Donor Power Blog

Fundraising is for the heart, not just the head

Everyone wants their charitable giving to have an impact, which is why some donors are so interested in things like administrative costs and other measures of efficiency.

In a recent Financial Times article, Perla Ni advises donors: Use your heart and head when giving ...

What gets lost in all of this focus on evaluation and numbers is the grace and joy of philanthropy. Philanthropy inspires. It tells stories. It reconnects us with others and reminds us of our shared humanity.

This is an important principle for fundraisers to remember: People don't give to you because of your great numbers (though they might choose not to give if you have lousy numbers). People give because what you do touches their heart.

Now, advising donors to follow their hearts when they give is a little bit like advising fish to use their gills when they breath. But it's important for us to remember the source of people's generosity.

Inspire your donors. Aim for the heart. It's what they want.

Thanks to Tactical Philanthropy for the tip.

Technorati Tag: fundraising

How not to have a boring blog

What do most nonprofits blog about when they have blogs? Well, they talk about their cool programs. If that's you, take a look at this post on calacanis.com: Note to self: stop promoting, start thinking again (or "Scoble's Law")...

...people are really engaging me in discussions about what I'm writing, traffic is spiking, and so are inbound links.... Based on this I'm formulating the "Scoble's Law" which is currently stated as: The less you talk about yourself, the more folks will talk about you.

(For the non-geeks among us, Robert Scoble writes Scobleizer, a mind-bendingly popular blog on tech issues.)

That's advice many nonprofits could use -- and not just for blogging. Stop talking about yourself. It's boring. Talk about the world your donors live in. That's interesting. That's how you inspire donors to support you.

Thanks to JournaMarketing for the tip.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, blogs

What we can learn from panhandler signs

Panhandling: A profession that's closely related to fundraising. Let's take a walk around downtown Seattle and look at some of the hand-lettered signs people make to aid in their personal street fundraising. We can learn a thing or two from them.

Homeless vet
God bless

This one is polite, earnest, and emotional, with a good, if vague, offer. It's the equivalent to the standard appeal letter. The trouble, as with the standard appeal letter, is the lack of differentiation. If you want to succeed, you need to differentiate yourself:

• Go where the donors are, or go where nobody else is panhandling. (The latter works only if the reason nobody else is there isn't that there are no donors there.)
  
• Add specificity to your appeal. Something like "3 hungry kids at home" to make your offer stronger.
  
• Improve your creative: Play an instrument, sing, dress in your uniform.
  

Need money for drugs

This one is a good example of niche marketing. Even though most passersby disapprove of the offer, it appeals to a certain segment of the audience. If you can find some kind of nonconformist niche (plentiful in Seattle), this approach can work.

Ninjas killed my father
Need $ for karate lessons

I don't know whether this guy believes it's true, or he's trying to be funny. At least he has specificity. And it's different from all the others. It's just a little short on credibility.

Will do 20 push ups $5

Okay, push-ups are a good thing, and being able to drop and do 20 is a sign of being in good shape. But really, why should a passerby care? The entertainment value of a guy doing push-ups is limited. You're glad he's got upper-body strength, but it really doesn't take you anywhere.

Many nonprofits unknowingly use this approach, basically pledging to their donors that they'll flex their muscles and show of their strength, with little or no reference to donors' needs or aspirations. Listen: Everyone's happy for you that you're efficient, effective, have a long history, have influence in Washington, or whatever else you can brag. But none of those things are reasons for people to give.

Push-ups Guy (and a lot of nonprofits) needs to figure out a way to use his fine physical condition to something donors want done.

No Canadian coins

I can sympathize with this guy: Canadian coins are kind of a pain. And some folks no doubt unload their unwanted Canadian coins on panhandlers. But a pre-emptive strike against donor misbehavior? He seems to have forgotten that the donor-recipient transaction takes place completely under the donor's control.

This anti-donor approach is often practiced these days by organizations that should know better. Annoyed data-entry folks have built long lists of giving requirements that will make things easier at caging -- and sometimes these find their way into communications with donors. Wrong message, wrong time.

See also Donor power hits the panhandling sector and Private language in public places.

Technorati Tags: panhandlers, philanthropy

Should you let donors vote for board members?

