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Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: Show Me You Care

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careToday I received a letter in the mail from my health insurance company.

You are taking a certain medicine, they said, so every year, you should have a certain kind of blood test.  Are you doing that?  Will you ask your doctor to make sure?

The company called the letter a Care Alert, and everything inside it reinforced the message, “We Care.”

The envelope didn’t: it looked as if it might have been one of those Explanations of Benefits that don’t explain anything at all.  And of course, one of the reasons they care is that if I look out for myself, I can avoid serious health risks that would end up costing the insurance company a lot.

Still, the message itself was caring.  It was personalized, and it treated me like a responsible adult who can make good decisions with the proper information.

A Modest Proposal: Show You Care

I would like to propose that nonprofits aim at making all their communications as personal and as caring as the letter I received.

What would it take to do that?

  1. Knowing, and remembering, a lot about your supporters.
  2. Thinking, “How can I make my agency useful to this person?”  What topics matter to him or her?  What information would she or he find useful–not in a general way, but here and now?
  3. Calling on them to take action…and showing them how.

The tools exist to make all this possible.  Databases, constituent relationship management software and processes, email tools, various programs that remind you it’s time to send this kind of message to this specific person: they’re out there, and not that expensive.

But is your organization willing to spend the time and attention it takes to treating every client, constituent, prospect, or donor with at least as much care as a health insurance company showed to me?

Are You as Good a Communicator as Shakespeare’s Fools?

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The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be
a fool.
-Touchstone, As You Like It, V.1.2217

Shakespearean foolHope you have a happy April Fool’s Day!  In Shakespeare’s plays, fools are the great communicators.  They manage to say what no one else has the courage or the insight to say.  They get heard when men of sense get ignored.

Are you as good a communicator as one of Shakespeare's fools? Take this quiz to find out. Share on X
  1. The fools can say what they want because they have official positions at court.  What is your position with your audience?  Do they welcome what you have to say?
  2. The fools are truth tellers, fearlessly making fun of one and all.  Do your audiences know they can count on you for the truth?
  3. The fools keep an eye out for when they are tiring their listeners.  Do you know when your audience is ready to hear from you?
  4. The fools use humor and unexpected turns of the phrase to win their masters’ attention.  Take another look at your writing.  Are you always serious?  Can people predict what you’re going to say before they open the letter or the post? Or are you surprising and delighting them with your communications?

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
-Feste, Twelfth Night,  I.5.328

 

TY Thursday: Nonprofits, Thank by Offering Help

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Help from my friendsIn the nonprofit world, we talk about our donors as “friends of” our organization. But when they hit a rough patch, do we act like friends to them?

Think about what you do for your personal friends when they fall sick, or lose their jobs, or have a death in the family. Do you:

  • Send a card, or flowers?
  • Cook a meal and drop it by?
  • Do something nice for their kids?
  • Refer them to good doctors, or employers, or other helping professionals?

There’s no reason our nonprofits can’t do that too.

How Nonprofits Can Offer Help

Sending a get-well card to a donor who is seriously ill is a gesture that’s always appreciated. Make sure to have people sign it personally–as many people who know the donor as possible!

Sending a sympathy card also matters, a lot. I can tell you that from personal experience. When my brother died in October 2014, clients and colleagues reached out to my wife and me, and every one of them made us feel surrounded by love.

(Be careful with flowers, however. Some people are allergic, and it’s not a Jewish custom. Sending a food tray might be better. Ask someone who knows the mourners well–and find out if they keep kosher, or halal, or eat only vegetarian or vegan food, too. You want to give them something that actually helps!)

If you have a program for children, then it’s a natural to offer the children of the donor’s family a free pass, or transportation, to do something fun for them. Adults need time to themselves sometimes, and that’s a gift you can give the whole family.

And you or a partner organization may be able to give your donor legal advice, or healthcare, or assistance accessing the legal, health, housing, or food benefits they need. The anti-poverty agency where I used to work did just that for a longtime donor and for a friend of a Board member.

What Not to Do

When a longtime friend of your organization is having a hard time, that’s the wrong time to ask them for money. If common decency isn’t enough reason for you to check your campaign calendars and take people recovering from surgery or people in mourning off your list for once, think of this: do you want people to think of their loved one’s death every time they think of you?

If the donor is really a “friend of” your organization, then treat him or her like a friend.

 

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