As consumers we are now constantly connected, over two billion of us have 24/7 access to the internet and globally more people have mobile phones than access to electricity or clean drinking water. We are Read more…
This is just one of the questions I’ll be helping Master Class delegates to answer at the International Fundraising Congress.
If you’ve ever considered raising money through direct response television, you really need to make sure your organisation is ready for it. This was really brought home to me earlier this year, when Lucy Caldicott from CLIC Sargent explained to me the issues she’d had to think about before embarking on drtv fundraising with her cause.
So, with thanks to Lucy for the inspiration, here are some key issues for you to consider.
1. Are you televisual?
Sounds obvious really. But to work on TV you need to be able to tell your story in a way that is highly emotionally engaging. It’s not so much an appeal to the heart, head and spirit. It’s more an appeal that grabs you by the guts. Hmm, nice image.
Given the above, it’s no surprise that causes working with children and animals have a head start when it comes to drtv.
The International Fundraising Congress (IFC) is a great place to gain a whole host of ideas and inspiration. But the problem is how do you integrate these different ideas and create a joined up and understandable strategy?
For many organisations the answer is The Strategy Map and complementary Balanced Scorecard. (We’ll call them BSC for short after this.) These are a set of contemporary planning tools created by US academics Norton and Kaplan as recently as 1992.
BSCs are now used by almost 50% of all large companies worldwide for strategy and are becoming increasingly popular among NGOs and INGOs for both service and fundraising strategy. Agencies using them for fundraising range from the giant International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to Terre des Hommes in Switzerland to a small Tanzanian health NGO, Maikanda. And this year at IFC there’s a specific session offering you an introduction to them. (more…)
“Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow’s hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.”
Charles Dickens
Connecting with our most loyal and senior supporters can be the most inspirational thing we do in our career as a fundraisers. It is such a privilege to meet and learn from people whose bodies are aging, but who, as Charles Dickens says, have hearts and spirits that are young and full of vigour.
Today I am going to share with you a little bit about what we are doing in my organization to develop a robust Planned Giving program. (more…)
Bad Donor Retention Begins With Bad Donor Recruitment (and what you can do about it)
Why are so many of your donors rushing for the exit?
One of my favourite Internet campaigns of the past few years is The Story of Stuff, which uses a simple but engaging animation as a way to tell the ‘Story’. It makes the obvious point that we inhabit in the same ecosphere as our environment and that when toxics are involved in the production of our consumer goods there is a consequent toxic output that is damaging to our health, our economy and our environment. The same elementary wisdom reaches us in other nuggets of ‘common’ sense: eat too much greasy food and you’ll get spots, smoke and your lungs will turn black. To put it simply: Rubbish In = Rubbish Out.
This same maxim applies for fundraising campaigns. And in this blog I’d like to especially apply it to Face-to-Face campaigns (though it can apply equally well to any channel where we have control over the prospects we approach). The simple fact remains that if we recruit the wrong sort of donor in the beginning we will not get the sort of results we need in the longer term to achieve our organisations goals.
Rubbish (Donors) In = Rubbish (Donor Loyalty) Out. (more…)
Did you know that thousands of companies offer employee matching gift programs? In fact, over 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift programs to their employees!
What are employee matching gift programs?
Corporate matching gift programs are charitable giving programs created by corporations in which the company matches donations made by employees to eligible nonprofit organizations.
They started in 1954 when the GE Foundation created the Corporate Alumni Program, the first corporate gift-matching program. (more…)
It really does make sense when you think about it. Using mobile as the key device to keep in touch with donors recruited on the street.
Think about it.
The average age of F2F recruits around the world is usually late 20’s, early to mid 30’s.
Almost 60% of Aussies own a smartphone, and around 18% a tablet device. These figures replicated in most developed fundraising nations. Overlay this with age and our key F2F recruits one of the most smartphone/tablet active groups, around 80% of them actively using a mobile device.
Most F2F donors are on the phone (or pretending they are) prior to being approached. Which means they’re “on the go”, as in mobile. Not sitting still.
And let’s face it: a mobile device makes it really easy these days to share content. Great content. At your fingertips.
