Donor Power Blog

In a down economy, here's how to make it even worse

If we're facing a recession, it's something you'd better not ignore. We can expect lower results to your fundraising efforts in a down economy. So how do we handle this tough reality? Here are some ideas from an article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Fund-Raising Strategies for Troubled Times (subscription required). In short, here's the advice:

• Avoid fund-raising cuts.
  
• Keep top donors close.
  
• Tell a good story.
  
• Don't ignore people who have stopped giving.
  
• Look for donors in thriving industries.
  
• Collaborate with other groups.
  

All good. Especially the first. Truth is, many nonprofits are going to deal with depressed results by cutting fundraising budgets. Which will lead to even worse results, leading to more cuts .... It's a self-created situation sometimes charmingly called a "death spiral." Here's what happens when you cut fundraising:

• Your revenue drops even further.
  
• You three years (or more) to your own recession: Your drop in new donors acquired means smaller donor classes and lower revenue after the recession ends.
  
• While you're not in the marketplace, others are. They're picking up all the donors and building their brand. The lost opportunity can never be regained.
  

You can't shrink yourself to greatness.

Technorati Tags: philanthropy, recession

Repeat after me: fundraising is a very good thing

If you think fundraising is a dirty job, I want you to go right now and read Everything you know about fundraising is wrong at Inspiring Gifts that Transform.

It makes the important, but often unbelieved, point that fundraising is not some kind of assault on donors. In fact, it's far from that:

... asking for help is one of the best ways you can tell someone they are important to you. If you decide to not ask ... you’ve taken away one of their most valuable rights: their right to choose. The truth is, people only rise to the level of expectations we place them. To succeed as a fundraiser you don't need to change donors, only your belief in them.

The inspired fundraiser provides donors an opportunity to put their values into action, to become the hero of their own life story, and to make their dreams for a better world come true.

I'll just say "amen" to that.

If you don't see fundraising that way, you're missing something that will increase your joy in your job -- and your effectiveness.

Technorati Tags: philanthropy, donors

Shocking news: Super Bowl ads are not effective

I thought I could get through 2008 without mentioning those annoying Super Bowl ads. Sorry. Something came up.

A post at Adrants, Poorly Received Super Bowls Ads Draw More Online Traffic, notes some extremely bad news for the ad agencies:

It seems the Super Bowl ads people claimed to have disliked more than others or that performed poorly in most ad popularity studies turned out to perform quite well in terms of acquiring website visits.

Yes, it's amazing but true: Those super-exciting Super Bowl ads are ineffective! In fact, the more thrilling they are less useful.

Here's why this is meaningful to us fundraisers: When it comes to marketing, being effective at motivating people to do things is not the same as being well-liked. In fact, the two things are nearly always completely opposed to each other!

As fundraisers, we usually know this. Because, working in measurable direct response media, we can see what works and what doesn't. And many of the things that work aren't going to win popularity contests. They just humbly do their work.

If you have money burning a hole in your pocket and want to spend it doing cool, creative work that doesn't accomplish much, hire a hotshot ad agency. They'll probably treat you to some real good wine; heaven knows they can afford it.

But if you're a fundraiser with limited resources and an important cause to fund, stick with the stuff that works. It's not exciting, but the work it will make possible is more exciting than ten years worth of Super Bowl ads!

(Read the remarkably similar lesson 2007's Super Bowl ads taught us: It's not a popularity contest.)

Technorati Tags: advertising, Super Bowl

Life is good for most donors

So midlife is tough, but it eventually gets better. That's according to a study reported in the Toronto Globe and Mail at Aging really is depressing (until 50). Here's the nub:

...most of us bottom out in our mid-40s, describing ourselves as unhappy or even depressed. But ... we bounce back and describe ourselves as happier in our 50s and 60s.

According to the article, US women reach their low point around age 40, while US men reach it at 50. (People in the UK and Canada, also studied, have slightly different time-tables.)

As you know, people enter their donor years usually some time after age 50. So think of it this way: Many donors are people on an emotional upswing. Their generosity is likely part of a joy-filled, expansive, new lease on life. Maybe because they've learned (and are internalizing) some important truths:

• Life is sweet but transitory. We aren't going to be here forever.
  
