Unrealistic expectations for donors could be expensive

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11 February 2014

Unrealistic expectations for donors could be expensive

Do you ever think of your donors this way?

Marketoonist

It's an easy error to make, believing donors are as much into us as we -- people being paid to spend all our time and our best thinking on the organization.

... even "brand loyalists" have complex lives completely separate from our brands. Brands can play important roles, but we should be careful not to overstate how much consumers give thought to our brands.

This leads to some expensive mistakes: complex programs that depend on a level of loyalty and connection that doesn't really exist.

Always do a reality check: Do our donors care as much as we think they do?

Posted by Jeff Brooks on 11 February 2014 at 07:59 | Permalink

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The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here. More.

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Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.

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