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A Key Ingredient to Donor Relationship Success

April 27, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

charitable solicitation

Guest post by Ify Aduba

Your relationship with your donor is like any other relationship: if you want to keep it healthy and strong, you have to put in some work.

There are several reasons why a donor might file for divorce. The question is, what can you proactively do to keep the relationship going? To renew your donors year after year, you want to make the relationship a priority and build trust.

Fundraising compliance is a key to building that trust.

Why does fundraising compliance matter for your donors?

There’s an excellent chance that your organization is incorporated in one of the 41 states that require charitable solicitation registration. There’s an even better chance that you are soliciting gifts in one of those 41 states.

Are you surprised? Don’t be. You’ve done an incredible job with your programming. Your donors are impressed and uplifted by how you communicate the impact of their gifts. They have found you and your financial values are compatible. As unofficial ambassadors they are sharing you with their networks, spreading your message, expanding your outreach, and asking prospects to give. That’s great.  That’s also solicitation.

It’s not just about where you are; it’s about where the people you’re asking reside. Are you casting a wide net, asking everyone connecting to your website and through social media to participate in your annual giving? Have you made your Donate Now button prominent so that anyone, anywhere, can find you and give? Maybe some of your donors have moved away, but remain loyal givers. Some of the best, most loyal givers are helping you out and, on your behalf, asking others to give. If they live in one of those 41 states, you need to comply with that state’s laws.

Don’t trip over technicalities as the money comes rolling in. Register before you ask.

Be an Organization Your Donors Can Trust

When that generous donor sends you a gift–because Husband Ricky talked about your work or Wife Lucy sent them an email–that gift landed them in your pipeline, no matter where they live. You aren’t going to leave money on the table. You’re going to build the relationship and ask again… and now you’re soliciting. Determine if you’re soliciting in a state and make sure you’re meeting all of the necessary requirements.

Remember these four key steps and keep your fundraising compliance on track.

  • Research: Know your status in each state and you can easily map your path to compliance, including which applications to complete and what fees may be charged.
  • Apply: Make sure you are preparing the correct forms in the most streamlined and cost-effective manner.
  • Monitor: Follow these applications through to approval, for your donors’ peace of mind.
  • Renew: Track due dates and fees so that your renewals are on time and complete.

Instill confidence in your donors so their focus stays on your mission. Transparency and accountability preserve the trust you’ve built.

If you’re not in compliance, your run the risk of:

  • Fines and penalties that pull vital dollars away from the work that you are doing in your community.
  • Audits and enforcement actions that take your limited time away from the mission you’re meeting.
  • Bad PR that can taint the reputation of your organization and follow you for years to come.

You want to be proactive about preserving your harmonious donor relationships while honoring your valuable and desperately finite time. Take a good-faith step toward relationship success and invest in compliance.

 


Author Bio:

Ify Aduba is a Nonprofit Compliance Specialist for Harbor Compliance, a leading provider of compliance solutions for organizations of all types and sizes. Headquartered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Harbor Compliance partners with organizations in every state and over 25 countries abroad to help solve the most challenging compliance problems. With clients that range from the largest organizations in the country to fast-growth startups, Harbor Compliance fully manages government licensing compliance in both nonprofit and business sectors.

Ify currently serves as President of the Board of the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations (PANO), President of the Administrative Ministries Team at Doylestown United Methodist Church, and Board member for the Bucks County Women’s Advocacy Coalition. She is also a member of the Doylestown Branch of the American Association of University Women and Doylestown Rotary.

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Fundraising Tuesday: Knock Knock, Who’s There?

April 25, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

you forgot meOne of my favorite knock-knock jokes starts out sounding like it’s not a joke at all.

“Dear friend, will you always remember me?”

“Yes, I will always remember you, Dennis.”

“Will you remember me tomorrow?” “Yes.”

“Will you remember me next week?” “Of course!”

“Will you remember me next year?”

“Yes, I will remember you next year. I will remember you forever.”

“Okay…knock, knock.” “Who’s there?”

(Making a sad face) “Aw, you forgot me already!”

You laugh–but do your nonprofit organization’s donors say, “You forgot me already?”

They might–if you send them the same fundraising letter that you send to someone who’s never, ever made a donation before.

How to Show Donors You Remember

Let’s assume you’re calling your donors by name in the salutation of your letter. And getting the name right! Not doing that is the quickest way to lose a donor.

You still need to show your donor that you know the person behind the name.

