Reinier Spruit at the 101Fundraising blog wrote this post — Climate change needed for donor centric fundraising — in The Netherlands back on February 6.
He was reporting on a roundtable discussion amongst his country’s five best fundraising organizations, and quoted one of the participants:
“As a barrier to further income growth I’d like to point out the image of the charitable sector. Donors are more and more suspicious of charities, because some of them spoil it for the rest. In a way the whole sector is being held accountable when one organization screws up. And that is frustrating. If charities would be more transparent, many problems would be solved. This negative image has an impact on the organizations that are doing terrific work, and that’s very unfortunate.”
Reiner goes on to say: “I totally agree … The charity sector is seen as one entity, at least in The Netherlands; if there is a crisis in one charity, the cancelations go up in many others. So, if the fundraising sector as a whole improves its services, this could contribute to all of us. Instead of having a negative impact, we can actually contribute to each other’s success.”
The context of this conversation was the need to embrace donor-centric attitudes and practices.
They clearly weren’t hanging on every turn of events occurring in the Komen vs Planned Parenthood controversy that was playing out in the States at the time.
But do you think their admonition applies? The whole sector suffers when one charity “screws up”?
Tom
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I think Reinier is right. This certainly applies for a small market as the Dutch is. For example, income from collections ( a widespread dutch phenomenon where volunteers collect money door to door) decreased dramatically for a couple of charities that were collecting right after turmoil had started about the salary and bonusses of the Director of the Dutch Heart Foundation (Hartstichting). Media jumped on it like crazy and the charities that were collecting gifts in those days suffered from that negative media attention.
Tom, I’m not sure if you included the PP/Komen smackdown as an example of how donors do differentiate among charities, since stories now abound about the overnight exodus away from Komen to support PP.
But thinking about Reiner’s post from the donor-care perspective (his post is a good one), I’ve often wondered if it isn’t indeed a case of “spoiling it for everyone” — and what the solution might be.
For example, in the U.S. there are many charities that clearly make more money from renting/trading their low donor mailing lists than they do from nurturing said ‘low-dollar’ donors over the long haul.
And any one of us who has done mystery shopping soon sees this principle in action: give 20 donations of $15 or $20 and you land on the mailing lists of at least a dozen charities to which you didn’t give (if animal welfare orgs, the number increases exponentially) … great for people like me who study nonprofit direct mail because it then arrives by the armload, but maybe not so hot for jaded donors/prospects. Perhaps it’s the same elsewhere.
At the risk of sounding crass, I know in many ways it’s a numbers game. However, perhaps one of the lessons we could/should learn from PP v Komen is that donors/prospects can and do differentiate among charities even in a ‘negative climate’, provided they are provided with salient, personally relevant reasons (sounds a heck of a lot like the old USP we copywriters etch on our brains from Day One).
In fact, I’d go out on a limb and say donors aren’t just waiting, but yearning to support the organization that sets itself apart in mission AND most especially in the way it respects, cares for, and communicates with its donors (or promises that very same care to prospects once they become donors).
That may just be wishful thinking, and doubtless someone with boodles of direct mail evidence and eons of experience will prove me wrong, but hey, hope springs eternal!
Hi Tom, thanks for highlighting my blog and the discussion at 101fundraising. It’s an interesting discussion with different viewpoints, although I have the feeling most fundraisers agreed so far. Looking forward to hear more comments here at The Agitator.
Reading about it again it reminds me of some sort of “prisoners dilemma”. Why would fundraisers choose for more and better fundraising in the next 10 years for everyone if they individually can (and some simply have to) raise money right here, right now? This obviously implies that short term thinking is bad for fundraising and long term is not. One comment at 101fundraising focused on the fact that some organizations simply have to raise as much money as fast as possible to fulfil the goals of their cause (e.g. fight/eradicate a monstrous decease). And who can argue with that?
Interesting discussion! Thanks again.
I checked with Lucas Meijs (Professor ‘strategic philanthropy’, Rotterdam Erasmus University) who once said something about this in another discussion. The theory I wanted to refer to is the “Tragedy of the Commons”.
“The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)
Re: tragedy of the commons. Thank you for link to this, Reinier, I’d read about it once but couldn’t recall where… Seth’s blog, maybe? Both your reply posts (for me anyhow!) raise excellent points. There is of course the “we need money now” issue, since the vast majority of nonprofits, hopefully, do urgent work. And anyone who’s created an acquisition/prospecting pack, myself included, relies on the mailing lists of others (tragedy of the commons in action, correct?). Then I also thought about the fact that if you do good work, letting someone know about it who may be interested in supporting you is what it’s all about. Especially someone who’s predisposed to giving.
I’ve veered from your original point, of people mentally lumping all charities together. Based on what I see in my work, it seems the way to differentiate is found in how nonprofits steward existing donors (or promise to steward prospects once they become donors).
More questions than answers today! Thanks again, Reinier, for getting me thinking, and as ever, to Tom and Roger for sharing the original post.
I agree, it is about how we steward existing donors, but it is also in how you use the info out there to market your organization. An org. with low overhead in the wake of a story about huge nonprofit salaries should be highlighting facts such as: “94% of every dollar you give us goes to direct programming” (as we do). Or, “51% of our donated dollars come from individuals such as yourself.”