Uncategorized Archives | Page 6 of 20 | The Better Fundraising Company

Major Donor Fundraising: It’s not your job to downgrade your donor’s gift

Jim Shapiro | May 10, 2016Major Donor Fundraising, Uncategorized

Consider this common major donor scenario . . .

You are about to go have lunch with a donor. The purpose of the lunch is to ask her for a major gift. You’ve done a good job building a relationship with this donor. She loves the work your organization does and wants to help.

Good job setting the appointment and preparing to ask her for a donation. And before you meet with her let me give you a powerful piece of advice;

Ask your donor for a gift amount larger than you think she can give.

Stretch her thinking. If she really believes in your cause she will do everything in her power to gift a gift at the level you are asking for.

Put differently, it is not your job to downgrade the donor’s gift. She will do that IF she needs to.

So many times you enter into these conversations and feel like you are bothering the donor, or you want to make it easier on you and the donor, so you ask for a smaller amount.

Stop doing that! You are taking the joy of giving away from your donors. It is your job to build genuine relationships with your donors and present to them the best opportunity to help.

Now go out there and make the world a better place by raising more money for your cause!

Learn how raise more money with your next donor communication

Jim Shapiro | May 4, 2016Uncategorized

You are invited to attend a FREE fundraising training event in Seattle that will teach you how to raise more money with your very next piece of donor communications — and retain more of your donors so you’ll raise much more money over time.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

Practical tips to help your appeals, e-appeals and events raise more money
How to tell stories so that your donors love them and love donating to you
The rhythm your communications should follow to meet your donors’ needs
What to do next with your major donors

This event will be held Tuesday, May 10^th, from 9:30 – 2:30 at 415 Westlake in downtown Seattle. Yours truly, Jim Shapiro, and Steven Screen will presenting what’s working and what’s not working in fundraising today, with real life examples and results for you to learn from.

And you’ll get a sneak-peak at what we’re presenting at the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference in Chicago this fall!

Major Donor Fundraising: Donor Story Sequence . . . Revealed!

Jim Shapiro | May 3, 2016Major Donor Fundraising, Uncategorized

Every donor has a story to tell. And if she sent in a donation, then odds are her story aligns with the story of your organization, the people you serve or the cause you support.

Last month I had the opportunity to work with story telling guru Chris Davenport, the founder of the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference and 501c3 videos. During our time together Chris unveiled an amazing “donor story-telling sequence” that helps you with acquiring new donors, cultivating your existing donors, and re-engaging your lapsed donors.

Chris is a very generous person and has offered to send you a pdf that outlines the Donor Story Sequence. Just click here to download it. Check it out!

Learn how raise more money with your next donor communication!

Jim Shapiro | April 29, 2016Uncategorized

Here’s what you’ll learn:

Practical tips to help your appeals, e-appeals and events raise more money
How to tell stories so that your donors love them and love donating to you
The rhythm your communications should follow to meet your donors’ needs
What to do next with your major donors

And you’ll get a sneak-peak at what we’re presenting at the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference in Chicago this fall!

Whose Story Is This, Anyway?

Steven | April 28, 2016Uncategorized

When a donor gives you a gift something very important has happened. Your organization has become part of her life.

It’s also true that she has become part of your organization’s life. And unfortunately, that’s what most organizations focus on. They say things like, “Thank you for partnering with us as we …” Or they’ll solemnly say, “Your partnership helps us to complete our mission to…”

From the donor’s perspective, that’s a pretty big miss.

You’ll raise a lot more money if you adopt the posture that your organization is part of the donor’s story – not the other way around.

When your donor opens your communications, do you know what she’s hoping for? Your donor is hoping that some organization – finally – will tell her a story that has her in it. She doesn’t really want to hear a story about you.

She’s thinking, “If you’re just going to talk about yourself, leave me alone. Don’t waste my time.”

In your communications with donors, are you talking about her? About what she can do with her gift? About what she has done with her gifts? Or are you talking about all the stuff you’ve been busy doing?

Listen, at a donor-centric organization you’ll never hear the phrase, “We have to tell them what we’ve been doing!” You’d hear something more like, “We have to show our donors what they and their gifts have done!”

You’ll know you’ve really embraced donor centricity when a phrase like “We have to tell our donors what we’ve been doing” sounds self-centered and awkward.

Major Donor Fundraising: What Are Your Donors Asking For?

Jim Shapiro | April 26, 2016Major Donor Fundraising, Uncategorized

Your donors are people that care about your mission, they care about your work, and they care about the people you serve. They care about all of this so much that they are even willing to send you money so that your good work can continue!

