DON'T LIVE IN A FUNDRAISING FANTASY

Every organization I have worked with has had a fantasy:  Someone—today that someone is MacKenzie Scott—will give them a gazillion dollars and they will never, ever have to worry about fundraising again.  But given that the odds are slim that your organization will receive such a gift, you are going to have to come up with a strategy to reach that gazillion dollars—or at least enough funds that you (a) cover your operating costs; (b) have any special programs funded, and (c) have enough to build a reasonable reserve. 

That strategy needs to be more than sending out anodyne appeals where the recipient could be anyone and where the organization simply asks for support because, well you know, they do good work.

Lately, this is all I seem to get.I get an email from an organization asking for support.  If it resonates with me, I give by clicking on the donate now link and making my gift online.  Immediately, I get an automated thank you.  Typically, I might add, this is the ONLY thank you I get.  And to be honest, it does not warm the cockles of my heart.

Sometime later—usually a very short time later—I get an email from the organization, again asking me for money.  Regardless of my response or non-response, I then get another email…asking me for money.  And again, and again, ad infinitum.

Worse, the organization doesn’t seem to see me.  That is, no where does the appeal appeal to me.  It doesn’t talk about our long relationship—if we have one.  Or note that my last gift was actually my first to the organization.  It doesn’t acknowledge that I volunteer, or came back to the organization after a hiatus of some time.

In short, I could be anybody, and frankly, that doesn’t induce me to want to give.

Technology does make it easier to reach out with an open hand.  But it makes it harder to grasp your donor’s hand and draw them in closer.

To do that, you must get more personal.  That doesn’t need to be a series of coffee meets or lunch.  It can just be ensuring that the appeal is written to that person.  That means segmenting your list.  Making the ask less blatant and more in line with what matters to the donor.

There are places where I volunteer and were I ever to get an appeal that stated something like;  As a volunteer, you know more than most how our work impacts our community….I might be inclined to do more.  I already love the place; that’s why I give of my time.  But to give of my money also, I need to not just see their need but feel that they see mine.