Interesting discussion over at Tactical Philanthropy: Donors and Proxy Voting.

The question is whether it might not make sense to give donors the chance to vote for board members, much as stockholders do for corporations:

"... if donors were given voting rights, that they would be more engaged and likely to give more money over time."

I think it's a dynamite idea, even though the choice of board members is not likely to be very exciting to most donors. Really, on what basis would the average donor choose one board member over another?

Even so, I've never yet seen giving donors power of any kind not work. My guess is very few donors would exercise their proxy vote. But that they'd appreciate the chance, and that would lead to more giving, higher gift amounts, and better retention. That's what happens pretty much every time you show donors that you respect them.

Commentary at Tactical Philanthropy seems to be running against the idea, because of the assumption that given the chance, donors are going to do something stupid. Like elect a moron to the board. Or force the nonprofit to betray its own mission.

Worst-case scenario thinking always takes you to such bogus places.

If I ran a nonprofit, I'd look for every way possible to involve donors. I'd want more than their money. I'd want their ideas, their hearts, their thinking.

If you're afraid your donors are going to screw you, you're in trouble. While you're protecting yourself from your donors' predations, they'll be flocking to the smart organizations that respect them.

Technorati Tag: fundraising

Fundraising is not only about asking

The Step by Step Fundraising gives us 10 Reasons to Contact Donors Other Than to Ask for Money. Here they are (explanations of each at the post):

1. Birthday Wishes
   
2. Regular Updates on Your Organizational News
   
3. Advice on an Internal Matter
   
4. Update on a Previous Contribution the Donor Made
   
5. Interesting News Item to Pass Along
   
6. Personal Story of How a Person in Your Organization
   
7. Invitation to Go to Lunch/Meet for Coffee
   
8. Bounce a Creative Idea Off of Them
   
9. Share Marketing or Enrollment Material with Them
   
10. To Inform Them if There's Been Some Sort of Problem Within Your Organization
    

I'll take your ten reasons, and add even more, starting with a donor-centered newsletter. (See Why your newsletter matters.)

If your donors only hear from you when you're asking, you're building a one-dimensional relationship. That's a tenuous relationship that's prone to donor lapsing. Anything you can do to broaden the scope of your relationship with donors will result in happier, more connect donors -- and more revenue (at a better ROI) for your cause.

Technorati Tag: donors

In praise of junk mail

It's not my practice to argue with my fellow nonprofit bloggers. But I'm going to argue today, with Hildy Gottlieb of Creating the Future for her recent post, Direct Mail Fundraising is Junk Mail.

Hildy's post is an extended rant about "charity junk mail." The reason I take issue is that she expresses a common view in the nonprofit sector: That there's something deeply wrong with direct-mail fundraising. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. But the widespread anti-fundraising belief is self-destructive; it is a millstone around the necks of many nonprofits, and it undermines fundraising effectiveness more than anything but raw incompetence.

To summarize Hildy's argument (forgive me if I've mischaracterized):

• I hate direct mail.
  
• Direct mail fundraising is no different than ValPak (i.e., it's all about money)
  
• It's not working.
  
• If it were working, we wouldn't have to worry so much about the tactics of fundraising.
  

First, I beg to differ with the assertion that direct-mail fundraising "doesn't work." It's raising billions of dollars every year for the world's good causes. It is the engine that drives the explosive growth of nonprofits in the US and beyond.

True, it doesn't work as well as it could or maybe should. And it's fair to say that many -- most, really -- fundraisers are practicing a low-relevance model that really does make a lot of their mail pretty junky.

But let's get real: That low-involvement $25 check may be the best some donors can do. Many of our donors have fixed incomes, health issues, and big hearts. Responding to junk mail with smallish checks may be their main connection to the transformative power of charitable giving. And in many cases, their involvement doesn't stop with the check, even though it's the only action visible to us: They may tell others about the charities they support. They may say a prayer along with their gift.

In my book, that's pretty darn cool for direct mail that costs a few cents a piece. It borders on miraculous.

Painting all direct-mail fundraising as a big failure means you aren't paying attention to what's going on out there.

