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Fundraising Tuesday: 3 Ways to Get Personal with Your Donors

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personalOne of the seven reasons your nonprofit is not raising as much money as you want is that you’re not making those appeal letters personal.

Making it personal means more than sending out a mass mailing that calls donors by their names. If you’re not doing that already, please start! “Dear Friend” letters are the clearest signal that the person receiving the letter is not really your friend.

But mail merge is old hat. It doesn’t make anyone feel that you, the nonprofit, know anything about them, the donor. There are better ways to tell the donor “You’re my hero.”

Make It Personal by Sending the Right Letter

The donor wants you to know whether or not they have ever given before. If you don’t know that, you don’t know them. If you don’t know them, why should they give?

Send a different letter to previous donors than people you're asking to give for the first time. Share on X

Simple, right? But in my personal experience, nine out of ten appeal letters used exactly the same language to me that they would use to someone who had never given them a penny!

Fix this by segmenting your list, writing different letters to prospects, lapsed donors, and renewing donors, and acknowledging the date and amount of the previous gift.

Make It Personal by Talking about MY Issues

Let’s say you run a community center. I came to an event where you highlighted your youth programs, and I was so impressed that I donated on the spot.

At the end of the year, you sent me an appeal letter, and it talked all about your Meals on Wheels program for seniors. It said nothing about youth.

What are the chances you’re going to get a donation from me again? Slim and none.

Appeal to people based on the things you do that actually appeal to THEM. Share on X

With a good database, you should have no trouble keeping track of my giving history and my attendance at events. With the right tools, you can even tell which of your emails I opened, showing what topics I was interested in. (And you can tell a lot about me just by listening.)

Write Me a Personal Note

It used to be a no-brainer for Executive Directors, Development Directors, or Board members who knew the donor to write a personal note on appeal letters.

People, we are going in the wrong direction on this! 90 out of 106 letters arrived in my mailbox with no personal touches whatever–even when my wife and I have known the person sending the letter for many years.

Fix this by composing your appeals long enough in advance to add those personal notes…and doing so. It will pay you back in donations, this year and for many years to come.

TY Thursday: Post-Donation Thank-You–on Your Website!

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post-donation TY pageCongratulations! You’ve cultivated your donor, and she has just gone online and made a generous gift. Now, post-donation, you want to thank her as personally as possible, as soon as possible.

But how?

Your First Chance to Show the Love

Just because a donor has made a gift to your organization, it doesn’t mean you have won their heart. Not forever. Maybe not even for today.

You’ve heard of “buyer’s remorse”? That feeling  you get when you’ve finally plunked down your credit card or signed on the dotted line and agreed to a purchase…and then you say, “Wait a minute, did I just make a big mistake?”

Donors to nonprofits go through that too. They give on impulse, and then they wonder, “Did I really do the right thing? Is that nonprofit really what I want to be supporting with my hard-earned money?”

The moment they give, you want to send them a message that says, “Yes! You did the right thing.”

Your Website Can Be Your Thank-You

All online fundraising tools will let you send a receipt to your donor automatically, to let them know their donation actually went through. But that’s the equivalent of the cashier handing you a receipt after a purchase. It’s minimal and impersonal. Your nonprofit can do better than that!

Some tools will let you customize the receipt. If yours allows you, definitely say “Thank you, Dennis, for giving $100 to Social Justice Organization. You’re already helping to save the world in this way!”

Some tools, like PayPal, won’t.

But–PayPal will let you return the donor to your website after he or she makes a donation. So, why not set up a post-donation thank-you page that shares all the love with the donor, right there on your website?

11 Things You Can Do on Your Post-Donation Thank-You Page

The thank-you page on your website can give your donors more than just a verbal “thank-you.” Here are 11 things you can do there to give the donor the feeling, “I made the right choice when I gave to this organization.” (The first nine are from Joanne Fritz  and the last two from Tina Jepson of Causevox.)

  1. Invite donors to follow you on social media. 
  2. Invite donors to watch a video.
  3. Invite donors to volunteer.
  4. Gather info with a little survey.  Ask just two or three questions on the thank you page, such as how they found out about your charity, why they donated, and how they want you to communicate with them.
  5. Connect your donor with resources.
  6. Gather feedback.  Explain to your donor that you always want to improve your service and ask her to help by leaving feedback about the donation process itself.
  7. Provide testimonials from the people you serve.  There’s no better way to reassure the donor that his decision to give was a good one than by listing a couple of testimonials from the people you help.
  8. Invite donors to something special.
  9. Remind your donor of an additional way to give (as charity: water does in the thank-you page pictured above).
  10. Add an email newsletter subscription option.
  11. Highlight impact.  By closing the loop on the donation, you ensure that your donor knows that your organization is making a difference because of their investment in your cause.

It doesn’t take any more technical knowledge to set up a post-donation thank-you page than to add any other page to your website. So, why not give it a try? See if your donors appreciate it!

TY Thursday: Are You Annoying Donors?

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pet peevesWhen people find out I consult to nonprofits, they tell me their pet peeves. Most of what’s annoying them is how we ask for money.

Thanking and Asking Again in the Same Letter

More than one friend has complained to me about what Lynne Wester has called the dreaded thask: the thank-you note combined with a new ask. “I just sent a donation, and here they are asking for more. It’s like they’re trying to tell me I gave too little the first time!”

I tell them that the numbers show a certain number of donors will give right away if you ask them again. That doesn’t impress my friends. They want nonprofits to know that a certain number of donors will get that “thank-you, now give more” message and never give again.

You know we have a tremendous problem with donor renewal in our sector. The chances are that two of three people who gave to you for the first time in 2017 won’t give again this year. Could the “thask” have something to do with it?

Claire Axelrad tells us:

An Abila Donor Engagement Study found that 21% of donors say they were never thanked for their gift. Some weren’t, but my hunch is that a lot were. They just didn’t perceive what you sent them to be a thank you. Too often thank you letters sound exactly like fundraising letters.

What Donors Want You to Do Instead

Now, when you thank donors, you do want to ask them to take a next step. The “call to action” can be to join your email list, or follow you on Facebook, or even come to an event.

And you do want to give them more evidence that they made a good decision when they made their first donation. Show the impact they made.

But what you don’t want to do is ask right away for more money.  And what you really don’t want to do is what my friend who tweets under the name @thewhinydonor describes as her pet peeve:

The first thank you letter arrived today. And it contained an enormous reply envelope, bigger than the letter. COMPLETE TURNOFF.

When the first thing I see when I open your acknowledgement is a big reply envelope asking for more, my warm glow of giving is obliterated.

How are your favorite charities annoying you (and probably not even realizing it)? What’s your pet peeve?

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