Donor Communications

Remember that pesky UnderDeveloped Report… A national study of challenges facing nonprofit fundraising. Did you read my 3-part blog posted in “Simone Uncensored” on January 19, 21, and 23? 

Wondering what to do about those problems identifed in that report? Check out this special UnderDeveloped Webinar Series. Join the national conversation! Hear ideas about how to respond. Add your comments. Invite your boss and board members to attend, too.

This 3-part webinar series will explore the root causes of chronically under-developed fundraising capacity among nonprofits from three perspectives – nonprofit leaders, consultants and capacity builders, and funders.

• Part 1: What it Really Takes to Create a Culture of Philanthropy (March 6, 12pm – 2pm PST, $45) for executive directors, senior development staff, and board members
• Part 2: First Do No Harm: Are Consultants Part of the Problem? (April 11, 12pm – 2pm, $45) for nonprofit capacity builders, consultants, and sector academics
• Part 3: Investing in Grantee Fundraising Capacity, What Really Works? (date TBD, $45) for grantmakers and funders

These conversations – convened by CompassPoint, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, and the Nonprofit Quarterly – will help develop a set of clear, nuanced, and actionable recommendations available for the entire sector. Register today!

And here are a few other resources for you:

— Check out the 2012 Atlas of Giving Report, highlighted by The Agitator in its post of February 5, 2013.

— Read this interesting finding from Case Western Reserve University… “We have a built-in neural constraint on our ability to be both empathetic and analytic at the same time.” In summary, “scientific accounts leave out the human touch.” Good fundraisers care about this neuroscience stuff. Mostly beware of the analytic type stuff. Pay attention to the emotions. Hey, do you read neurosciencemarketing.com? Check it out. Subscribe for free.

Sometimes I forget that “today’s kids” never met a vinyl record. Sometimes I realize that “today’s youth” barely (maybe not at all) know about the U.S. war in Vietnam. Oh wow, my 15 and 13 year-old nieces were unclear who the Beatles were!

My icons (people, places, things) are different than theirs. Indeed, each generation has its own icons and conditions (what’s happening in the environment…like WWII or the Cold War or the GEC or…)

Check out the Beloit College Mindset List for the class of 2016 (the kids entering college right now). What an amazing and insight list…put together by Beloit every August since 1998. For this generation, born in 1994: Kurt Cobain, Jackie Kennedy, Richard Nixon and John Wayne have always been dead. Women have always been airplane space shuttle pilots. Slavery has always been unconstitutional.

Why do you and I care? Because they are the next fundraisers and we have to communicate with them and they have to communicate with donors who come from different generations. And because we might be buying them birthday and graduate gifts, too!

3 Far-out fundraising fails: Fantasy fundraising. Fad fundraising. And, fact-free fundraising. Read Jeff Brooks‘ blog of September 27, 2012.

Read Jeff’s blog today, 10-01-12, about what to ask for in your direct mail solicitation. Just the gift! Nothing else. Not volunteering. Not attending the event. One ask only. Don’t distract the reader!

Check these out:

— My home state of Michigan…delightful…Watch for MSU on the capital steps in Lansing.

— Grand Rapids, Michigan…I haven’t been there in years. But this is an award winner!

— Stockholm…seen through the iPad. (But forget the iPad for a moment. Just listen to the case for support for doing business in Stockholm. Got any business ideas?)

Nonprofits communicate lots – especially when it comes to fundraising. How effective is your communications? What is your case for support? Why would anyone care that you exist?

Videos can be good. And with YouTube, even low tech videos can be very good. But make sure that the video strategy is right for your message. Make sure that your message is on target.

Visit Jeff Brook’s blogs for lots of comments and critiques about videos.

Storytelling is so important to fundraising. Storytelling is so important to human connection and conversation. Storytelling is just so important.

“We live in stories the way fish live in water,”says Daniel Taylor in a book called Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories. We “breath them in and out. Stories “buoy and feed us.”

Robert Fulford sees storytelling as “the juncture where facts and feelings meet, the bundle in which we wrap the truth, hope and dread.” Fulford explains that narrative is how we explain and teach and entertain ourselves.

We tell stories about situations and causes and other people. We also create stories about ourselves and share them through our need for self-disclosure. (See the companion piece in today’s blog…self-disclosure and neuroscience.)

Dan McAdams says, “Narratives guide behavior in every moment, and frame not only how we see the past but how we see ourselves in the future…. We find that when it comes to the big choices people make…they draw on these stories implicitly…”

I read all this in Pat Thompson’s great piece “Being the Change We Want,” May 2009, focusing on vocational renewal. Read Thompson’s monograph. It’s wonderful!

And here’s something I heard on NPR, also about storytelling: “True as remembered by the storyteller.” I don’t remember if I heard that on NPR or read it somewhere.

So I’m telling you a story. Or you’re telling me a story. Is the story true? Yes…it is the truth that I remember…my understanding and interpretation of the situation and the characters and the struggle and the triumph… True as I remember it – and I’m telling the story. Or you’re telling the story.

