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Fundraising Tuesday: Improving Donor Affinity–3 Event Ideas for Nonprofits

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A guest post by Sarah Tedesco, DonorSearch

Donors contribute to your nonprofit because they are passionate about your cause. However, with so many worthy causes out there, you need to nurture each donor’s personal interests in your nonprofit in order to retain their support.

This natural interest in your cause or nonprofit is called donor affinity. Cultivating donor affinity is an effective way for your nonprofit to maintain engagement and ensure donors remain connected to your cause.

So how can you encourage donor affinity? One great way to ensure your donors continue to care about your organization is to host an event that sparks their passion. Here are our top three event ideas for improving donor affinity:

  1. Charity Auction
  2. 5K Run or Walk
  3. Educational Webinar

Each of these events will allow your organization to connect with donors and build a stronger community among your supporters. By growing your community and reminding donors of their impact, you can improve donor affinity and ensure that your supporters remain engaged. Let’s take a closer look at each of these events and how you can plan them successfully.

1. Charity Auction

Auctions are not only a great way to raise money for your nonprofit, but they’re also a very engaging event for your supporters. Auctions provide an opportunity for your donors to support a cause they care about while also purchasing something they truly love. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when planning your auction:

  • Determine what type of auction you’ll host early on. Before you dive into the details of planning your auction, you’ll need to determine what type of auction you’d like to host. Will it be a traditional or silent auction? In-person, virtual, or hybrid? Once you determine the type of auction you’ll host, you can adjust your planning and marketing strategy accordingly.

 

  • Connect with local businesses. Local businesses can have a huge impact on your local community and how involved they become with your work. Consider reaching out to local businesses to see if they’d be interested in donating items to your auction to demonstrate their support for your cause. Local businesses can also connect you with patrons of their establishments who might already have an interest in your cause.

 

  • Emphasize the impact of bids. To cultivate donor affinity, you need to demonstrate how your donors are making an impact. During the auction, be sure to emphasize how donations and bids will help your nonprofit achieve your goals, launch new initiatives, and forward your mission.

While an auction doesn’t explicitly draw on a donor’s natural interest in your nonprofit, there are plenty of opportunities to nurture donor affinity. Because auctions are such engaging events, your donors will likely already be paying close attention to the event, meaning it’s the perfect chance to share important information about your cause.

2. 5K Run or Walk

One reliable way to improve donor affinity is to build community. A strong community of supporters can motivate, inspire, and educate each other, and there’s no better event to build community than a 5K race. These races can gather many of your supporters together and rally everyone around your cause. When planning your 5K run or walk, you should:

  • Encourage teams. Teams are a great way to add some friendly competition while getting more supporters involved! For instance, if you have an active alumni network, encourage them to form their own teams and see which alumni groups can raise the most funds.

 

  • Share content about your nonprofit and mission. In the registration process, follow-up emails, and on the actual day, be sure that you’re reminding participants why they’re there: to support your nonprofit. Consider having beneficiaries of your nonprofit speak at the event and share their story to deepen the personal connection that your donors have to your cause.

 

  • Host a celebration at the end. When the 5K run or walk is over, host a big celebration with food, games, and a ceremony to celebrate your fastest runners and most effective peer-to-peer fundraisers. A celebration will ensure that your participants enjoy their time and associate your nonprofit with happy memories!

To help your event run as smoothly as possible, invest in nonprofit software that allows you to register participants, track their donations, and identify relationships between donors (such as members of the same family who joined the same team). With this information, you can identify opportunities to grow donor affinity even after the event is over.

3. Educational Webinar

In many instances, donor affinity can grow out of newfound awareness or education. Perhaps a potential donor had no idea about the cause that your nonprofit is supporting or they were recently affected by the issue you’re trying to address. They will turn to your nonprofit to provide answers to their questions and knowledge about the issue.

With the right approach, your nonprofit can make supporters care even more about the issue, improving donor affinity across the board. To raise awareness about your cause, host an educational webinar featuring informed speakers and representatives of your nonprofit.

To host a successful webinar, you should:

  • Discuss topics that are interesting to your donors. Each donor’s interest in your nonprofit likely grew out of different circumstances, but they probably want to learn more about similar topics. Design your webinar around certain topics that are the most interesting to your donors. And if you’re unsure which topics your donors might be interested in, don’t be afraid to ask!

 

  • Emphasize how your nonprofit has made a difference. While donors may be interested in your cause, they might not have a full understanding of how your nonprofit is making a difference. During your webinar, emphasize the difference that your nonprofit has made and how donations can help you further your impact.

 

  • Host a Q&A session. A great webinar likely prompts questions from your audience, so give attendees the chance to ask speakers their burning questions. Creating a dynamic and engaging conversation will also help donors feel like an integral part of your nonprofit’s dialogue.

Hosting an exclusive webinar is also a great way to nurture affinity among major donors. According to DonorSearch’s guide on major donor fundraising, creating events specifically targeted towards major donors can effectively deepen their engagement and encourage them to donate more. A webinar is the perfect way to combine education with your long-term fundraising strategy.

Cultivating donor affinity is crucial for any nonprofit. Not only can it help you better tailor your nonprofit’s marketing strategy, events, and programs, but it can also help you deepen each donor’s relationship with your nonprofit. Good luck!

Sarah TedescoSarah Tedesco is the Executive Vice President of DonorSearch, a prospect research and wealth screening company that focuses on proven philanthropy. Sarah is responsible for managing the production and customer support department concerning client contract fulfillment, increasing retention rate and customer satisfaction. She collaborates with other team members on a variety of issues including sales, marketing and product development ideas.