• The greatest joy and the deepest meaning come from serving and helping others.
  
• Your money us meaningful only when you give it away.
  

That's the context you're entering, for the most part, as a fundraiser. Does your message ring true with that optimistic mind-set?

Thanks to The Boomer Blog for the tip.

Technorati Tags: aging, fundraising

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants

The Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants for this week is up, at Bryan Miller's Giving in a Digital World. The topic: "Creating and developing online communities through Web 2.0."

Fundraising in a recession

Here's more about dealing with hard economic times: Recession-proof your fundraising in the Global Connections e-newsletter. It advises, in part:

• Have a big-picture strategy and stick to it.
  
• Keep recruiting new donors
  
• Focus on retaining your current donors.
  
• Profile your donor files so you can communicate with them intelligently.
  
• Take good care of your donors. Let them know they're important to you.
  
• Look online. You may find very cost-effective ways to raise funds there.
  

If you're noting a common theme in all the survive-the-recession advice, it's this: Don't go into hibernation. Tough times are tough, but the worst reaction is to stop raising funds.

Technorati Tag: recession

Coming soon: New fundraising podcast

Warm up your iPod, because a great new podcast is moving into the neighborhood.

It's called Fundraising Is Beautiful, and if you like this blog, I think you'll like the podcast too.

I'm producing it with friend and former colleague Steven Screen of ÜberDirect. Steven and I are pretty much extreme fundraising geeks. The way software geeks live in sheer chatterbox awe of the elegance of code, we admire the power, grace, and transcendence of fundraising.

We don't see fundraising as a necessary evil. And it's not an unwanted sidekick of good deeds. Fundraising is itself a great good deed that helps make people kinder, wiser, more centered, and more joyful than they are if they don't give to charity. And that's what fundraising does before one cent goes to the good causes that help change the world.

If you haven't yet discovered the joy of podcasts, this would be a good time to start. They provide an excellent way to put learning and inspiration into those odd moments of the day (when you're on the bus, driving, walking, exercising, etc.) that can become much more valuable to you.

We'll be podcasting once a week (on Wednesdays) starting, well, soon. Some time in March. You'll find it here at the Donor Power Blog and at its own website.

I hope Fundraising Is Beautiful will inspire you to love what you do and succeed at it better than ever.

Email as if you had a relationship

Ever notice how the emails you get from marketers and fundraisers seldom seem to have any connection to each other? It's as if each impact were an isolated incident.

The Excess Voice newsletter has noticed the same thing, and proposes a solution, at Do you create a sense of continuity within your email campaigns?. It's this:

... next time you plan an email marketing campaign, write them as a series of emails, each building on the last. Just the same as if you were writing to your family and friends. You'll still be delivering "impressions", but you'll also be developing a relationship and hopefully, building reader loyalty and attention.

Not a bad idea. Of course, you never want to assume everyone reads and remembers everything you send them, but a sense of human continuity would nice.

Thanks to BeRelevant for the tip.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, nptech, emarketing

The self-fulfilling role of hero

Good post at the Water Words that Work blog, critiquing the marketing materials of Environment America: Who's the Hero Here?

He notes something very important about the images the organization uses. They consist mainly of two types: Environment America staff "striking heroic poses" and landscapes. No ordinary people doing the things the organization wants ordinary people to do. No donors...

Environment America is an activist group. so it should use a lot of pictures of ordinary looking people making a difference by voting, speaking out to their officials, etc ... Making members and potential members feel great about the things they do leads to more members and more activity.

You aren't going to win supporters by pointing out how great you are. You're going to win them by reminding them how great they are -- and how well you can align with them to serve and empower their greatness.

Reminding people of your heroics is hollow and irrelevant at best, arrogant and annoying at worst.

Starting with the images you choose to show and going through to all your messaging, make sure you remember who the real heroes are -- and make sure they know how much you think of them.

Technorati Tag: marketing

Is everybody talking about you yet?

The mysterious Don't Tell The Donor blogger has a column now in The NonProfit Times, the first of which asks an interesting question: Our Donors Are Talking -- What Are We Afraid Of?

How would you feel if you discovered that 500 of your donors had created a group on a social networking Web site like Facebook to publicly discuss their experiences donating to your organization?

