Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: How You Spend Your Summer Vacation

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For many nonprofit organizations, summer is a slow time. If you are in Development and Communications, you know that many of your supporters are at the beach or running “mommy camp” at home.

They are not spending as much time looking at the communications you send them, so you might be tempted to take the summer off.
That would be a big mistake.

Right now, you have the luxury of time. You can spend hours or whole days thinking about the basics of donor communications. When are you going to have that luxury again? Certainly not in September!

So, let’s revel in the slower pace of summer and tune up your communications with your donors. Let’s start with the fundamentals: your email list, your database, and your website.

See my tips for summer nonprofit fun at

https://developmentconsultingsolutions.com/how-your-nonprofit-should-spend-its-summer-vacation/pink flamingo water balloon

Fundraising Tuesday: Don’t Scorch Your Donors

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watering plants

A good nonprofit fundraiser at work!

 

I put a plant into the ground.  Then I forgot about it.

The sun baked it.  It drooped.  It withered.

Oops!  Well, no problem.  I’ll just water it now.

Wait, why isn’t it coming back to life?

When your organization ignores a donor for months at a time, you are scorching and burning your relationship.

You may get lucky.  Their feelings for you may be so hardy that you can bring the relationship back to life with a really good appeal.  Most often, though, you’ll be watering a dead plant and wondering why it isn’t growing.

Real communications are the water of life.  Give your donors some water every week, and watch your relationships flower.

This post first appeared on Communicate! in 2016. We’re in the middle of a global heat wave in 2019. Remember to water your donors!

Fundraising Tuesday: Make It Convenient to Give

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write checkA reader asked:

Why might one give to a charity online when a check costs the charity less money to process?

Now, that is a good question–and a thoughtful donor! Yes, the nonprofit organization you want to help will get and keep more of your donation if you send a check. Why?

The companies that process online donations (by credit card, Paypal, etc.) don’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They charge the nonprofit a percentage of each gift. When you donate to your favorite charity, Aardvarks for Peace, the aardvarks get more of it if you write a check than if you give online.

Why Nonprofits Welcome Online Gifts

online donationEven if it costs them a little bit more, nonprofits should welcome online gifts.

Some donors do all their business online.

If you ask them to write a check, they’ll look at you aghast and then give their donation to some other nonprofit.

Most donors find online gifts more convenient.

If the donor is suddenly struck with the urge to donate, it takes less time to go the organization’s website, find the donation page, type in credit card information, and hit send than it would to take out the checkbook, find a pen, write the check, record it in a check register, stuff, seal, and stamp the envelope, and dump it in the mail.

Monthly donors find online MUCH more convenient–and you want monthly donors!

Imagine writing a check every single month. Now, imagine setting up a monthly donation online that will go out automatically. Which is more convenient for the donor? There’s no comparison.

And you want to encourage people who have already shown some commitment to your nonprofit to solidify that commitment by becoming monthly donors.

About 90% of monthly donors renew their donation the next year. That solves a big problem for your nonprofit.

  • If a donor gave to you once last year and not at all since then, the chances are less than 30% that they will renew.
  • Even if they gave to you two years running, the statistics show that only about 60% will renew the third time. That means you’re losing something like one donor out of three!
  • Monthly donors are your most loyal supporters. Thank them over and over, communicate their success, and you may keep them forever. Their lifetime value will far exceed any fees you pay for accepting donations online!

Do you want to make your online donations page produce more gifts? Do you need a strategy for creating “forever donors”? Email me and let’s set up a time to talk.

 

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