A Conversation on Integrated Marketing and Fundraising, Part 3

Sara Spivey: One of the other dimensions on that that we've seen work — it's not widespread but we've certainly seen it in a few organizations — is where some of these silos have shared objectives. So as opposed to the development organization and its three areas — major gifts, individual giving, planned giving, whatever — being very individually focused on, "I've got to achieve my objectives," it's having a sense of common objectives for the organization that they all contribute to. The objective here is to raise the overall water level. Me raising my end of the boat is not going to get us where we need to be without the rest. We've seen some organizations focus on what's the overall organizational objective, and that's how you're all going to be measured. You all contribute a piece, and we see that, but we're not successful unless we're all successful. That's been pretty effective.

MJ: Part of the way that we want to emphasize and do studies and talk and produce material for the sector is from the donor's perspective. So sometimes to get around the complexity of integrated change management and integrated marketing is to say everything we're doing here to be more integrated is to look at the donor journey. A lot of organizations are saying let's look at the organizational charts, let's look at our tactics, let's look at this — man this is confusing; how do we build a better integrated marketing model? And more and more, we hear people say let's look at the life cycle of the donor. Let's look at cradle to grave what that experience is supposed to look like, what does it look like now and what do we want it to be. I often call it dramatic oversimplifications. Put somebody's life cycle and life experience with your organization on one piece of paper as the central focus for integrated marketing, and then once you've drawn that, you say, "OK, what do we got to do to make sure that we can give people this integrated experience?" You see organizations like the United Jewish Appeal in New York — they do a great job, and they've actually mapped the cradle-to-grave experience. It helps them integrate whatever they're doing.