Charity Navigator Blog recently published a A Donor's Wish List, a well-reasoned and very typical complaint from a donor about direct-mail fundraising. The donor had two main issues:
- It infuriates me to get labels, T-shirts, and other offers .... Particularly obnoxious are the ones that send nickels, to put those together must be very expensive.
- I am inundated with charitable mailings.... This is ridiculous and a real waste of money. Charities should send no more than three, and if there's no response, then they should take you off the list.
You hear this all the time, right?
These complaints are potent because they feed into fears many nonprofits already have: That their mailings are annoying, and that they mail too much. So an articulate complaint like this is sometimes taken as proof that your fears are real and that you should make some meaningful changes to your fundraising plan.
Before you do that, remember this: Donors matter more than complainers. Compare the number of people who wrote you checks to the number who complained: Unless you have a shockingly dysfunctional program, your donors outnumber your complainers by hundreds or thousands to one.
But don't ignore the complaint. It's real and significant. It voices something many donors feel. So here's what to do:
- Scrupulously obey the donor who complained. No, don't implement their proposed mailing plan for the file, but do what they want. If they want less mail, reduce their mail. If they don't want premiums, don't send any more premiums. Someone who cares enough to complain is a candidate to be a great donor.
- Make sure you're being relevant. If a donor perceives your mailings as a bunch of undifferentiated trash, that's a sign you aren't being relevant. Are fundraising offers vague and generic? Are you asking donors to supply unrestricted funds? Are you making a clear connection between their gifts and what happens as a result?
- Give all your donors power. Give your donors the option to opt out of anything. Give them total control over the terms of your relationship. Very few will take any action, but your donors as a whole will respond better after they've been offered control.
- Get smart with your data. Databases can be really smart these days. Predictive modeling and other cool tricks can help pinpoint what individual donors should be getting from you. (But get professional help! This is tricky stuff.)
Technorati Tags: fundraising, complaints
Comments