Here’s an email The Agitator received yesterday …
Good morning Agitator! I had two very disappointing donor experiences occur yesterday, and I just wanted to share. Mainly because BOTH could have been avoided if somebody had bothered to take a look at their own data correctly.
The first experience was recounted to me by a colleague, who received a “brick naming” mailer from his alma mater. He was initially very excited and was bracing himself to argue to his wife about why they should spend an extra $250 to name a brick this year. He opened the mailer only to discover that the “bricks” actually required a minimum donation of $2,000! He was angry because he only gives $100 a year right now (so they should have known better than to ask for a $2,000 gift) and because we know that bricks typically go for around $250, at least around here.
The second experience was when a charity to whom I give regularly called my house last night and asked for my husband. They then asked him to renew and increase his gift to them. This was after I had made it very clear, at the time I sent in my donation, that it was from me and he was not to be given soft credit (at his request!). And my name even appears first on our checks, so they really had no excuse for getting this wrong.
I would like to think that both of these incidences were just careless mistakes, but I have been in this business long enough to know what the consequences can be for making such mistakes. I certainly won’t be renewing my gift to the charity who called my husband last night!
Kay Coughlin, Director of Stewardship
Oberlin College
Lazy or careless fundraising … does it matter which?
Sure, at a ‘macro’ level, more of your donors or members might not respond to your fundraising appeal because the economy is pinching their wallet, or (horrors!) because they’ve found some other nonprofit they think is doing a better job programmatically. And maybe you, as a fundraiser, regard those factors as beyond your control.
But the stuff Kay is complaining about is most certainly within your control. If your charity or cause is losing donors (1%, 10%??) because of stuff-ups like these, give yourself a whack on the side of the head! It shouldn’t be happening … think Zero Tolerance!
Tom
P.S. Thanks for sharing that, Kay. Readers: keep this kind of stuff coming … the good and the bad.
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Too many of us experience what Kay is describing to attribute these kinds of mistakes to either carelessness or laziness. It is rather the attitude that fundraising is a necessary evil and that individual donors are a renewable resource that contributes heavily to this kind of misbehavior. Nonprofits must get this activity right or, as in Kay’s example, they’ll lose contributors, perhaps permanently. Fortunately, an increasing number of organizations recognize that good stewardship programs are the equivalent of topflight customer service in the for profit world. Efficiency and cause only take us so far with a donor. It is the relationships we build which truly make mission financing possible over the long term.
I won’t deny that I’ve made mistakes in my development career over the years – a half-finished sentence in a letter that was mailed, calling someone the wrong name at a gala. ACK!. We all have, but some are just inexcusable. That asking for the husband story inflames me (probably most women) and reminds me of one of my own experiences as a donor.
Before I was married, my husband and I were members of a local media organization. When we got married, we sent our renewal together with a written letter asking that they combine our accounts and only solicit us once a year for renewal. After two years of written and verbal reminding to this nonprofit, I was fed up. They continued to solicit us for every campaign (MANY!), constantly sent me renewal reminders because we chose to renew on my husband’s form (although at a higher level than he had been giving alone), and continued to show his account as if he was the sole owner. It was infuriating. I got to the point that when things arrived in the mail from them, I would immediate recycle it without opening it. Needless to say, we no longer give to this organization.