Mark Phillips of UK’s Bluefrog fundraising agency, is a consultant I’d probably hire. I’ve never met him. I’m going strictly on the quality of his insights as expressed on his blog, queer ideas.

His recent post, with the dry-as-toast title, Five things we learned at the IFC, is a treasure chest of little pearls (he calls them “juicy nuggets”) that he mined from various presentations.

For example, from Blackbaud’s datameister Chuck Longfeld:

  • If someone calls you to change their address they are TEN times more likely to leave you a legacy (or upgrade, or set up a regular gift or anything else you might ask them to do).
  • Calling a donor to thank them (whether you speak to them or just leave a message on the answer phone) can increase their next year’s gift value by up to 40%.
  • Misspelling someone’s last name can decrease gift size by up to 12%.

Notice we’re not talking here about some super-duper-CRM-donor-value-modeling software, or a whiz-bang Facebook widget, or a slick mobile app.

We’re talking about the fundamental chemistry of human interaction … sometimes known crassly as … customer service. If you don’t get something this basic right, or even appreciate its importance, get out of the fundraising business, now … you don’t belong! [See yesterday's First, Make Rice]

Phillips has extracted more great takeaways from the International Fundraising Conference, often with links to support, and what catches his eye tells me he has superb instincts.

Do yourself a favor and read his post.

Tom

This article was posted in: direct marketing, Don't Miss these Posts, fundraising.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.