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Why do donors give you money?
It's pretty simple, really, as articulated at the MarketSmart blog, VALUE:
People will pay to feel good.
There's a lot behind that, of course: A lot of different kinds of feeling good and different causes for it.
But keep this in mind: The main thing you have to give in return for their money is how you make them feel. Then you're most of the way to smart fundraising and excellent donor relationships.
(This post first appeared on July 24, 2017.)
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Response rates down, costs up, supply chain problems making things difficult...
You might be thinking it's time to move on from direct mail fundraising.
Before you do that, check out this post from The Agitator: The Exquisite Corpse of Direct Mail. You just might realize that what seems like a prudent reallocation of budget and effort could turn out to be a revenue disaster for your organization.
Direct mail fundraising has these significant advantages:
It's important to keep your eyes open to changing conditions -- and they are changing. But think twice before you assume direct mail is fading or ineffective. It isn't!
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Everyone knows that approval committees have a long history of destroying effective fundraising. That's pretty much baked into the nature of committees.
But you may not be able to simply ban multiple reviews.
Here are some tips for keeping committees on track and out of trouble, from Ann Handley's Total Anarchy newsletter, at How to Avoid Writing by Committee:
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MacGyver Fundraising: A series about getting it done in the real world
MacGyver was an US action TV show in the 80s (with a more recent reboot) featuring a brilliant professional problem-solver who could get himself out of any jam with whatever random materials were at hand. He always solved the most difficult situations. Fundraisers are a lot like MacGyver.
One of the things I really love about the work I do is how often I get a front-row seat when organizations transform their fundraising.
It typically goes like this: They've been doing fundraising a certain way, often for a long time. It's not getting them where they need their organization to be, so they ask for advice.
The advice is usually pretty easy: A mix of useful tactics and strategies, and often a new approach to how you think about fundraising and donors.
They do it, and revenue skyrockets. Yay!
But it doesn't always go that way.
Sometimes they make the changes and revenue doesn't increase much. Sometimes they're already doing things well and revenue is a fraction of what other organizations report getting.
The difference: their donors. Those who struggle often have donor lists dominated by donors who are very unlikely to ever give again. They tend to be donors of these types:
These donors are much less likely to ever give again than other donor groups.
Think of them as "arm's length" donors: They've been motivated to give to your organization indirectly. They aren't very interested in your cause.
Cause motivated donors have a second-gift rate of about 19% industry-wide -- though with smart fundraising you can get that up to 30% and above. Arm's length donors generally have a second-gift rate of 10% or lower.
There are things you can do to improve the retention of arm's length donors, but not by much. (Probably the best thing is to find ways to get them to become monthly donors. It's not easy, but the payoff is good.)
If you have a file made up of large numbers of arm's length donors, look for ways to get more cause donors. Maybe move some of your spending away from events to direct response channels.
Otherwise, fundraising will be a struggle -- likely unsustainable -- no matter how good a job you do.
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Let's say you got a direct mail or email about a "puppy farm" in your area. Your donation to the organization that's talking to you will help rescue puppies and shut down the farm.
Sounds good to me, you might say. So you donate.
A little later, you get a thank-you message. It goes like this:
Thank you for doing your part to help animals everywhere around the world to live lives of dignity.
You might wonder if there's been a mistake: You wanted to do something about the puppy farm, not animals everywhere.
That organization is thanking you with a generic thank-you message. At least they thanked you -- that's more than most nonprofits manage to do.
But they've really missed an important opportunity to bond with donors.
They put a lot of effort into their puppy farm appeal. It was emotional, specific, and urgent. It put some compelling action in your hands. And it worked!
But all the air went out of the tires when they thanked you.
(I have to mention again that the fact they thank you at all puts them in the elite of fundraisers who do stuff right.)
Here's what any fundraiser can and should do about thanking their donors:
Write the thank-message when you write the asking message.
Be just as emotional and specific: Thank them for the same thing you asked them to do!
You'll end up with a thank-you message that does more than go through the motions of thanking, but actually reconnects the donor with the emotions and thoughts she had when she gave.
That will lead to better donor retention. Especially when you do this consistently over time.
BONUS
If you write the thank-you message before you write the ask, you'll probably write a stronger fundraising piece. Grappling with the thanks puts your head and heart closer to the donor! Try it; it works.
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View from my email inbox:
On the left is the sender name. On the right, the subject line.
It's from a political fundraiser.
Apparently they hope I'll leap to my own defense by opening their message to tell them, "Yes, I recycle!"
Strong open rate? Maybe.
The right way to connect with someone who hope to be building a relationship with? I doubt it.
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Most people want to be helpful. That's the good news.
The bad news is many people are so eager to be helpful, they'll do their best, even when they don't have much to offer.
If you asked a toddler to push your car up the street while you steer, most toddlers would happily jump in. But they just aren't equipped to do what you need. And things would go quite wrong if they tried!
This is why getting fundraising advice from someone untrained in fundraising can lead you so far astray. Because as much as they intend to be helpful, they just aren't able to help. They are intelligent, wonderful people. Quite likely expert in one or more areas...
