Allison Gauss Archives - Communicate!

TY Thursday: When an Apology is a Thank You, Too

September 16, 2021 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Oops! Your nonprofit organization did something wrong to a donor.

I’m sure you didn’t mean to. Surely, you want to strengthen your relationship with that donor, not hurt her feelings nor make her angry with you. But sometimes, inadvertently, you just stumble into a bad place with your donor, and it feels awful–to both of you.

Please take a deep breath before you go on.

Offending a donor isn’t the end of the world. It doesn’t even have to be the end of the relationship. If you handle it right, you could even make that donor remember you more fondly in the future.

Yes! Oddly enough, the donor who gives you negative feedback is like the donor who gives you money.

Each of them has shown they care what you do (or you wouldn’t have heard from them in the first place!).

Each of them is waiting to hear back from you.

Each of them is giving you an opportunity to reaffirm the relationship: by sending thanks, or by sending a heartfelt apology.

Don’t waste the opportunity!

When to offer an apology

You made a mistake

Sometimes you’ve really made a mistake, and you recognize it as soon as it’s pointed out to you. That could be:

Calling the donor by the wrong name.
Sending them a letter or email message they weren’t supposed to get.
Phoning someone who specifically asked, “Do not call.”
Interrupting them during their religious holy day.
Asking to speak to a person who’s recently died.

If you have done any of these (as I have!), you know the sinking feeling when a donor calls, writes, or posts on social media to point it out. But I can tell you that the feeling when you’ve healed the injury is just as deep, and more lasting.

The donor just disagrees

Sometimes you think what you’re doing is perfectly reasonable, and the donor just doesn’t see it that way.

It might be that you sent them mail and email regularly–which most people appreciate, but this donor doesn’t like. Or it might be that you asked them for money more often than they wanted.

Sometimes, it’s even something that seems like a nice gesture to you but strikes them as a waste of time or money. “Why did you send me a self-addressed stamped envelope when I’m going to go online to give anyway?” Or, “I only gave you $25 and I got a call from the Executive Director. Doesn’t he have anything better to do with her time?”

You might feel defensive when you hear this. You might want to argue with the donor, or educate them about best practices in fundraising. But don’t! An apology costs you nothing, and it may mean everything in the world to the donor.

As Mary Cahalane advises:

You can be pretty sure that when a supporter calls or writes with a complaint she needs to be heard. So don’t jump in with excuses or explanations right away. Just listen. Listen without judgement. Try to understand the real reason she’s upset.

How to make your apology

“In direct response membership development nothing says ‘I love you’ like ‘I’m sorry.'” –Moira Kavanagh

Remember, your purpose when you respond to an upset donor is not to win an argument: it’s to win back the trust and affection that made them a donor in the first place! So, follow these three tips from Moira Kavanagh:

Act quickly. (Within hours, whenever possible!)
Be transparent. When you make a mistake come out and say it.
Be positive. Take the opportunity to let your donors know how much you appreciate them, and remind them how important their support is to the work you’re doing together.

And remember this helpful advice from Mary Cahalane:

No BUTS. An apology followed by “but” is no apology at all. Ever.
Take responsibility. “I’m sorry you feel that way” is not an apology.
Promise to do better next time when you can.

That last point, “when you can,” is an important qualification to the general rule. Allison Gauss cautions us:

Your first goal should be to satisfy this person if it’s at all possible…

Your second objective in this situation is to maintain your nonprofit’s autonomy and independence. Everyone knows that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but the time and money you put into pleasing that wheel can distract you from getting to your destination. This is why you need to balance donors’ demands and opinions with your organization’s mission and plan.

Your Apology Speaks for the Organization!

Today, when this post goes live, I will be celebrating the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

One of the central themes of the holiday is asking to be forgiven for the sins we have committed, deliberately or even unintentionally and unknowingly.

In the Jewish tradition, however, we do not confess our sins individually to God. For things we have done wrong to a specific person, we make an apology and try to make things right with that person.

For wrongs we have done toward our own best self, toward the natural world, or toward God, we confess collectively. “We have abused, we have betrayed….”

When your nonprofit has done wrong to a donor, it is the we–the organization–that the donor resents. It is not you personally.

You are not guilty, but you are responsible–and you have the wonderful opportunity to be the voice of your organization and say, “I’m sorry. You matter so much to us. How can we make things better?”

