Fundraising | Creating Donor Chemistry

Are you treating your Monthly Donors like cherished family members?

Monthly donors (aka regular givers) are incredibly valuable to your charity, so it’s critical to roll out the welcome mat and make them feel like cherished members of your family. That starts with exceptional stewardship right from the beginning of the relationship.

Stewardship starts by having a rock-solid gift-fulfillment process. By managing this pivotal detail, you show from day one that you care about the donor’s gift and are trustworthy and well-organised.

Next you should do everything in your power to make sure the donor is thanked as soon as possible, and in the most personal way. A thank you telephone call within 48 hours of the gift is the gold standard. It’s also a fantastic way to verify donor details. (But this call shouldn’t replace a written thank you…you literally cannot say thank you too much or too often).

Then, within a week, send an emotionally engaging and personal New Donor Welcome Package (NDWP) by post (even for online donors). While you should have an NDWP for all of your new donors, make sure the package for your monthly donors is a little more special. You can start simply by investing time in a live signature and a handwritten note.

Finally, send an email follow-up a week or so after the first gift has been processed so you can check-in with your new monthly donor. Ask them if they’ve received the NDWP and have any questions. You’ll reinforce that you genuinely care and it’s also a nice way to lead them into your monthly donor communications schedule for the balance of the year.

The ultimate goal for your welcome process is to make your new donor feel like they’ve made a good investment with their commitment to a monthly gift for your organisation.

Do you need some help creating chemistry with monthly donors? Email or call David (toll-free in North America on 1-800-991-3318 x101 or on our New Zealand freephone 0800 995 054) today for free, no obligation advice.

One simple step to create healthy donor relationships.

Does your charity direct donors to call a toll-free or auto-attendant line instead of a real person who can help? Or do you invite donors to email info@charitymeh.com on your Planned Giving webpages? If so, this is what you are really saying to donors desperately trying to connect to a human being at your organization.

There is one powerfully simple way you can instantly begin creating healthy, effective and rewarding long-term donor relationships:

Ensure your donors can easily find the name, phone number and email address of a real live person that can help them with an inquiry, complaint, compliment or even a donation. Then invite them to use this information. Invite them to call, email or pop by. For any reason.

Next, make sure this information is everywhere your donors’ eyes are…thank you letters, direct mail reply/donation forms, annual report, newsletter, brochures and on every single page of your website.

Why?

Donors won’t just figure it out.

It speaks volumes that your organization is thoughtful and takes donor relationships seriously.

Most donors will never call, email or pop in, but there’s a comfort and trust factor knowing that they can.

You will create a culture shift to focus on donor needs and service.

You will build loyalty and loyal donors are incredibly valuable (monthly, midmost and bequest donors usually start as loyal donors).

The simplicity of this gesture belies its power.

It can deliver millions to your organization long term.

Take a few minutes now and find the places you can make this change quickly and easily. Then take a few more minutes tomorrow to make sure it happens. You’ll be prepared to really maximize that massive effort you’re putting into your fundraising this busy holiday season.

It’s an incredibly effective way you can show your donors the respect and love they deserve.

Do you need some more ideas on creating donor chemistry? Call David toll-free in North America on 1-800-991-3318 x101 (or on our New Zealand freephone 0800 995 054) today for free, no obligation advice.

This post was originally prepared for the AFP Toronto Congress 2014 blog and can also be viewed by clicking here.

Donor stewardship tips from a 12-year old boy

I remember the first time I had to ask my son to pick up the phone and call his grandparents to say thank you for a gift he had received. You would have thought I was asking him to enter into the scariest of haunted houses all on his own – he was terrified!

I couldn’t figure it out.

It’s not like he was calling strangers. And he was grateful. But he couldn’t do it. He was afraid of the phone.

When we talked about it, I realized that his fear of picking up the phone had to do with feeling awkward and just not knowing what to say…

Your donors are not strangers. You should not feel awkward about picking up the phone and letting them know how much your organization appreciates their commitment to your cause. They care and they need to know that you care too.

