Pick up the phone!

It's so easy.

In donor-centered fundraising, it's crucial.

Every day I try to respond to emails by picking up the phone and calling the person who just emailed me. They are usually happily surprised.

Then we get to talk. How is their day? How are we doing in our programs?  Yes, our Gala was incredible. Our relationship just got stronger.

Calls don't have to be reserved for donors. Call your vendors too. Build relationships everywhere you can. Your development and marketing efforts can only get stronger because of them.

Plus, in some cases, who will make someones day.

It's easy. Just pick up the phone.

Thank you for reading!

3 quick actions for today

It's Friday.

We all have our own rituals throughout the week, and on Fridays I like to have a long list of action items for the day. I try not to schedule any off-property meetings and focus on one thing: donor relationships.

Three actions that are consistent for Fridays with me are:

Call a donor. Or several donors. Not a donor who is getting close to their time for the annual donation. A donor who you just want to say hi and thank you to.

Do a site tour with a donor. Some of you might not have this option. In that case invite a donor for a coffee. Yes, face to face time with the donor is the key here.

Spend some time on your next current-donor mail appeal. It might not be for another few months, but some creative time spent today will totally pay off. Remember, donor-centered.

I absolutely love time with donors. If you are new in fundraising and still uncomfortable with calling a donor or meeting with a donor, I promise that the more you do the more comfortable and even fun it gets. Your passion for the mission of your agency and the donor's passion/vision for the mission can only grow stronger when you spend time with them.

Thanks for reading!

January fundraising

Yes, I am aware that January is almost over! My has it flown by. I still think it's relative for fundraisers to talk about making January an awesome month.

As a fundraiser, January has always been an interesting month. In most of my positions I have breathed a sigh of relief in early January or been devastated by a failed end of year effort. In some cases I have been able to create a quite strong fundraising month in January based on rigorous efforts and relationship-building in December.

At my current agency we run a fiscal year that goes from October to September. No craziness in December as far as making budget but we still rock it due to it being an important month of giving for our donors.

So what do we do in January? Regardless of whether this is the start of your fiscal year or in the middle, all of these suggestions could help:

Make sure every donor from December has been thanked.

Make sure all of your recurring monthly donors have a received a letter telling them the total amount of their giving for the past year.

Personally call all of your major donors and thank them for donating last year.

(At this point you might be seeing a pattern. Basically, are you in relationship with your donors, do they know that, and are you in a position to continue that relationship this year.)

Send a year-end review to your Board of Directors. Let them know five or six highlights of the past year and a couple of things that surprised you.

If this is something that you can do, send the same type of email to the entire staff.

Meet individually with your team members and talk about how you want to rock it with them in the next couple of months. Be prepared.

Learning. Yes, most of us have a lot to learn. Hold a training for your team.Go to a training. Create a "101" for folks you lead.

Finally, it's important to not give up on lapsed donors from last year. You've run the numbers and you see that your donor retention rate was not that good. Just because you are in a new year doesn't mean you need (or should) give up. Create a plan to engage with those donors.

Let's make January an incredible month!

Thanks for reading!

How much have I given?

This week I excitedly sent our annual giving letters to donors.

What?

Donors are busy. Their job is not to keep track of how much they are giving and when they gave. That's my job.

We start with those who donate monthly. When those donors set up a monthly donation, we ask them if it's OK that we send them an annual thank you letter as opposed to a monthly one. They love that, mainly because it saves time and money for us. So in the first week of January we send out those letters.

Then we go to our list of donors who have made multiple donations, or have donated a cash gift and perhaps attended an event. The letter spells out the tax deductibility of the event donation and includes any other cash donations, and of course the dates of the donation.

These letters help us, and the youth we serve, in so many ways.

We are not asking for a donation.

We are making a touch.

We are letting our donors know about their giving, which may or may not surprise them. I find that doing these letters adds to an increase in gift amount. It also helps in a decrease of lapsed donors. How many times have you met or spoken with a donor and their response to you telling them their last gift date is one of shock? Time flies, not only for your but also for your donors.

It's up to us as fundraisers to communicate with our donors and to support them in any way we can. Hopefully you are in good relationship with your donors and yearend giving letters will not be a surprise or something that they are not aware of!

Thanks for reading!

Donor relationships

I have said many times that I love the "R" word, meaning that I love the word "relationship".

