I have a close relationship with an international fundraising non-profit that funds projects in Africa and elsewhere.

The current cost of acquiring a new donor is less than $40.

The regular donor communication process (+/- 13 times per year) is +/- $250 per donor per year.

Where do you locate new donors: From those who have “done something” (responded to a survey, donated to another charity, subscribed to a publication that has subject matter the “correlates” to the project or concern that your charity/ministry/cause represents.

You send a letter and provide this “targeted” person the opportunity to “do something” about their interest, passion, concern …and then tell them what their money did.

You provide a service to the donor.

- James E. Johnson (James@irmco.net)

Liking the site, and while I agree that we need to look after our donors properly, and engage them, I wonder if you’d giove me some pointers, you see, we don’t really *have* any donors. Oh sure, we have a couple of hundred people that have given us a donation in the past 6 years. Some of them through sponsoring people to run and so on, and some have come along to events, but miost were before I was here, and I have no idea how much or when they gave. Or why. So I’m having toruble engaging them.

But even if every one of them gave me mney every month, we’d be struggling. I DO NEED new donors. Where do I get them?

“Have our organizations ever spent as much time trying to engage the people who come through our doors as we spend trying to “acquire new donors”? Have we spent time to ask those who already know us - ask for their wisdom, their advice about the work we are doing? How often do we ask the people who are already our clients, our patrons, our program participants - if they would like to help make our mission stronger?”

I served for six years - 4 as Board President - of a nonprofit mental health counseling organization where we DIDN’T do that for 24 of its 25 years.

What we did was trust in the US Mail. Once every year - and twice every year beginning in 2001 or so - we would dutifully send out a letter to “the list” and then hope that what we needed in the way of support would arrive. And, for awhile, it did. The proceeds were usually somewhere around $15,000 or so. When that amount began to decline, we added the second mailing. And once again, the total amount of support “bumped” a bit - to $27,000 at one point as I recall.

But, it always declined and soon, we were back down to that $15,000 level.

Why? For starters, we were only going to people - people who we believed cared about the organization - when we needed something. To ask for an annual gift. To ask them to attend a lecture (and pay to attend it). To ask them to give “a little more.”

These were people known to the organization. They were current and former Board members, current and former employees, therapy colleagues, people in the community who had an affinity for the faith-based counseling/mental health mission. And, many of these people had the means to give. In fact, many had the means to give lots more than they were giving. Why weren’t they?

Simply put, they weren’t giving because we hadn’t taken the time to engage them. We were so focused on financial need that we forgot about the needs of the very people we called “our friends”. We weren’t treating them like friends at all - unless you’re in the habit of always greeting your friends with your hand out.

That’s when I made the decision as Board president to introduce the entire Board (which loathed raising money, by the way) to Hildy’s Community Engagement book - Friend Raising. In fact, I purchased and gave a copy to all 15 members of the Board and the Executive Directo.

I suggested that we were going about this all wrong, by making money the focus of what we needed, when what was actually more valuable was making new friends and renewing friendships that had devolved into bi-annual “asks”.

We needed to stop thinking of ourselves as solicitors of cash and begin soliciting those we considered friends of the organization their advice. We needed to bring people into closer contact with the organization who had been away from it too long.

I challenged the Board: instead of asking them to give names of 5 people who they thought they could ask for money I asked them to think of 5 people who they would like to talk to about the Center and its purpose. Don’t ask for anything other than advice. Answer questions. Provide feedback. Tell stories that illustrate what the Center does and its impact on the community.

Once we stopped worrying about who would literally show us the money, things began to change. Instead of a litany of excuses why Board member X could not possibly ask for money, I began to hear ideas about how new people and old friends could come together at a breakfast to honor community “Good Samaritans” (a play on the name of the counseling center). That brought a new way to talk about the center’s mission and vision.

Those breakfasts now occur annually and they are well-attended affairs. It isn’t a fund raiser, though the ED never leaves the breakfast without spontaneous gifts being thrust into her hands. People who come to the breakfast ask questions, offer advice and some even ask how they can help the center.

There’s more the center needs and wants to do. They must overcome their reticence about serving as a resource to local media when there are questions that are appropriate for mental health professionals to answer or comment upon. They need to find additional opportunities to engage people who want to be actively involved and volunteer at a level other than a Board position.

And, they must “practice what they preach” and find a way to allow those who have received the benefit of counseling services decide on their own how and whether they wish to remain connected to the center, rather than assuming that someone who has been a client or who is the family member of a client wouldn’t want to participate in or help someone else. This is about being treated like “normal” people right? So let’s not assume that someone who receives psychological counseling wouldn’t wish to be treated like anyone else.

The point is, once the Board and ED of the center stopped fixating on donors, acquisition, LYBUNTS, SYBUNTS and non-responders on a mail list and began viewing folks as real, live, breathing people who want to learn, listen and find ways to truly be of service, the money problems ceased to be a problem anymore. Gifts began to come in more consistently. The gifts slowly ceased to be token responses to an annual mailing. It was easier to write those appeals, because they were now writing to people who they knew not as mailing list labels, but as caring, compassionate friends.

So, the point isn’t necessarily to stop mailing to people. It’s to get your priorities clear about the PEOPLE who receive those letters and to be sure that before you mail, you are making meaningful contact and developing thoughtful relationships.

People who are our personal friends know us and care about us. Often, when we need help, we don’t even have to ask - they know. It can be like that for those who are friends to our organizations, too.

Best,
SUE

Susan D. Smith
Consultant in Philanthropy
Barneveld, NY 13304

After reading this column we decided to do just that. Do you have any samples or can you point me to some? I’m really anxious to see how this is received, our CEO is “trusting my judgement” on this………..it’s a new direction for us!

We are in the aging business, the majority of our donors are our residents and their families, people who know us well. As we prepare for the tidal wave of Baby Boomers coming our way, I believe it is essential to establish stronger donor relationships and listen to their wants and desires.

Keep writing, I’m reading…….and applying.

Thank you!