Are your donors an "uncontacted tribe"?

Do you see your donors as a kind of "uncontacted tribe"? If you do, you're not alone.

Their lives are utterly strange to us. Their habits and culture are utterly mysterious. We can only vaguely guess how they think.

They're a strange combination of dangerous and fragile ...

When they see us spying into their world, they gesture threateningly and futilely try to shoot us down. If we went among them, they'd doubtless kill us. On the other hand, we're afraid we could destroy them if we accidentally introduce a disease or cultural artifact that they can't handle.

So we keep our distance. We study them as well as we can without endangering ourselves or them. We make our best guesses based on blurry photos and lame focus groups.

If you want better fundraising results, you can't think of donors this way.

The successful fundraiser doesn't buzz the donors' village in a helicopter. He lives in the village. Donors are his friends, his cousins, his elders, his mentors.

While he may study them, they're not just an academic subject to him. They're his source of wisdom, inspiration, and truth.

A real fundraiser is also a donor. Not a geek in a helicopter.

Technorati Tags: creativity, donors

Comments

[Patrick Sallee]

Great post! I think many times, nonprofit staff, not just fundraisers, approach donors with the idea that they live in a different world and can't relate. You are exactly right!

[Katie]

Haha! I love this analogy! It can be so true. One of the ways we combat this 'uncontacted tribe' syndrome is by stamping 'draft' on our presentation tools that we take on visits with our investors/donors. We ask for input and contribution, and this collaboration helps bridge the 'culture gap' between 'us' and 'them'.(to continue the metaphor). Our president just recently wrote a post about using 'drafts'. http://www.forimpact.org/2008/07/make_everything_a_draft.php