It is a word that too often is overlooked by fundraisers and professionals in philanthropy.

And that really needs to stop.

If you are passionate about your organization's mission, get into solid relationship with your donors.

If you want to rock your budget, build relationships with your donors.

If you want to build a source of revenue that that your organization can count on, make sure your donors know that you care about them.

How does one go about this?

Call them. That's right. Next time you get an email from a donor asking a question, call them with the response.

Invite them on a tour of your facilities.

Email them a video thank you note.

Send a personal note.

Send them an impact report, or annual report. When we send these out we add a big "Thank you" on the back with signatures of our team.

These are just a few ideas of many. Start here and I assure you your relationships with donors will change.

Thanks for reading!

Relationships are the key

I use the "R" word a lot.

Peers on my fundraising team have heard this word so much that they incorporate it into many of their conversations and actions.

Fundraising isn't about a check. It's not about a response to a direct mail appeal or a company saying that they will purchase a table at your annual Gala.

Fundraising is all about relationships.

Having a problem with lapsed donors? You wouldn't be  alone. Many non-profits aren't even paying attention to those donors who once used to financially support the organization but for some reason stopped.

Having a challenge with taking a one-time donation to a long-term donor? I wonder how many non-profits are even paying attention to this.

Fundraisers are vital to the mission of a non-profit. I hear all of the time that fundraisers are too busy to do this or that. Too busy to call a donor. Too busy to actually sign a thank you letter. Yes, I was honestly shocked when I received a thank you letter letter from a local major non-profit I had donated to and the signature was pre-printed on the letter. Seriously?

We cannot be so busy that we don't make time for relationships. Relationships are the key to any fundraising successes we will have.

And you have time for them!

Every donor receives a tax letter/thank you letter. Call them the second you receive their donation!

Send something to a new donor. Perhaps a note signed by the board or perhaps an invite for a tour.

Use all of your social media to thank a corporate sponsor.

Sign every thank you letter. Add an additional note.

Call a few donors every week. Not for an ask, just to check in.

Build relationships. You won't regret it.

Thank you for reading!

Talk with your donors!

This past week I got yet another call from a nice guy who works for a fundraising company and wanted me to talk about hiring them to help us with our donors, especially with retaining donors and finding new donors.

There are a lot of companies out there who do an amazing job in supporting fundraising efforts for non profits.

But there are some things that you just have to do for yourselves. 

If you are fearful of speaking with your donors, of getting to know them and their vision for your non profit (and making sure it matches their personal vision) then you might want to try another field.

Don't hire someone to do something that is so vital in fundraising as speaking with and working with your donors.

For me, this is one of my favorite things about fundraising. I love getting to know our donors, asking them why they first got interested in us and our mission and making sure they know everything they want to know about how we are doing as an organization and the successes we are having within our mission.

Don't be afraid. I know, that sounds weird. Just pick up the phone and go from there.

Here's an example for something you can do today, right now:

Pull a list of donors who made a donation last September, but have not donated since.

Listen to your "pump me up" song.

Make the call, letting them you wanted to check in with them as this is the time of year they normally make their donation and you'd like to let them know what your organization is up to.

Offer to send them a newsletter, annual report, etc.

Done.

You can also leave a voice mail.

You can do it. Your organization, your mission and those you serve depend on you being able to talk with and engage your donors!

Thanks for reading!

Building lifelong relationships

This phrase is heard often in our development office.

It's not about a donation.

It's not about a check.

It's not about someone attending one of our events.

Everything we do is all about building a lifelong relationship between someone and our agency. To take their care for what we do and build from that. To take their interest in our mission and vision and grow it.

Lifelong relationships. Lifelong partnerships.

We are similar to many organizations in that we have donors who have given for several years and typically give the same amount around the same time of the year. We have donors who for some reason or another stopped giving last year or even several years ago. We don't know why.

We don't know why because we never asked. What we do now is try to engage with donors as much as possible. If you typically make a donation in May, then we hope to chat with you in April. If we know that you received our latest appeal and our latest newsletter yet haven't heard from you in over a year, then we check in. That might look like a personal note or an email. Just a simple check in.

I always have believed in the best intent of people who donate to us. After having made over one hundred calls to donors just since I started a couple of months ago, I know that our donors are just as busy as we are and in most cases cannot believe that it has already been or year or so since they made their last donation.