And when it comes to "techniques," think of it this way: I hope the hydrologist at work in the middle of Africa digging wells to help transform communities is well-versed in the tactics and techniques of well-digging. Just as important, I hope the fundraiser who makes the hydrologist's work possible is equally adept. More knowledge and competence in both of them will mean more changed lives.

There's nothing shameful about mastering the techniques of your profession. And it's no different when your profession is Good Deeds.

Finally, building your opinion about direct mail on how you feel about direct mail is a dangerously flawed way to arrive at a judgment. Your own emotions are almost never a good indicator of how others feel. (For more on this, see The pathetic fallacy in fundraising.)

All that to say: If you don't like fundraising, you probably don't belong in the nonprofit world. If you don't like fundraising the way it's done, put your energy into wisely changing it.

But please, please, please don't be part of the negative chorus that says Fundraising Sucks, Direct Mail is Harmful, Response Techniques are Dishonorable.

That harms everyone: The causes we work to support, the world we're trying to change, and the donors who make it all possible.

Thanks to The Extreme Fundraising Blog for the tip.

Technorati Tag: direct mail

How to trick your donors into giving

Does getting donors to your website under false pretenses work?

I don't know, but I kind of doubt it. Here's a fake hearing test from the Red Cross of Norway that relies on subterfuge to generate sympathy.

The inner dialog of someone who's looking for an online hearing test seems dramatically different from that of someone who might donate to help children. Can you turn from one to the other without getting emotional whiplash?

Thanks to Adrants for the tip.

Reminder: Boomers are still aging

Now the first Boomers are turning 62. That means they can retire on Social Security benefits if those benefits are enough to sustain them. See As baby boomers begin turning 'magic' age of 62, there's urge to retire in The Mercury News.

It's just one more step for this huge and idiosyncratic generation's march into the life of being elderly -- and that includes more giving to charity.

Are you ready?

(One place you can get ready for them: I'll be joining Kivi Leroux Miller for a webinar called What Do Baby Boomer Donors Want from Your Nonprofit? On Thursday, May 1, 3-4 p.m. (Eastern). Details here.)

Thanks to The Boomer Blog for the tip.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, boomers

Successful fundraising: apply directly to the head

There are certain advantages to not owning a television. One of those advantages is that, until now, I've never seen this ad:

Dang, that's annoying! But, as the Direct Creative Blog points out at Why pissing people off can be good advertising, it's an incredibly effective ad. One a marketer can love:

... I love these ads. Well, I don't love them exactly. I think they're annoying, too. But I wish I'd written them. Why? Because they're pure genius. They do exactly what they're supposed to do — burn a brand into your brain so when you're at the store you'll recognize it and buy it. Can you think of any headache medicine with a commercial this memorable? I sure can't.

What the creators of the Head On ads know is this: smart use of your marketing dollars is not about being liked or admired. It's about getting a compelling message across. And more often than not, getting the message across is less than lovable.

Now I'm pretty sure at least one person reading this is solemnly vowing I will never produce marketing that's remotely like a Head On commercial. Fair enough, but why not?

Sure, it annoys the heck out of you, but maybe it gets people to buy Head On. And maybe Head On works. If that's the case, then a lot of people are having fewer headaches. And that's a very good thing. Even if the ad is annoying. So what's worse: Producing an annoying ad, or more people having headaches?

I'm not saying that being over-the-top annoying is the only way to motivate people. But effective messages tend more toward annoying than tasteful.

If you're the one who is vowing never to do annoying marketing, you've essentially chosen to elevate your own feelings over the success of your organization. Think about it.

Technorati Tags: advertising, Head On

Trend: breakthrough products that everyone wants

An interesting article in the current Trendwatching.com on the "Expectation Economy which is described as:

... well-informed consumers ... who have a long list of high expectations that they apply to each and every good, service and experience on offer. [They] expect not just basic standards of quality, but the 'best of the best.'

It's cool companies, often doing things nobody's thought up yet, and doing a very good job at it. (Here's one I discovered through this paper: DailyLit, a site that sells books in a spiffy new way.)

As far as I know, no nonprofits have entered the rarified level of expectation organizations, though a few are close. Those that grab that territory first are going to take off.

