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TY Thursday: Your Donors Need to Hear “Thanks” Right Now

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It’s always a good time to say thank you to your donors. Right now, in Fall 2020, it’s the best time. Because your donors need to hear from you.

Why Donors are Worried

worriedConsider how much uncertainty we are all confronting in Fall 2020.

  • We are still facing a worldwide pandemic that has killed over 200,000 people in the U.S.–and the numbers continue to rise.
  • Flu season is upon us, too, and while the vast majority of us get our shots, the few who don’t are a danger to themselves and all of us.
  • We may see another major shutdown of businesses and public facilities.
  • Millions of people are out of work. The first stimulus package helped many of them, but not all and not enough…and we will not know about a second stimulus until after the election. Possibly after the Inauguration in 2021.
  • The world is holding its breath for the results of the election, but we don’t and can’t know ahead of time how long it will take for those results to be official and what legal or extralegal challenges they will face.

In times like these–I’m not going to say “unprecedented” because that has become a cliche–donors are worried.

People who give money like to feel they are (more cliches coming here) changing the world, making a difference, having an impact. Right now, it’s hard to feel any of those things, and easy to feel out of control.

Why Your Donors Need to Hear “Thank You”

By thanking your donors, you help restore their sense of control.

By telling them stories about people they helped, you bring it down to a human level.

By making them the hero of the story, you make them feel powerful, instead of powerless; caring, instead of careless. You make them feel good to other people–-and you make them feel good about themselves.

Thanking donors gives them the best gift they could ask for, and it makes them want to keep on giving back. Share on X

So, throughout October, on Giving Tuesday, on Thanksgiving, and any chance you get, make sure to thank your donors. You will feel better about yourself when you do! And you will build loyalty among your donors that will last beyond 2020.

Fundraising Tuesday: Every Day is Giving Tuesday

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Christmas cookiesYou’ve heard the saying, “It’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s–it’s what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas”?

Similarly, it’s not what you do for your donors between Halloween and Giving Tuesday that determines how much love they feel toward your nonprofit organization. It’s what you do all year.

Communications are the key to a good marriage. Your nonprofit’s communications are the key to a good relationship between your donors and you.

By next November, make your donors love you. Here are the four steps to win their hearts.

This winter, work on your email.

When donors or prospects give you their email address, it’s like they met you on a blind date and decided to give you their phone number. What they’re saying is, “I want to hear from you.” It’s a huge gesture of trust.

Be worthy of their trust.

  • Find out the kind of content they want to see, and send it to them as often (and no more often) than they want to see it.
  • Write great subject lines that signal, “I wrote this especially for you and I know you’ll want to read it.”
  • Personalize every email. “Dear friend” is not acceptable in 2019. It tells your donors they’re not worth your time.
  • Even better: make it personal! You can’t do that for every single email message you send, but every time you do talk to a person in a way that says “I know you,” they will remember it.
  • Keep your list up to date. There are good email tools out there: MailChimp and Constant Contact are two that many nonprofits use. There are also donor databases with email built right in. Buy one and learn how to use it. You–and your donors–will be glad you did.

This spring, take a good look at your website.

living room fireplaceYour website is your online living room. If you’re going to invite donors there, you want them to stay a while.

  • Make the lighting comfortable. Is the font size large enough for middle-aged eyes? Does it read as well on Chrome or Firefox as on Internet Explorer or Safari? Can donors read it on their mobile devices? Can they read it with their screen readers (if they have limited eyesight)?
  • Make the room easy to get around. Place navigation bars on the homepage and on every page. Clearly label your pages and tabs, and don’t get too cute: “About Us” or “Who We Are” are better than “The 411.”
  • Put out the treats.  Your donors need to find what they’re looking for quickly or they’ll leave your site. Be sure everything is within three clicks from the home page: for instance, 1) home page, 2) contact us, 3) email. If you’re inviting people to sign up for an event, consider using a landing page with its own URL.

This summer, spice up your blogging life.

Did you ever meet someone and think to yourself, “I love talking with him. I could spend all night just listening to him?”

Writing a blog gives your donors a chance to say that about you.

Blogging is better for those long explorations than email. It’s more of a conversation than the rest of your website. Blogging is for lovers.

This fall, finally get social. Listen and interact.

What would the love of your life think if when you were together, you only talked and never listened? Or if you only listened when he or she was talking about you?

Not very romantic, right?

But too many nonprofits think the reason to use social media is to have one more place to rattle on about themselves.

Social media are really more like social gatherings: parties, conferences, Chamber of Commerce meetings, public forums. You go those events to meet people and become an important part of the community.

You go on social media to do the same. Not to post. To meet people.

Over time, if you pay attention to them, people come to know, like, and trust your organization. They actually seek you out for information and advice and opportunities to volunteer. They start thinking of you as “their” organization. They fall in love.

 

How do you use social media to make donors love you?

I’ve been studying this subject for years, and I’m happy to share it with you.

social mediaThe No-Nonsense Nonprofit Guide to Social Media: How You Can Start Small, Win Loyal Friends, and Raise Funds Online and Off is your step-by-step guide to courting your donors.

Download it now, and by next fall, you can be happily engaged.

By next winter, you can be busy writing thank-you notes.

Fundraising Tuesday: What Can We Do in Just One Month?

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Giving TuesdayA worthy nonprofit recently asked me:

We’ve participated in Giving Tuesday for several years, and recently, the amount of giving we’ve seen that day has dropped. What can we do over the next month to get it back up again?

My answer?

If you want good results on December 3, then use the entire month of November to thank your donors. Share on X

In case you haven’t heard, Giving Tuesday was created when two organizations, the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation, came together in 2012, about a month before that year’s Thanksgiving. They reasoned that if there was a “Black Friday” for buying retail, and a “Cyber Monday” for buying online, why not a day set aside for the joy of giving?

Since then, many nonprofits have created Giving Tuesday campaigns. Results varied. Some made a lot of money without reducing the donations they received in their end-of-year campaigns: the best of both worlds! Others found the returns on Giving Tuesday didn’t justify their efforts.

Today’s question comes from a nonprofit that used to find Giving Tuesday worthwhile but is worried about what to expect in 2019. Is there anything they can do to boost donations when they have only one month to work on it?

Say the words: THANK YOU

You can say them in a letter, by phone, in a thank-a-thon.

You can say them in an email, poem, or  video.

You can say them in your newsletter, or you can say them when you send out your welcome packet.

In a box, with a fox

You can say “Thank you” in a box, or you can say “thank you” to a fox–if you’re Dr. Seuss! But remember to say those magic words.

Don’t imply. Don’t leave the donor wondering. Thank them.

How many ways can you say “thank you”?

A smaller organization might need to pick one or two of these methods and spend the month just sending email, or calling donors.

A larger organization–one that actually has a development department, or heavens, separate development and communications departments!–might be able to do several of these.

Choose as many ways to say thank you as you’re sure your nonprofit can do well.

 

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