So why therefore are we stuck in the mid 90’s when it comes to our attitude toward caring for donors recruited on the street? (more…)
‘Experience’ marketing is the fashionable new thing for today’s marketer. Apparently you don’t just sell your product, you live it. The aim is to immerse your prospect in a lifestyle that simultaneously stimulates all their senses.
An example of experience marketing is currently practiced by the manufacturers of those cunning designer ‘alco-pop’ drinks – Breezer, Schnapps and the like. Experience marketing for these products involves recruiting attractive, young, out-of-work male models – this is true – who are briefed to sit hour after hour in the most fashionable watering-holes with their Nokia mobile phone and Palm Pilot prominently in view, with the Gucci shoes, the Armani threads, the Rado wrist wear and the Trevor Sorbie hairdo – everything that successful youth might aspire to – and, of course, all the while knocking back bottle after bottle of Zippo, or Heave-up or whatever is being promoted to you, the unsuspecting punter. Just think, that stunningly attractive bloke at the bar who you thought had been stood up and were just about to move in on, may in fact just be coming to the end of his shift.
Silly, isn’t it?
Then I thought about it. Maybe ‘experience marketing’ does have some application for fundraisers… (more…)
This is my third blog for 101fundraising and while other may prefer to write about theories of giving. I like to write more about technical things that, hopefully, can immediately help you.
In my previous blogs, I talked about “drip-drip” marketing for legacy fundraising and about organising a legacy event. Now, I want to discuss how using a “personal touch” can help legacy fundraising
In Indonesia we have a phrase ‘Tak kenal maka tak sayang’— which means “if you don’t get to know people, it’s impossible for you to care for them.” And with legacy fundraising, personalisation can be a VERY important factor.
In the WWF Network, globally, we have 24 national offices that have a legacy program. (more…)
Last week Reinier wrote about a really important topic – planning for the future of your acquisition program. I’d like to expand on his post by sharing an additional tool, and offering a simple checklist to use in your donor recruitment planning.
In the last blog you read about the Hype cycle (and if you haven’t, please read it here.) A second tool to consider in your planning is one that you have probably seen before: the BCG matrix. This tool divides your offerings into four groups, depending on their market growth and market share. But here’s a retooled version for an acquisition program. (more…)
Recently I had some fundraisers over to catch up on fundraising developments. They wanted to pick my brain on what I think is “good fundraising” and “where things are going”. These conversations are always interesting, because it helps me shape my own thinking on what is really important to work on.
A diversity of topics surfaced the table in approximately 90 minutes: acquisition channels, retention programs, engagement opportunities, stricter privacy laws, reporting environments, team structure, key information sources, etc.
Because acquisition always seems to get more difficult, it is a topic that is always addressed. This is wonderful, because we absolutely need to talk about it. But it’s not enough to talk about it as part of a 90 minute informal exchange of ideas. If we’re serious about creating new recruitment channels, before the old ones are completely gone, we need to hurry up.
Why is that we’re still not serious about the replacement of recruitment channels that are fading away? (more…)
Thinking about human psychology is something I find myself doing often. It really interests me – which is handy, as there are insights into the human psyche that are innate within the discipline of fundraising. When I was browsing online a little while ago, following links through Wikipedia, I was fascinated to come across an entry on psychopathic personality disorder – mainly because I realised that I hadn’t actually understood what a psychopath really is until then. It said:
Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions … lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity … promiscuous sexual behaviour, many short-term marital relationships, and antisocial behaviours such as parasitic lifestyle …
I found myself recalling this again, in the context of relationship fundraising, prompted in part by this recent post on 101fundraising by Ken Burnett. I realised there are a lot of brands out there that behave like psychopaths. (more…)
(Or ‘How to bring integrity to your storytelling, while keeping donors and fundraisers loyal all at the same time’)
About half our donors are leaving. According to Third Sector’s latest survey half the fundraisers are close behind them. It seems the only ones staying are the beneficiaries and God knows they’d leave if they could!
Anyone else seeing a correlation here?
But could it be that the answer to both these problems lies in the same thing; a lack of genuine connection to the cause? With all the hype around storytelling it seems we’ve missed the most fundamental point of all…
These aren’t just ‘stories’.
