Giver’s Take
You’re wasting money. “Market less, make less,” an expert told you. The expert fails to disclose is that when you market more, they make more. You need better advice.
You’re happy when 8% of your donors give. However, you should be obsessed to understand why the remaining 92% did not. Achieve such understanding and realize success beyond what you thought possible. Thinking deeper leads to bigger thoughts.
Getting to know those you don’t know
When you analyze the 92% of donors who did not give, you may realize that 32% of them have never given during the time period you asked them. So why did you? Another 10% only ever gives one gift a year in the month of December. Guess what? These donors wonder why you haven’t realized this fact yet.
Fifteen percent of those donors are elderly. They’re cash poor but asset rich. However, you keep asking them to match a gift amount they gave to you six years ago. This makes them feel inadequate. You’re not paying attention to the right stuff. You jeopardize their legacy as well as yours.
Twenty five percent of the 92% have never given to the program and/or project you asked them to fund. They only dig one thing about you. Figure it out.
And what about those who stopped?
There will be some people who will not give because they’re wondering what you did with their last gift. You never closed that communication loop. A few more contemplate if your organization is still a good investment.
Furthermore, there are those who stopped giving altogether. You haven’t noticed? These are but a few reasons why people do not give to your campaigns. Will you achieve 100% returns? No, but don’t settle into a comfort zone.
Keep testing new ideas against your worst performing ones.
Be on alert. There will be those inside your organization that will say, “We have this program so we need a dedicated fundraising campaign.” Your response must be, “maybe so, maybe no.”
Present ill-conceived, undesirable and seemingly unrelated programs or projects to your donors and giving will go down. Not every program your charity performs warrants an entire fundraising campaign. Your goal is to maximize revenue. Therefore, only select your very best programs for dedicated promotions.
Stay sharp. Think differently. Go beyond where you’ve been.
Understand your donor/constituent’s voice. Use their words and not your corporate speak. Discover their voice by asking open-ended questions. Comprehend their thoughts and feelings in their phraseology.
Questions we need to be asking
What do they think is the most important thing you do? What do they value most? Why do they give money to your charity? Where should your organization focus? How do they determine if a charity is successful? How do they decide on whom to donate to with so many worthwhile groups? How many nonprofits are they involved with today and who are they? What forms of communication do they like best? Do they know your charity’s primary purpose? How did they first hear about you? How would they describe their relationship with you? Do they know and understand what you are attempting to achieve with their help?
Listen to a donor. Understand a donor. Think like a donor. Speak like a donor. Resonate with a donor. Then you will grow.
By Todd Baker
Baker is Vice President and Senior Strategist with Milwaukee Direct Marketing. He is the author of the popular blog book, OrgMarketing.com, which is required reading for UCLA’s Digital Fundraising Course, which Baker teaches as part of the university’s Certification Program in Fundraising. He writes the Fundraiser Confidential series for Fundraising Success Magazine and he is also known for the Baker’s Dozen fundraising series for the Nonprofit Times. Baker is also a contributing author to one of the bestselling nonprofit Internet books of all time, Nonprofit Internet Strategies and is also the author of Champions of Philanthropy. He is a former member of the Association Fundraising Professionals Board of Directors for Washington State. Baker spent more than 13 years with World Vision.
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