Tag: Gratitude

Measuring Speedy Gratitude

Bill Jacobs  |  Thank
Mr Zip

The following is a hand-picked guest post from Bill Jacobs.  Enjoy, and you can read more about Bill below.

* * *

On the first day of November, I sent out 49 small “white mail” donations to non-profits.

After three weeks, here is what I received:

  1. Two of the gifts were returned because the address was undeliverable.
  2. Of the 47 gifts that (I think) were delivered, I have received 14 acknowledgments (30% acknowledgment rate).

Now, there could be a lot of reasons why 70% of my received gifts were not (yet) acknowledged:

  1. Maybe some of my gifts got lost in the mail.
  2. Maybe some of my gifts are still being processed.
  3. Some of my receipts might be using nonprofit (slow) postage and haven’t arrived yet.
  4. Maybe some acknowledgments were batched and still waiting to be sent.
  5. Maybe my gifts ($10) were too small to acknowledge.

Whatever the reason, we have to do better at acknowledging gifts.

In the 25 years I’ve been in this business, one of my consistent recommendations is making it a priority to acknowledge gifts. All gifts – even $10 ones – should receive a receipt sent first class. And yes, even online gifts should get a mailed receipt.

Every donor – whether they say so or not – wants to have their gift acknowledged. Plus, it’s just the right thing to do.

* * *

Steven says: “Bill Jacobs is a fundraising analyst and founder of AnalyticalOnes.  I’ve learned more from Bill about analyzing fundraising data and knowing what to do next than from anyone else in my entire career.  You should subscribe to Bill’s blog, Data Stories!”

Thanking Your Donors is Essential

Sarah Lundberg  |  Thank
Thank donors.

Before my time at The Better Fundraising Co, I used to be a Director of Marketing and Communications for a nonprofit. But then the nonprofit I was working at needed me to create their fundraising materials from scratch, and I discovered a whole new world of expertise — it challenged the beliefs that my nonprofit and I had for how fundraising worked.

But we started raising a LOT more money. 

Before we learned direct mail fundraising best practices, thanking donors who gave in response to appeals and newsletters happened… sometimes. But thanking wasn’t built into our processes, so we dropped the ball more times than I’d care to admit.

We WERE thankful for our donors every time they gave, but we took it for granted that they knew we were thankful.

That was a big mistake.

When a donor makes a gift, they don’t know you’re thankful if you don’t tell them.

When we started building intentional direct mail “thank yous” into our internal processes, thanking started happening more consistently. And donors really appreciated being thanked.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how this consistent thanking process would change ME and my approach to fundraising.

One day I was sitting at my desk, writing thank you notes to everyone who had responded to our Christmas appeal. What started off as a tedious task became something else. As I wrote note after note, a wave of emotion hit me, and I could feel the tears in my eyes.

We had sent out a letter in the mail. And these kind, generous people chose to send money back to help. It felt… magical.

$50. $250. $5,000. I began to see each gift as a precious act of sacrifice from the donor.

What a gift.

I started to approach direct response fundraising differently after this emotional thanking experience. I was more comfortable boldly asking donors to give, because I knew they would be thanked personally and emotionally.

And most importantly, donors started to give more often through our appeals and e-appeals because they KNEW we were thankful for their gift.


Read the whole series:

Charging Your ‘Fundraising Battery’

Steven Screen  |  Thank
Battery charging.

Interestingly, the posts on this blog that tend to generate the most feedback are the posts that are about the Fundraiser, not about fundraising.

They are the posts where a Fundraiser feels seen for the work they are doing and the conditions they are doing it in.

So, here’s a note to all the leaders of Fundraising departments out there: make sure you help the Fundraisers you’re leading regularly recharge their “fundraising batteries.”

And I don’t mean giving them days off or spa days (though they aren’t going to turn those down).

I mean making sure they regularly connect with the power of their fundraising work, and feel appreciated for their fundraising work.  I mean things like this:

  • A monthly exercise where they visualize donors giving gifts, and get that “little jolt of joy” that happens when you put yourself in a donor’s shoes as they make a gift.
  • Bring in an experienced donor who can talk about the joy of giving, and the positive role that fundraising plays in a donor’s life
  • Regularly practice “fundraising fika.”
  • Remind them that while the results of their work may feel like numbers on a spreadsheet, to look around at all the program activity and know they play a major role in making it happen. 

Fundraising in a nonprofit (particularly smaller orgs) has its own unique difficulties.  What other department regularly gets negative critical feedback from all the other parts of the organization?  What other department’s wisdom and expertise is regularly pushed aside because of one person’s opinion?

