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The Heroic Work of Maintaining What We Have

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Ms. MarvelWe live in a world where innovation and disruption are considered heroic.

That’s certainly the culture of corporate enterprise. Nonprofits talk the talk, too. Even those nonprofits that warn against Bright Shiny Object Syndrome worry that if they miss the next new trend–whether it’s recurring giving or artificial intelligence–someday, they’ll regret it.

But are we worried about the right things?

Should we first be worried about making sure that we are doing, is working? (And perhaps, making it work a little better?) Share on X

Scheduled maintenance for your nonprofit

looking at websiteI recently reviewed the website of a nonprofit organization. In some ways, it was gorgeous. The photos were attractive. The design performed just as well on a mobile device as on a desktop computer.

But–all the external links were broken.

The program descriptions were two years out of date.

And the financial report (which is crucial for closing the deal with institutional funders and sophisticated donors) was a PDF dating back to 2014!

Innovation and disruption are not going to help this nonprofit.

This organization should not be launching a new crowdfunding campaign, or adding a chatbot to its Facebook page. It should be focusing on its website–which has been a basic tool for nonprofit communications and fundraising since the turn of this century.

It should also be coming up with a system for making sure its website stays useful to donors and prospects. Whose responsibility will that be? How often must they check links and update documents? When will the nonprofit plan to redesign the site?

You wouldn’t wait to take your car into the shop until the engine seized up. You take it in for regularly scheduled maintenance and checkups. Please, do the same with your nonprofit. Like Ms. Marvel or Superman, your quiet work will hide your real identity. You’re a hero.

Where to improve first

John Haydon

John Haydon

Just like your website, in 2019 a Facebook page is a basic tool of your organization. But even in 2019, I stand by what I wrote on John Haydon’s blog in 2013: there are lots of things even more basic than Facebook.

Your nonprofit should not be using Facebook. Here are ten reasons why.

1. Your website sucks

A Facebook page should make people head to your website to see more about you. But if your website is unattractive, hard to read or navigate, and impossible to view on a mobile device, then you don’t want to send people there.

2. You don’t have a blog

So they came to your website once. Why should they come back? A blog gives people a different reason to visit, each time you post. If you’re not blogging, why are you bothering with Facebook?

3. You post stuff that nobody wants to see

Who cares how many people your nonprofit served or what awards your Executive Director won? If you’re not telling people how their donations made a tangible difference in one person’s life, you’re talking to yourself.

4. You don’t capture people’s email addresses

Remember, you don’t own Facebook. Zuckerberg does. You own the email addresses that people have given you permission to use. First, make sure that you have ways to get that permission.

5. You don’t have something concrete to offer

Why would people give you their email addresses when they get so much email already? Only because you give them something even more valuable in exchange: information they’re eager to have. What can you offer?

6. Your contact management system is broken

When you get those emails, are you still storing them in Excel? Or are you recording them in a database that lets you send each person the message that matters to them, and keep track of your relationship with them?

7. Your customer service sends the wrong message

What you do speaks louder than what you post. Do you answer the phone, respond to voicemail and email, and greet walk-ins with courtesy and professionalism? Do they get the help they are seeking?

8. You don’t want to devote enough time

Heather Mansfield estimates that to participate effectively in just one social medium like Facebook, it takes seven hours a week. Are you trying to do it in an hour a week? Then you’re wasting that hour. Don’t bother.

9. You don’t want to spend any money

Facebook is making it harder and harder to reach even the people who already know you and like you without paying for the privilege. You don’t need megabucks, but have a budget for boosting your Page and your posts.

10. You don’t have a communications strategy

“Outreach,” “visibility,” and “awareness” are not good reasons to be on Facebook. Do you know who you’re trying to reach, for what purpose, and what they would do if you engaged with them successfully?

Small improvements, large results

Do these ten points sound like you? The good news is that with a little help, you can fix each and every one of them… and raise a lot of money as a result. Including on Facebook.

But see, these improvements are not bright shiny objects. They’re not innovation, and forget about disruption.

Old and improved beats new and improved nine times out of ten. Make sure you maintain and improve what your nonprofit does already. Share on X

Nonprofits, Don’t Be a Home Invader. Be Welcome

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climb through window

If I don’t answer the door, you don’t climb through the window!

What should you do to interest a potential donor–and what shouldn’t you do? Let me tell you a story that will help you answer the question yourself.

Recently, my wife, Rona, thought about signing up for a service online. She went to the sign-up page, but she was dismayed at how much personal information the company was asking for upfront: not only name and email, but address, home phone, cell phone, location…Midway through the process, she clicked off.

The next thing you know, the company had mailed her at her home address. She knew it was them even before she opened the envelope. She’d used her “maiden name” to sign up, and that was on the mailing!

How do you think Rona felt? (How would you feel?)

