THE
DONOR-CHARITY
DYNAMIC
As costs of acquiring donors rise and rates of donor retention fall, a wise charity or cause owner will consider the question – what do donors want? Nearly three out of four donors stop donating to an organisation after their first donation (Barry, 2014). Without work on donor retention, its rates look set to fall to below 20% in the next decade (Barry, 2014). There can be various costs associated with donor acquisition, from chugger’s fees to mass direct mail campaigns – if the initial outlay of these costs isn’t met by a donor’s contribution, the outlook is bleak for a non-profit organisation or charity. Some particularly damning literature states that a newly acquired donor’s first year’s worth of donations only pays for the fee of the chugger that signed them up (Quigley, 2010). High costs of donor acquisition coupled with low rates of donor retention make it important for organisations to consider their relationships with their donors, and be aware of what they want.
DONORS WANT SPEED
AND CONVENIENCE
IF AN ORGANISATION’S
DONATION METHODS AREN’T
FAST AND CONVENIENT,
ITS SUPPORTERS WILL BE
LESS LIKELY TO DONATE.
People are growing to expect convenience in every area of their lives, and donation processes cannot afford to be any
different. If an organisa-tion’s donation methods aren’t fast and conve-nient, its supporters will be less likely to donate. A desire to do good in the first place helps, but the availability and func-tionality of channels
through which to do so affect whether this desire to give is converted into gift of a donation. People may be willing to be generous with their money, but less so with their time – which is where capitalising on the impulse to help becomes important (The Case Foundation, n.d.). This happens when people are asked to drop a couple of coins into the bucket being held by a collector on the street, but with the advent of credit cards people rarely carry cash. It also secures only a one-off donation rather than donor retention and a regular contribution. Donors want to be able to donate easily, and without a way to do so,
anim-pulse to help may not become a donation.
Online giving is seen as an
ideal option for donors in a hurry (The Case Foundation, n.d.). Doing tasks online is meant to be a way to save time and simplify tasks –
take online banking and online shopping for example. Punching credit card details into a
website is simpler than writing and posting a cheque, and a more sure way of capitalising on an impulse than rattling a coin bucket at pass-ers-by carrying only cards. It is also where people turn in the face of a disaster – for example, half of relief giving following Hurricane Katrina occurred online (The Case Foundation, n.d.). Online giving popularity is only growing, and looks set to become a mainstream avenue of charitable giving – just as online banking and shopping have entered the mainstream in their sectors (The Case Foundation, n.d.). Donors want speed and convenience, and online giving delivers.
Once the first donation has been secured, a two-way conversation between donors and a charity or organisation is a way to connect and
ascertain what the donor wants. A survey can be a good place to start, particu-larly in order to determine what type of dialogue a donor is most likely to engage in. A person who never checks their emails may be better reached via a Facebook page, while another might prefer to
A GIFT FROM A DONOR
SHOULD BE VIEWED
AS THE FIRST STEP
IN A RELATIONSHIP,
RATHER THAN A
BUSINESS TRANSACTION
(BARRY, 2014).
just follow an organisation’s Instagram. Though many channels of communication have the potential to be great, the light an organisation is seen in isn’t going to be a
favourable one if a repre-sentative is bombarding a previous donor that has an already hungry email inbox. Sometimes a donor won’t want to keep in touch with the organisation they gave to – follow-up correspon-dence can be seen as an opportunity to ask for
more money. If an organisation only contacts its supporters at appeal time, it’s less likely to be seen favourably than if it’s in touch all throughout the year and for reasons other than to ask for money (Koenig, 2014). A gift from a donor should be viewed as the first step in a relationship, rather than a business transaction (Barry, 2014). The relationship will grow stron-ger the more the donor is given opportunities to learn and care about the organisation and the outcomes that it achieves.
Donors want to feel like they can help, and that their contribution will make a difference (Andresen & McKee, 2010). They want to knowwhat they can or have fixed, which can become clear with a programme of regular and positive communication. If a problem seems endless, people won’t be
motivated to help by donat-ing their money (Andresen & McKee, 2010). If an organisa-tion focuses solely on their once-yearly appeal commu-nications rather than sharing success, the feeling of a never-ending problem will be created. However, with regu-lar updates of progress
shown to all donors, no matter the amount of their contribution, the feeling of having helped will grow.
IT IS MOTIVATING
FOR A DONOR
TO SEE THAT
THE END GOAL OF
THE ORGANISATION
IS ACHIEVABLE.
With a varied and well-planned online com-munications programme, an organisation can keep in touch with its donors and share
successes. It is motivat-ing for a donor to see that the end goal of the organ-isation is achievable. When milestones and progress are shared regu-larly, a feeling of having the power to make a difference is created. Social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter can be used for acknowledging donors and celebrating their contributions. Also, when donors are treated as the heroes by the organisation that they gave to, it’ll make them more eager to give again (Pitman, 2014). Donors want to feel like their contribution will help the organisation over a finish line, rather than that it is facing an uphill fundraising battle (Andresen & McKee, 2010). Regularly sharing successes through social media and celebrating donor contributions can foster this feeling.