So if you’re in charge of Fundraisers – make sure they regularly get to feel the beauty and grace of fundraising.  You’ll recharge their fundraising batteries, you’ll have happy co-workers who stick around longer, and you’ll create a place where Fundraisers want to work.

Little Jolts of Joy

Steven Screen  |  Repeat
Jolts of joy.

Here’s a challenge for you:

Just for a moment, for every single gift your organization received last year, envision a person writing out a check, or their finger clicking your “donate” button.

And because “every gift” is too many to visualize, just take a moment and visualize five people making gifts.

Do it.  One after another, visualize five people writing checks and clicking donate buttons.  They can be donors you know, or they can be “generic.”  I’ll wait while you do it.

 . . .

I suspect you’ll find that, if you really visualized five people making gifts, you just received 5 little jolts of joy and amazement and gratitude.

And I suspect the joy and gratitude you just received will “charge up your fundraising battery” a bit.  If you think about it, you’re probably just a little more willing to do the emotionally hard work of fundraising than you were a few minutes ago.

I asked you to visualize that here, at the beginning of the year, because fundraising can be tiring.  Asking for gifts can be hard.  What’s more, we Fundraisers usually don’t feel gifts because all we experience are numbers on a spreadsheet or in your CRM.

But when you remember that behind every single check or click is an act of generosity… and a vote of confidence in you… and the funds needed for your organization’s work… then every gift should bring a little jolt of joy and amazement.

***

Hey, if you’re considering hiring Better Fundraising to create your email & direct mail fundraising, keep reading.

We have a special going: if you fill out the form on the bottom of this page, you’ll save $3,500 because we’ll give you last year’s prices for all of this year.

Here’s an example of a nonprofit’s experience hiring us about 3 years ago: they report a 36% increase in revenue and a 17% decrease in expenses.  The increase comes from fundraising messaging & storytelling that connects with their donors better than ever before.  And the decrease comes from eliminating projects and practices that weren’t helping the bottom line.

So if you’re interested in chatting, click here because the form is at the bottom of the page.  You’ll be eligible for the discount, you’re not committed to anything, and we’ll set up a call to see if we can help you.

Cheers!

A Personal Note of Encouragement to YOU

Steven Screen  |  Thank
Encouragement.

Hey friend,

I’m reaching out to you today because I want to encourage you.

Being a fundraiser can be a difficult and lonely job.

It’s a job where it often feels like nothing is ever truly done. The hours can be long and – honestly – fundraisers rarely hear these important words:

Thank you – you are doing a GREAT job!

Because you ARE doing a great job.

Friend, you have chosen to do a job not many people can do.

You combine your passion for your cause with your ability to invite donors to do something meaningful.

You make a lot happen without a lot of resources.

When things get tough, you dig in, find a solution, and make sure your organization has the funding needed to continue.

You are a gift to your organization and to your community.

Thank you for choosing to do a tough and necessary job as a fundraiser.

Today, why not help cultivate a culture of gratitude at your organization by taking a minute to thank a co-worker for what they do? This gesture doesn’t have to be limited to the people you interact with daily. You might like to thank a faithful volunteer for helping stuff envelopes, a colleague on your programs team, or the person who does your payroll (yes, definitely thank them!).

We work hard to thank our donors for their generous support, so why not thank each other too?

So whether it’s a high-five, a thoughtful email, or a plate of fresh-baked cookies, take some time today to thank your colleagues for making the world a better place.

Three Ways to Thank Your Donors in less than Five Minutes

McKenzie Mitchell  |  Thank
Thank

You may have heard January called “Thankuary”…

It’s the perfect time to let your donors know how truly special and valuable they are.  After countless emails, letters and phone calls (hopefully) towards the end of the year, January is a natural time to say “thank you.”

So, here are 3 ways you can thank your donors today… and they all take less than 5 minutes!!

1.  Call a donor, say “thank you” and listen — Donors love to be thanked; they also love the chance to share why they gave.  They’ll be surprised and delighted you took the time to reach out to them personally, even if they don’t pick up.

2.  Write a handwritten note — Sending a personal note, written by a human (even if it isn’t you!), goes a long way.  Mail it on personal stationery, or even in a hallmark card-sized envelope.  It can be short and sweet.  They won’t forget it.

BONUS TIP: Want to reach even more donors?  Have a “thank you card party” at the office and give everyone 10 cards and a short script! 

3.  Forward an already-planned mass email — Does your organization already have a thank you email planned for January?  Take a minute to forward that to a special donor right from your email before the main email goes out to everyone.  You could even share a little “before and after story” that made you think of them.