But if this relationship is going to continue for months and years to come, then you need to know what your donors are asking for in return for their financial gifts.

Here’s a short list of what I believe your donors are asking for:

They want to be thanked for their gift.
They want to be appreciated for playing a role in fulfilling your mission.
They want to be part of a larger community of like-minded people who believe in your work and support your cause.
They want to feel like they made a difference in the life of a person in need.

If you follow the Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat communication rhythm, and follow the best-practices for each step, you’ll give your donors what they want.

And specifically, your donors will actually ask for your newsletter. They’ll love seeing and reading their Report on the amazing things that happened because they gave a gift.

Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat helps you build trust with your donors. This trust opens the door to future donations and a strong relationship with your donors.

You Need To CLOSE THAT LOOP!

Steven | April 21, 2016Uncategorized

So if a donor doesn’t get anything in return for her gift, what do you need to do?

You need to close the loop. In the extraordinarily helpful book Getting Things Done, author David Allen introduces the concept of “open loops.” In short, these are:

Commitments or arrangements that are made but not yet completed.

Now, he’s not talking about fundraising here, he’s talking about life. But he’s absolutely talking about fundraising.

When a donor makes a gift, she makes a commitment to your organization in the form of money. She knows she may never find out what happened because she took action and gave a gift. But imagine her delight when an organization gets in touch with her and shares a story of a life changed because of her action!

And, at the moment she knows she made a difference, you can almost hear the loop snap shut with the satisfying sound of trust being formed. She’s now far more likely to give that organization another gift.

But most donors are never given that delight by the organizations they donate to. So their donors feels good for giving the gift . . . but in the back of their minds they are wondering if they really made a difference. So – at this moment — they don’t know if giving the gift to you was a good idea. The loop is open.

If you never tell her what she’s accomplished, that loop will always remain open. She will likely not give another gift to your organization.

If you tell her what your organization has accomplished, maybe she’ll realize she was part of that. And maybe it will feel to her like the loop is closed. And maybe she’ll give you another gift.

But you can do better than that. Tell her what she accomplished! Close the loop with your donors!

With Major Donors, you should be able to close every single loop. They are worth the time and attention. For Mass donors, you need to be sending a regular stream of communications, some of which need to Report back to donors and close their loops.

And remember, each time you complete the Ask, Thank, Report cycle you close the loop, earn trust, and earn the right to Ask them again.

Major Donor Fundraising: Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat – Lessons Learned

Jim Shapiro | April 19, 2016Major Donor Fundraising, Uncategorized

I recently asked some successful fundraisers how Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat had improved their fundraising. Here’s how that came about, and what they said.

Over the last 6 months I had the opportunity to teach Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat to a group of fundraising professionals from Yakima, Washington via a 4-part training series.

When I first started this training, most people in the room had never heard of Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat. By the time I had finished the training, most of the people in the room were more successful fundraisers and had implemented much of what they had learned from our time together.

During our last session together I asked for people to share their success stories. I was encouraged by what I heard:

Newsletters were changed from being a report about the organization into reports of what the donor accomplished because they made a gift.
More asks were made in person and via direct mail. The end result was more money was raised!
Several organizations improved their thanking process by writing thank you notes, making phone calls and scheduling personal visits donors who recently made a gift.

The common theme in the room was that more money was raised and more donors retained because of the Ask, Thank, Report, Repeat fundraising rhythm!

What Your Donor Receives When She Makes A Gift

Steven | April 14, 2016Uncategorized

NEWSFLASH: When your donor gives you a gift she doesn’t get anything in return.

Now, that isn’t entirely true. She gets that warm feeling we all experience when helping someone. That comes from the little squirt of dopamine her brain rewards her with when she gives her donation.

But that warm glow soon fades and she’s left with . . . nothing.

She doesn’t know what happened to her money. She doesn’t know if it really helped somebody or if you went out to a nice lunch.

But you have one powerful thing going for you at this point; your donor communications. Your communications are where you can show your donor that her gift made a difference. Your communications are where you can turn her faith in your organization into passion by showing her a person she helped or an outcome she helped achieve.

Think of it this way; one of the main jobs of your donor communications (your newsletter in particular) is to show and tell your donor that her gift was worthwhile. Are your communications doing their job? Is your newsletter doing its job?

But for now, all you need to remember is that after your donor has given you a gift she doesn’t know what happened. But donor communications that Report will solve that problem, build loyalty, and help you raise more money.