Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Navigation Bar

  • About
  • Services
  • What Clients Say
  • Contact

TY Thursday: The Love You Save May Be Your Donors

April 28, 2016 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.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

5 Lessons You Can Learn from Children’s Books

April 11, 2016 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Books aimed at children have a lot to teach us too. It all depends who we are and what we wish to learn.

Are you a nonprofit organization? 

Find out what stories you should be telling. Can Your Nonprofit Tell a Story to Save Its Life? 

Learn how to tell those stories and suck the reader right in. What Nonprofits Can Learn from Peter Pan

Make sure your fundraising is not too hot, not too cold, just right. Goldilocks and the Three Nonprofits

Are you a marketer for either a business or a nonprofit?

Get inspired to make your audience feel the difference you can make in their lives. Putting On the Shoes: What Ray Bradbury Taught Me about Marketing

Are you a consultant, like me? Do you know what pleases your clients? Read:

What to Do When the Client Asks for the Moon

 

Now it’s your turn. What’s your favorite children’s book, and what have you learned from it about communicating?

 

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

The One Way to Get Donors to Give Again and Again

December 22, 2015 by Dennis Fischman 1 Comment

59% of donors don't repeatDoes your nonprofit live and die by donations? Chances are you’re dying.

You work so hard to get a donation, especially at the end of the year. By next year, however, more than half those donors–59%–will disappear. You will never hear from them again.

It’s even worse with new donors. Three-quarters of them never repeat.

This is a race nonprofits can’t win.  That’s why your nonprofit will die, maybe even in 2015…unless you find a way to make donors want to give to you again and again.

Fortunately, there is a way.

Giving donors the stories they want to hear can mean life or death for your organization. Share on X

How can you increase the chance that a person who gave once will give again?

People give their first gift to your organization for a variety of quirky reasons. When they  continue to give, it’s for one reason: because they have come to know, like, and trust you.

People give when you build a relationship with them, and the key to that relationship is great communication.

Great communication begins with the thank-you letter, but it doesn’t end there. A newsletter is a good thing, too, but a newsletter full of what’s happening inside your organization will do nothing to keep your donors.

So what kind of communication does work? A June 2014 survey by nonprofit technology research firm Software Advice found that sixty percent of donors want impact stories to see how their first donation is making a difference.”You must find, recognize, collect, and share those stories in all your communications.

Become a storytelling nonprofit

It takes a team of people to collect and tell your stories.

  1. People with day-to-day experience. They could be your direct service staff or volunteers, your Board members, your customers or clients. Develop them as sources, so they look out for stories you can tell.
  2. Writers. Someone who can take other people’s words and make them sing in print is essential to your team.
  3. Photographers/videographers. A picture may not be worth a thousand words. It may, however, make all the words you write more meaningful and memorable.
  4. Artists. Sometimes a good graphic is more powerful than a photo (and often, easier to produce when you need it).
  5. Tech people. Because your newsletter, blog, email, Facebook post, or video is no good if nobody sees it! Someone has to keep the system up and running and figure out the glitches as they occur.
  6. Editor. You need a consistent tone to your communications, and they must appear regularly so your audience expects them. Put one person in charge.

Get expert help

Most of all, what you need is someone who will look at your organization with the eyes of a donor. It’s all too easy to fall back into “We held this event” or “We hired this new person”–but that’s not what your donors want!

A communications consultant can help you recognize and shape the stories your donors want to hear. There are ways your organization can afford a consultant, even if you don’t have one in the budget yet. And the investment is worth it.

Your donors are waiting to hear what difference their donations are making. They won’t wait forever. Get the help you need to make sure they give again and again.

 

 

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • Next Page »

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Yes! Please send me tips from Communicate! Consulting.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Copyright © 2025 · The 411 Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in