"A Fundraiser" thinks you'd freak. I hope you'd throw a party. The point is, sooner or later, this is going to happen. And it won't be on your terms. People will just start talking about you -- and their topics will be the things that matter to them, not what your brand guidelines mandate as the talking points.

So here's what to start doing now:

• Do something worth talking about. Something good, not a scandal.
  
• Serve donors flawlessly. No mistakes. No long delays. Get everything right.
  
• Respect donors. Treat 'em like they're your Mom.
  

Then get out of the way and let them talk. You'll have little to fear and a lot to gain.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, cgm, nptech

Dignity vs. Humanity

Here's my column in this month's FundRaising Success magazine, Dignity vs. Humanity.

Teaser: If you’ve ever met poor and suffering people ... you know they have dignity.... dignity often is their most notable feature: deep wells of self-sufficient personal dignity that simply overshadows their poverty, loss or pain. There’s not a thing in the world you or I or any photographer or journalist can do to diminish that dignity.

YouTube changes the rules of video production

A lot of "net savvy" nonprofits are posting videos at YouTube. Not a bad idea, but you really want to get the video right in the first place.

There's a great post at Endless Plain that looks at two nonprofit YouTube videos: Nonprofit Video Comparison. You really need to see this.

One is polished, pretty, and professional. It clearly plays close to the brand guidelines. It has a smooth-sounding professional narrator, and stunning photography.

The other is rough, goofy, and frankly home-made looking.

Care to guess which one is so dull you almost can't force yourself to sit through it? And which one is engaging, human, and charming? (Want to guess also which one cost more to produce?)

The view counts at YouTube tell the story.

The old days are over. If you want to engage people on the web, it's much more important to be real than to be polished.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, YouTube, nptech

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants

The Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants for this week is up, at Spare Change.

How to motivate giving circles to support you

Maybe you've met a giving circle or two. They are groups of people who pool their donations and decide together where to give. Obviously the donor dynamic is very different from the way it works with individual direct mail. It creates much more sophisticated and demanding donors with a strong investment mentality.

A recent post at About Nonprofit Charitable Orgs is about ways to reach giving circles: Giving Circles Are Looking for Good Nonprofit Brands. If you want to cultivate giving circles, here's what you need to let them know:

• Your philosophy, mission, and core values.
  
• That your organization is continuously learning.
  
• Your track record of success.
  
• That you enable donors to engage in true partnership with your cause.
  
• That you can demonstrate fiscal responsibility and ethical standards.
  

A little different from the simpler-is-better world of direct-response fundraising.

It's probably worthwhile to reach out to giving circles. More about them at Giving Circles Network.

(See also Giving circles: threat or opportunity?.)

Technorati Tags: fundraising, giving circles

How to have Kiva's problem

How many nonprofits have this problem: So much revenue from donors that you're struggling to spend it all.

Of all the problems you might face, this has to be one of the better ones.

Yes, it's happening -- even now, when many nonprofits are struggling. And one organization that has the problem of too much money is Kiva. (Read about it in this New York Times Magazine article: Extra Helping.)

Kiva (reviewed on this blog here), raises funds to lend money to small business owners in developing country. Less than three years old, the organization has grown explosively. According to the Times article, they've gathered more than $19.5 million from more than 220,000 people. Over the past holiday season, they sold around $2 million worth of gift certificates. Now they're scrambling to keep up with the demand.

Sure, Kiva has been pretty lucky, getting incredible buzz and high-visibility endorsements from everyone ranging from Oprah to Bill Clinton. But that kind of "luck" comes from being smart, being worth talking about, and being one of the first.

Want to have the too-much-money problem? See if you can put the Kiva formula to work for your cause:

• Make sure you're offering something donors understand and want to do. This is partly a matter of positioning, but it's also a matter of having a cool reality to start with. (It's worth pointing out that micro-enterprise loans have historically been a tough sell in direct mail.)
  
• Put donors in control. Give them clear and detailed control over where their gifts go. This is where the Web really comes into its own, making a lot of information easy to work with.
  
• Give donors tons of feedback. Make donations only the beginning of a rewarding back-and-forth conversation.
  
