The Enlightened Path for Fundraisers

Donors are changing. They’re asking for more involvement with the charities they support. They need to know and feel their giving makes a difference. They want more information and more connection.

The tried-and-true ways we’ve used to interact with donors must change if we want to meet and serve the new donors. Here are some ways enlightened nonprofits can change in the coming years:

The Old Way: Nonprofits harvest gifts from donors.
The Enlightened Way: Nonprofits cultivate relationships with donors.
Think of donors as people you get to know, not just assets you own. Asking for gifts is just one reason to communicate with donors. You also can encourage them to talk back to you — about what they care about and how they want to be treated. You also should be reporting back to donors about the impact of their giving.

Ultimately, if you really want to engage with donors at a meaningful level, you’ll develop personalized, custom-tailored communications based on donor preferences and behavior.

The Old Way: Nonprofits seek a large quantity of donors.
The Enlightened Way: Nonprofits seek quality donors.
Getting a zillion low-dollar gifts at a sufficiently low cost has been the name of the game — and has kept many fundraising programs afloat for decades. Trouble is, low-dollar donors also tend to be low-involvement donors: They have lower retention rates and they upgrade less.

The new donors aren’t interested in spreading around $5 and $10 gifts. They tend to give more, stay around longer and increase their involvement over time. And they’re choosier about the organizations they’ll support in the first place.

This change among donors, coupled with higher postage and production costs, changes the math of fundraising in some fundamental ways. It adds up to fewer and more demanding donors who make you play by their rules. But they also give more if you play along.

The Old Way: The development department does the fundraising.
The Enlightened Way: Everyone is responsible for fundraising.
In most nonprofits, the program side (those responsible for carrying out the organization’s mission) and the fundraising side (those responsible for getting the money to pay for the work) are completely separate. In many cases, they don’t even speak the same language.

The problem is, donors don’t respond to fundraising — they respond to what organizations do. As long as program and fundraising operate in separate silos, your ability to truly connect donors with your mission will be spotty at best.

The Old Way: Nonprofits raise general funds and allocate according to their own needs and judgment.
The Enlightened Way: Donors fund projects and areas of their own choosing.

Donors seem to be getting more specific all the time. They want to be able to see the difference they’re making. That’s why we need to give them choices about where their dollars go. That’s a tough order for nonprofits that rely on general donors for the operating dollars that keep them going. But more and more, donors demand choice, and they’re likely to avoid charities that can’t give it to them.

The good news: It’s not hard to raise unrestricted funds when donors have choice. Because while donors demand choice, many of them don’t exercise it.

The Old Way: Communications focus on how the nonprofit makes the world a better place.
The Enlightened Way: Com-munications focus on how the donor makes the world a better place.

Nobody cares how great you are. They care how great you can help them be. Your achievements, your rigor, your superior processes — they’re all still critical. But they’re only meaningful to donors as a means to help them maximize their personal impact. In other words, don’t brag about yourself. Brag about your donors instead.

The Old Way: The organization has a tightly controlled brand that’s meant to accurately portray its excellence and aspirations.
The Enlightened Way: Donors help shape the brand, based on their own aspirations.

A self-centered brand, one that’s a fine-tuned engine designed to stroke the nonprofit’s self-image, is not going to excite or even interest the cause-oriented donor. In fact, it’s a symptom of a misdirected organization that would rather feel good about itself than get outsiders (donors) involved in its work.

A great fundraising brand is one that’s about donors. It centers around the human face of the organization’s work. It’s emotional and exciting. It’s understandable and readable. It always shines the light back on the donor.

Some of these changes are going to be wrenching, painful, maybe even impossible for nonprofits to make. But those that take the enlightened path will be rewarded with loyal donors who care about their work and give a lot of money.

Don’t get me wrong. The old way of doing things isn’t gone; it still works in many places. But it’s fading. Change is around the corner.

Jeff Brooks is creative director at Merkle/Domain.