
Of course you do. You want to light those babies on fire!
Better put, you want to ignite your donor’s passions, light the fire in their bellies, and help facilitate the type of philanthropy that will be a win/win/win – for you, your donors and the vision your organization seeks to attain.
You can’t do this without nurturing a pipeline that lights your donors’ sparks of interest, fans the flames and patiently waits until ignition happens.
Sure, you could just light little fires. Fires that self-extinguish pretty quickly. But these aren’t the fires that will sustain you and keep you warm over the long haul.
That’s why every nonprofit, no matter your size, cause or longevity, needs to build a major gifts pipeline.
Otherwise, you’ll have nothing to smoke!
Want to learn how to stop running on fumes?
All you need to do to transform failure to success is to adopt my personal #1 SECRET – the one principle that makes the greatest difference to long-term, sustainable fundraising success.
This is a secret that will transform donor loyalty and increase donor retention by leaps and bounds.
Plus, it’s not rocket science. It’s pretty much common sense.
Anyone can do it. Everyone should do it.
I’m going to share that principle here; then I’m going to turn this principle into a word – actually three variations of the same word – that you can use to transform the way you’ve been doing business.
What will happen as a result?
I promise you’ll close more major gifts!
Are you ready?
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What’s in a name?
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” said Shakespeare.
But, would it?
Seth Godin thinks words matter. As do I.
Just?
The meaning of the word is the reason we used the word.
If we don’t agree about the meaning of the word, we haven’t communicated.
Instead of, “that’s just semantics,” it seems more productive to say, “I’m confident we have a semantics problem.”
Because that’s all of it.
The way we process words changes the way we act. The story we tell ourselves has an emotional foundation, but those emotions are triggered by the words we use.
Not just.
Especially.
— Seth Godin
Maybe that’s okay. Or perhaps
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When people give to you for the first time, often they know very little about you. Perhaps they found you through a link on social media. Or organic search. Or through a friend who emailed them a link to your appeal.
They were inspired to give, once, based on whatever they saw or read.
What happens next is critical.
Either you’ll inspire donors to stick with you, or you’ll depress their enthusiasm through benign neglect.
I say “benign,” because I’m sure you don’t mean to mistreat your supporters. Nonetheless, I’m willing to bet many of you do.
Here’s the deal: Donors are looking for meaning. If your thank you and subsequent donor communications don’t give it to them, they’ll dismiss you and go look for meaning elsewhere.
All donors have questions they need you to answer for them. If you fail to answer these questions you fail to lay the groundwork for developing a positive, ongoing relationship.
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Wondering where fundraising is heading in our highly networked, overly saturated, noisy-as-all-get-out post-digital revolution world?
It’s a bit of a jungle out there, with so much competition for attention — for-profits, other nonprofits, political campaigns, friends, family.
It’s a wonderful time to seize the opportunity to put in place a system that values multiple voices.
Truly, if you’re able to really show people how much you value them, you’re going to rise to the top of the heap.
Of course, sometimes it’s easier said than done.
Today we’ll explore 4 keys to raising money in our socially-revolutionized zeitgeist.
Do you ever worry you’re not doing enough to attract the donors of the future?
Does thinking about how to market to Millennials (who already are the largest segment in the workplace, will be 50% of the U.S. workforce in the next two years, and who will be 75% by 2030, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) fill you with anxiety, because it’s just one more thing to add to your overflowing list?
Fear no more!
Today I’m going to tell you how you can have it all – and with very little extra work.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dissing a multi-generational strategy. If you can manage to treat different types of donors differently, you absolutely will get the biggest bang for your buck by so doing. However…
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