Fundraising Tuesday: Which Deadlines Move Donors to Give?

April 6, 2021 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

When you’re raising money for your nonprofit organization, how important is to set deadlines?

That depends. Who are the deadlines for: you, or your donors?

Nobody Gives to the Man on the Moon

Let’s say you’re planning a fundraising campaign and you have internal deadlines to meet. You need to raise $25,000 by a certain date or your Board will have tough decisions to make about this year’s budget.

Will your donors care about your deadline?

Probably not.

Your deadline might matter to a few of your most loyal, most well-informed donors. Maybe. To all the rest, the organization’s timeline and budget are as impersonal and far from their concerns as the man on the moon.

Because those items have nothing to do with the reasons why they give.

When Donors Decide to Give

You give to other organizations besides the one you work for, right? Think of the reasons why you give before you ask others to give. According to Carrie Saracini of Network for Good, those reasons might include:

You believe in the mission. “I know there is a need for the nonprofit’s mission in my community and I know it does good work.”
You trust the organization. “I believe the nonprofit will use my gift to stabilize or expand programming.”
You get to see the impact of your gift. “The nonprofit communicates about the impact of giving by sharing program outcomes.”
The organization has a personal connection to your cause. “I know someone who benefited from the nonprofit’s work.”
You want to be part of something. “I want to be associated with the organization and its brand.” (meaning what it stands for, not its logo!)
The organization has caught your attention. “I see the organization online and on social media.”
You benefit. “I want the tax deduction.”

Let me ask you: Do any of these reasons sound like you, when you decide to make a gift? I’ll bet they do. Perhaps more than one rings a bell.

But notice: not a single one of the reasons that people give has to do with the nonprofit’s internal deadlines!

Pick Deadlines that Mean Something to Donors

Here’s the worst possible way to use calendar dates in your fundraising appeal, “We need to to balance our budget by the end of our fiscal year.”

Because “we” meaning the nonprofit puts the donor on the outside.
Because “we need” takes no account of the donor’s needs.
Because “fiscal year” is as impersonal and off-putting as a tax bill.

Here are some better ways to use deadlines to motivate donors.

When there’s an urgent need.“For example, if a fire devastates a neighborhood, the residents need food, shelter, and first aid immediately,” Allison Gauss of Classy points out.

During a meaningful season. Many Muslims give during Ramadan, Jews during the High Holy Days, and Christians around Christmas. Knowing people’s holidays can help you catch them in the right mood (and know when not to interrupt!)

When the donation will fund a specific, time-limited program. Scholarships for summer camp have deadlines built in, and you use that to urge donors to give NOW.

When the Donor Sets the Deadline

For the best way to use a deadline, you have to know more about the donor personally.

Back when I worked at the local anti-poverty agency, every year like clockwork we’d receive a gift from a man whose late wife had worked with our agency. It was important to him to keep her memory alive at a place that had meant a lot to her.

That donor (and sometimes, his friends and families who also sent donations in her memory) got a personal note from the Executive Director. Every year. And the anniversary of her death became a time to reminisce about her. Every year.

It’s not only memorial gifts that are tied to the calendar. Gifts in honor of someone’s wedding, anniversary, birthday, graduation…all these have specific dates. For some cultures, Valentine’s Day is a good time to honor people they love; for others, it’s Mother’s Day.

With a little prompting, your donor may use the happy occasion to become a fundraiser herself. You’ve seen all those birthday appeals on Facebook, right? And usually, those donations are not limited to a specific program of yours. They’re unrestricted funds, which means that every dollar goes further.

If you know the time of year that matters to your donor, you can ask them to give, and to ask others to join them in giving, exactly when they want to be generous, themselves. They may even thank you for the opportunity!

Just make sure it’s their deadline. Not yours.

“What does your nonprofit do?”

June 26, 2017 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

“So, what does your nonprofit do?”

Picture this: you’re having a conversation (at a party or business networking event), and you mention that you work at your nonprofit organization, Good Cause Inc.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” someone in the room says. “What is Good Cause Inc.? What does your organization do?”

This is a golden opportunity, and you know it. How often do we all struggle to get new people interested in our organization and its work? And here is someone spontaneously asking, “So, what do you do?”