Every 5 minutes counts!  How many donors can you thank today?! 

PS — Need more ideas for Thankuary?  Use this Cheat Sheet (with examples) for how to run a great Thankuary campaign!

The Antidote to Fundraising Fear Is…

Steven Screen  |  Thank
Gratitude.

So it turns out that the antidote to fundraising fear is a Swedish custom called “fika.”

Fika is pronounced “fee-kuh,” and it’s a custom of people getting together to have coffee and treats together. 

One of our customers practices fika each day, and here’s their genius move: while they are together, they open the mail and have an intentional, shared moment of gratitude for each gift.

I love it.  And, finding this out helped explain something I’d already noticed about this organization: the incredible grace and equanimity with which they handle complaints and pushback on their fundraising.

Now, fika and responding to complaints might not seem related, but they absolutely are…

Emotional Balance Sheet

You see, nonprofits tend not to emotionally acknowledge the generosity behind each gift that they receive. 

Usually this happens for two reasons:

  • The sheer volume of gifts makes it easier to think about each day’s gifts as “revenue” instead of individual acts of generosity and sacrifice.
  • The people who receive and process the gifts are often different from the people who send out the fundraising.  So the Fundraisers only experience the response to their work as a number on a spreadsheet. 

For many people in nonprofits and in Fundraising, even if the balance sheet fills up, there’s little emotional experience of the gifts.  The emotional balance sheet remains unfilled.    

So when a complaint comes in, the organization is knocked sideways by the emotion.  Suddenly they are dealing with a human with a complaint, not just “revenue” or a percentage point in the response rate.    

You know what happens next – the complaint receives outsized reaction.  There’s an immediate urge to change fundraising messaging or strategy to make sure this never happens again.  Some staff members wrongly assume that the Complainer is speaking for more people than him or herself.  Fears of the mythical “donor fatigue” are whispered.  Flee!  Run for the hills!  (I’ve written extensively about this in our free eBook about complaints.)

But when an organization has more of an emotional connection with all of the gifts that have come in – and all the generosity and emotion and sacrifice they represent – then a complaint or pushback from an internal stakeholder is just one piece of negative data. 

And it’s just one drop of negative data in an ocean of generosity and emotion and sacrifice.

In that case, the complaint is given the appropriate amount of attention.  No more and no less.  You’re so thankful for the 47 gifts that came in yesterday that you can easily respond to a complaint with warmth and compassion instead of fear.

December Goals

This is being posted on the last day of November.  And you are going to receive a LOT of gifts in the next 31 days.

Each of us should spend time in gratitude for the gifts that come in.  We should get a little emotionally closer to the generosity and sacrifice behind each gift. 

I guarantee you that visiting the mail room each day (or even just scrolling through the names of online donors) will make the inevitable complaint or pushback easier to handle.  Because somebody is going to say they don’t like one of your urgent year-end messages.  Or a Board member is going to complain about how much fundraising you send out at year-end. 

But if you and your organization emotionally feel all the gifts that have come in, those drops of negative feedback will dissolve in the ocean of generosity.

Emotionally acknowledging each gift will also bring you great joy at what you’re a part of.

The Difference Between “Understanding” and “Feeling”

Steven Screen  |  Major Donor Fundraising
gratitude

A major donor can understand that their gift was appreciated.  That’s nice.  And pretty easy to make that happen.

Yet it’s also possible for a major donor to really feel that their gift was appreciated.

There’s a big difference. 

The blog post How to Thank a Major Donor So She’ll WANT to Give Again gives you a simple road map to making your major donors feel your organization’s appreciation.

I share that post today because the signs are pointing to donations from individual donors being down this year. 

If that holds true for the rest of the year, it’s more important than ever for your organization to make sure your major donors feel your gratitude.

Here’s what often happens in down years.  Major donors deploy a two-part strategy:

  • They reduce the number of organizations they support, and
  • They reduce the amount they give to each organization. 

But major donors usually have a couple of organizations – close to their hearts, where they feel their giving really matters – that they do not cut or reduce.

That’s the group you want to be in. 

But you must earn your way into that group.

So go read the post, then go make sure your majors feel your gratitude!

It’s Thankuary Time!

Steven Screen  |  Thank
thankuary

A little over five years ago we invented “Thankuary” – taking the month of January and intentionally Thanking your donors with focus and emotion.

Your donors deserve it, and it will help you raise more money in 2023.

This post links to several free resources you can use to Thank your donors.

Start your year off by making sure your donors feel your appreciation. It’ll set you off on the right foot for the rest of the year!