Author: Steven

Steven Screen is Co-Founder of The Better Fundraising Company and lead author of its blog. With over 25 years' fundraising experience, he gets energized by helping organizations understand how they can raise more money. He’s a second-generation fundraiser, a past winner of the Direct Mail Package of the Year, and data-driven.

The Harmful Big Assumption

Steven  |  Report
complain

When a nonprofit is discussing a complaint that’s come in, someone invariably says…

“…and if this person complained, there must be a lot of other donors who feel the same way but didn’t send anything in.”

This is a big assumption. And it’s made out of fear.

It’s a completely understandable assumption. It’s the same assumption I made at the beginning of my career.

I think people naturally assume that a complainer speaks for more people than themselves because fundraising can be awkward. Fundraising makes us feel vulnerable. Many people just plain don’t like it.

But if we’re going to make the assumption that every complaint indicates that there must be a lot of other donors who feel the same way but didn’t send anything in, I counsel organizations to make another similar assumption: that every gift indicates that there must be a lot of other donors who feel the same way but didn’t send anything in.

After all, it’s hard to argue that only one of those assumptions is true, no?

Put it this way: if you argue that each complainer speaks for other people, you also have to argue that each giver speaks for other people.

Say a complainer “speaks for” 5 people who didn’t send a complaint in. And a giver “speaks for” 5 people who didn’t send in a gift.

If you received 2 complaints, that’s 10 people who had a complaint but didn’t send it in. If you received 50 gifts, that’s 250 people who considered making a gift but didn’t send one in.

So, what’s best for the organization: making changes to the fundraising so that the 10 donors avoid thinking about making a complaint, or making changes to the fundraising so that the 250 people who were thinking about making a gift go ahead and make a gift?

Seems obvious, right?

What’s more, there are multiple proven tactics to help people who are looking at your fundraising to go ahead and make the gift:

  • Custom reply devices on each mailing and custom landing pages for each email
  • Custom gift ask amounts for each donor
  • Ensuring your online content echoes and reinforces your offline content, so that more donors will see the same message multiple times, which increases the likelihood of them giving a gift.

Now we’re in the realm of proven tactics instead of worry.

Big Picture

Complaints are going to happen to any growing organization that’s reliant on individual donors.

When a complaint comes in, don’t let a reasonable-but-fear-based assumption harm your fundraising efforts. Don’t focus on the negative.

Instead, choose to have an abundance mindset. Move from worry to making proven improvements.

The whole goal of this series of blog posts on complaints has been to help organizations get used to complaints, because complaints are a natural part of growth, and set up a system to handle complaints with the appropriate amount of energy.

When you do this, you’ll spend less time and energy on complaints. And you can spend that time doing concrete things that will help your organization raise more money in the future.

If you’re going to make an assumption about donor behavior, also look to see if the opposite assumption is true.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption (this post)
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.

Steven  |  Repeat
complaints

Donors complain for all sorts of reasons.

To illustrate, I’ve compiled a list of complaints that we at Better Fundraising have seen firsthand.

For context, all of these complaints were received by nonprofits that were growing, raising more money, and achieving more of their mission work than ever before.

Let’s get to the list. All of these are real complaints…

  • The donor whose spouse had passed away a couple days before and they couldn’t believe the organization would send them a letter at a time like this.
  • A donor did not like seeing pictures of what a particular disease did to the people who have it.
  • The donor whose name was spelled incorrectly.
  • The non-donor who did not like that the organization had their home address.
  • The donor (and Board member) who didn’t like being asked to provide matching funds.
  • The email subscriber but non-donor who felt the organization talked about the need for funding too often.
  • The female donor who was annoyed that the organization always put her husband’s name first.
  • The donor who received an appeal the day before from a different organization.
  • The longtime donor who didn’t like that the growing organization is doing more fundraising these days.
  • The donor who didn’t like the way the appeal letter made them feel, so they sent in a complaint and included a gift.
  • The donor who wished the organization would emphasize the positive more often.
  • The donor who complained that they receive too much email from all the charities they support
  • The legacy donor who complained that the organization published her name
  • The legacy donor who complained that the organization did not publish their name

This list could be a lot longer. You’ve almost certainly received a complaint of some kind that isn’t on this list.

Some of the complaints are legit. Some are unique to the complainer’s particular situation.

And remember, all these complaints were received by organizations that were applying fundraising’s virtuous circle to ask people for gifts, thank donors, and reporting back to donors on what their gift helped accomplish. Their overall fundraising was going great.

The Lesson

Once you see a list like this, you begin to realize that many of the complaints organizations receive are unique to the person making the complaint at that time and place in their life.

Their particular set of circumstances + that particular moment in time + your fundraising = their complaint.

In other words, the complainer is speaking only for themselves. They are not speaking for anyone else.

