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

Comments

[Garland Walton]

I work for CT human services nonprofit (www.domuskids.org) and really value what I learn from this blog. I recently found an article describing a for-profit innovation called services blueprinting which I think can easily be translated to work for us to help evaluate donor experiences. The Wharton School article can be found here: http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1546. Anyone use this or a similar process? Thanks.