So pick up that phone and say thanks! Let your donors know just how important they really are. Here are 3 ideas to help alleviate that awkward feeling:

1. Have a plan. A simple plan that allows you to set aside a small chunk of time each week to pick up the phone and say thank you to your donors will help you to develop a routine, and create good habits when it comes to engaging and retaining your donors. You may be fortunate and have a list that seems impossible to get through, so prioritize.

Try this order:

All first time donors must get a call — regardless of gift size.
After that, call anyone who increases their gift over what they gave last time.
Next, call those who are giving their second (or third or fourth) gift that year.
Then, decide on a cut-off point based on a dollar amount for the rest.
Don’t forget your recurring donors who give quarterly or monthly. They could use a “thank you” call at least once/year, after all they are probably some of your most loyal supporters!

2. Get your Board members to pick up the phones to say thanks. It’s a great way to engage the Board in fundraising, especially if they are hesitant about asking for money. Having a Board member reach out to your donors helps organizations connect with their donors without asking for a cent. You may even learn a bit more about why your donors support your organization. And as an added bonus, studies show that after a thank you call, the donor gift increases in size!

Penelope Burk, author of Donor Centered Fundraising, is constantly conducting research to find out what donors want and what you need to do to keep your donors loyal. In one study, board members called to thank donors within 24 hours of making a gift. The results were amazing: Donors who were called gave 39% more the next time they were solicited.

3. Not sure what to say? Be sincere. Tell them who you are and that you are not calling to ask them for money, rather you just want to thank them for the gift they made. Maybe you can tell them what the money was used for – let them know how they directly made an impact. If they ask you questions, answer them – if you don’t know the answer, tell them you will find out and get back to them. It’s that simple.

And if they have more time to spend with you, ask them why they chose to give to your organization. Let them know just how integral they are to your organization.

Fundraising is about building relationships. It takes time and care. But a phone call is the simplest, most direct way to reach your donors, and to ensure that they know they are valued.

My son now loves to pick up the phone and chat. So do his sisters. Thank goodness my cell phone is my own (most days)!

Would you like to build long-term and rewarding relationships with more of your donors? Do you need some help with your stewardship plan? Call Andrea toll-free 1-800-991-3318 x103 today for a free, no obligations chat.

One is the loneliest number.

When it comes to direct mail fundraising, it’s also the most unrewarding.

One of the questions I get asked most frequently when speaking at conferences or Fundraising Pharmacy training sessions is why I always recommend multiple mailings in a year. It’s not just people I meet who are new to direct mail or fundraising who ask. It’s a question that many seasoned fundraisers ask, too.

Effectively their queries boil down to this:

“Why not just send one highly effective and efficient appeal each year and be done with it?”

Seems like a great idea at first blush. We’d save staff time, mailing costs (and those pesky project consulting fees).

But years of testing and data analysis tell us that the most effective approach is more involved. Why? Well, when it comes right down to it, it’s because we are working with humans.

It’s difficult to get people’s attention, even loyal donors.

This is both good news and bad news.

First, the bad news…donors aren’t always paying attention to what we send them in the mail. And not every appeal theme or issue appeals to all donors. This is the “Right Ask at the right time” mantra that direct marketers live by. We have to send multiple appeals with multiple offers in order to capture as many people’s interest as possible.

And as Liz Rejman at Museum London also emphasized in a recent discussion on this very topic, “sometimes when we ask, it may not be a good time for a donor to make a gift or they may intend to donate and forget.”

Liz is bang on. Like a lot of things in life, timing is key! And since we can’t possibly time a single appeal to work for every single donor, sending multiple appeals is the best way to maximise your revenue and (even more important) maximise the number of donors that will stay current.

Now here’s the good news…

It’s actually a good thing that the one-perfect-mail-piece doesn’t exist. Because what we’ve learned over the years is that many donors will make more than one gift in a year. It stands to reason. They are passionate about the work you do…you share multiple ways their gifts can make a difference… some donors will decide to help more than once.

In fact, most organisations with mature direct marketing programs see an average of 1.3 gifts/donor/year.

This is very good, not just for the extra revenue from those 0.3 gifts, but also because the donors that send more than one gift in a year are a very valuable segment. They tend to be more loyal, more receptive to upgrading their giving, more likely to become monthly donors and much more likely to name your charity in their will.

