Are You Marketing and Raising Funds the Right Way for Today's Donors?

The "inward" company that sells socks approaches customers and tells them what they believe are the best socks and offers what they believe is right. (We have red socks, green socks and blue socks — hope you buy from us because ours are the best and we work really hard to make them.)

Raymond stated that the majority of nonprofits are "inward-focused" with their marketing and fundraising approaches. In other words, it is perceived that most nonprofits are focused on their missions, the great work they do, as well as the benefits and progress of their work. And, in turn, they look to their constituent bases to help them continue to make progress.

Some of you may be thinking this is not a problem. Here's where the problem comes into play:

1. We all know that boomers are very focused on themselves. Boomers want to be courted. Boomers want to be marketed to in a way that recognizes who they are and what their contributions are to life in general. Boomers want to be "known." Boomers want to have their needs AND expectations met through their buying/engagement relationships.
2. Boomers have the largest amount of financial capacity of all the generations, and they represent the largest portion of nonprofit donors compared to other generations.

This all sounds familiar, right?

Well, today's donors are consumers of goods and services in much greater ratios than they are supporting charitable missions. And, according to Raymond, they are being "trained" by the commercial world to react and engage based on "outward-focused" marketing.

Today's donors, who are already unique in their expectations of financial transactions and relationships with brands, are becoming more and more accustomed to being courted and catered to relative to what they "buy". And, in case you are wondering, I'm not talking about major donors — I'm talking about all of our donors. The difference between how companies focus on selling to consumers to create behavior and how nonprofits are "presenting themselves" to donors to create alliances will become more and more of a challenge.