Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

TY Thursday: Thank Your Most Loyal Supporters

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loyalty

Who is your organization’s best friend?

Every nonprofit organization has one: the most loyal supporter.  The person who gives as often as she can, or as often as you ask.  The one who volunteers for all your events and brings her friends.

You’d like a thousand like that.  You’d like to clone her.  What if you could?

Businesses have time-tested strategies that create loyal customers.  Some of these strategies work especially well on social media. Nonprofits can adapt and adopt these strategies to thank our donors, volunteers, and supporters.

Danny Maloney, CEO of the social media firm Tailwind, lists “4 Ways to Turn Social-Media Fans Into Raving, Loyal Customers”:

  1. Use a targeted approach.  Find the people who are already talking about you on Facebook, Twitter, and the web at large.
  2. Let your fans know you’re listening.  “If they took the time to share a blog post you wrote or to give you a positive review, be listening for it and thank them.”
  3. Target your special offers.  Businesses give loyalty discounts.  What can you give your most loyal supporters that they would enjoy: a chance to write for your blog? lunch with a celebrity who also supports you? an award?
  4. Curate compelling content.  That’s jargon for finding and sharing information that interests your supporters.  It could be an insider analysis of where their favorite legislation stands in Congress. It could be a video that explains the issue you and they both care about.

Sharing this content with your most loyal supporters makes them feel smarter and happier because they’re associated with you.  It shows them your gratitude. It keeps them coming back to your social media.

And it keeps them advocating for your organization, increasing awareness of you among their friends…who may become your next most loyal supporters.

 

 

TY Thursday: Thank You for Not Annoying Donors

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pet peevesWhen people find out I consult to nonprofits, they tell me their pet peeves. Most of what’s annoying them is how we ask for money.

Thanking and Asking Again in the Same Letter

More than one friend has complained to me about the dreaded “thask”: the thank-you note combined with a new ask. “I just sent a donation, and here they are asking for more. It’s like they’re trying to tell me I gave too little the first time!”

I tell them that the numbers show a certain number of donors will give right away if you ask them again. That doesn’t impress my friends. They want nonprofits to know that a certain number of donors will get that “thank-you, now give more” message and never give again.

The Thask is Just Plain Annoying

You know we have a tremendous problem with donor renewal in our sector. The chances are that two of three people who gave to you for the first time in 2016 won’t give again this year. Could the “thask” have something to do with it?

Claire Axelrad tells us:

An Abila Donor Engagement Study found that 21% of donors say they were never thanked for their gift. Some weren’t, but my hunch is that a lot were. They just didn’t perceive what you sent them to be a thank you. Too often thank you letters sound exactly like fundraising letters.

What Donors Want You to Do Instead

Now, when you thank donors, you do want to ask them to take a next step. The “call to action” can be to join your email list, or follow you on Facebook, or even come to an event.

And you do want to give them more evidence that they made a good decision when they made their first donation. Show the impact they made.

But what you don’t want to do is ask right away for more money.  And what you really don’t want to do is what my friend who tweets under the name @thewhinydonor describes as her pet peeve:

The first thank you letter arrived today. And it contained an enormous reply envelope, bigger than the letter. COMPLETE TURNOFF.

When the first thing I see when I open your acknowledgement is a big reply envelope asking for more, my warm glow of giving is obliterated.

How are your favorite charities annoying you (and probably not even realizing it)? What’s your pet peeve?

TY Thursday: Thank Donors Now for a Better December

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It may still be summer, but December comes all too soon. For many nonprofit organizations, December is a time to worry. Will you see checks in the mail (or clicks on the Donate button) from the donors who gave last year?

You have a right to worry. In the U.S., only 30% of first-time donors to nonprofit organizations renew their gift the next year.

You read that right! If you’re like most nonprofit organizations, more than 2 out of every 3 new donors will give to you once and then forget all about you.

You can curse your fickle donors. You can rip the month of December out of your wall calendar, or scroll past it on your computer. Or…

You can turn that one-time donation into a renewal.  In one week. This week.

Here’s how.

The One-Week Impact Report

A massive earthquake killed thousands in Nepal and India on April 25, 2015. The massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal with devastating force less than 50 miles from the capital, Kathmandu.

Nepali girl near Kathmandu

Nepali girl near Kathmandu

My wife and I know people who come from Nepal, and the images of the devastation touched our hearts. So, on April 27 we made a small donation of $50 through the international charity Global Giving.

We received a report from Global Giving about what they were doing with the donation and what difference it made.  Not in December. They emailed us on May 6–one week after the gift!

Global Giving made a convincing case that they knew the organizations on the ground that could use the money well. They told us what those organizations were doing. For instance:

The Nepal Youth Foundation is providing emergency supplies to hospitals, sheltering and caring for people discharged from hospitals who cannot return home, particularly women and children.

Global Giving didn’t stop there. “You can click on the link to any of the individual projects to see the updates they’ll post about how they are using the funds,” they told us. “We have also posted a link to frequently asked questions on the page.”

All this for a $50 donation. All this, in the first week.

When Rona and I give again to Nepali relief, why wouldn’t we channel our donation through Global Giving?

More Than a Thank You

Now, I know a lot of nonprofit organizations are still struggling to send a timely, personal thank-you letter. And if you’re one of them, absolutely, do all you can to make that happen. But that’s the minimum that donors expect.

As fundraising consultant Alan Sharpe says:

The secret to getting donations for your non-profit is to give donors what they want. People give to causes to make a difference in others’ lives. And what donors really want to know is how their donation will help people.

Are you telling them the impact of their donation? Start! Do it this week.

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