How to Raise 15%-20% More This Year

How to Raise 15%-20% More This Year

We’re doing a series of short posts called Mastermind Lessons.

The Fundraising Mastermind is transformational consulting for nonprofits that we do with Chris Davenport of Movie Mondays and The Nonprofit Storytelling Conference.

Today’s post is the fourth top-level lesson we’ve found that every organization in the Mastermind needs to learn…

It’s simple… but it’s not easy.

The Three Things You Should Focus On

I realized that every organization we worked with needs to get better at these three things. And all of them saw immediate gains from doing so.

Over my career, I’ve noticed that the organizations who focus on doing these well see a lift of 15% to 20% in net revenue over the first year they focus here.

So read on if you’d like to see that kind of growth…

#1 – Communicate to Your Donors More – About What Donors Care About

It’s a fact: most nonprofits under-communicate to their donors. (To be more nuanced, most nonprofits under-communicate to their donors about what their donors care about.)

Just one example: most small nonprofits who send four appeals per year are scared to death that they will drive their donors away if they send another appeal or two. What those small nonprofits don’t know is that their donors also give to other organizations who are mailing twelve, sixteen or even twenty-four times a year.

If you literally don’t have the human resource capacity to be communicating more, that’s a good reason. But if the fear of bothering/offending your donors is causing you to contact them less, you need to stop fearing and trust in a) best-practices and b) your donors’ willingness to help.

And of course, you have to communicate with donors about what they care about. Most smaller nonprofits have a hard time with this, which is why they should…

#2 – Use Specific Offers

To smaller organizations, it’s counter-intuitive that highlighting a specific part of one program will work better than Asking donors to fund your mission or all of your programs.

But it works almost every time.

Most of your donors, most of the time, don’t want to know the whole picture. They want an easy way to do something meaningful that they understand.

A great offer gives donors what they want: it highlights a specific part or step of one of your programs (so it’s easy to understand), and it shows your donors how meaningful and important that step is.

#3 – Manage Your Major Donor Relationships

About nine out of ten organizations we work with openly acknowledge that they could do a better job with their major donors.

And for the organizations where we can spend a year or two helping them improve their major donor systems – their revenue growth is remarkable.

Investing in your major donor systems is an easy win. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it will sure feel like it.

15% Growth is Simple, But It’s Not Easy

To the smaller nonprofits out there: if you do the three things above, and do them well, you’ll see significant revenue growth.

Because there is no magic bullet. Here’s how John Lepp of Agents Of Good said it on Twitter:

“Charities are looking for a magic (technologic and demographic) bullet to solve all of their problems, and I’m sorry… it doesn’t exist. It’s the 1000+ small boring things you need to do that make the big difference.”

The three things above are the three most important “1000+ small boring things you need to do.”

We’re helping several organizations do them right now. And we’ll continue to post about what they do as they grow and grow. If you want personalized, experienced help, visit this page to learn more and fill out an application.

Your Major Donors Are More Important Than You Think They Are

Your Major Donors Are More Important Than You Think They Are

We’re doing a series of short posts called Mastermind Lessons.

The Fundraising Mastermind is transformational consulting for nonprofits that we do with Chris Davenport of Movie Mondays and The Nonprofit Storytelling Conference.

Today’s post is the second top-level lesson we’ve found that every organization in the Mastermind needs to learn…

Your Major Donors are Remarkably Important and You aren’t Spending Enough Time or Money on Them

An organization usually knows that a small percentage of donors (your “major donors”) provide a significant percentage of your total revenue.

But an organization is usually shocked when they discover how small that number of donors is, and how large the percentage of income is.

In our experience, it’s usually around 85% of an organization’s revenue from individuals that comes from 10% of their donors.

And because the organization hasn’t sat with the numbers and really faced what they mean, the organization does not spend enough time and money on their major donors.

Here’s the example I use that helps organizations see:

Say you have a business that has 100 customers. And 10 of those customers are responsible for 90% of your revenue. You would give those customers the “white glove” treatment. They would be greeted by name at the door. They would have a special, shorter line to wait in. They would get a phone call the next day to see if their purchase worked out.

That’s common sense. But too many nonprofits don’t apply it to fundraising.

Your major donors should get the “white glove” treatment:

  • Hand-written thank you cards
  • Appeal letters written specifically to them, about what they care about
  • Newsletters sent in large envelopes, with a hand-signed cover letter
  • A call from the Executive Director after every gift

There are lots of possible treatments. You can and should be doing them.

That said…

To Keep Your Major Donors, and to Lift Them to Higher Giving, You Need a SYSTEM

Special treatment is great. Start doing it now.

But what you really need is a major donor fundraising system.

In a nutshell, here’s what your system should do:

  1. Identify your major donors
  2. Rank them so you know who to focus on first
  3. Build relationships with them (with the ones who are open to this)
  4. Make a revenue goal for each major donor
  5. Make an annual plan to lead each major donor to reach the goa

It’s the organizations that have major donor systems in place, and then are disciplined about running the system, that see major revenue growth. They keep more of their major donors, and lift their major donors to higher and higher levels of giving.

Does Your Organization Need This?

The good thing about this is that almost every organization I’ve spoken with recently says they know they need to spend more time and money on their major donors.

The tough thing is that very few of them know what to do next.

My suggestion: take a class like this one from Jim Shapiro, the co-founder of Better Fundraising. (And if you can’t make those dates, apply anyway because there will be another class later this spring.) And follow the Veritus Group blog.

It will take time to get great at major donor fundraising. But it’s worth your time and investment!