Of course, all complaints should be responded to warmly, and with the right “internal level of reaction.” And of course you want to fix data errors, use people’s preferred salutation, etc.

But too often organizations will receive a complaint, not ask any questions to learn more, and assume, “well if this person complained there must be loads of others who feel the same way.”

If your fundraising is going well, that’s a massive assumption.

Our advice: assume that a complainer is only speaking for themselves until proven otherwise.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain. (this post)
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints

Steven  |  Repeat
complaint

There are two times smaller organizations get more complaints:

  • When they start to send out more fundraising. For instance, the organization sends out 4 appeals instead of their usual 2.
  • When their fundraising starts to include more details about what life is like for the people they serve. For instance, the organization includes a description of how a person suffers before the organization helps them.

What makes this situation emotionally complex is that – in both these cases – the organization also raises more money.

When organizations send out more fundraising, they receive more complaints and they raise more money.

When organizations send out fundraising that clearly shares the “need” that the organization serves, they receive more complaints and they raise more money.

This is when organizations realize that “receiving more complaints” and “raising more money” are correlated. They almost always happen at the same time. There’s something about powerful fundraising that causes both more complaints and more gifts.

Then the organization realizes it has a choice. It can raise a lot more money (and do more of its mission work) and, in return, handle a complaint now and again.

Or it can change its fundraising so that no complaints are generated, and raise less money (and do less of its mission work).

Each organization gets to make its own choice.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints (this post)
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

Natural, But Not Productive

Steven  |  Repeat
complain

It’s good to recognize that it’s natural to focus on complaints.

Unfortunately, it’s also natural to focus too much on complaints.

Here’s a story I just heard that illustrates this perfectly.

A famous person went to a basketball game in New York. They were shown on the jumbotron and the arena erupted in applause.

And as they were leaving the game, a heckler let them have it for a few seconds.

This person spent the entire limo ride home talking about the heckler and reliving those few seconds. The applause was never mentioned.

The famous person forgot about the avalanche of positive feedback and focused on the one negative.

A lot of nonprofits have the same reaction to a complaint; they forget about all the gifts that came in, and they focus on the one negative. (Funny thought: if the famous person were a smaller nonprofit, couldn’t you see one of their Board Members saying, “Well, you certainly can’t ever go to a basketball game again”?!?)

It’s part of the human condition to put more attention to negative information than positive information. It’s natural, but not productive.

As people who are fundraising on behalf of beneficiaries and causes, our reaction to a complaint must be more emotionally sophisticated than, “Well, we need to make sure that never happens again.”

In the same way you & I know that the person at the game shouldn’t let one heckler be more important than an arena full of people applauding… we also know that we shouldn’t let one complaint be more important than 100 gifts. Or 10. Or even 1.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive (this post)
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

Not All Complaints are Equal

Steven  |  Repeat

Not all complaints are equal. 

For instance, a complaint from a non-donor who is subscribed to your email newsletter should be given less time and attention than a complaint from a beneficiary or staff member.

So, a smart organization responds differently to different complaints.

As an organization responds to a complaint, there are three main “variables”:

  • Change the level of energy put into the response
  • Change the fundraising the complainer receives in the future
  • Change the fundraising all donors receive in the future

Change the Level of Energy

You can vary how much energy you respond to a complaint with.

For instance, the complainer can receive a pre-written email that acknowledges their complaint and thanks them for submitting it… or be met for coffee and an hour-long conversation… or anywhere in between.

Don’t spend more energy than needed when responding to complaints.

Note: this principle also applies to an organization’s internal response to complaints.  A complaint can kick-start worried discussions and hijack future meetings… or it can be quickly submitted into a system and handled professionally.

Change What the Complainer Receives

You can vary the amount or selection of fundraising you send to the person who complains. 

Perhaps they only want to receive a certain type of your fundraising impacts, like your newsletters but not your appeals.  Or they’d like to receive fewer overall pieces.

Code that person’s record in your CRM appropriately and/or make notes to future list pulls, and move along.

Change What Everyone Receives

You can change all of your fundraising that every donor receives.

This is making changes like, “We can’t ever use that phrase again” or “Let’s reduce the number of mail pieces and emails we send.”

This is the most drastic approach.  It’s the approach that smaller nonprofits tend to gravitate towards because of fears that the complainer is speaking for untold numbers of people.  But it’s the approach least used by larger organizations, because they know that one complainer does not speak for anyone but themselves.

Right-Sized Response

The trick is to right-size your response. 

Our advice is to always value complaints and the person making them.  It’s important to respond warmly  because when a person complains, the response or interaction they have with the organization is often the only customized, personal interaction they’ve ever had with the organization.  The person will form a lot of their opinion about the organization based on this interaction.

And at the same time, respond to each complaint with the right amount of energy and the right level of response. Over-reaction gives recipients more power than they deserve.