Donors don’t want to be just names on a list. They want to know that when they gave, you noticed. How can you show them that?

  • At least, you can say to them: “Thank you for your gift of $100 on December 22.”
  • Better: “Thank you for your gift of $100 on December 22 to help low-income families pay their heating bills.”
  • Better yet: “Because you gave a generous gift of $100 on December 22, one family in our town had heat all through the winter.”
  • Best of all, tell them a story about the difference their donation made:

“Jackie and John were afraid that their three children would have to sleep in their coats and under an inch of blankets this winter. They had only enough money to heat their apartment through the end of January. But your generous gift of $100 on December 22 helped them keep the heat on all the way to March. Jackie and John thank you, and so do we!

Now, here’s another way you can help.”

What It Takes to Remember Your Donors

In order to send the right letters to the right people, you have to find out about those people, and what they care about.

Who they are

The simplest thing to find out is whether they are donors or prospects. In other words, have they given before or not? If you have any kind of database, it’s easy to find out which is which. Separate the two lists and send them different letters.

(This sounds like a no-brainer. You wouldn’t call your spouse on the phone and talk as if you were arranging a first date, would you? So why would you write your loyal supporters as if they were people who had never given before? But when I looked at all the fundraising letters I received at the end of 2015, 60 out of 90 letters I received used exactly the same language to me that they would use to someone who had never given them a penny! You can do better than they did.)

Most databases will also let you find your LYBUNT and SYBUNT donors (“Last Year But Unfortunately Not This Year” and “Some Year But Unfortunately Not This Year”).  People who used to give, gave for a reason. If you can figure out that reason and write your appeal accordingly, you may get them back–but not if you treat them like they never gave, or the previous gift didn’t count!

What they care about

Let’s face it: only a few people give because they care about your organization. You. Your mother. Who else?

sleep-under-covers-759x397Most donors give because they care about the people you serve (like the family who didn’t need an inch of blankets to keep from freezing last winter). And probably, each donor cares about some clients and some issues more than others.

Just like you separated out your donors from your prospects, you should be able to separate out the people who give to keep the heat on from the people who give to make sure the kids have summer jobs. The difference is, your database can tell you their donation history. For their interests, you have to do a little detective work yourself.

How many letters?

So, you could send separate letters to donors, past donors, and prospects, varying by their specific interests. And you might want to do that. It’s not a whole new letter you have to write each time: it’s tweaking the elements that let the recipient know you remember him or her as a person–not an ATM.

It’s not a huge amount of time, and it’s not a huge amount of money (especially if you send some of those messages by email). And it could bring a lot of donor renewals, making more money than you spend!

But if you choose to do just one thing differently after reading this blog, choose to write a different letter to donors than you do to the world at large.

Knock, knock.

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Why It’s Sometimes OK to Break the Rules

April 24, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Help a thief, or Help, a thief?If you’ve been reading Communicate! for a while, you know I’m not a grammar snob. In fact, my writing online would make my high school English teacher cringe.

Using sentence fragments. And starting sentence with conjunctions.

Repeating words for emphasis, without changing or alternating or varying them or combing through the thesaurus for other options.

Writing one-sentence paragraphs when I really want to make a point.

Why It’s Sometimes OK to Break the Rules

Part of the reason I write this way is that I do most of my writing online. Reading something on a screen is harder than perusing it in print. So, be kind to your reader. When you write for online publication, use shorter sentences and paragraphs, and leave more white space, if you want to be read.

The main reason it’s sometimes OK to break the rules has nothing to do with the medium, however. It’s all about the message. You should write in a way that helps to make your point.

Great writers have always known this. Jane Austen used the passive voice and split infinitives. Ernest Hemingway wrote sentence fragments. Charles Dickens’ sentences went on and on, even though he lampooned German writers for doing the same thing.

And Winston Churchill ended sentences with prepositions (although he probably didn’t say, “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put”).

But the Rules Are Our Friends

Most of the time, the rules are there to help you. They’re like the street signs and traffic lights when you’re out driving: they make your direction clear to your reader and keep you from smashing into obstacles on the way to your conclusion.

You need to know the rules before you decide that in this case it makes sense to flout them. (And please, know the difference between “flout” and “flaunt”!)

Otherwise, you could end up saying the exact opposite of what you meant to say. Or at best, you could distract readers  from what you meant to say, and have them grinding their teeth about how you said it, instead.

Apostrophes

Thanks to Robert Bruce of 101 Books for inspiring this post.

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