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TY Thursday: Don’t Watch the Donor Walk Out the Door

March 30, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

leavingWhen a donor stops giving, it’s like a lover walking out the door.

They didn’t just wake up one day and decide to leave. Their reasons have been piling up, little by little, over time, until they just couldn’t stay any longer.

What are the reasons that donors say goodbye? Jay Love lists five:

1. Thought the charity did not need them: 5%
2. No information on how monies were used: 8%
3. No memory of supporting: 9%
4. Never thanked for donating:     13%
5. Poor service or communication:     18%

Poor communication kills marriages. If your donors are saying, “You never listen to me and we hardly talk except what you want money,” they are going to file for divorce.

Get some help with your communications now. This marriage can be saved.

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Fundraising Tuesday: The Case of the Unknown Donors

March 28, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

“You’ve got to help us,” the Executive Director said. “We have all these donors, and we don’t know them.  We’re communicating in the dark.”

Do the detective work to know your audiences

Do the detective work and know your donors

“A hundred dollars an hour plus expenses,” I said.  As a private detective, I’m used to searching in the dark.  Besides, it would be a break from snooping on cheating husbands and wives.

Here’s how I tracked down the unknown donors.

Searched the case files.  I looked through the database for tips about donors and prospects.  I combed the Board bios and meeting minutes to get the skinny on the directors.  For donors who were clients, the agency balked: confidentiality, they said.  I’d heard that one before.  “Give me a sample of client folders with the names removed.  I’ll take it from there.”

Talked to informants.  Who knows each audience the best?  The nice lady at the front desk told me stories about the people who come in looking for help that would curl your hair.  The program directors dished the dirt on the organizations they collaborate with: thick as thieves, but not as well funded. The Executive Director herself knew all the politicians in town.  I made notes.

Beat the pavement.  Take a tip from an old gumshoe: don’t wait by the phone.  Get out and talk to people.  Interview people.  Find out their motives.  How else will you know how to motivate them?

Tail the suspects.  These days, people leave trails a mile wide all over the Internet.  Track them.  What footprints can you find through a web search?  Who do they visit on Facebook?  See what business they’re conducting in LinkedIn groups.  Read the notes they scrawl and toss onto Twitter.  You don’t have to snap photos: they’re doing it for you, on Instagram and Pinterest and other juke joints all around.  Make yourself known there and see who talks.

Follow the money.  Are your unknown donors making payments to other organizations?  Look at donor lists to see what relationships they have on the side.

Get the suspects in a room.  Call it a focus group.  Call it an advisory board.  Call it Ishmael, if you like–just ask them the questions.  Put them at ease and they’ll sing like a room full of canaries.

I made my report.  The Executive Director was grateful. “Now we know who they are, what they want, where to find them, and how to talk to them.  I can just see the donation renewals coming in!”

“Good,” I said.  “Don’t spend it all in one place.”  They would need to do more investigation as their audiences changed.  Good investigators don’t come cheap.

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How Do You Say That in Nonprofit?

March 27, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Let’s say you work at a nonprofit organization.  You want to improve the agency’s communications: writing, speaking, publicity, social media…the works.  You go looking online for expert advice.

The experts seem to be talking a foreign language! Handheld translator

So much of what you find is written for business. You want to do what Katya Andresen suggests in Robin Hood Marketing and “steal” some corporate savvy for your cause–when it applies or when you can adapt it for your own purposes.  To use expertise, though, you have to understand it.

Here are 13 business terms translated into nonprofit.

  1. Brand.  Reputation, public awareness, visibility.  Your brand is not your logo: it’s the overall impression people have of your organization before and after they’ve met you.
  2. Customer.  In business, the same person pays for a service and benefits from it.  For nonprofits, it’s different.  Funders and donors pay for a service, while clients benefit from it.  When you read “customer,” ask yourself which group the writer means.
  3. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) = Executive Director (ED).
  4. C suite = senior staff.
  5. Return on Investment (ROI) is like what you call “measurable outcomes,” only with some assessment of how much it cost to produce that outcome.
  6. B2B (Business to Business) = communications with your partner organizations, both those you work with now and those you want to collaborate with soon.
  7. B2C (Business to Consumer) =communications with people who use your services.
  8. Entrepreneurial.  Nonprofits call this “innovative.”  In business, it also implies some self-promotion and some degree of risk-taking.  Make sure you’re comfortable with blowing your own horn and trying things that might fail if you’re going to call your agency “entrepreneurial.”
  9. Marketing.  Really, this is just communications with a purpose.  Businesses’ ultimate purpose is to make money.  Your ultimate purpose may be to improve public health, enhance democracy, end hunger or homelessness, or enhance people’s lives through the arts.  Either way, as long as you tailor your communications (outreach, publicity, call it what you will) to a purpose, you’re doing marketing, and you can look for ways to do it better.
  10. Content Marketing.  You may think of this as just “publication.”  Unless you’re publishing anonymously, though, what you write, or post, or video will shape the perception of your organization.  Content marketing means putting content out strategically in ways that benefit the consumer and build your brand.  One of my favorite examples is the Massachusetts Economic Independence Index put out by EmPath.
  11. Thought leader.  A person or organization that provides valuable insights to others in a particular field, or on a particular topic, so that they become the “go-to” source of ideas in that area.  Becoming a thought leader can reap great benefits for you, but it takes time, patience, and communications skills.
  12. Networking.  Yes, this includes all those meetings where you meet people, talk about what they do and what you do, and try to figure out how you can help each other.  You’re familiar with that.  You may even know how to use LinkedIn for networking online.  But I would say that the nonprofit equivalents of networking are coalition building and community organizing.  When you read about networking, instead of a Chamber of Commerce meeting, picture a community forum.  Instead of passing out business cards, picture knocking on doors and asking neighbors to pursue their interests together.

Nonprofits, What’s Your #13?

I have finished my list at twelve because in the nonprofit world, you are an expert.  What’s the thirteenth term YOU’d like to see translated into nonprofit?  Please share the business term that doesn’t quite fit what you do, and if you have a good way to translate it, please share that too!

P.S.  On Twitter, when I see good advice that’s aimed at businesses, sometimes I translate it so it’s more useful to us.  Find it using the hashtag #ispeaknonprofit.

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