In a nutshell, one person’s fundraising preferences should not drive your organization’s fundraising strategy.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal (this post)
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint

Steven  |  Report
Receive complaint.

Here’s a handy outline for how to handle a complaint in person or on the phone.

You’re welcome to modify the outline as needed for your organization – there isn’t any magic in any one particular step. But there is magic in the overall approach, which I’ll describe below.

This approach assumes that the person complaining is reacting to the content or strategy of your fundraising, as opposed to an error the organization made, like mailing a donor who has asked not to be mailed, or calling a donor by the wrong name, etc.

Here’s the outline:

  • Thank the person for getting in touch.
  • Ask them to tell you what’s bothering them.
  • When they are finished, ask, “Is there anything else?”
  • Thank them for reading and responding to your fundraising.
  • Tell them that you appreciate them because most people a) don’t pay as close attention as they do, and b) don’t get in touch when they have a problem.
  • Tell them that you’re sorry they don’t like the [INSERT REASON FOR COMPLAINT], but that your organization a) does this because it causes the most engagement with donors, which b) causes the most gifts to come in, so that c) your organization can help your beneficiaries or cause as much as possible.
  • Tell them that your organization realizes that not every donor is going to like every piece of fundraising, that you wish that weren’t the case, but “the occasional staff or donor not liking the occasional piece of fundraising” is a small price to pay in order to help more beneficiaries.
    • NOTE: you can even say, “I don’t really care for [INSERT REASON FOR COMPLAINT] either, but I know it works great and because of it we’re having more of an impact than ever.”
  • Ask the person if they would like to be communicated with differently (e.g., “removed from appeal letters,” or “receive fewer communications”).
    • Repeat their preferences back to them, and ensure your organization has a system in place to execute their preferences.
  • Thank them again for getting in touch, and for giving you the chance to tell them why your organization does fundraising the way it does. Then tell them that you so appreciate the person getting in touch so you can communicate with them in the way they want to be communicated with.

The Big Idea

The “magic” of this approach is the belief (and attitude) that your organization has done nothing wrong.

Most organizations respond to complaints and complainers out of fear. The whole conversation with a complainer is filled with fear-based worries like, “Are we going to lose this donor?” and “So many other donors must feel this way.”

And after a conversation with a Complainer, there’s often an immediate push to change an organization’s fundraising approach – regardless of whether the approach is successfully raising money.

Don’t use that fear-based response. Instead, believe that your organization has done nothing wrong and confidently follow this outline.

Because complaints are going to happen to any organization that’s raising more and acquiring more individual donors. The trick is to learn to accept complaints as a “cost of doing business” instead of managing the organization to remain small enough so that you rarely get them.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint (this post)
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

The Big Shift

Steven  |  Ask
shift

When most organizations write an appeal letter, they believe that the letter needs to convince the donor to support the organization. 

That approach results in appeals that don’t raise as much as they could. 

There’s a simple shift in thinking that results in appeals, e-appeals and newsletters that raise more money…

The Big Shift

The “shift” is this: moving from “trying to get the reader to support our organization” to “trying to get the reader to do one powerful thing for one beneficiary.”

That’s the Big Shift.

And when you write a letter that asks your reader to do one powerful thing for one beneficiary, you end up with a letter that raises more money.

It raises more money for a host of reasons, but here’s the main one: you’ve asked your donor to do something easier.  And when you ask your donors to do something easier (as opposed to something harder) you get more gifts.

Because asking a donor to support your organization is a Big Ask.  It means supporting your vision, your strategy, your cause, your accounting, your staffing structure, your… everything.

That’s a Big Ask because it asks your donor to do a lot.  That’s fine when you’re talking to a Foundation, or submitting a long application for a grant.

But not when you’re doing direct response fundraising and you have your donor’s attention for a few seconds.

You want to make it easier for them to say “yes,” not harder.  You need to make the shift.

To make this happen, customize the “one meaningful thing” for your organization.  Maybe it’s moving a piece of legislation forward by one small step.  Maybe it’s giving one person the tools they need to advocate for your cause.  Maybe it’s making the experience of a cancer patient just a little bit easier. 

You get the idea.

When you ask for something smaller, you’ll get more yesses.  And you’ll get more second yesses and third yesses.  Then you’ll raise more money. 

What Happens Next

Here’s what happens when you internalize this shift…

Your appeal letters become easier to write.  Because rather than trying to convince them to support your whole organization, you’re just trying to convince them to do one thing for one beneficiary. 

And you raise more money.  It’s a proven approach.

Pushback

As you make the Big Shift, you’ll notice something.

When you write appeals, you’ll find yourself (out of habit) inserting boilerplate copy about your organization – those phrases you’ve always used in the past.

And you immediately notice that those boilerplate phrases make your letter less interesting and less powerful. 

You’ll start to see how the way you used to communicate was boring to everyone but insiders and core donors. 