Here's how I think you can get there if you're willing:

1. Do something nobody else does -- but be sure it's something donors actually care to be involved in. Sure, you could be the first to initiate a kumquat exchange between inner-city American kids and untouchable farmworkers in rural Bangladesh -- is that something donors want to do?
   
2. Or, if you're doing something that's like what others do, do it with a twist -- either be far more effective than anyone else, or put donors in control in a cool way.
   
3. Either way, build your program about things donors understand, love, and care about.
   
4. And great design helps. A lot.
   

Trendwatching.com advises this way to find your greatness:

Find competitors and non-competitors, big and small, who are setting consumer expectations much higher than you've ever been able to. They're more fun. They have better design. Their stuff tastes, looks, feels better. Their customer service actually responds to emails. They're cheaper. Then compile what you think are now the global standards for whatever it is you do, and from there start thinking about new goods, services and experiences that at least incorporate those standards, and preferably outdo them.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, trends

Note to CEOs: put away the red pen

In his excellent newsletter for fundraisers, Tom Ahern of Ahern Communications takes on the all-too-common practice of nonprofit directors re-doing the work of professional writers: What to tell a second-guessing boss about good communication. In an article he encourages people to show to rewrite-hungry bosses, Ahern points out why nonprofit EDs are especially unsuited to write good fundraising copy -- even those who write very well:

... being executive director does NOT make you a capable writer. Occupying the top box in an org chart grants you no special verbal powers. On the contrary: Being executive director mounts you on a pedestal where you can SAFELY mouth ONLY lofty-leaning vagaries which take all sensitivities into account. Job #1: Offend no one. That is not the job of a writer. In fact, it's exactly what effective writers DON'T do.

Here's the important point: Any given nonprofit CEO may be a great communicator, even a brilliant writer -- but the mode of communication he or she must practice nearly guarantees bad fundraising.

If you want good fundraising, get a good fundraising writer. Make sure they're trained and experience. Hold them to excellence. Make them accountable for results. Then let them do their job.

You'll be glad you did.

(For a related discussion, see How nonprofit CEOs kill fundraising.)

Technorati Tags: copywriting, marketing

Bifocals and the challenge of readable design

I just went through a difficult rite of passage: I got bifocals. Seems I'm coming down with presbyopia, which, I must say, is such a darn cool word, it lessens the sting of having the condition.

Presbyopia is inevitable once you reach a "certain age." And the older you are, the more severe it gets. Above age 60, virtually everyone has (or should have) bifocals. So take note: Your donors wear bifocals.

Aside from the odd sensation that I'm walking around on balloons (and that's fading), wearing bifocals isn't all that bad.

But reading is a challenge. You push the glasses up and down your nose, looking for just the right distance. You tilt your head up and down and side to side, seeking the spot where the clarity is just right. You angle the paper to try and catch as much light as possible. If the type is tiny, set against a color, reversed out, sans-serif, or a weird font, well, reading goes from a challenge to a struggle.

You quickly decide that life's too short (as the bifocals remind you) to spend a lot of time trying to read something that may or may not be of any value or interest.

So please: Be nice to your presbyopic donors (and me). It doesn't matter how great a piece looks: If it's hard to read, it's downright cruel. And only patience, determination, and pure charity will keep anybody with you when you're being mean to them. We don't have to read your stuff! (Well, actually, I do have to read it; it's my job.)

It's hard for someone to do a good deed when they're feeling annoyed. Design so that doesn't become part of the equation.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, design, bifocals

Compassion harnesses the power of blogs

A brilliant move by Compassion, the child-sponsorship organization: They made February "Compassion Blog Month." (I'm sorry I didn't find out about it until it's over!)

Here's what Compassion did: They sent 15 Christian bloggers to Uganda, where they blogged live -- and, no doubt, they'll keep talking about for a good long while.

It's not cheap to send 15 people from North America to Africa. And those bloggers, being bloggers, might not toe the Compassion line. (Did I say "might not"? How about "will not"?)

Looked at with old economy eyes, Compassion is taking a huge risk, letting go of its marketing to 15 different near-strangers who might do anything. Looked at with modern eyes, Compassion is smart: willing to give up control in favor of being talked about by real people.

Child sponsorship organizations know exactly how much it should cost to acquire a sponsor. So you know they're going to be tracking this effort closely. If they do it again next year, that's a sign it worked.