Don’t be a Home Invader

Whether it’s a commercial organization or a nonprofit, there are things you just can’t do to interest a customer, or donor, in your business.

Let’s start with: you can’t ask for too much information at one time. It takes too long, and it raises suspicion that you might be using the data for nefarious purposes.

Your landing page needs to be as simple as you can make it. Name and email address might be all you need.

Then: you have to be prepared to take no for an answer. Just because you want that person’s attention–or donation–doesn’t mean they have to give it to you. Pursuing them is creepy…especially if you do it across platforms.

Imagine you knocked at my door, and I didn’t respond. You knew I was there, because the light was on and you heard me moving around. Would it be okay to climb in through the window and say hello? Of course not! Then why would it be okay to send me mail when I hadn’t even authorized you to send me email?

Be a Welcome Guest Instead. Here’s How.

Of course, you do want people who are interested in your nonprofit to hear from you. But there’s a wrong way to do that…and then, there’s a right way. If you do the right thing, you can be a welcome guest in their inbox.

The key is to offer your audiences content that’s so good and so useful to them, they keep coming back for more–and telling their friends. How do you do that? Here are five steps to take.

  1. Commit to doing better. Most nonprofits are happy just to be producing content at all. As Kivi Leroux Miller tells us, it’s time to question that approach.
  2. Know your audience. Know them so well you’d recognize them on the street. (John Haydon’s Nonprofit Marketing Personas Workbook will help you there.)
  3. Have a strategy. It can be as simple as “Who are the audiences we’re trying to reach? What do we already know about these audiences? What do we need to find out to give them what they’re looking for? What will they do differently if we succeed?”
  4. Keep it exciting. Look for ways to give your audiences useful information in a variety of forms—written, visual, online, through social media.
  5. Promote it. Use every means you have to spread the word about your great content. Word of mouth, public speaking, radio, TV. Newsletters, social media, your website. Link to it in the signature line of your emails. Find the hook so a local journalist turns it into a story. Be creative!

Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You

As you provide more value and win the trust of the person you’re trying to reach, maybe they will agree to sign up for your email. Again, keep the sign-up page simple.

Over time, you can ask more questions in an email series and store the answers in your database or CRM. You can start segmenting your email list, so that you send each person the kind of story they’d be interested in hearing.

You can create more and more reasons why the person hearing from you looks forward to your next message. Isn’t that better than having them call 911–block you–because you’ve invaded their online home?

 

 

 

 

TY Thursday: What Have You Done for Your Donors?

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Action speaks louderAre you trying to come up with more and better ways to thank your donors? Sometimes, what you need is not a new and improved thank-you letter, video, gift, or donor appreciation event.

Sometimes you just have to give the donors what they want.

What do the donors want?

Tom Ahern, the dean of donor communications, says the content donors want is the answers to the questions, “What did you do with the money I gave you? What difference did it make?” And they want the joy of feeling they have helped make the world a better place.

Take Tom’s advice and you’ll know what to put in your newsletter (and on your website, and on your social media)–and what to leave out. Put in stories about real people whose lives are better “because you helped.”

Everything else–the grant you got, the award your Executive Director won, the amount of money you have to raise before your fiscal year end–is what you should leave out. Unless you can find a way to present it so that your donors feel great about themselves! Then, include it. But check with some actual donors first!

Kivi Leroux Miller, who’s always both practical and inspiring, says donors want giving to be easy–and after they give, they want you to know who they are.

Take Kivi’s advice. Giving can be easy if your website has a good landing page and if once they give, you immediately acknowledge the gift (so they know “it worked!”)

Knowing who your donors are is so vital, and yet so neglected! “It’s amazing how little many nonprofits can tell you about their donors beyond their giving history, and that makes good marketing and fundraising tough,” Kivi says. If you know what your donors care about–including interests that don’t seem at first to touch on your mission–you can send communications that make them feel “This was written just for me.”

Joe Garecht, The Fundraising Authority, says donors want non-reciprocated value. In other words, be generous to them, too! Don’t just trade return address labels for a donation.

Take Joe’s advice. Find ways to be helpful to your donors, without expecting anything in return, “such as when you come across two donors who might find value in working together in their businesses, and offer to set up and attend a lunch meeting to introduce them.”

Customer service is the best thank you.

People in business know that their customers’ experience with them is reason those customers come back–or don’t. No amount of advertising can overcome a customer’s interaction with an employee who is rude, inattentive, poorly informed, or just plain unhelpful.

For nonprofit organizations, donors are our customers. Yes, they are “buying” services for other people–our clients! But customer service is still the key to seeing those donors again. Let’s put it in terms that fit the nonprofit sector:

The best way to thank your donors: think about what matters to the donor--and give it to them. Share on X

What have you done for your donors that they will remember with a smile?

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