So how has this disconnect affected us and our donors? Let’s start with the much maligned donor, ‘Attriting Annie’ (irony intentional!), blissfully unaware of where she is on her ‘journey’. Why’s she leaving; was it something we said? Let’s face it; she doesn’t cancel regular payments for the things she wants. So the question has to be are we doing enough to make her want to be a part of what we do? (more…)
It’s called many things and it can be a bit of a buzz term: integrated fundraising or multi-channel fundraising.
Whatever its name, its definition is the same: “the use of multiple channels to raise money”. However, it’s not the name or the definition that’s most open to debate. Rather, it is whether multi-channel fundraising leads to better results and a deeper donor relationship.
The furious adoption of the internet for fundraising has brought the issue of multi-channel marketing to the forefront. In the past, direct mail, TV, and the telephone have been effectively combined to help improve fundraising results. For example, the telephone has been used to reactivate lapsed donors and convert direct mail single gift donors to more valuable monthly debit (regular) donors. The evidence, generally, with multi-channel marketing prior to the emergence online giving, was that using a more active channel (e.g., the human voice of a phone call) was a very effective way of upgrading donors who were regularly swimming in the channels of a more passive medium like direct mail. (more…)
A direct marketing eminence recently described fundraising as, ‘the important art of cajoling money from people for good causes.’
Though rather obvious it’s nevertheless a fairly apt description, if perhaps more useful in summarising how others see us than in illustrating how we aspire to be. Although the phrase may hint at disapproval it’s neither negative, nor critical. Fundraising is undeniably important, for it fuels good works. ‘Art’ in this context simply means the creation of beautiful or thought-provoking works. ‘Cajoling’ implies effort, persuasiveness and determined persistence. But art can suggest artfulness and cajoling can also mean to elicit or obtain by pleading, flattery or insincere language. And it’s limited. The art of cajoling implies the mendicant mode. It includes no sense of sincerity, respect, rapport or accountability. (more…)
Once, twelve days into a new fiscal year, we threw out the annual plan.
Fundraisers love – and should love – their strategic and annual plans. We need plans. Then sometimes we need new ones. This is a blog post about agile planning, and thinking less linearly about the planning cycle.
Admittedly, the time we threw out the playbook was a dramatic one: Haiti. January 12, 2010. We all know the story: the earthquake and its horrible loss of life. 300,000 acutely injured, 1.5 million homeless. A minute after the earthquake, MSF/Doctors Without Borders launched the largest rapid emergency response in our history. (more…)
Last week Steve Bridger and I spoke at the Institute of Fundraising Convention in London about fundraising, engagement and technology. We included a bit of Two Ronnies nostalgia from the seventies for those in the audience that were born before the Internet was invented.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ
Fork handles and the Two Ronnies isn’t as random as it may seem in a fundraising and technology session. Let me explain.
Earlier this year we interviewed 10 senior fundraisers in the Dutch Market to ask them if the economic turmoil changed their opinion about the fundraising potential in their market. And, if any, where they saw fundraising opportunities.
The question is: Where is the money? And how to get it? (more…)
© fallingfifth.com
If you work with creative agencies, there’s a good chance you will someday be involved in a pitch process.
I’ve been involved client-side in two separate pitches, each of which have taught me where I’ve made mistakes, and where a few good choices can make everything run smoothly for all involved.
Here are a few of the tips I’ve learned that I hope will be useful if you ever find yourself conducting an agency pitch. (more…)
Enige weken geleden was ik op een feestje waar ik de helft van de mensen nog niet kende. 
Het was een leuk feestje, met voetbal via een beamer en een barbecue. Ik raakte in gesprek met iemand die me vroeg wat ik voor werk deed. Deze vraag beantwoord ik meestal op verschillende manieren, aangepast aan de doelgroep waartoe ik denk dat de vrager behoort. “Ik ben fondsenwerver”, zei ik, en voegde enigszins overbodig toe: “Ik zorg voor extra financiële middelen voor kankeronderzoek, waarbij ik mij richt op grote gevers en nalatenschappen”. Mijn gesprekspartner dacht kort na en zei: “Aha, je bedelt dus om geld door leugens te verkopen”. Ik verslikte mij en dacht na. Deze snelle conclusie stond lijnrecht tegenover mijn idee over fondsenwerving, en ook lijnrecht tegenover mijn idee over mijzelf. Dat bedelen om geld, daar zat natuurlijk wel wat in, maar ik verkoop geen leugens. Ik verkoop geluk! Want mensen die geven, worden namelijk gelukkig doordat ze geven. En dat is nog eens wetenschappelijk bewezen ook, en hier lieg ik niets aan. (more…)
Last week I was proud to be one of the 22 speakers at the inaugural ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ event in London, brilliantly organised by the team and volunteers at sofii.