Additionally, when you circulate a draft of a letter that has made the shift, some well-meaning person will say “But we also have to mention our program that does X…”  And someone else will say, “We need to add a couple paragraphs about how effective we are…”

And you will see how neither of those things make your letter more likely to convince a donor to do one meaningful thing for one beneficiary. 

The Big Fear

The big fear that organizations tend to have around this approach is this: if I ask for something smaller, will my larger donors start giving smaller gifts?

In my experience (27 years and counting) this doesn’t happen.  In fact, what’s more likely to happen is that you’ll start getting second gifts from your major donors – gifts that are in addition to what they normally give!

The Leap

The “big shift” is one of the shifts in thinking that helps organizations make “the leap” to the next level of fundraising success. 

It helps them create fundraising that is attractive to more people than just insiders and core donors.  It helps them create fundraising that acquires more new donors.  It helps them grow.

The Time to Shift is Now

I hope you and your organization have made the Big Shift.  I believe in the extraordinary generosity of donors – we’ve seen it this year more than ever.  But I also believe this is going to be a competitive fundraising environment for at least the next several months.

Making it easier for your donors to say “yes” is a tool – a way of thinking – you should use to fund your mission.  So make the “big shift” and start raising more money!  

This post was originally published on October 27, 2020.

Getting Used to Complaints

Steven  |  Repeat
Listen to complaints.

There’s a stage every medium to large nonprofit (that’s reliant on individual donors for a significant portion of its income) goes through as they grow.

The nonprofit gets used to complaints.

These organizations know that, once they reach a certain number of donors, they are going to receive complaints. It’s a certainty. There’s no way NOT to receive complaints because of the number of humans involved.

(It’s good to remember that fundraising often reveals tension that the donor holds. That tension usually results in a gift, and sometimes results in a complaint.)

When an organization that accepts complaints as a “cost of doing business” receives a complaint, they respond warmly. There’s a process, and the complaint is given the attention it deserves (no more and no less). The organization knows that a complaint is often more about the complainer than the organization. And the organization has boundaries so Complainers are listened to but not given undue power.

Then the organization continues to execute its communication strategy. No changes are made. The water rolls right off the duck’s back. They keep raising more money every year.

On the other hand… if a complaint comes into an organization that values never receiving complaints, a ruckus ensues. The complaint and the Complainer are somehow interpreted to be speaking for all donors. The thousands of dollars that came in at the same time as the complaint are basically ignored. Communication content and strategy are changed.

And the organization manages itself to remain smaller than it could be.

Complaints are a cost of doing business. Complaints are a fee, not a fine. Understand that complaints are going to happen, develop a process and a mindset to respond appropriately, and keep growing.

Your beneficiaries are counting on you to put up with a little noise in order to do more good.

Read the series:

  1. Getting Used to Complaints (this post)
  2. Outline for How to Respond to a Complaint
  3. Not All Complaints are Equal
  4. Natural, But Not Productive
  5. The Two Times Smaller Orgs Get More Complaints
  6. So. Many. Reasons. To. Complain.
  7. The Harmful Big Assumption
  8. Turning Complaints into Gifts
  9. “Friendly Fire” — Complaints from Internal Audiences
  10. Our Final Thoughts on Complaints

The Habit

Steven  |  Repeat
Habits

There’s a habit your organization can develop that will result in raising more money and keeping more of your donors each year.

It’s the habit of regularly using the mail and email to stay in relationship with your donors.

Here’s why the habit of regularly sending mail and email to your donors is so powerful…

The habit of regularly Asking your donors to do meaningful, powerful things with a gift through your organization results in more gifts. Donors in motion tend to stay in motion. Donors at rest tend to stay at rest.

The habit of regularly Reporting to your donors shows and tells them that their gifts make a difference. Donors who know their previous gift made a meaningful difference are more likely to give to you again than donors who don’t.

The habit of regularly contacting your donors always works better than “going dark” for weeks or months at a time.

The habit of regularly contacting your donors via letters and emails is more effective than Social.

The habit of regularly contacting your donors always works better than sending nothing.

Getting in the habit of regularly sending out mail and email, paying attention to the results, always works better than any other approach.

It’s a habit you must develop

First, you must get past the idea that mailing your donors more than a couple times a year will somehow result in the mythical “donor fatigue.” If you need help with that, look here. Or here.

Then you have to realize that each piece you send out is not precious. Each piece you send out is an overwhelmingly positive incident that raises money, keeps you in touch with your donors, and is a learning opportunity.

Then you just have to practice. You need repetition. Sending out mail and email is like any other skill; you get better with practice.

Show me an organization that has developed a habit of regularly mailing and emailing its donors and I’ll show you an organization that has deeper relationships with its donors and keeps more of its donors every year.

This post was originally published on January 7, 2021.