Peace,

Mazarine

Our donor’s aren’t stupid. They live in a marketing world. So market to them and serve them.

It’s a form of disrespect and disregard for donors who email or call with issues they’re having NOT to explain what is happening. And to thank them for the opportunity to make things better. Sure, some won’t want to listen. But a lot will thank you for your extra time. I propose that the bigger your organization is, the more you should be thinking every bit about the back-end as the front end. And that is where breaking down silos is very important (to relate this to earlier comments.)

And once your organization is actually listening to what your donors are saying to you, put in place the technical features that will allow you to fix the problem the donor is talking about. Once you’ve gotten a live person talking to a donor, its even more disrepectful not to spend some time addressing or fixing the problem the donor called about. Or “controlling the conversation.” Instead of “controlling” think of “positively closing.” If you want to differentiate yourself from the other nonprofit organizations your donors contribute to,, take a look at your back-end processes. Spend some money fixing them. Yes, it’s infrastructure. No, it’s not as exciting as thinking about your next creative project or what the numbers are telling you about the latest market trend. It’s not even about Personalization — if I get one more email where my first name is in all caps all through the email ….. — you get the picture. It’s about service and being willing to figure out what that means and invest in it.
And by the way, if you have a GREAT member services person who is acting as your secretary or receptionist or whatever AND doing database maintenance and answering member questions civilly and politely and has been doing that year in and year out — RECOGNIZE THAT PERSON every bit as much as you would recognize the person who just discovered the break-through technique or package that is lifting response. If we’re serious about retention, think about what you are doing for member services and the peopel who do that thankless job day in and day out.

It’s not a donor issue, it’s an organization issue – with reference to the comment about silos, a silo’ing of the messages we send (or don’t send) to our supporters about what is important. I would like to see nonprofits everywhere “adjust the conversation” with donors, board members, staff, even consultants, and work on the idea that without a strong organization, there is no mission or vision.

Everyone is talking about it, yet few seem to be addressing it. It is the best way to optimize spending and maximize ROI. And, it is only going to grow in importance as technology leads to more market fragmentation.

Yes, it’s painful to change people, goals, budgets and technology, but there is a simple process that gains buy-in, improves collaboration and reorganizes around the donor.

Chip Grizzard.