Tag: Donors

Never Interrupt Your Donors When They’re Being Generous

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Generous people.

My mentor used to tell a story about “the $100 donors.”

He was serving a large national charity that had approximately 250,000 active donors at the time.  The charity noticed that every time they sent out an appeal, a large group of donors would each give $100.

A person at the charity was worried they were going to “burn out” those $100 donors, so he decided to remove all $100 donors from the next few appeals.

My mentor always talked about how “three bad things happened, two in the short term and one the long term”:

  1. The $100 donors stopped giving.  They just stopped.  Thousands of them gave to one appeal, and none of them gave to the next appeal. 
  2. The organization raised a lot less money.  Their appeals simply raised less than they used to, and the organization accomplished less. 
  3. When the $100 donors were added back into appeals months later, some of them started giving again, and a significant percentage of them never gave again.

One person’s fear that “their donors were going to get burnt out” was given more weight than the behavior of thousands of donors.  Because of that, the organization raised less money and lost many of those donors.

Hearing this story, you can see how that was a big mistake.  But at the time, the person’s worry sounded strategic.  I’m sure the reasoning was something like, “Let’s not burn these donors out.  Let’s let them rest, and then they will give more later.”

That reasoning sounds smart because we all have fears around asking too often.  And the idea that “we can ask less often and will somehow raise more” is very attractive.  So it’s easy to say yes to suggestions like this.

But because of stories like this one, and 30+ years of fundraising experience, at Better Fundraising we’ve learned to assume abundance instead of letting our fears put boundaries around donor generosity.

There’s a great quote from Napoleon, who said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

Here’s how that applies to this story and fundraising: “Never interrupt your donors when they’re being generous.”

Transactional Donors

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
True believers.

If anyone at your nonprofit has ever said something like, “We don’t want transactional donors,” keep reading.

This belief sounds good on the surface, but it’s limiting your growth.

Instead, you want to purposely make your nonprofit attractive to “transactional donors” for two reasons:

  1. Revenue.  A lot of “transactional donors” giving gifts can add up to a lot of revenue and mission impact.
  2. Many “transactional” donors, through the action of giving, will develop into true believers over time.   

Larger nonprofits have long known that many of their best donors are “transactional donors” who gave one small gift, had a good experience, gave again, and developed through habit and experience into true believers.  (Recent brain science is catching up to this phenomenon.  In his incredible book Atomic Habits, James Clear calls this “identity-based habits.”  He says that most people believe that “belief drives action” when it’s more often true that “action drives belief.”)

So, it’s smart for nonprofits to develop low-priced offers, and to make your fundraising accessible, so that your organization becomes attractive to “transactional donors.”  And once you attract and cultivate “transactional donors,” some of them will through their actions develop into true believers.   

It’s emotionally easy to prefer true believers.  It’s enjoyable to meet with true believers, and talk to them at events, and be appreciated by them.

But don’t accidentally let personal preference cause your organization to have less impact.

You want both kinds of donors if you really want to grow.

Treat Your Donors Like Partners (don’t just call them that)

Steven Screen  |  Thank
Partners.

Donor-centrism gets a lot of bad press these days.  (I even stay away from using the term sometimes because it can cause people to throw babies out with the bathwater.)

However, as Fundraisers and nonprofits, it’s still ethical and smart to honor an individual donor’s involvement in the work of a nonprofit.  And there are two main ways to do that:

  1. Write directly and clearly about their involvement.  In other words, don’t write only about the organization, the beneficiary, or the community.  Include the donor!  When you’re asking for support, tell the donor “your gift will help pay for _______.”  We’ve not inflated the donor into a “savior,” we’ve accurately described their involvement.
  2. Report back in a way the donor understands.  A person helping to fund your mission deserves to hear, in language and concepts that they don’t need a Master’s degree to understand quickly, how their gift made a difference.

If your donors really are your partners, treat them like partners. 

Because in any partner relationship – spouse, business partner, co-worker, whatever – sometimes you briefly put your partner’s needs above your own.  That’s all you’re doing here.

There’s no getting around the idea that from the standpoint of an individual donor, they aren’t “one of your donors,” you are one of their nonprofits.

When you talk to individual donors about their involvement, they are more likely to remain involved.

The Wave

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Beach waves.

Each individual donor is like a wave rolling across the ocean.

The wave formed before they met your organization.  Their wave will continue rolling after they’ve left you.

Fundraising allows you to use some of a wave’s energy for your purposes.

But the creator of effective fundraising never forgets: your organization is tapping into their wave.

Your Donors ARE Different… When You’re Small

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Small connections.

Your donors are different when you are a small organization.

Why?  Many of them know you, or someone on staff, personally.  Or they’re one degree removed from you.  Or they’re some of your first volunteers.  Maybe they are intimately connected to the cause, saw what you were doing, and sought you out.

But this isn’t true when you get bigger. 

Case in point: as you get more donors, you have a personal relationship with a smaller percentage of them.

This means that if you want to get bigger, you must learn to fundraise to donors who:

  • Don’t know you or anyone on your staff
  • Don’t know anything about your organization
  • Don’t know much about your cause or beneficiaries, other than that it touches their heart

So when a nonprofits says to me – “Steven, that tactic you want us to use, that won’t work for our donors.  Our donors are different” – there are two things I want the nonprofit to know right away.

First, we want them to use the tactic because it’s proven to help them grow beyond their current group of donors. 

