Your organization has people and programs and processes that make you effective. They make your organization a force for good. They make your organization a great place for a donor to give a gift.
However, your organization is also far more than your people, your processes and your programs:
- Your organization is also a vehicle that donors use to make the world a better place
- Your organization is also a way for donors and not-yet-donors to be reminded of the injustices in the world
- Your organization is also a way for donors to self-actualize by acting out their own personal story of giving
- Your organization is also a way to donors to fight back against evil
- Your organization is also a way for donors to make themselves feel good (by giving you a gift)
- Your organization is also a way for donors to exert a measure of control over the world.
Here’s why this is important. In our experience, those additional things – all those “also’s” – are the primary drivers of why most donors give.
And when you focus your fundraising on the primary drivers of why donors give, you’ll raise more money.
So instead of making the easy choice to make your fundraising about the reasons your organization is effective, make the generous choice to make your fundraising about the reasons your donors give to your organization.
It’s a generous choice because you’ll be communicating to donors about why they support your organization, instead of communicating with them about why your organization would support your organization.
Don’t mistake what makes your organization effective for the reasons donors like to have you in their lives.
