“Forget Me Not” antique post card courtesy of Miss Mary (click to reach her vintage website).
“Donor Care: Time to Turn the Talk Into Action: Seven Different Yet Practical Things You Should be Doing, Now” is an insightful blog posting by Ken Burnett that holds as true today as it did back in the fall of 2010 when I first read it.
“Unfortunately for the donors, the causes that they love (or at least, might like quite a lot) and the long-term future of our profession, there’s some way to go before the relationship rhetoric of our [fundraising] conferences becomes perceived reality, for most of its supposed beneficiaries.”
I couldn’t agree more. Having witnessed more than one fundraising campaign where donors have not been properly recognized – and hearing from the donors themselves how much this hurts and is, quite frankly, insulting – it would seem the nonprofit sector still needs a bit of coaching on stewardship.
The short version of Ken’s insightful article, which I urge you to read in full, suggests you should:
1. Master your data.
2. Make it a pleasure to be your donor.
3. Invest passion in answering your donors’ most pressing question, ‘Did my gift make a difference?’
4. Make a strong case for the need to invest properly in fundraising.
5. Ring-fence a substantial percentage of your fundraising resources for testing.
6. Dedicate real time to learning how to think differently.
7. Communicate so as to make the donor experience unforgettable.
This is excellent, straight-forward advice we should all consider!
Thanks for this Carolyn. I’d rather forgotten about it since I wrote it, and it’s good to be reminded of it now.
Good luck,
Ken
I LOVE this post – guess you can tell – thank so much for writing it. Best wishes and come speak in Texas sometime.