Hello Everyone!
As you know, I recently performed a challenge on #GivingTuesday here.http://donorguru.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-2012-giving-tuesday-challenge.html Te results were a bit frightening and somewhat pleasing. But let me tell you, I had no clue just how bad it was about to become. Fundraising is all about the relationship,and boy do some of us have some work to do.
Here is the updated spreadsheet: as you can see, the results are diappointing. 9 out of the 14 have still sent nothing to me in the mail about my gift. 6 of 14 have already asked me to give again, that's 43%! And I have to say the follow up has been poor. From one organization I received an email saying there was a "problem"with my gift because they couldn't find me in their database, and then received a follow up call a day later because they couldn't understand why I would come out of nowhere and give. Needless to say that wasn't impressive.
The receipts were more delayed than I expected, giving me a realization that the best practice of 48 hours from receipt of a gift is not being followed. Here are some of the receipts I received and letters to my honorees. Notice the ask before the THANK YOU in the Habitat one... argh. The letters from the Colon Cancer Alliance for my honoree and myself are almost exactly the same, no originality. And finally, the Pancreatic Cancer made my honoree look at a second piece of paper that was utterly useless and comical. I will keep updating the spreadsheet and see how we go. I received a nice thank you card from two places and an email from a director of development, too bad he spelled my name wrong. All in all, I would say that donor relations has work to do at these orgs, bt change can be made.
Speaking of positivity, here is the compilation of wonderful Holiday greetings that were sent to me from across the country. I hope you enjoy the warmth and creativity as much as I did. I would love to hear your feedback and comments as usual.
Cheers,
Lynne
Every day I harp on the "get it turned around in 24 hours!" and then I'll see a stack of letters with gifts dated a week or more ago, and I just sign them anyway. Sometimes it seems impossible (especially with holiday volume) to get thank you's out quickly, but we continue to strive for quick turn around!
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