Time flies. For us, and for our donors.

Recently I decided to spend the night out on the streets of Denver to get a small glimpse into what the youth we serve go through every day. You can check out my previous post if you'd like to read about that. Taking that story and that experience and sharing it with donors has very much added to our relationships. Donors want to know what's happening at your organization. They want to know about the ups and downs, the successes and the challenges.

They also want to know how you spent their money. This is huge when creating lifelong relationships. After we receive a donation, we make a quick cal to thank them, which is followed up by their thank you/tax letter. A few months later we send them another letter that tells them how we spent their donation.

Hello lifelong relationship.

The biggest reason I know about the power of all of this in building relationship is that this is how I want to be treated as a donor. I want to know how things are going and I want to know how you spent my money.

Thanks for reading. I would love your feedback. My email is dan.hanley@urbanpeak.org

Where have your past donors been?

I could also title this post "What to do with lapsed donors?".

After being unemployed for a month, this past week I began a new adventure and am experiencing all of those joys that come with starting all over in development and fundraising. It didn't take long for me to start taking a look at lapsed donors and what they look in the overall realm of moving forward with an incredible fundraising effort.

My definition of a lapsed donor is a donor who had given up to a certain year, and then last year did not give.

There are most likely hundreds of books and articles written on how to keep lapsed donors low or how to "deal" with them.

First things first. To me, make sure your fundraising plan is solid in connecting with current donors so that the likelihood that they become a lapsed donor is low. A couple of things I like to do is to thank the donor ASAP for a donation. I also like to let them know within a few months how we spent their money. Exactly. As a donor myself, I love knowing that the money I donated went for a homeless dog's spay or neuter, a meal for a hungry person or simply support for the overall operation of the agency.

The more time and energy we put into creating and nurturing relationships with those who financially support us the less time and energy we have to use in trying to figure out what happened to them.

All of this being said we are all still going to have a number of lapsed donors.

I already have a list of those who donated to us in 2011 but not in 2012. Some were just late in giving and made a donation in January of this year. For those left, I have a plan. I am sharing names with the development team, with board and with other staff. I am going to ensure that we reach out to all of these donors to check in. Being an agency that serves youth experiencing homelessness, I seriously doubt that a donor has become angry with us, but one never knows. many times all it takes is a phone call to check in, which to the donor is a reminder of something they have been meaning to do!

Before long, donors get used to being communicated with, and not just when being asked to give. It is a terrible day when a donor thinks that the only reason you are calling is to ask for a donation.

I will keep you posted on how our lapsed giving efforts go. Thank you so much for reading!

Lapsed donors

A lot has been written about lapsed donors and how to continually keep an eye on how lapsed donors affect one's overall fundraising plan.

A plan around decreasing lapsed donors can be worked on throughout the year, not just towards the end of your fiscal year.

For me, it all starts with donor relationships. How does your organization treat donors? Are they just an ATM? Do they get thanked quickly? Do they know how you spent their donation? Do you try connecting with them other than when you ask them for a donation? Are they kept up to date regarding your mission and their part in it?

I think any fundraiser could add more questions. This is enough for the purpose of this blog post.

If my organization and our mission is frequently in front of the donor, then we have a better chance of keeping them as a donor. If we thank them quickly and let them know how we spent their money, our chances are even better at keeping them as a donor. 

Inevitably for some us, including me, we end up at the start of our year end campaign and haven't paid 100% attention to potential lapsed donors.

This is what I do:

I send out the year end appeal. The direct mail piece. It goes to everyone, including those who have not yet made a donation this year.

I create a list of any potential lapsed donors for the year and it goes on my office wall. As donations arrive, I call them to thank them and cross their name off.

A few weeks after that first direct mail piece went out, I bring in volunteers to call every donor who received the year end appeal, with focus on those who have not yet made a donation.

Come December, bring in as many folks to help as possible. Your ED, the board, co-workers. Make sure every donor has gotten a call. OK, if you have tens of thousands of donors you can't do this. But you can still make the effort.

This totally works. In my first year here we lowered the amount of lapsed donors by 60%!

Try it. And remember that the best way to maintain a donor is how you treat them, not just an end of year ask.

I would love your feedback and would also love to learn about what you do around lapsed donors!

Thanks for reading!