Second, their donors are giving to several other organizations too, and many of those organizations are happily raking in the money with whatever tactic we’re suggesting.

So your donors are different – but only when you’re small, and only in relation to yourorganization.  Your donors are completely, happily normal in relation to several other organizations.  So when you use the data-driven tactics that are working great for those other organizations, they are bound to work well for you, too.

Emotional Connection > Organizational Connection

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Emotional connection.

Your donors don’t experience your fundraising as “donors.”

They experience your fundraising as humans.

So if you want to expand the number of people who will pay attention to your fundraising, make your fundraising more interesting to humans. 

Humans who like stories with villains and triumphs and tragedies and emotions.

Because there’s a very small group of people who resonate with your organization… but there’s a very large group of people who would resonate with the stories you can tell, with stakes that matter, and the emotions woven through all of it.   

Today, what cuts through the clutter is emotion-filled content that sounds like real humans talking about what they care about.  Not “approved content” that’s passed through the pastel-colored nonprofit hope machine.

Get real. Get emotional.  Don’t make a case, make a moment.

Whose Story Is It?

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Guitar storytelling.

There’s a blogger I like named “Gabe The Bass Player” who writes primarily for musicians.  I find him thought provoking.

Talking mostly to musicians, he recently said, “You keep getting to do this because enough people continually add you as part of their story.”

I think the same thing is true about nonprofits and fundraising – your organization keeps getting to do its thing because enough people add you as part of their story.

Keep thinking about that last part: “…people add you as part of their story.”

There are a million different ways to think about fundraising.  But any way that ignores the fact that an individual donor is primarily adding you to her story is not going to work very well.

Is it true that she’s also part of your story?  Of course.

Is it true that she’s also part of the story of your cause or community?  Of course.

But at that mostly sub-conscious “give or don’t give” moment, her story is the most important story to her.

So for your mail and email fundraising to really succeed, it must be created in such a way that the donor sees herself and wants to add your organization to her story.

Your Email List is a Cross Country Team

Steven Screen  |  Ask
Cross country.

If you’re a small nonprofit and you don’t raise much money from your email list, keep reading.

Here’s an analogy that has proven helpful for many of the organizations we serve: think of your email list as a high school cross country team whose season has not yet started. 

People have signed up for your team.  Some people have been signed up for the team for 6 months.  But the team hasn’t gone on any runs yet – they haven’t had to do anything yet.

In this analogy, when the season starts and the cross country team begins going on long runs, what’s going to happen?

Three things, almost immediately:

  • People are going to drop off the team.  They are going to say, “Oh, I didn’t know we’d have to do that, turns out this isn’t for me, I’m going to drop off the team.”
  • A few people are going to complain.  “I don’t like this.  I liked it more when we talked about running.”
  • A few people are going to say, “Yes, this is what I’m here for, this is hard but good.”

The same three things are going to happen when you start to regularly ask your email list to make gifts: people are going to drop off your team (unsubscribe), people are going to complain (reply to your emails with whatever is bothering them), and people are going to know they are in the right place (donate).

But most nonprofit email lists are like cross country teams that go on one or two runs a year.  That kind of “training” doesn’t make for a very effective team.

Here’s the thing: on your cross country team, you want people who understand that they will need to go on long runs.  You want people who will go on long runs even when it’s cold and rainy.  You want people who are on the team despite the difficulty, who love the community and the joy of getting better.

And on your email list, you want people who understand that they will be asked to give gifts.  You want people who are on your list despite the difficulty, who love the community and the joy of making the world a little bit better. 

Your cross country team will be stronger when it is a little smaller, and made up of people who know what it takes.

Your email list will be stronger when it is a little smaller and made up of people who know what it takes.

So if your email list hasn’t been asked very often, be prepared for a few unsubscribes and complaints when you start.  But also be prepared for more donations than you’ve received before, more first-time donors, and an email list you can count on when the going gets tough.

True Believers, Casuals, and Onramps

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Insiders.

Most small nonprofits have beliefs about what they would like their donors to be like. 

These beliefs tend to sound something like:

“We want someone to fall in love with our vision for the future” or “We want donors to know that they are investing in creating something” or “We want to connect with our donors in a more partner/visionary way.”

These are great, but limiting, desires. 

They are great because donors who do those things tend to give a lot for a long time.  Donor who are “true believers” like that are fantastic!

But it’s limiting because organizations that feel this way often create fundraising messaging and programs that are only attractive to true believers.

You know this has happened any time you hear someone say, “To really know what we do, you need to come on a tour.”  Or “Come to our event and you’ll really understand.”

That may be true, but wow – that puts a barrier between a person who is interested in your organization and them giving you a gift.   

In my experience, organizations that do this rarely grow larger than 50o to 1,000 donors because there are only so many true believers.  (There are exceptions to this; if you’re working on a cause that’s incredibly popular or well known, or if people are highly aware of and compassionate about your beneficiaries.)

The trick is to build a fundraising system for your organization that identifies true believers and has put in the work to make your organization accessible to what we might call “casual” donors. 

Large organizations have learned over time that most of their true believers are people who have come up through their donor pipeline; they started as $50 donors, upgraded to mid-level, then became major donors, often (but not always) going deeper in relationship with the organization.

So, while we may want all our donors to be true believers and in love with our vision, we make it more likely that we’ll actually achieve our vision if we create fundraising messaging and annual plans that give “casuals” a good onramp into our organization.