Do donors want to do anything specific?

Want to know one problem with fundraising? Quick spin through today's mail here at the Donor Power Fortress of Charity will show you. Here are the calls to action from several pieces of direct-mail fundraising. All are from legitimate, reputable nonprofits. Note the common theme:

Yes, I want to help [ORGANIZATION] bring medical humanitarian relief around the world. I am making a tax-deductible gift of:

Yes, I care about the world's children! To help continue lifesaving programs supported by [ORGANIZATION], I have enclosed a tax-deductible, year-end gift of:

Yes, I want to support excellence and quality at [UNIVERSITY] with a gift of:

YES! I want to help fund medical breakthroughs and fight [DISEASE]. Enclosed is my check for:

Yes! I care about kids in [LOCAL AREA] and want them to enjoy their school days. Enclosed is my gift of:

The common theme is nothing. That's what these organizations are asking people to do. They're asking donors to shell out their hard-earned money on nothing specific.

Suppose you got a piece of direct mail from a book seller, and on the reply coupon it said:

Yes! Send me a very special book!

Why is non-specific fundraising so common?

Maybe because nonprofits need to raise unrestricted funds from general donors -- their larger institutional donors grab all the specific goodies.

Maybe because they're afraid they can't share that much power with donors -- donors might not fund the "right" stuff.

It's entirely possible that in direct-response testing, a less-specific statement performed better. That happens sometimes. In that case, they should periodically re-test the idea -- and make sure the specific and restricted call to action is no less emotional than the general one.

Donors are going to be less and less interested in the nonspecific offer. Now is the time to learn how to give them what they want.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, offers, direct response

Comments

[Kimberley MacKenzie]

Great conversation!

Actually Ted, I think the bottom line is accountability. I think that donors need to know the impact of their gift. What kind of change did they help make happen?

K
PS Jeff if you are watching the stats on the blog and you see "Barrie, Canada" popping up its just because I'm loving this dialogue! Should probably subscribe to a feed shouldn' t I????

[Ted Grigg]

I don’t think the term donor “control“ properly expresses what donors need when they give.

Donors -- especially small donors -- don’t want their few hard earned dollars sucked up by huge administrative and overhead cost structures associated with the larger nonprofits.

They also want to know how their gift will actually do something they believe in.

So the bottom line is one of trust.

Will the organization squander my gift like the federal government, or will it spend almost every cent to help that animal or that person who needs help so badly?

So who can blame donors for not trusting organizations that hide behind general themes and buzz words like politicians rather than efficient trustees of their gifts?

So I agree completely with Jeff. Nonprofits must find a way to become better administrators of the funds they do receive.

[Maryann Devine]

My experience is that nonprofits raising money through general appeals are non-specific in their language because 1. they're used to doing it that way, and 2. they're afraid to give people the wrong impression, i.e. 100% of their donation will go to whatever specific program is mentioned. I try to work language into general appeals such as, "To help continue lifesaving programs, like helping mothers learn about vaccination, or giving families easy access to clean water, through [ORGANIZATION]" -- you can reference programs that have emotional resonance without making it seem like the gift will be program-specific.

And Sean, I totally agree - Gen X and Gen Y want to be heard, and Boomers who are new philanthropists often want to know more, and have more control over their giving.

[Sean Rodman]

This is a great conversation!

@Kimberley - a example (kind of) can be found in portal sites like www.givemeaning.ca - lots of small projects, geared towards peer-to-peer fundraising.

I've often heard that Gen X and Y donors are much more interested in this sort of transparency around giving. But I suspect that the Boomers feel this way as well - many of our Boomer (and older) donors are certainly interested in knowing how their money is spent. I think it comes both from a desire to know what their "return on investment" is, but also a genuine curiosity about how we do our work. The more we can lift the veil on how donations are spent, the more engaged (and long term) the donors are likely to be. My two cents...

[Leanne]

One of the things I've always wondered is how many of those in the fundraising profession are actually donors themselves?

I ask this because I have the advantage of seeing things from both sides of the fence. I give to a handful of groups as well as work to secure funding for others.

It's this living in two worlds that helps me to really know, like Esther asked, what donors want because I am one. The rub comes when trying to convince the nonprofits I advise that things have changed and old ways aren't going to produce the results they expect.

I keep saying this over and over, but it's no longer "us" and "them". Either you get that and start walking a mile in your donors shoes or you end up walking alone.

[Esther Bruning]

It certainly sounds like now IS the time to learn
how to give donors what they want.

But do donors themselves know what they want?

And if they don't know, who/where do we learn that from?

[Kimberley MacKenzie]

Sean I absolutely LOVE that you used a local river or stream as an example since that is exactly what I do and the local environment is often forgotten!

Wow - all the asks in the example sound like they came out of the same book I used!

We do try and tailor asks around specific projects. "Give us this much money for this project and it will be done by this month." We do that for face to face solicitations and grants - not for DM! Hmmmm.

As a small organization that focusses mostly on one project at a time a specific ask wouldn't really change logistics administratively.

As far as large organizations though I can think of several example of specific asks that are unrestricted. (contradiction I know) How about: Donate the cost of a cup of coffee a day to help more children like Sarah" or "Your donation of $150 can help more people like Tom increase his chances of surviving (insert horribly painful illness here)"

I wonder if there are any results on an ask with multiple choices for the donor? What would happen if we let them allocation their donation to one of three areas? eg science, education, restoration.

Perhaps the hundreds of experts reading this blog could weigh in on that since my org is way to small to test it?

Great Blog Jeff - thanks.
Kimberley

[Jason Yoon]

Personally as a donor (and I confess, I'm also the executive director of a small nonprofit, under 400k annual budget), if I give to a large nonprofit, I expect more choice over where my money goes because they 1) have so many different campaigns and should be able to offer me more clearly distinct choices 2) are large enough and should have the administrative systems to keep track of all those restrictions and 3) being so big, donors like me steering my gifts should be less likely to affect them adversely financially.

When I give to a small local nonprofit college prep program, I don't need/want as much a say on what they do with my money because their singular focus is clear, I just want them to do it.

But I agree that small nonprofits are well positioned to offer donors specific appeals/opportunities/giving choices, it's something I've been thinking about more and more because of this blog. I'm just saying, for me, the bigger the org, the more choice/power I actually expect. Which may not hold true for the larger population.

Keep up the great work with the blog.

[Sean Rodman]

I agree. I'd add a twist: for larger non-profits with many-tentacled operations, a non-specific call to action makes a certain amount of sense. As you noted, when you're dealing with huge numbers of donors and lots of buckets to put the money into, the logistical overhead of connecting specific donors with specific buckets becomes overwhelming. Unrestricted funds look pretty appealing.

However, if you are a small non-profit I think a very specific appeal makes a lot more sense. Given fewer donors, you can afford to connect the dots a little more. In addition, I think a particular kind of donor gravitates towards smaller non-profits because they want more personal control/contact/feedback.

For myself, I like a mix. I want to give some money to something massive, and I don't care how exactly they use it - Doctors Without Borders, for example. And I want to give some money to my local land conservation group, to protect the creek that's in my neighbourhood.

How about you?