Like so many things with direct mail and direct marketing fundraising, what at first appears to be inefficiency is actually an investment in the overall donor relationship and the attendant increase in fundraising revenue over the lifetime of your donors.

You can rest assured that sending multiple direct mail solicitations every year will help you raise the most funds in both the short and long term. Just make sure you add at least one or two stewardship pieces to keep donors informed and in love. And also put processes in place to ensure donor preferences can be honoured (IE: for donors who wish to receive only one solicitation mailing per year).

What’s your optimum direct mail appeal number? Are you boosting the effectiveness of each mail appeal with email, social media, the telephone and personal visits? Call David toll-free 1-800-991-3318 x101 today for a free assessment.

From idiot to trusted friend in 13 sentences.

Recently our team was working with a client that had some issues with their database and accuracy of their records.

Sound familiar?

There were a group of contacts that only had business information and addresses, but no contact name information. Many of these donors had given 5 and even 6 figure gifts.

Together, we decided that waiting until the data was perfect or avoiding a solicitation of these donors was not an acceptable solution. We put our heads together and came up with an idea:

Why not just be up front about the deficiencies in the records and ask donors to help us fix it?

This is the kind of stuff that people love to help with.

So, together we wrote a very simple, direct and honest letter that explained that we were rather embarrassed to be missing key information about such a loyal and generous donor. Next, we asked the donor to share 3 pieces of information (name, phone number and email) at the bottom of the page and pop it in the postage paid return envelope along with their kind gift.

The client printed the letter themselves, along with the simple update form, all on a single sheet of letterhead (at a cost of less than a penny per note) and added it into the unsealed packages we had returned after processing at the mailhouse.

Easy, inexpensive and personal.

I almost wish we had more records with missing information, so we could make more use of this highly engaging approach.

I know we worry about looking unprofessional or *gurk* incompetent in front of donors. But the reality is these kinds of errors exist and most people understand, especially if you are upfront and honest about it.

Try this approach next time you run into a mistake. I guarantee this is one donor engagement idea that will make Mom proud!

Top 4 Legacy Marketing Myths

WARNING: These myths may impair your charitable bequest potential

Have you concluded that Legacy Marketing just can’t work for your charity?

There are a lot of reasons why so many smart and good-looking fundraising professionals come to this conclusion.

That’s why I created this quick checklist of Legacy Marketing myths. I want to make sure you don’t miss out on a great opportunity for your organization and your donors.

1. Only the ‘Big Guys’ get bequests. We hear a lot about big-city research hospitals, prestigious universities, national health charities and ‘blue-chip’ arts organizations receiving bequests. But charities of all sizes and without name-brand recognition are successfully communicating with their donors about making bequest gifts. The key is to start respectfully speaking about it with your donors. And I guarantee they are already on someone else’s list for this very important conversation!

2. My charity’s donors aren’t rich, so it’s just not worth it. The average charitable bequest gift in Canada is now around $30,000. This amount is typical for a donor of modest means. And many donors who leave this size of gift have never made a single gift larger than $25 or $30 during their lifetime. Can you imagine the transformative good that could be accomplished if two or three dozen of your average donors decided to include your charity in their Will?

3. Donors will only make bequests if I meet with them in person. Many of us learned early on in our fundraising careers that Planned Giving equals tea and banana bread with little old ladies. This isn’t really fair to little old ladies, Planned Giving professionals or banana bread. Also, it’s really not very effective for maximizing the number of charitable bequests for your organization. First, there are simply too many people willing to name your charity in their Will to ever have enough time to meet with all of them. Second, most donors who leave gifts in their Will prefer NOT to have you sitting in their living room while they make estate plans.

4. Legacy Marketing has to cost a lot to be effective. There are legacy marketing programs that can cost tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. But this does not mean they are effective, even for big charities with lots of resources. What’s most important is to make a plan, build a strategy that will fit your budget and start the conversation with your charity’s donors. A smart place to begin is examining opportunities to include bequest giving information in your current print materials and online content.

