Tag: communication

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

There’s a Scientific Case for Two Spaces After Sentences

Steven  |  Ask
spaces

This year for the holidays I’m sharing the thinking and stories behind my fundraising posts that got the most reactions on social media.

Here’s #7, #6 and #5.

For today, here’s #4…

Using two spaces between sentences is a small, donor-centered bet; it’s quantifiably easier for people to read & more familiar to older donors. Regardless of personal preference, if using two spaces helps more people read your fundraising, isn’t that a bet worth making?

I don’t share this thought because I’m pedantic about punctuation. (I’m agnostic on this issue.)

The latest study I’m aware of showed a mild 3% increase in reading speed when there were two spaces after sentences opposed to one space. It wasn’t a big study. And it used a mono-spaced font (which slightly muddies the water, in my view).

My point is to call attention to the way we Fundraisers make decisions about the fundraising we produce.

The most effective direct response fundraising tends to be made for our donors, not for internal audiences. It needs to attract their attention, not ours. It works best if it’s in their language, and doesn’t use our professional phrasing and jargon. It needs to focus on the “mission match” between the donor and the organization, not on the organization itself.

So. If most donors are old (the average age of a donor in the U.S. is about 65)… and most donors grew up on text that had two spaces between sentences… and there’s data that says that having two spaces between sentences will help a donor read a little faster… and reading more of your fundraising results in more people giving… doesn’t it seem like a good little bet to put two spaces between sentences in our fundraising letters?

Will it make a massive difference? Almost certainly not.

And 20 years from now, when today’s younger donors enter their prime giving years, I bet it will be a good little bet to have one space between sentences.

The Big Idea is that Fundraisers make a hundred little decisions each time they create a piece of fundraising.

And if you get in the habit of making each of those little decisions with donors in mind, you create fundraising that’s more relevant to donors and you absolutely raise more money.

Effective Fundraisers Endure the Pain of…

Steven  |  Repeat
effective

For the holidays this year, I’m sharing my fundraising posts that got the most reactions on social media, and the story behind each idea.

Here’s #5…

Effective Fundraisers endure the pain of creating messages that internal audiences don’t like, the pain of sharing real needs, and the difficulty of being other-centered in order to raise more money for the organization.

Let’s face it – occasionally being a Fundraiser is a thankless task.

There are often people in your organization who don’t like fundraising, or don’t believe you should have to fundraise at all.

There are often people who don’t like the fundraising messaging that tends to be most effective.

There are often people who believe that fundraising is somehow manipulating donors into doing things the donor does not want to do. (The people who believe that know donors are adults, right?!? They know donors are quite good at deleting emails and putting down letters, right?)

In addition to all of that, it can be emotionally hard to be a fundraiser. You have to regularly expose yourself to pain and need and suffering – then share those things with donors so that donors have a full picture of what’s happening.

That’s no fun. Nobody tells you that when you start your fundraising career.

Then Fundraisers must do the difficult, other-centered work of creating messaging that makes sense to donors (as opposed to messaging that makes sense to internal experts). Crossing the gap to donors is hard work.

That’s a lot of hard things.

So here’s my encouragement to Fundraisers in the thick of it:

  • Pushing through these things helps create incredible acts of generosity
  • Pushing through helps your organization raise more money and do more good
  • Pushing through raises awareness for your cause and/or beneficiaries
  • Pushing through is a requirement for your organization to make “the leap” to the next level of fundraising success

As a Fundraiser doing the hard work, you get to help make all of that possible.

Like so many things in life, Fundraising is “both.” It’s hard work and huge reward. It’s sharing the need with donors and sharing the triumphs with donors. It’s conflict and it’s achievement.

Effective fundraising is hard work. But let’s not miss the reward for that hard work; we need to remember – and regularly celebrate – all the good things that Fundraisers make possible.

If ‘Sounding Like You’ Were the Key to Success, Wouldn’t You Already Be Raising More?

Steven  |  Ask
voice

For the holidays this year I’m sharing my fundraising posts that got the most reactions on social media, and the story behind each idea.

Here’s #6…

When people critique fundraising by saying, “this doesn’t sound like me/us,” I always think, “Well, if ‘sounding like you’ were the key, wouldn’t you be raising more money than you currently are?”

I’m intentionally poking at a sacred cow here.

There’s a lot to unpack from just one sentence, but here goes:

  • There’s a tendency in nonprofits to believe that they can’t make changes to their voice.
  • There’s also a tendency to believe that an it’s an organization’s voice that is mostly responsible for their fundraising success.
  • And there’s a tendency to apply their voice legalistically so that the organization says the same thing, in the same way, regardless of who they are talking to or how they are talking to them.

That’s in direct contrast to the organizations that, in my experience, create the most effective fundraising:

  1. They are constantly evolving and improving their voice in order to raise more money.
  2. They know that their fundraising success is driven more by what they say to donors, as opposed to the “voice” they use to say it.
  3. Their voice – and the people applying it – are flexible enough to change based on who is being communicated to, and on how the communication is occurring. (e.g., A fundraising email sent to non-experts will intentionally sound different than an E.D.’s remarks at an event, because in an email you have people’s attention for a few seconds, and at an event you have their attention for an hour.)