I tell stories of the Vietnam War, a seminal period of my life. I tell the stories one way. And then I was checking with my brother Alain and he told some of the stories a different way. True, as told by each of us as a different storyteller.

So say authors Diana I. Tamir and Jason P. Mitchell from Harvard University’s Department of Psychology.

Yes, people love to talk about themselves – it gives our brains a dopamine high. Our brains are “wired for self-disclosure,” says neuroscience. (Think about Facebook!)

This is great information for fundraisers and their organizations. We want to hear the stories of our donors. We value donor-centrism. And neuroscience and behavioral psychology explain why.

We are in the business of collecting donor stories – and retelling those stories in our newsletters, annual reports, direct mail solicitations, on our website. Good fundraisers invite donors to tell their stories themselves – at the podium for that special event or program or in a small focus group.

Yes, people love to talk about themselves. Invite them to do so. Encourage them to do so. Welcome their stories.

Did you see the “call out” in The Agitator blog, “Flat Earth Fundraising: Preventing Bottom-line Shipwrecks”? Roger Craver cites 3 books that can help your organization avoid the shipwreck:

— Ken Burnett’s “landmark and breakthrough” book Relationship Fundraising: A Donor Based Approach to the Business of Raising Money, published in 1992. This is a must-read for the serious professional.

— Building Donor Loyalty by Adrian Sargeant and Elaine Jay, “the next major treatise (2004) in fundraising navigation,” says Roger. Another must-read for the serious professional.

— And three years later (2007), Tom Ahern and Simone Joyaux “came forth with a jam-paccked book of additional insights” in Keep Your Donors: The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships.

Imagine how proud Tom and I are…recognized by The Agitator…and highlighted with Ken and Adrian and Elaine.

1. Giving USA: The Annual Report for Philanthropy (for 2011) is now out. Good news. Bad news. Steady news. I sure hope you read this every year. Lots of info to share with your development colleagues, CEO, fund development committee, and board. What are the implications for your organization?

2. “Design a logo that doesn’t chase away donors.” That’s Jeff Brooks and The Duck Call.

3. Read “Social Influences in Giving,” by Jen (Yue) Shang and Rachel Croson at the Nonprofit Quarterly. Shang and Crosen’s research with NPR documents how a charity can increase gift size just by using social information with donors. A must-read for fundraisers everywhere.

4. Dan Ariely‘s book The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty is probably something we all should read. The Economist even wrote a column about it.

5. Check out this book, recommended by my colleague Mary Shirley: Non-Manipulative Selling by Anthony Alessandra and Phillip Wexler, published in 1979. Mary says that we fundraisers could learn from this…a step-by-step how-to on building trust and listening to your customer (just substitute “donor”). Monitoring your own verbal and nonverbal communication. And refusing a sale if it’s not in the customer/donor’s best interest. Are you donor-centered? Is your organization donor-centered?

Fundraising researcher Adrian Sargeant tells us that the key drivers of donor loyalty are: satisfaction, trust, commitment, and engagement.

So how about trust?

Check out Seth Godin‘s June 23, 2012 blog: “Where does trust come from?” Not from the good times and the easy projects, says Seth. “We trust people because they showed up when it wasn’t convenient, because they todl the truth when it was easier to lie, and because they kept a promise when they could have gotten away with breaking it.”

Check out Charles Green’s Trust Matters Blog. One trusts and the other is trusted. To be trusted, one must be trustworthy. Trust includes 4 elements: Credibility (the words we speak). Reliability (how we act). Intimacy (safety or security a person feels when entrusting someone with something). Self-orientation (are you focused on me or on you?) And Green proposes an equation to measure your trust quotient. Check it out.

In June 2012, I participated in a Canadian training tour: 4 trainings in 4 days. The theme: creating the extraordinary donor journey. I spoke about creating extraordinary experiences for donors. And I experienced two extraordinary experiences there myself.

In Calgary, Joan from CKUA (Alberta public radio) said to me – with tears in her eyes: “I got into fundraising because of hearing you.” She’d heard me a few years ago in Calgary. How kind of Joan to tell me this. How moved I am that I could make a difference for someone. What an extraordinary experience she gave to me. I will treasure this memory forever.

In Toronto, Ann gave me an extraordinary experience. During a break in my presenting, she rushed up to me and shared with me what she had just read on Twitter: “The U.S. Supreme Court found Obama’s Affordable Care Act to be constitutional.” She knew I was anticipating a decision declaring ACA unconstitutional. She was thrilled to be the person telling me that I need not be angry or sad. I could be happy, even ecstatic. Her extraordinary experience was telling me the good news. And my extraordinary experience was hearing the good news.

Check out these tweets from the Extraordinary Donor Journey. Thanks to John Lepp, Jen Love, and Ann Rosenfield, CFRE, from Agents of Good. Try sharing some of these with your colleagues. What can you learn? What change can you make?