I hope you’ve decided to have another look at this terrific way to significantly increase your fundraising revenues. There are some great resources available to help you create a sharp Legacy Marketing strategy – many, are low or even no, cost! You can contact me directly for some free advice on where to begin.

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Add this Supplement for a Healthy Fundraising Diet

Are you maximizing your holiday fundraising potential?

Almost every single fundraiser breaks out an extra strength campaign for the November and December holiday season. And for good reason. Many of the top charities receive 30% or more of their annual revenue in December.

But this is not a post about that holiday period.

I want to talk about Thanksgiving.

GIVING!

THANKS!

It’s our work summed up in 2 words. A more perfect holiday for our sector just doesn’t exist. In fact, if we didn’t already have it, fundraisers would have to invent it.

Can you imagine a better time to send an ask to your donors? If you already are, then you are awesome and class dismissed.

But, if you’re like the legions of charities in Canada not capitalizing on this wonderful opportunity then I’d strongly recommend adding an early fall campaign related to Thanksgiving. Here in Canada that means having something (mail, email, or both) arriving in people’s homes in early October.

Here’s an easy-to-swallow prescription to get started:

Step 1 – Evoke a Feeling of Gratitude: Most people feel strong emotions when they pause to think about their good fortune. I know this stirs some pretty intense feelings in my own mind.

Step 2 – Link Gratitude to Philanthropy: Help your donors string together the gratitude they feel for their relative abundance and the thought that many people are not as fortunate with an example tied directly your cause/organization/work. This is a powerful frame of mind to create for donors. Personally, I know how downright emotional I can get in these moments.

Step 3 – Ask : You’ve set the stage, so make sure you ask. Connect the solicitation directly with the work your organization does. Show your donors how they can really help someone, or solve a problem by giving a gift in thanks.

Bonus Step – Frame the Ask: Create what Direct Marketing consultants like to call ‘dollar handles’. Frame your ask amounts around some traditional Thanksgiving costs – eg: typical price of a turkey, a fancy dessert, a special bottle of wine, or even the cost of fleeing town to avoid an unpleasant family member (just a completely random inclusion, I swear.)

Adding another solicitation campaign to your fundraising program is not always a simple process, I know. But this just makes so much sense. I promise it will be worth it.

And if you get started today, you’ll have just enough time to be successful.

Who knows…after you see the results you may even want to add Fundraising Pharmacy to your thank-you list for next fall!

If you’d like some help getting your Thanksgiving campaign off to a healthy start, click here to contact me right now.

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5 Step Formula to Meaningful Thank You Letters

A few days ago I actually typed these words in an email to a former colleague:

“I get downright preachy about effective thank you letters.”

Hmmm…upon reflection, I realized there were a couple of serious issues with this:

· I was pitching a luncheon presentation and ‘preachy’ is probably not a great descriptive for a positive and entertaining learning experience.

· It’s been a long time since I wrote a rant about Thank You letters.

OK…so I can’t do much about the first point. But I can pull out my soapbox and get back on it…

Here’s a Fundraising Pharmacy formula for effective thank you letters:

1. Choose a great signatory – The best signatory may not be the Board Chair or President. It may even be you! The signatory should convey their passion for the work that your charity does and be able to speak about how the donor’s gift will impact that work. And this letter must only be signed by one person (no co-signing or generic signatures like ‘the Board’).

2. Write it how you would say it – It always amazes me that people who are so warm and genuine in person feel the need to be formal and stiff in their writing. I find it very helpful to imagine I was meeting the donor at an event and then jot down what I would say to them face-to-face. It always surprises me how much material this gets me!

3. Keep it personal – Throw in a micro-anecdote to draw your donor into the world of the signatory. Did the person signing the thank you letter just walk past a room where program staff are busy helping people? Maybe they walk past a photo of the founder every day? Build a thank you around that experience and their feelings.

4. Don’t wait for the Annual Report – The number one thing donors want from you is to know how their gifts make a difference. So, make sure you update them in the thank you letter. You just have to find a success you can report that relates to the campaign/appeal the donor gave to. EG: the equipment you raised funds for has been purchased and will arrive in a few weeks; you are set to begin renovations to the program space that needed improvements.