Fundraising Tuesday: 5 Reasons You Must Personalize Your Appeal Letters

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Too Busy for Wheels

Let’s talk about why to segment your mailing list and personalize your appeal letters…even if think you don’t have the time.

Right now, are you sending out the same appeal letters to loyal long-time donors and new prospects? To retirees and college graduates starting their careers? What about people who volunteer at your events and people who show up occasionally?

Do you know whether the person receiving the letter cares about your youth program or your elder services? And do you know enough about them to call them by name?

Nonprofits, we need to send different letters to different audiences--and personalize every one of them. Here are the top five reasons why. Share on X
  1. The personal approach will make more money. People who feel they are making a difference give more than people who feel they’re part of a nameless, faceless crowd.
  2. Personalization will get more donors to renew. It costs seven times as much to acquire a new donor as it does to treat a current donor well enough that they renew their gift for another year. It’s worth it!
  3. It’s the Golden Rule. Do you like reading a letter that starts “Dear Friend” and goes on to ignore the issue that made you support your favorite cause in the first place? If you don’t, why would other donors?
  4. You must be at least as personal as a for-profit business. If my health insurance company can send me a message tailored to me–and I HAVE to buy health insurance–what can I expect from a nonprofit I donate to voluntarily? Surely, you should show you care!
  5. It’s 2018. Everywhere your donors go online, they see content tailored just for them. That might be welcome. It might be a little creepy. Either way, it’s what they expect. Fall short of that expectation in print, and they may never read the letter you worked so hard to write.

 

How to Find New Donors for Your Nonprofit Without Asking for Money

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loss for words

You don’t have to wonder what to say about your nonprofit

Does this sound familiar? You’re on the Board or staff of a nonprofit organization. You love the work it does. Yet when you’re at a party or in a social situation and somebody asks “What does your organization do?”, you’re at a loss for words.

It’s embarrassing–and it’s a wasted opportunity. That person asking you about your organization could become your most devoted volunteer, or your most loyal donor, if only you could get them interested.

And you can.

A while back, we talked about how you can create a nonprofit elevator pitch–a short summary of what’s attractive about your organization–that will make anybody ask you, “Please, tell me more!”

That’s better–but is it the best you can do? No!

Start the Conversation In Your Pitch

“No matter how quick and painless, a pithy pitch is still a pitch,” as Dixie Laite puts it. 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.

pitch and catch

So, one step in the right direction is to put conversation-starters right there into your pitch.

  • Laite suggest a “Do do” approach. “When someone asks you what you do, instead of going into your little canned song and dance, you instead ask them a question, as in ‘Do you know…?'”

The question gets them thinking about a problem, so that your organization can then offer a solution. For instance, if you’re an organization for youth, you might say, “Do you know that thousands of high school students are going hungry this summer because they can’t get lunch at school?”

  • Tim David offers a four-step approach to make sure your conversation partner’s interest is piqued and continues to grow.
    1. Break their expectations. Answering a question with a question (the “do do” approach) is one way of making the conversation come alive. So is making a joke. David calls this “giving them a verbal slap in the face” and “waking them up.” But you don’t have to be aggressive–just startling.
    2. Ask a problem question. If you ask them “Do you know” and their response is “Yes, that bothers me too,” you’re building rapport–and you’re on the right track.
    3. Go to the noddable. “A noddable is an inspirational or wise quote that is so catchy and agreeable, it gets just about everyone nodding.” Again, this builds rapport (on the theory that you’ve just read their mind, and great minds think alike!)
    4. Finish with the curiosity statement. Here’s where you answer the “What do you do?” question, but in a way that invites even more questions. (In other words, you’ve just given an elevator pitch for your elevator pitch, and now they’re interested in hearing the real thing!)

Beyond the Elevator Pitch

Nonprofits can learn a lot from the “do do” approach and from the “elevator pitch for your elevator pitch.” If you practice either or both of these approaches, it gets you beyond just making a statement. When you ask questions, build rapport, and get permission for a longer conversation, you’re already way ahead.

Yet I fear that even with the best intentions, many of us will still memorize our lines and give a performance. I agree when Tim David cautions:

If you get the sense that it’s turning into a commercial instead of a conversation, then you’re doing it wrong. Stop pitching and ask another question. You should only be doing 15-20% of the talking.

What should you be doing the rest of the time? Listening.

Better Yet, Have a Scripted Dialogue

When a person asks you about your nonprofit organization, you have a question you want to answer, too. That is: “Could this person become a supporter?”

So, one reason you’re asking questions is to keep the other person interested, and engaged, and nodding along. But the other is that you’re doing prospect research.

You’d like your conversation partner to walk away with an interest in finding out even more about your organization and, sooner or later, getting involved…

AND you’d like to walk away with some specific ideas about who they are, what they want to talk about, and what matters to them–specific enough you’d write notes about them in your donor database.

» So, when you talk with a stranger about your organization, you should have a loose script in mind. It should include the elevator pitch for your elevator pitch. It has to have a pitch full of conversation-starters.

But what will really help your organization cultivate that person as a volunteer and donor is the questions you ask about them.

You Can Get Help Asking The Right Questions

How will you learn to script your dialogue so it’s a valuable conversation for both partners? Helping you do that is a service we offer at Communicate! Consulting.

Email us to find out if we should be working together. Because there are complete strangers out there who could become your organization’s biggest fans. Let’s give them the opportunity.

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