The most successful organizational voices are flexible enough so that they can communicate differently to different audiences, and be used differently in different communication channels, yet still sound like the same organization.

If you find that your organization’s “voice” won’t allow you to communicate effectively in some types of fundraising to some audiences, you probably need to apply your voice less legalistically.

The good news is that as soon as you do, you’ll start communicating more effectively and raising more money.

Top Ideas of 2022: Number 7

Steven  |  Ask
tweet

For the holidays this year, I’m going to share my fundraising ideas that got the most reactions on social media, and the story behind each idea.   

Starting with #7…

Effective direct response fundraising is so hard to create because it’s other-centered: it’s more about the donor and her values, and about the beneficiaries/cause, than it is about the organization sending it.

It is SO HARD for humans to realize that other people are different than us, and that they know and care about different things than we do.

Take a look at the worksheet below.  It attempts to show the differences between the people who make & approve fundraising, and the mass donors who receive the fundraising.

Click here to view a larger version of this chart.

Just look at that last line, the part of the “story” that a person is interested in. There’s a huge difference between what Insiders tend to be interested in, and what mass donors tend to be interested in.

That’s one of the reasons why it’s so hard for Insiders to create effective direct response fundraising – they care about different things than their donors care about.

Let’s quickly look at the steps an Insider needs to go through to make effective fundraising for mass donors:

  1. Insiders first need to embrace that most donors are different than them.
  2. Then Insiders need to embrace that it’s OK for themselves to speak differently.
    • Note that this is where protestations about “but that’s not our voice!” always come up. But the strict adherence to a particular voice almost always means the organization will be ineffective communicating with people who think differently than Insiders – which is almost all individual donors.
  3. Then Insiders need to be confident enough that this new type of fundraising will work, that they will actually send it out.

So it’s a lot of emotional work for Insiders to be other-centered enough to send out fundraising that’s prepared for group of people who are different than themselves.

But for the Insiders and organizations that do it, the fundraising rewards are huge.

Ask Before a Need (not after)

Steven  |  Ask
The early bird gets the worm

The the third idea I use to help organizations create fundraising plans that raise more money is this:

Ask before a Need.

(You can find the first two ideas here and here.)

Put another way, you’ll raise more money if you appeal for funds right before your donors understand you have a need for funds.

To illustrate the principle, think of the classic “Back To School” appeal in the Education sector. Schools and Education Foundations routinely send “Back To School” appeals in September, after the students have already gone back to school.

We’ve helped maybe fifty schools and Education Foundations raise more money (with basically the same letters and emails!) simply by moving their Back To School appeals from September to late July or August.

Just by making the ask before a need, rather than after, they raise significantly more money. Usually between 1.5x and 2x more.

Here’s why “asking before a need” works so well. When an organization asks donors to help after you’re already helping your beneficiaries, you’re just asking donors to fund work you’re already doing. That’s not particularly exciting to donors.

When an organization asks donors to help before the Need arrives, you’re asking donors to play a powerful role in meeting the need right as it happens. That’s exciting to donors.

Specific Timing

So, if your beneficiaries or your organization experience a Need, schedule your Asks (appeals, e-appeals) before the Need.

In general, send your appeal letter about 6 weeks before the Need begins. If you’re running an email campaign, start it about 2 weeks before the Need begins. If you’re only doing a couple of emails, start them 2 or 3 days before the Need begins.

If you want to have the largest impact, do all three:

  • Direct mail about 6 weeks before the Need begins
  • An email campaign starting about 2 weeks before the Need begins
  • Multiple emails in the 2 or 3 days before the Need begins

Next Year

As you plan your year, here’s what I want you to do:

  1. Identify the “Needs” faced by your beneficiaries
  2. Schedule your Asks before those needs
  3. Ask your donor to send in a gift to help meet the need

This simple shift will help you raise more money with the exact same number of communications you sent the year before.

Never Go Dark

Steven  |  Repeat
Dark mode.

This is the second idea I use to help organizations create fundraising plans that raise more money:

Never go dark on your donors.

Fundraising is similar to personal friendships. We all have friends who show up, and we all have friends who go dark.

As a nonprofit, don’t be a friend who goes dark. When you go dark, you have a lower chance of remaining their friend.

Don’t let donors go months – or even weeks – without hearing from you.

The more you are a regular part of your donors’ news feed – their mail, their email, their social – the more you are a part of their lives.

Truth: the amount of donor communications you send is one of the things that communicates whether your cause is important or not. Two appeals a year, a few emails and a bunch of social? That communicates that your work must not be that important. Eight appeals, four newsletters, and thirty emails? That communicates that your work is urgent and important.

(This is unfair to organizations with small staffs, but it’s unfortunately still true.)

Like a good friend, when you show up in your donors’ lives, talk about your donors and not about yourself (your organization). Show up and tell donors what’s happening with the beneficiaries or cause that they care about. Show up and “report back” to donors the amazing things their gift has made possible through your organization.

