Lessons From Abroad
According to Fielding Yost, president of the Saturn Corp., with operations in the United States and Europe, Europeans have embraced alternative media more quickly than their U.S. counterparts.
“Telemarketing has a much calmer way of soliciting in Europe than the United States,” Yost says. “Appeals are more straightforward and without as much emotion or as frequent as those in the United States. Costs are higher in Europe, but so are response rates and income.”
Another alternative medium employed in Europe is face-to-face solicitations by paid solicitors. The cost to acquire a new donor is high, but like many campaigns in Europe, donors are brought on from the beginning with a commitment to automatic monthly giving. I’m not sure face-to-face solicitation ever is going to take off in the United States.
Where’s the innovation?
Richard Pordes, a leading international fundraiser for UNICEF, looks as close as Canada and sees success with direct-response television. In fact, he sees much innovation coming from our northern neighbors.
“It may be that the Canadian market’s less saturated,” says Pordes, who sees many Canadian charities working hard, while some U.S. fundraisers “have just given up trying to be innovative.”
“We freely copy each other in developed countries,” says Mal Warwick, founder and chairman of Mal Warwick and Associates. “While techniques
in the Western world are pretty much alike, the Global South (nations of Africa, Central and Latin America, and much of Asia) is another matter
entirely. In those countries where a few brave souls have begun venturing into fundraising waters, most of the time they’re on their own.”
Two Calgary educators, who just completed one-on-one interviews with
fundraisers worldwide, confirm Warwick’s observations. Guy Mallabone of SAIT Polytechnic and Tony Myers of the University of Calgary explored attitudes on wealth, cultural influences and perceptions of major-giving practices in Brazil, Germany, India, China and South Africa. In nearly all emerging countries, training, credibility and a professional fundraiser shortage were major issues.
