Kudos for the Wrong Thing

Every nonprofit has its own preferences.

The preferences are things like “we use this particular phrasing to describe our work” or “we talk about the people we serve in this particular way” or “we believe donors should support us because of X and Y.”

All good things. 

But one of the hard parts about creating effective fundraising at smaller nonprofits is that the fundraising is evaluated according to the preferences of the nonprofit.

For instance…

When you create an appeal that uses the particular phrasing that the staff likes, you get kudos from the staff.  The piece of fundraising gets approved & sent.

When you create a newsletter that thoroughly describes a program, the program staff give you kudos.  The newsletter gets approved & sent.

When you write something that gets your ED’s “voice” exactly right, the ED gives you kudos, and the piece of fundraising is approved & sent.

The problem here is obvious to anyone who has been reading this blog for a while:

• Fundraising that makes staff feel good is probably going to raise less money – when a donor is looking at an email on her phone, how she feels about the message is more important than how staff feel about it. 
• Thoroughly describing a program is probably going to raise less money – when a donor is looking at a newsletter, how it makes the donor feel about her previous giving matters more than how thoroughly the program is described.
• Getting your ED’s “voice” right is a total crapshoot – when a donor is reading an appeal, how quickly he knows it’s relevant to his life & values matters so much more than how faithful the writing is to the ED’s “voice.”

Here’s the result of a nonprofit evaluating its fundraising based on its own preferences: more kudos are given to pieces of fundraising that raise less. 

One of the lessons that nonprofits learn as they grow larger & better at fundraising is that the preferences of the staff are most likely different than the preferences of donors.

Once organizations realize that, they begin to give kudos not for “matching internal preferences,” but for results like “percent response” and “net revenue” and “average gift size.”  They pay less attention to staff preferences, and more attention to donor preferences (as gleaned from fundraising results).

***

Hey, I’m giving a free strategy session next Tuesday for Founders and longtime EDs (who have the Founder’s spirit).

I love talking to (and working with) Founders.  They’re incredible fundraisers and amazingly passionate about their work.

But Founders often need help establishing the staff and systems that retain their particular genius and outlast them.

So in this strategy I’m going to help Founders:

• Understand the four systems they can start building now that will propel their fundraising and ensure the organization’s stability for years to come
• Recognize the hurdles that are unique to them (like delegating and letting go of some major donor relationships 😊).  And I’ll share the strategies to address these hurdles now.

The free strategy session is next Tuesday, March 25, at 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific.

There’s limited availability so that we can have a real conversation.  This is NOT me talking for 55 minutes straight.  There will be lots of time for questions.

For more info, here’s the link:

https://betterfundraising.com/webinar-founders-on-fire

I hope to see you next Tuesday!