How to waste your golden opportunity

Just for a moment, you have the other person’s attention. Even if they’re just being polite, they have offered to listen. But not for long. If you don’t tell them something that interests them right away, they’ll discover they have to go refill their plate–preferably in another room!

Here’s how NOT to answer “What do you do?”

Don’t recite your mission statement. Even the best mission statement (like the one that Joanne Fritz teaches you to write) has two drawbacks.

It’s written mainly to guide people inside the organization, and…
It’s a “statement.” That makes it a conversation-stopper–when a conversation is exactly what you want to start.

Don’t try to give an all-inclusive definition. No one is taking notes so they can complain later that the way you explained it didn’t fit the whole picture. (Honestly, at first they’re not paying that much attention!)

If you get the person who asked you the question interested, then you can go on and expand on what you said to catch their interest.

Don’t give a list of your programs. Your programs are not what you do–they are how you do it. That’s not what the person asked you.

If you want their interest, you will tell them what you do…and why they should care.

So, when you’re asked about your nonprofit organization, what should you say instead?

The Nonprofit Elevator Pitch

An “elevator pitch” is a short summary of what’s attractive about your organization.

It’s brief enough that you could share all of it with someone you just met in the time you’d spend riding together in an elevator. But in just a couple of sentences, it makes the person you’re talking to say, “Tell me more!”

What can you say that will provoke that kind of interest? You can focus on results. Not “measurable outcomes” (the way you would for a grant proposal), but clear benefits you provide to real people, described in ordinary language.

Let me share a couple of examples with you.

Example #1: Communicate! Consulting

It’s true, Communicate! Consulting is a small business and not a nonprofit. But I face the same challenge that you do when people ask me what I do. I have to find a way to win people’s interest, quickly.

Imagine you’re in a room with me when somebody asks me what I do. I could say, “I’m a donor communications consultant.” And then we’d both watch their eyes glaze over.

So instead, I focus on results. I answer:

I help nonprofit organizations to make loyal friends. We find the best ways to communicate with the donors who will support them year in and year out, so the organizations can keep on doing their good work.

That gets my conversation partner thinking. And it usually leads to a discussion of why nonprofits need donations from individuals, and why loyalty matters…and yes, what services I offer.

But talking literally about “what I do” comes later–once the person who’s asking me questions can imagine their favorite nonprofit being better off because they referred the organization to me.

Your nonprofit organization can do what my business does. You can introduce the people you meet to the great things that happen when they support your organization. You can get them to imagine those great results. And the conversation will go on from there.

Example #2: the networking nonprofit

I’d like to introduce you to Social Capital Inc., an organization that’s dedicated to strengthening the social fabric. SCI thinks building relationships and social networks is the key to making everything good happen: for a young person seeking a job, a nonprofit looking for donors, or a community trying to come together for the common good.

That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? The leaders of the organization realized they needed a better way of answering the “what do you do” question. They came to me for advice.

Here’s the elevator pitch I’ve suggested to them:

Did you know there’s one magic ingredient that makes communities, nonprofit organizations, AND young people stronger?

That key ingredient is the network of relationships that each of them can count on. Some people and some communities already have a strong set of relationships with people who can help. Others don’t, yet.

Social Capital Inc. stirs more of that magic ingredient—relationships—into the mix. Because all of us want to see young people become leaders, and good causes attract support, and whole communities bond together and achieve their goals. Right?

Pitch and catch: creating conversation

You may have noticed that the example above is a little longer than your standard “elevator pitch.” It also begins and ends with questions. That’s something I recommend.

Because having an elevator pitch is better than searching for words, but it’s not the best you can do. When someone asks you, “What does your nonprofit do?”, what you really want is not to “pitch” someone but have a conversation with them. It’s like pitch and catch. It goes both ways.

So, next Monday, in Part 2 of this three-part series, you’ll learn how to prepare a real dialogue. I’ll show you how you can ask questions, listen to answers, and tell stories–all the things that will make your conversation partner enjoy talking with you about your organization. (Wouldn’t that be fun?)

You don’t have to waste any more opportunities. You can turn them into gold, instead. Check back next Monday.

And in the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. Have you used an elevator pitch for your organization? Should you? What do you think?

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TY Thursday: When an Apology is a Thank You, Too