• Make sure you have a strong social aspect to giving. Kiva makes it easy for people to talk about and share what they're doing.
  

Much, much easier said than done. But if you'd like to be the organization that has too much revenue while others struggle -- it's a place to start.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, Kiva

How to get more revenue by mailing less

One of the best ways a consultant can get a nonprofit's attention is to make this claim: We can reduce your mailings and increase your revenue!

It's a good introduction to a sales pitch, because a lot of organizations believe they're mailing too much. And they need more revenue. Hey -- two problems with one solution!

Trouble is, the less-mail, more-revenue claim is about 80% snake-oil.

Overwhelmingly, in nearly every possible case, the more you mail, the more revenue you'll get. There are upper limits to this, of course, but you'd be amazed how high those limits are. I could tell you stories ...

The snake-oil consultants would have you believe that every time you send a donor a piece of mail, you annoy them a little bit. Each piece damages the relationship a little bit more. So eventually, the bad will accumulates, you send one too many pieces, and the donor walks!

It's possible this scenario sometimes plays out with some donors. But a look at the numbers says it's not even close to the norm.

(For more on the asking-donors-hurts-them school of thought, see *WHACK!* Take that, donor!)

For most direct-mail donors, receiving direct mail is not a negative experience. While we don't like sending pieces that don't get responses, in many cases those pieces are part of the relationship and necessary to motivate giving.

(Disclaimer: Our nonprofit clients at Merkle -- in fact, nearly all of the hundreds of nonprofits I've worked with in my career -- are responsible, thoughtful organizations with meaningful missions and something to say to donors. So I have little experience with sending out irrelevant junk. There are many nonprofits that are seriously relevance-challenged, sending out truly junky junkmail. In their cases, it may well be that less is more.)

I know of two ways to raise more revenue by mailing less.

1. Allow donors to limit their mail

If you give donors some choices about the ways you'll communicate with them -- what media they prefer, topics, and frequency -- a kind of magic happens: The relationship improves, and you get more revenue. Only a small percentage of donors choose to limit communication, but those donors subsequently give more. Amazingly, all groups give more when offered choice, including those who made no choice at all.

2. Target donors your communications

Or to put it the other way, communicate less with those less likely to respond. They can include:

• Low-dollar donors
  
• Lapsed donors
  
• Single-interest donors (those who never respond to offers other than one type)
  

You can add many more criteria by introducing sophisticated statistical models that mine the data for relevant information and help you target. This is an important wave of the future for all direct-response fundraisers.

Warning: When it comes to targeting, don't do it without professional helpp! If you base selection/exclusion on hunches, you will get it wrong. Do it right, and you can save money up front in meaningfully improve net revenue.

But the simple mail-more, get-less method: It doesn't work. Don't believe them when they tell you they can do it.

Technorati Tags: philanthropy, direct response

Writers: experience vs. online savvy

In his Reflections about Direct Marketing blog, Ted Grigg (a former colleague) asks a tough, interesting question: Say you're hiring a copywriter who will be writing direct-response material in a variety of media. Do you take the long-time veteran with years of experience in traditional media, but little in online -- or do you take the whiz-kid with a few years of pure online experience?

(See Online Taking over Direct Mail.)

I know what I'd choose. But Ted knows what's happening all too often when that kind of decision comes up:

... most companies silo online away from the marketing department, so here is little opportunity to gain online experience for many traditional marketers. And the medium's true marketing potential has been around for maybe what, 5 years or so?

So they go with the less experienced writer who's more comfortable online.

Big mistake.

Go for experience. If someone knows how to motivate people to give through direct mail, they know 80% of what they need to know to successfully raise funds online. And that's the tougher, more hard-earned 80%. Online as a medium is very different from direct mail, print, or broadcast. But the difference is a mass of details, not a fundamental one.

Humans are humans, whether they're opening an envelope or surfing the web.

If you choose the web wizard who knows all the latest stuff but is inexperienced at making an offer sing, you're forgoing revenue. Pick experience. Then train them on the details of the new medium.