Donors want to be confident that their money is making a positive impact on the issue that they gave to support. It is this impact that is seen as the strongest factor affecting donors’ trust in charities (Framjee, 2013). When an organisation’s web content (whether on social media or its own website) sends out this type of information that the donor wants to know, it is likely to keep them engaged and interested (Allen, 2000). Rather than assuming that the commu-nity only wants to give, an organisation needs to be aware that donors also want to know about the successes their contribu-tion has helped to achieve.
PUT ALL OF THIS INTO PRACTISE
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF AN IMPULSE BY MAKING IT EASY
FOR PEOPLE TO DONATE
OPEN A DIALOGUE WITH YOUR DONOR BY ASKING
THE BEST WAY TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THEM
SHARE THE SUCCESSES, NOT ONLY THE ASKS
-DONORS WANT TO FEEL THAT THEY’RE MAKING A DIFFERENCE
AN ORGANISATION’S
PRESENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
IS IMPORTANT FOR
ENGAGING WITH
ITS COMMUNITY.
Donors want to know about the impact that their donation has, but few want to read an organisation’s annual report (Koenig, 2014). A glossy annual report
sent by direct mail also has the potential to be very expensive, and can eat into the funds that have been donated in the donor’s hope of help-ing a cause. If an annual report is a mainstay of an
organisation’s communications with their data-base, it is much more effective to use it to connect with donors on an intimate and human level, rather than to send out a document of statistics (Koenig, 2014). Research shows that the donors of large amounts of money respond well to receiving a rundown of an organisation’s statistics, and small donors do not (Sunstein, 2014). It’s suggested that for ‘warm-glow givers’, a narrative that puts the impact into a human context is more effective and better received than a statistic-focussed annual report (Sunstein, 2014). For the majority of donors, a conversational report with a narrative of successes is a more enticing read, and will be more likely to coax them into engagement.
Donors do not want to visit a charitable organisation’s website every day. It is unlike-ly that it will feature alongside news sites and
social media as a web-site that they engage with regularly (Sage Nonprofit Solutions, 2010). An organisa-tion’s presence on social media is import-ant for engaging with its community. If Face-book and Twitter is well-used by an organisa-tion, the messages being sent out are in a space the potential or proven donor already is, giving the opportunity to engage with them at any time – rather than only when they’ve decided to visit the organisation’s website.
The purpose of fundraising with a focus on donor retention, is to garner a community of givers, rather than gifts (Goecks, Voida, Voida, & Mynatt, 2008). With consideration of what donors want comes a stronger rela-tionship between the donor and the cause – a sought-after bond in this time of donor-retention crises.
REFERENCES
Allen, N. (2000, June). Fundraising on the Internet: Using Email and the Web to Acquire and Cultivate Donors. Grassroots Fundraising Journal , 3-5. Andresen, K., & McKee, A. (2010). Homer Simpson for Nonprofits . Retrieved June
12, 2014, from Network for Good:
http://learn.networkforgood.org/Resources_911Archive_homersimpsonfornonprofits_resources_ ebook.html
Barry, F. (2014, January 6). One Thing Most Nonprofits Stink at (Donor Retention)
and How You Can Change It in 2014. Retrieved June 12, 2014, from npENGAGE: http://www.npengage.com/online-fundraising/12-donor-retention-tips-from-nonprofit-fundraising-experts/
Framjee, P. (2013, April 22). Fundraising costs are not a measure of a charity's effectiveness . Retrieved June 11, 2014, from The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2013/apr/22/fundraising-costs-effectiveness
Goecks, J., Voida, A., Voida, S., & Mynatt, E. D. (2008). Charitable technologies:
opportunities for collaborative computing in nonprofit fundraising . In Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 689-698). New York: ACM. Koenig, M. (2014). Never Write Another Annual Report. In npENGAGE, Show the
Love: Thoughtful Engagement to Retain Supporters (pp. 20-21). Blackbaud. Pitman, M. (2014). Using Social Media to Keep Donors. In npENGAGE, Show the
Love: Thoughtful Engagement to Retain Donors (pp. 22-23). Blackbaud. Quigley, R. (2010, August 27). Revealed: How fees for High Street 'chuggers' are
eating up the millions you donate to charities . Retrieved June 12, 2014, from MailOnline: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306567/Fees-high-street-chuggers-eat-millions-donated-charities.html
Sage Nonprofit Solutions. (2010). Five Myths of Online Fundraising. Retrieved June 13, 2014, from Sage Nonprofit Solutions: http://affinitynfp.com/wp-content/themes/twentyten/FiveMythsOfOnlineFundraising.pdf
Sunstein, C. (2014, May 29). Large charity donors need to see effectiveness .
Retrieved June 12 , 2014, from Stuff.co.nz: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/10094704/Large-charity-donors-need-to-see-effectiveness
The Case Foundation. (n.d.). Online Giving: Donors Are Younger, More Generous, and in a Hurry to Help . Retrieved June 12, 2014, from The Case Foundation: http://casefoundation.org/spotlight/holiday/online_giving