But they don't have any knowledge about fundraising -- especially the many counterintuitive truths that lie like landmines all over our professional landscape.
Here's a helpful advice from the Publication Coach Blog, at What to do when critiques become dangerous. It's aimed at book authors, but it fits fundraisers very well:
Never make revisions based on advice from someone who doesn’t know your genre. Beware the Dunning-Kruger effect. (That’s where the most confident people are often the most ignorant on the subject.)
People often talk about the Dunning-Kruger effect like it's the explanation for the nonsense your loudmouth political opponents keep spouting. Or even some kind of character defect.
It's not. Everyone is subject to it, including you and me. And people you really like and respect and know to be helpful.
But when you don't have a body of knowledge and you're asked to give your opinion, any decent person will do their best to help. Even if it's not at all helpful.
Sometimes asking a non-expert for their opinion is a courtesy. Or a political necessity. You just have to do it.
Taking their advice is on you.
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MacGyver Fundraising: A series about getting it done in the real world
MacGyver was an US action TV show in the 80s (with a more recent reboot) featuring a brilliant professional problem-solver who could get himself out of any jam with whatever random materials were at hand. He always solved the most difficult situations. Fundraisers are a lot like MacGyver.
Photographs are powerful. They draw the eye and capture the attention. They can tell a deeper, more nuanced and emotional story than even the best copy.
In fact, they tell a story whether you want them to or not, even a story you have no intention of telling.
A photo, any photo, is basically that loudmouth life-of-the-party guy who gobbles up all the attention and energy at every party. Photos are like that no matter what they are a picture of -- no matter what story they tell, on point or off.
Maybe you've noticed that sometimes a party is a lot more fun when the loudmouth isn't there. Sure, he can be fun and entertaining, but he makes the whole thing about himself.
It's the same with photos: You don't have to use photos in your fundraising!
Because the wrong photo is worse than no photo at all.
There are times when you have to tell the story with words, because you don't have a photo that tells that story. That means you have to write with great care, but you're doing that anyway.
The ideal is to have a great story told in words and photos. That isn't always possible.
Your donors will not ding you for omitting a photo.
They may accidentally ding you if you confuse them with the wrong photo.
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Why is it hard to raise funds?
One reason is that large numbers of people don't believe what you're saying. No matter how obvious and self-evident you think it is.
That's what Seth Godin reminds us at Facts are not the antidote for doubt:
... facts won't change a mind that doesn't want to be changed. More facts don't counter more doubt. Someone who is shaking his head, arms folded, eyes squinted and ears closed isn't going to be swayed by more facts.
This tells us a lot about the weird state of US politics these days.
But more to our point, it reminds us of one of the important truths about fundraising:
You are never fundraising from "everybody."
The only people who have any chance of responding to your asks are those who already know, understand, and believe. Everyone else doesn't know about your cause, or doesn't care about it, or won't believe you in any case.
Don't waste your time and money on those people. You aren't going to get them.
Instead, tell the story of a problem members of your "tribe" want to solve. And don't try it with facts; they have almost no impact on the hearts even of believers!
(This post first appeared on June 8, 2017.)
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The organization had a small, thriving direct mail fundraising program. For years, it had been producing an acceptable level of net revenue.
When I looked at their program, their results were good, but not great. Their direct mail packs were well-written. They had strong offers.
One thing looked "off" to me: The reply devices.
They used "bangtail" envelopes. You know, those envelopes with a big flap that has remit information printed on it that the donor fills out, then sends back with their check inside the envelope. The envelope never changed; it never reflected the well-crafted offers that were described in the letters. And the donor's name and address were not personalized -- they had to write them in when they made a donation.
People at the organization felt highly committed to their reply devices because someone (nobody could remember who) had once hypothesized that it signaled to donors their scrappy, penny-pinching culture -- and this was a key attribute that made donors happy to give.
It's possible this was true, though it's unlikely:
It was more a superstition than a hypothesis.
You can only know what donors do, not why they do it.
But people at the organization believed it. They based decisions on it.
They not only clung to their bangtail reply devices, but they made other penny-pinching decisions that they assumed donors would notice and appreciate.
The chance that their belief was suppressing fundraising results was high.
They needed to get some facts. Like: When we use this type of reply device, donors respond at a higher or lower rate than when we use a different type.
Ideally, they should test it.
Unfortunately, their mailing list was too small to run statistically valid tests. So instead, they used other types of reply devices a few times over the course of a few months.
Guess what happened.
The more typical reply devices convincingly outperformed the bangtail envelopes every time. It wasn't a scientific test, but it was better than the superstition that was guiding them before. Their direct mail program is doing better than ever now.
The lesson for all of us?
Examine your beliefs about your fundraising. Ask your self if your beliefs are superstitions or based on observable behavior.
If it isn't, test. Or do the next best thing -- try something different a few times.
It's possible that a superstition is also a truth. But there's a good chance it's really hurting you.
Here's help on testing your fundraising beliefs:
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Raise funds with your eyes open. Skip the guesswork. Show your boss what really works. This book takes you on a fact-filled and memorable journey through writing, design, strategy, and the mental game of effective fundraising.Blogroll
A Direct Solution
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