Technorati Tags: nptech, direct marketing

Online ethics: maybe it's not an oxymoron

The Web is a different place. It's possible to be seriously unethical online in ways that don't even exist in the real world. Remember what happened to GiveWell? (See What happens when you get caught with your ethics down) You'd have trouble explaining what went wrong there to most donors -- because it's literally impossible out here in meatspace. But it was grossly wrong nevertheless.

That's why it's good to see a nonprofit online Code of Ethics posted at ePhilanthropy. I hope you'll read it and make it part of your online operations.

There's even a handy Ethics Self Test to see how you're doing.

Ignorance is a lousy excuse for bad behavior, even when it's true. Your donors deserve no less than the best ethics.

Thanks to Getting Attention for the tip.

Technorati Tags: npethics, fundraising, nptech

Make fundraising paint a beautiful picture

A post at the Neuromarketing Blog, A New Role For Marketing, makes the point that marketing is not just about pushing people to buy stuff; it's also about helping people like the stuff they buy -- that, in fact, what people expect to get has a huge impact on their experience once they buy.

That means marketing has a high responsibility:

... be sure your marketing is geared not only to getting customers to buy your product, but to improving their experience once they try it. That means setting high but realistic expectations for the product’s quality, taste, performance, or whatever measures apply to it. .... If you succeed, you’ll have happier customers and, of course, higher sales.

The same could be true for fundraising.

Flat, dull, transactional fundraising leads to low donor expectations. Donors don't think giving is going to be a great experience, so they don't have a great experience. For a lot of donors, that's okay. They aren't seeking experience when they give. They give because they know they have a duty to give.

But what about donors who want more out of their giving? What about people who have a need to shape to their world, and to know that their giving makes a profound difference?

Those are the donors we should work to inspire. And that means describing our causes in their terms, not ours. It means that the measurements nonprofits use to judge the quality programs are very likely not the things that will excite donors.

I'll bet the fact that expensive wine tastes better (studies show) breaks vintners' hearts; of course price is a bogus indicator of real quality. But it's one that even the most novice wine drinkers understand, so it works to shape their experience.

Are you willing to humble yourself to your donors' perceptions -- so you can help them have a better experience of your work? That's what it's going to take to reach these strange new donors who want their money's worth when they give.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, neurology

How people see web pages

Eye-tracking studies are just cool. (Read about them here on Wikipedia if you want to know how they work.) They take some of the subjectivity out of design and tell us what people actually pay attention to.

So here's a great post from the Virtual Hosting Blog: Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies.

Here's a sample of what you'll learn there. In some ways, web design is very much like print design:

• Text attracts attention before graphics.
  
• Initial eye movement focuses on the upper left corner of the page.
  
• Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones.
  
• Bigger images get more attention.
  
• Clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixation.
  
• Headings draw the eye.
  
• Large blocks of text are avoided.
  
• White space is good.
  

And sometimes it's not much like print:

• Readers ignore banners.
  
• Fancy formatting and fonts are ignored.
  
• People generally scan lower portions of the page.
  
• Text ads were viewed mostly intently of all types tested.
  
• Users spend a lot of time looking at buttons and menus.
  

All around a very useful and interesting list. If you have anything to do with web design, check it out.

Thanks to Nonprofit Online News for the tip.

Technorati Tags: nptech, fundraising, web design

Hard times ahead for fundraisers?

The various crystal balls are predicting less than the best fundraising in the coming year. Fundraising outlook for '08 mediocre in DM News is a good example:

This could be shaping up to be a difficult year for some nonprofit organizations' fundraising efforts because of ... the tough economy, the foreclosure crisis and the upcoming Presidential election.

The sky is not falling. (Unless you're with the Red Cross.)

Yes, giving usually drops during economic hard times. But not dramatically for most charities. The national election has some impact too, but it's mostly limited to the immediate weeks before the election.

Chances are, most of us will see lower response rates in the coming months, and face additional tough sailing in the fall.

But don't freak out.

The best thing to do is keep your fundraising efforts going. The losses you'll experience by not trying will be far worse than a recession/election can inflict.

Your best strategy is being smart. Good segmentation will limit losses. More relevant fundraising offers will bolster weak response. Consistent efforts in donor acquisition will keep your file strong.

But then, these are all things you should in good times as well as hard times.

Technorati Tags: philanthropy, recession