Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

TY Thursday: Thank-you’s can be a summer treat!

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What’s your donor’s favorite summer treat: ice cream, or thank-you’s?

A well-delivered thank-you is always a treat. It’s as sweet and refreshing as a tall glass of iced tea, as tasty as fresh berries, as delicious as corn on the cob that was picked that morning.

Like all those delights, it’s especially good in the summer–because who is expecting a gesture of gratitude in July? While their other favorite causes are taking an afternoon nap, you can be surprising them with your thanks.

Call your donors who have given you their phone numbers. Even if they don’t pick up, they will get your voicemail and say “Aaahhh.”

Write your donors personally. Make the envelope as intriguing as the first view of the ocean, so they want to open it and jump right in.

Text your donors who like to be texted. Email donors who prefer email. Reach out to your supporters who are on social media. Send a little gift in the mail.

ice creamOr make a date to meet them for ice cream. Who says just one treat is enough?

 

Fundraising Tuesday: One Story or Many?

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You want donors to remember your organization between the times you ask them for money. You want them to think well of you. Storytelling is a time-tested way of attracting readers’ interests and getting them to remember.

Is it better to tell one story at a time, or many?

A Magazine of Stories

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently mailed me what looked like a regular news magazine. It had an attractive front cover, an ad on the back cover (for the ACLU!), and a Table of Contents full of articles about issues the organization had addressed. Some of those articles told success stories; others were works in progress.

It was impressive.

It’s a week later, and the magazine has gone out in the recycling bin–and I can only remember one of the stories the ACLU told me. (And that one has been in the mainstream news!)

Am I more likely to give to the ACLU because I received the magazine? Yes, marginally. But it cost them a lot to make that impression on me–and most of the organizations I support don’t have that kind of budget.

What can your organization do instead?

Tell the Right Story to the Right Person

If you really want to make a lasting impression on your donor that will lead to renewed and increased support, find out what they care about. Then, tell them one story about that.

Find out by asking them in your welcome series after their donation, or in a survey, or by calling them on the phone, or by seeing what they post on their own social media. (Record that information in your database or CRM, and segment your list.)

Then, write to them about that specific issue. Nothing else.

If you’re a hospital, send one story to people who care about childbirth and a different story to people who care about hospice.

If you’re a museum, talk to people who care about art preservation with different examples than you use for people who care about art education for children.

And if you’re a social justice organization–even though you know that the issues you work on are all connected!–talk to the donor about protecting voter rights, ending police violence, feeding hungry families, or stopping domestic violence, but not about all of them.

Find out what that donor cares about most. Send them messages just about that issue for the next six months. And watch your end-of-year income rise!

Fundraising Tuesday: An Event is Not a Fundraiser

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An event is not a fundraiser. A person is.

Your nonprofit organization may pour a lot of time into holding events. When the weather is good, you may organize walks, 5k runs, barbecues, or golf tournaments. When the weather pushes you indoors (and the pandemic permits), you may have a gala dinner, an auction, a night at the museum–although I hope you have learned how to make them online events too!)

Those are not fundraisers.

Why?

  1. Some of these events are intentionally aimed at saying thank you rather than raising money. Appreciation events for donors, staff, or volunteers build relationships but may cost money in the short run.
  2. Some of these events aim to make money but don’t. Oops! (And even more of them run at a loss, or a wash, if you take into account the huge amount of staff time spent organizing them.)
  3. The main reason is that people who go to events because they enjoy them are not necessarily people who support your organization through thick and thin. They are not the loyal donors whose lifetime value to your nonprofit is huge.

The only way you can create loyal donors is by having people get in touch with them. The people who do that? They’re the fundraisers!

Rev up your fundraisers: reduce your events

You may already have held a spring event or two. You may have summer and fall events in the works. I would urge you to think about your events calendar again. What event can you cut?

Which of your events is

  • Raising less money each year?
  • Taking the most time to produce?
  • Getting stale for your supporters?
  • Forcing your fundraisers to spend time with vendors when they could be talking with donors?

Ask yourself those questions. Then, cut one event from your annual schedule.

What should a fundraiser do instead?

If you free your fundraising people from organizing yet another event, they can write personalized thank-you notes, make phone calls, ask donors what makes them give and mark that information in your database.

They can write great newsletters, email messages, and social media posts.

They can produce annual reports that donors will want to read and impact statements that will make them proud to be a donor.

A fundraiser is so much more than an event planner. Give them the time they need for real human contact and watch your income grow. Click To Tweet

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