They also offered free stuff to other bloggers who talked about their "Compassion experience." They even launched a blog of their own. All around, it's a pioneering effort for a nonprofit, and I wish them luck.

Thanks to Church Marketing Sucks for the tip.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, blogging, nptech

What donors want: You might not like it

Why do people go to the opera? The Mission Paradox Blog looks into the question at What if it ain't what you think it is?

Apparently some research into the reasons people attend the opera showed that opera company staff believed people go because of the reputation of the opera, the singers, and the composer. In reality, the audience said they go to the opera for two reasons:

1. Because it is date night and they want to do something romantic.
   
2. Because they want to appear classy and cultured.
   

That must just drive opera professionals nuts! Those reasons are cheesy, ignorant, low-brow, and, well, just wrong.

We're all entitled to our own opinions about other people's motivations. But if we actually want to be persuasive, we'd better speak to those motivations, like them or not.

Nearly all arts marketing is built around the beliefs and felt needs of professionals and insiders, not the public. So you have to wonder: How many people have never been to the opera and will never go because the marketing focuses on things they don't care about? Is it any wonder the "high arts" struggle to survive?

Same holds true for many other nonprofits. The experts know what's important. The simple-minded beliefs of non-experts are beneath them. So they produce marketing and fundraising that aims at their own understanding, perhaps in hopes that this will spur benighted would-be donors to "evolve." Or maybe they're hoping to keep out the riff-raff. They're all but saying, "If you're going to be ignorant, we don't want your money."

Organizations with that mindset have chosen to limit their fundraising effectiveness and their revenue growth. They'd rather feel good about their messaging than be successful. Their elitism and arrogance are a ball and chain.

Why not reach people where they are -- not where they "should" be? I can almost guarantee that many of the people who go to the opera for low-brow reasons grow in their understanding and sophistication as they experience opera. They may never reach the exalted level of the professionals, but they'll make a lot more progress than they would if they never entered an opera house in the first place.

Technorati Tags: marketing, opera

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants

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

How Much Asking is Too Much?

Here's my column in this month's FundRaising Success magazine, How Much Asking is Too Much?.

Teaser: If you’re avoiding asking donors who recently gave, you’re actually missing the time when they’re most likely to give. You’re waiting until their passion cools before asking them again. Worse even than that: While you’re maintaining your careful silence, someone else is talking to them.

How to be a strong nonprofit brand

At the Harvard Business discussion site, business consultant Umair Haque takes a look at The Shrinking Advantage of Brands and notes that the most powerful brand in the world is not a big spender like Coca-Cola or IBM, but Google, a company that essentially spends nothing on advertising.

The reason: with the web as the medium, people can talk about a brand on their own, and their talk is more pervasive and persuasive than billions of dollars worth of great ads:

... when interaction is cheap, the very economic rationale for orthodox brands actually begins to implode: information about expected costs and benefits doesn't have to be compressed into logos, slogans, ad-spots or column-inches -- instead, consumers can debate and discuss expected costs and benefits in incredibly rich detail.

Really, who are you more likely to believe -- real people like yourself who will tell you what they know without spin, or paid marketing creatives forced to follow brand guidelines that may have little to do with reality?

Used to be companies could shape the way people think about them if they bought enough advertising; what they said about their brand was pretty much what people believed it to be.

Not any more. If you want to have a powerful brand, you need to do something very cool, very useful, and very worth talking about. A branding consultant or ad agency can't get you there!

If you aren't satisfied with the status of your brand, you need to look at the heart of your organization. Are you doing something that really breaks through the clutter and allows donors to do something great?

Technorati Tags: advertising, fundraising

Advertising can't buy me love

The things people think they can buy. Ron Shevlin's Marketing Whims, at You Cannot Advertise Your Way To Greatness, tells the crack-up story of a chief marketing officer who grandly announced that he wanted the next advertising campaign to make is company an iconic brand that people love.

Say what? As Ron points out, you can't just decide to be an "iconic brand." Only your customers can make you that:

Nobody cares who you are. To become an iconic brand that people love, it takes a lot more than a new ad campaign. You cannot advertise your way to greatness.