So as you make your annual plan for next year, look for times of the year when you’ll be going dark on your donors. Then find an easy-to-create donor-centered communication to send your donors at that time.

For many small organizations, it will feel awkward to send out so many donor communications. You need to consciously make the generous choice to show up in your donors’ lives early and often.

Your donor are adults. You can’t scare them away with a few more pieces of fundraising.

And imagine how much your beneficiaries will appreciate knowing that you never go dark on their behalf.

Smeared Ink, Human Connection and Donor Love

John Lepp  |  Repeat
Letter

Editor’s Note: the following is a guest post from John Lepp of Agents Of Good.  John’s book, Creative Deviations, is a master class in how to *think* about fundraising.  Yes there are lots of tactics and cool ideas to steal.  But if you can start thinking the way John thinks you will unlock your ability to raise money.  ~Steven

I like talking about the 1,000 things you can do in your direct response program because it speaks to the obsessiveness you must have about our craft. It also highlights the humanness of our craft.

Everyone is looking to automate since it is less work, more profitable (HIGHLY debatable) and faster…

BUT: human connection and love are not check boxes, my friends. There are no short cuts, magic bullets or quick ways to build meaningful connections with other people.

I want to share a few examples with you.

My pal Francesco Ambrogetti (formerly the director of development at UNICEF Italy) created a “Donorlove Department.” He would test all sorts of things to see what would increase a donor’s lifetime value and retention rates.

And he found that he could do that by doing two of the simplest, most human things possible.

He would send a handwritten card within 48 hours of getting a gift. The card simply shared that the donor’s specific gift was received, expressed gratitude and appreciation and reiterated what the gift was used for. He would also call donors on their birthday or the anniversary of their gift. A phone call. To say thank you.

A card. A phone call.

These two things helped him see a 30% increase in retention and 50% increase in the lifetime value.

A card and a phone call. Forget all the shiny objects and gee-whiz factor of technology…

A couple other ones I like to share are things like paperclips. Or stamps. Or smeared ink.

A card or photo or insert paperclipped to your letter sends a signal to your donor that a human was involved – quite simply since machines CANNOT attach paper clips to things.

A stamp (or many, many stamps) on your envelope WILL get looked at and noticed. The more the merrier… especially when placed willy-nilly and on angles. Machines and computers do not do things WILLY NILLY… Humans do!

I am left-handed. So whenever I address an envelope or write in a card, I smear my ink all over the place. Computers don’t do that. They are perfect.

Imperfections make for incredibly effective (and profitable) direct response. They will help you raise a lot more money.

These are just a few quick examples of things I have included in Creative Deviations. You can find it on Amazon or Apple Books around the world.

I would love for you to get yourself a copy, dive in and tell me (john@agentsofgood.org) what you think. Unless you hate it.

Editor’s Note: Steven here again. Get John’s book. Really. 

The Fundraising IS the Relationship

Steven  |  Ask
Fundraising relationship.

When it comes down to it, fundraising is not that hard.

You treat donors and potential donors with kindness and respect. You try to build relationship with them.

We all “get” the relationship aspect.

But every organization has some donors that you are never going to be in relationship with. These are donors who don’t go to events. They are $25 donors and major donors who you’ve never met and won’t return your calls. They aren’t known by anybody on your staff or board.

But you still want a relationship with them. And believe it or not, it’s possible to have a GREAT relationship with them.

Here’s the secret…

Your Fundraising IS Your Relationship

You’re already in a relationship with them.

The way you communicate with them is you send them fundraising. The way they communicate with you is by giving a gift… or not.

So for your side of the relationship – the fundraising that you send them – the question becomes; “How are you going to show up?”

Take a look at a bunch of standard practices is mass donor fundraising, and think about all of these in the context of relationship:

  • Fundraising that talks mostly about the organization itself, and very little about the donor
  • Only sending out a couple pieces of fundraising a year, and going dark (ghosting) for weeks and months
  • Fundraising that, when sharing success stories made possible by the donor and the organization, focuses almost exclusively on the organization’s role
  • Fundraising that’s written to the organization’s level of expertise, instead of written to the donor’s level of expertise

You’d never put up with those behaviors from another human, would you?

It’s almost like we ignored the basic principles of relationship when we created mass donor fundraising plans and materials, don’t you think?

So is it any surprise those approaches don’t make for effective fundraising?

Your Side of the Relationship

Here’s how to hold up your side of the relationship, how to show up in your donor’s life and be the type of organization that she’d like to be in relationship with:

  • Fundraising that’s mostly about what she cares about (your beneficiaries and what she can do or has done to help), and less about your organization
  • Fundraising that regularly shows up in your donor’s life
  • Fundraising that focuses more on the donor’s role and less on the organization’s role
  • Fundraising that’s written to make it easy for a donor to understand

Follow those principles and you’ll build GREAT relationships with donors you’ve never talked to.

And over time, many of your donors will “upgrade” their relationship with you through attending an event, giving you a major gift, including you in their will, etc.

And it will have happened because you made the generous choice to show up in their lives.

You held up your end of the relationship in a way that made them want to get to know you better.

This post was originally published on October 21, 2021.