5. Give them your digits – If you want to see this donor again, you are going to have to give them your phone number. Email, too. Don’t try to shuffle them off to the switchboard, general reception line or info@ email address. Give them the signatory’s direct line and actual email address. Invite them to call anytime for any reason. If your signatory is not comfortable with this, choose another signatory. A few donors may call, but it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll receive more than a few calls over the course of a year. But extending the invitation will help build trust.

Here’s your chance to seize the opportunity to transform an obligatory task into a powerful and personal connection with your donors! And this formula should get you well on your way to healthier donor relationships.

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5 Ideas to Save Your Next Event

This morning, I was scrolling through my twitter account and was a bit taken aback when I saw a couple of tweets pointing to a blog posting entitled “Why You Should Ditch Your Next Event” that Gail Perry wrote a while back. I hadn’t read the posting when Ms. Perry first wrote it late last spring, but this time around, it got me fired up all right. But not in the usual good way.

First, I should say that I have enormous respect for Gail Perry (and I’m a bit more than a little nervous even typing her name!). I follow her religiously on twitter, subscribe to her excellent Fired Up Fundraising Newsletter (just got another great tip as I was writing this post) and regularly attend her sessions at conferences.

I’m a big fan.

But I’m an even bigger fan of Special Event Fundraising. Like a lot of people, it’s where I started my fundraising career. It has a big place in my heart. And frankly, I get a bit defensive when people starting talking smack about it.

In fact this is not the first time I’ve been set off by someone writing a piece urging people to reconsider special events. I wrote this piece about a decade ago: Special Events – Good Times, Great Fundraisers.

Is this just an unhealthy pattern? Perhaps. Will I stop? Unlikely.

As you can see, I spoke a lot about mass participation events and how they can stand proudly beside their Annual Giving, Major Gifts and Planned Gift cousins in a spreadsheet. I still firmly believe this.

But since 2003, I have also experienced many more special events like the ones I somewhat glibly referred to as Gala Dinner Silent Auction. I’ve been to a lot of terrible events – bad food, tarted-up-yet-still-lacklustre venues and uninspired themes sometimes in direct opposition to the mission – all with brutally high cost ratios.

I have also been to some amazing events and have eagerly listened to sharp fundraisers telling me stories of successful (and highly efficient) fundraising events.

What I’ve learned is that done wrong, special events will do exactly what Gail Perry predicts – “kill your staff and volunteers” while setting your ROI on embarrass mode. But done right, they can be energizing and raise money at a reasonable cost.

So, how do you do them right? Here are 5 ideas I hope you’ll try, before you decide to ditch you next event:

Invite the right people. Make sure you have a healthy mix of donors at your event. Special events are great opportunities to cultivate and steward major gift donors. Then can be a great way to recognize bequest donors. And they can be an excellent time to inspire loyal annual giving donors to increase their giving level or make a stretch gift.
Make your mission the shining star. Even if you have a ‘celebrity’ hosting or appearing your event, make sure that it’s your mission that is the biggest star. Have the people your charity serves playing key roles at the event by delivering a passionate speech, thanking people for coming at the door or handwriting personal welcome notes to use as place cards.
Remind people why they are there. Set a goal for the evening and let your attendees know. Give them updates throughout the night, thanking them often along the way. Don’t be shy on incentivizing it for them. Are you hosting a sit-down dinner with a long program? Try cutting one speech for every fundraising milestone achieved.
Show your work. Get your event attendees excited by showing them the work you will accomplish with the funds raised that night. Is it for a piece of hospital equipment? Have the doctor who will be using it give a short presentation about what it will do and the impact it will have on an individual patient. Will the money help build a school in a developing nation? Set up a classroom with all the items you will provide.
Do something awesome. This is the hard one, but you’re smart and creative. One of my favourite ideas is a stroke of genius a former colleague of mine had while she was working for a big-city hospital foundation. She did a live auction of naming rights for hospital rooms at their gala dinner! It raised a lot of money and it really got mid-level and major donors excited about making their gifts.

So, please give it another go. It is possible to raise more money, control costs and create a brilliant and memorable event.

Good luck and send me a note to tell me what you did to make it awesome!