It's a common delusion in brand advertising: That you can -- through superior creativity, some elbow grease, and a lot of media spending -- become loved and admired.

Maybe it used to be possible. Back when there weren't very many brands, there was no easy way to find out what other people beyond your immediate social circle were experiencing, and the average person had a pretty weak BS-filter. Now, people see right through your claims, and can find out the real truth in a few minutes online.

The only way to get people to love you is to be consistently lovable, and to do something worth talking about. And the only way to be "iconic" is to stay that way for a long time. Advertising hardly helps at all. And when it reeks of BS, it only makes things worse.

So take that creativity and money you might have spent on advertising, and use it to actually become great. Then you won't need advertising.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, advertising

Conquer the power of negative thinking

If your organization is a place of idea genocide, here's a post at John's Blog (for entrepreneurs) you should read: 8+ Ways To Train Yourself To Be Creative. There are a bunch of good ideas there, but here's one that can really set you free:

Whenever you want to do something but your mind tells you that you can't, write that thought down and then next to it write down 2 or 3 reasons why you can. Do this quickly and often. Soon you will notice that you have trained your mind to automatically react with a positive thought whenever you think of a negative one.

Do this right now! Make it a habit. Get everyone you work with to do it too.

So many nonprofits are hobbled by negative thinking. One new idea after another is shot down before it's even fully formed because someone, anyone, can conceive of a downside.

Building a mental habit of looking for the good in ideas is the only way you're going to get them.

Great ideas are risky.

Great ideas are unfamiliar.

Great ideas are hard to find.

Great ideas are necessary to your survival.

Take it seriously.

Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, brainstorming, ideas

Do donors want to provide nonprofit operating costs?

If you don't follow the comments here at the Donor Power Blog, you might want to, because we get some good ones. Commenting on my recent post on Kiva's too-much-money problem, my former colleague Jeff Schreifels challenges my assertion that Kiva has too much money because their marketing is so good.

Jeff says, rather, that the problem is Kiva has failed to raise enough operating funds to keep the organization running optimally. That is, if they would spend a little more of what they raise on administering their programs, they'd be able to keep up with the funds they're raising:

We have been so brainwashed by organizations like GuideStar and Charity Navigator who tell us effective organizations are those that have ... low fundraising to cost ratios. But is that really the true measure? I believe the true measure is in the effectiveness of the project or work of the non-profit. I believe people understand that their gifts have to also go to overhead to MAKE their gifts work.

It's true that GuideStar and Charity Navigator, the most popular charity evaluation sites, emphasize efficiency, sometimes at the expense of ignoring effectiveness. Are they "brainwashing" donors, or simply following donors demands?

The questions this raises for Kiva (and all nonprofits, really) are these:

• Would Kiva accomplish more good in the world if they spent more on administration?
  
• Would donors rather see Kiva accomplish more, or would they rather maximize the efficiency of their giving?
  

My guess: Given the choice, Kiva's donors would gladly fund more administration costs if they knew that would lead to more good work happening.

One organization that handles this well is DonorsChoose. They add an optional "fulfillment fee" of 15-25% to donors' gifts, which donors can pay or not. As their How It Works page says:

Donors' inclusion of the fulfillment fee is essential to the existence and success of DonorsChoose.org. Thankfully, 90% of our contributors choose to include it, and income thus earned allows us to continue our work.

The magic that Kiva is missing out on here is giving donors the power. You just might be amazed at how open-minded, helpful, and flexible donors will be when you put the reins in their hands.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, Kiva

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants: In like a Lion

In honor of the wonderful fact that for those of us in northerly temperate zones, spring is soon, this week's Carnival entries have (at least in a metaphysical sense) the concept of "in like a lion...."

• Make It Count advocates for lion-like courage among nonprofits in Bad tasting but it works.
  
• Marketing and Fundraising Ideas is about the King of Fundraising Ideas in The Best Fundraising Idea.
  
• Cause-Related Marketing looks at the roaring power of giving things away in 'Free' and Cause-Related Marketing.
  
• And I talked about how for donor-aged folks, life tends to transition from pretty rough to pretty sweet in Life is good for most donors.
  

The Carnival moves next week to Solidariti (where, I bet "in like a lion, out like a lamb" makes no sense at all).