Author: Jim Shapiro

To be a successful fundraising organization you have to do each of the basics well: Ask, Thank and Report.

Organizations that do each of them well get to experience the following results:

• Increased revenue
• Increased donor retention rates
• Increased response to all fundraising over time

There are no silver bullets in fundraising. If your organization isn’t Asking, Thanking and Reporting well, figure out what your donors need to hear next. It’s usually a Thank or a Report. Then get to work on it right away.

Organizations that master the most important building blocks will create an organization that helps a lot of people and lasts a long time.

Reporting back to your donors and showing them what their gifts have done is the single best way to keep your donors giving year after year. And if you do it well you’ll also raise a lot of money now.

This video shows you how professional organizations Report to their donors with a newsletter. But you don’t have to be professional to send your donors Reports that they love – you just need to follow the principles Steven and I outline in this video.

And for your Major Donors, if you hope to receive a gift at the end of the year it’s VITAL that you Report to them as quickly as possible.

Another reason to watch; at the end of the video we’re giving you a chance to have us review your Reports to your donors and tell you how to improve them — for FREE.

Watch the video! I guarantee it’s worth 6 minutes of your day.

Jim

In recent months have you thanked your donors promptly and emotionally for their gifts?  If the answer is no, then you have some work to do this month in order to prepare the hearts of your donors to make generous year-end gifts.

Now is the time of year to thank your donors. Send them thank you notes, pick up the phone and call them, or send a short video of one of your beneficiaries saying thank you.

Now is the time to thank your donors before you enter the most fruitful time of the fundraising season. Watch this video to learn how to thank your donors well!

Over my 20 years of fundraising I have come to understand that fundraising is NOT a talent issue it is a knowledge issue. Fundraising best practices are learnable and repeatable.

Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat was born out of this fundraising truth. You can learn what the experts know. You can borrow better fundraising truths from organizations that have spent millions of dollars and thousands of days uncovering these truths. All you need to do is become a student of fundraising by learning from the experts.

Continue to read this blog, watch our videos and consume our content. When you learn how to honor your donors through clear and simple communication you will raise more money year after year.

If you want to keep your donors year after year you must thank them immediately and emotionally for their donation. Here’s how to make your thank you notes and receipts great.

1. Get in the minds of your donors and ask yourself the three questions they are asking when they hear from you. They are thinking, “Did they get my gift? Did they appreciate my gift? What is my gift going to accomplish?”
2. Thank them emotionally for their gift. Don’t use dry, CFO-language. Really emotionally tell them how grateful you are.
3. Tell them how much their gift was and that you’ve received it.
4. Tell them what their gift is going to do. Don’t give them a generic ‘thank you for supporting our mission and programs,’ tell them the exact same thing you said their gift was going to do when you asked them for it.

So, send thank you notes and receipts to your donors to let them know you received their gift, you’re grateful for their gift, and you’re doing what you said you would do with it. Send great thank you notes and receipts because you appreciate them and their sacrificial giving. Send great thank you notes and receipts because if you do you’ll raise FAR more money in the long run.

If you missed it from the last blog post, click here to see a 2-minute video that outlines how to make your thank you notes and receipt letters raise more money.

Want to raise more money with your website this December – or any time this year?  Steven was recently a featured guest on the Driving Participation podcast.  He talks about how to make your website raise the most money this year — and because it’s Steven – it’s also a wide-ranging conversation about fundraising.  Take a listen!

Fall fundraising is important because it’s the most fruitful time of year for nonprofits. In this video, we tackle the most important big-picture questions about fundraising. Watch now and follow these instructions to raise more money this fall – and during the life of your organization.

Raise more money by telling donors what they want to hear. Your donors don’t care how special your organization is, and telling your donors your organization is unique doesn’t help you raise money. In fact, it usually causes you to raise less money.

That’s because most donors care more about 1) who needs help, and 2) the improvement in the beneficiary’s life if the donor gives a gift.

How you make that improvement happen just doesn’t matter to most donors. We’ve done test after test and they all come back basically the same:

• If you talk about the Need and the improvement that will be caused by the donor’s gift, lots of money pours in.
• If you highlight your uniqueness by talking about how your organization serves it’s beneficiaries . . . a little money drips in.

Most donors are simply much more interested in the who their gift helps and the improvement that happens when they give. Yes, a few major donors (and your Staff and Board) are very interested in how your organization does its thing. Save your talk about uniqueness for them.

Don’t include “uniqueness” in your messaging to donors. Focus on what the donor can do with their gift, not how you make it happen.