10 Years of Above Average Growth

There’s a nonprofit that Better Fundraising has been serving for about 10 years.  And during those years, the nonprofit has experienced above-average growth. 

I was asked to summarize why this organization’s fundraising to individual donors has experienced this uninterrupted run of success.  And I’d like to share that summary with you in case it helps you raise more money.

We have the following beliefs about the world and about individual donors:

• We’re in a world where there are almost twice as many nonprofits the U.S. than there were 25 years ago.
• We live in a world where people receive, on average, between 6,000 and 10,000 marketing messages per day
• We believe that individual donors are materially different than staff, board members, or volunteers.  We believe that individual donors are not subject matter experts like we are, and they care about and value different things than staff do.
• We know that the average donor in the United States is 68 years old.
• In the context of direct response fundraising (direct mail, email, phone, radio), we know that Individual donors tend to make the “give-or-not-give” decisions in mere seconds. 
• We believe that many donors would love to give more than once per year, but that’s only likely to happen if we ask them to.
• We believe that donors appreciate knowing reasons and stories that show the organization’s work (and the donors’ support) is needed today.
• We believe that communicating often enough to donors so that the organization is a regular, relevant presence in their lives will lead to more donations than occasional or sporadic communications.

These beliefs lead us to create direct response fundraising and major donor programs with the following goals:

• Communicate with donors more often than internal audiences might think is necessary.
• Create communications that are dramatic and urgent, in order to break through the noise and earn donors’ attention.
• Write and design our communications to touch donors’ values and emotions more than trying to appeal to what the organization values. 

These beliefs and goals have led to 10 years of above-average growth.

There’s more than just beliefs and goals, of course.  You have to maintain your database.  You have to learn what does (and what doesn’t) go on an effective landing page.  You have to learn how to structure a major donor development system.

But all of those are tactics that can be learned by anyone.

If your fundraising isn’t regularly and consistently growing, look at the beliefs and goals that drive your fundraising program.  And if you need a new belief or goal, the ones above are a great place to start because they are proven to guide you to make tactical choices that will help you build deeper relationships with your donors and raise more money.