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Fundraising Tuesday: Do Your Donors Need Watering?

July 3, 2018 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

watering plants

Tend your donors all year round

I put a plant into the ground.  Then I forgot about it.

The sun baked it.  It drooped.  It withered.

Oops!  Well, no problem.  I’ll just water it now.

Wait, why isn’t it coming back to life?

When your organization ignores a donor for months at a time, you are scorching and burning your relationship.

You may get lucky.  Their feelings for you may be so hardy that you can bring the relationship back to life with a really good appeal.  Most often, though, you’ll be watering a dead plant and wondering why it isn’t growing.

Real communications are the water of life.  Give your donors some water every week, and watch your relationships flower.

This post first appeared on Communicate! in 2016.

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Fundraising Tuesday: 5 Reasons You Must Personalize Your Appeal Letters

May 15, 2018 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

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.

 

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

May 8, 2018 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

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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