An excited audience heard about 22 campaigns picked by the speakers as something they wished they had thought of. It was a brilliant and buzzy afternoon with a great fast-paced format that included growing mo’s for Movember, which involved the audience wearing stick on moustaches, to Barbie’s destruction of the rainforest to the audience love-in for charity: water. In fact it was commented that the event felt like TED for fundraising. Pretty cool. Although I have never seen the audience in a TED talk wear stick on moustaches; I think TED are missing a trick.
Some fundraising excellence themes emerged; trust, honesty, truth, storytelling, simplicity, integrity, conviction, empathy and passion.
But for me, many of these celebrated ideas involve two more vital elements; bravery and risk. Trying something new is brave and risky because let’s face it – if it is new we don’t know for sure that it will work. (more…)
Exactly one year ago, I read a blog post that hit me like a punch in the gut. It was Austin Kleon’s How to Steal Like an Artist, and it got right down and spoke directly to everything I was struggling with at the time. I was about to finish grad school and was terrified that I didn’t have what it would take to make it out in the ‘real’ world. Simply reading Kleon’s words changed my whole outlook. I immediately wrote in my own blog about how it made me feel. That post then turned into my first TEDx talk two months later. The reaction from nearly everyone was one of complete understanding. It turned out I wasn’t the only one with those fears and insecurities – I was just finally saying it out loud. (more…)
“Friendraising is raising money from your friends and family.” This is just one of the replies I got, when I recently asked app. 200 Dutch fundraising colleagues to send me their definition of ‘friendraising’. Well, if this is what friendraising is about, I guess the birthdays of fund- and friendraisers soon will be awfully quiet.
Fortunately, a lot of colleagues used better definitions. Myself, I like to use this one: friendraising is building sustainable relationships with persons, foundations and corporations, in order to get to know them better, and to (co)create a wide variety of ways to support your organization. Of course, a result of friendraising can be that you receive money. But if it’s up to me, it can be so much more. Let me sum up just 6 things for you. (more…)
Last week I blogged about the digital revolution in fundraising, and asked whether it has “changed the game”, or only the “rules”. (Or, as I would argue, not even the rules, more like the shape of the playing field and which ball gets kicked, hit, chased, or fielded).
Having finally gone Twitter (I know, I KNOW…) I’d say the biggest ‘revolution’ that social media has brought to the industry is… how many people without other jobs are now claiming to be someone “connecting donors to their causes” and “helping charities use social media to raise awareness and funds”. In other words, biggest winner so far? The industry. But let’s see….
BACK TO THE STORY…. (more…)
There’s a debate in the fundraising industry about the future. Not whether we will all have jobs; no, everyone’s pretty sure about that. The world’s problems aren’t going away, and in fact we seem to be creating problems at about the same rate we’re solving them, so the world will probably need NGOs in the foreseeable future, (and they will need funding), but that’s another blog.
No, the debate is about the digital revolution. First we had the “internet” (small “I”), then the Web, and now we have the portable Web – its called a “smart phone” in case you just climbed out of a cave – and a new place where people talk to friends and family, share things, even donate already, called social media, which right now is mostly Facebook and Twitter, but which will grow and diversify with Tumblr, and Pinterest, etc.
So the REAL QUESTION is this: has the advent of the digital medium “changed the game” of fundraising? Or has this simply expanded the methods we use to fundraise? To put it in MBA terms, do new digital activities raise *incremental* income, that would NOT have been raised otherwise, if we couldn’t ask for donations over the Web or phone? Or is it just taking over the more tied-and-true methods?
