Donor Relations When Disaster Strikes

Hurricane Irma.  Hurricane Harvey.  Fires in California.  Mass shooting in Las Vegas.  Top university officials making headlines – and not the ones you want for your institution.  These natural and manmade disasters seem to be everywhere you turn and they greatly affect our donors and constituents.

Our donors are often look to us for answers and to do the right thing.  At UC Davis we just survived massive wildfires that destroyed entire nearby neighborhoods, burned wineries and vineyards to the ground, and many of our alumni, parents, students, and friends were affected.  It was hectic but thankfully we had a plan.  A plan to not only connect and assist those affected but also to modify our plans to fundraise in these areas. Here are 4 steps we took to ensure our donors, and our community, knew we were there for them:

1. We reached out to all of our managed donors and trustees to ensure their safety.  It took several attempts to reach them but we did and they were grateful to hear from us.

2. Our Vet School sprang into action to assist animals abandoned and injured during the fires.  We opened up our hospital to house and care for their animals until their owners could come for them.

3. We suspended all direct mail, email, phone and personal solicitation to the affected areas.  How inconsiderate would it have been to ask for their support of UC Davis at a time when they were uncertain of their own future? 

4. When people called to ask how they could help we directed their support to several emergency funds.  My favorite is our fund started by students to assist students in emergency situations.

The fires are out and people are beginning to clean up and rebuild.  We had a plan and a team in place to execute it.  We didn’t do anything heroic – we just did the right thing at the right time.  We were ready… are you?

I hope you enjoyed this guest post by DRG Group member, Angie Joens. 

Cheers,

Lynne

Improving Donor Relations Through Innovation: Think Like an Entrepreneur

There is a time and a place for benchmarking. Times often call for us to CASE our work – copy and steal everything. There’s no need to recreate the wheel when it comes to tried and true initiatives. But, the donor relations industry is increasingly needing its professionals to think like entrepreneurs. 

As our donors’ needs become more nuanced and specific, the campaigns reach into the billions, and record numbers of supporters expect to be stewarded in meaningful manners, we must begin to respond to these needs with a business-savvy mindset. We need to poise ourselves as innovative problem solvers within our organization. One of my favorite business tips is that being an entrepreneur is not a job, it’s a mindset. And a very deliberate mindset that we should curate and refine.

Donor relations professionals are notorious givers – we are people pleasers. That is literally our job. So when in need, we go to our friends and our peers and other existing programs. I do this myself, frequently. And we receive examples galore from our contacts. But there are also key characteristics of the entrepreneurial mindset that set us up for more innovative and dynamic output.

1. Diligence and perseverance: dedication to trying, testing, failing, and starting over again; replacing fear with confidence and flexibility; thriving in the uncertainty and demonstrating willingness to take risks
2. Resourcefulness: proactively looking for ways to answer your organization’s needs; don’t sit back and expect it to come to you; work the problem from a variety of angles and depend more on your own ingenuity than the ideas of others
3. Vision: don’t just let the road take you where it will, envision the end goal and figure out how to get there; all great innovation comes from a solid vision
4. Passion: donor relations is inherently personal – we are working to connect with our donors in ways that inspire trust and loyalty in big and small ways – this work should fuel our passion and the genuine pleasure we take in doing our jobs!

As you embark on your own 2018 professional adventures, I encourage you to consider the entrepreneurial mindset in which you can start each day. Need something? Go seek it out on your own. Don’t wait. Be bold, proactive, and passionate. Innovation always wins. Ask yourself, what am I building/doing/creating that others will want to copy and steal from me? And then give it to them!

If you're looking for more inspiration and direction to improve your donor relations program, join the DRG Group in Atlanta February 1-2 for the 4 Pillars conference! 

Thank you to DRG Group member, Sarah Sims, for this amazing post reminding us of the importance of innovation in donor relations. Have you created or implemented something new and exciting? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. 

Cheers,
Lynne

Writing Considerations to Make it Fabulous!

As a follow-up to Lynne’s recent post in support of brevity in your writing, here are some other things to take in to consideration in your writing: 

1.     Know your audience.

Are they close to you? Can you skip the boilerplate?  The tone of writing of my colleague in gift planning is very differently than that of the annual fund gift officer soliciting young alumni.

2.     Make it about them.

No doubt you’re familiar with the acronym BOY:  Because Of You.  A great letter is not “here’s what we did last year” but “because of your support we were able to…”  Run your communication through a word counter.  How often do you use the words I and We in contrast to You.  Consider the difference between these two phrases:  “We fed 5.4M children last year” versus “With your help, we fed 5.4M children last year.”

3.     Be conversational.

I advocate using contractions in acknowledgements and solicitations.  You’re writing to a friend, ideally a true believer to your cause.  Resist the urge to fall into academic-speak!

4.     Be unique.

I cringe at the letters that begin “Fall is here, the leaves are changing, and students have returned to campus.”  I think it’s safe to say that sentiment is true of every educational institution north of the Mason-Dixon Line.  What is unique about your institution? Try instead something more like this:  Dust off your ga-ga ball and pick out your Shabbat outfit, because spring is in the air, and for us at Camp Young Judaea that can only mean one thing: it’s time to great ready for CAMP!

5.     Be direct.

You don’t have a lot of time to connect with your reader.  Supposedly you have 20 seconds to grab your reader, and that includes the eight seconds it takes to open the envelope.  If you’re making an ask, make it at least twice, once at the beginning (but not necessarily the opening paragraph) and again at the end. 

6.     Tell a story.

I call this putting a face on philanthropy.  People give to people or causes, not for the simple reason that you need money.  The best example of this is the well-known Charity: Water story of Helen Apio. 

In four short paragraphs the reader learns that Helen doesn’t have water in her village, and she must make the long walk each day to fetch water.  Once she has it, she faces the difficult decision of whether to drink it, clean clothes, or water her garden.  But thanks to your gift to Charity: Water, you’ve changed Helen’s life for the better.  Charity: Water has composed a mini-Shakespearean tragedy albeit with a happy ending.  Problem, struggle, reader empathy, happy outcome.

7.     Show impact.

Be specific about how their support will make a difference.  At Skidmore we often use the statistic that last year we provided 20 full-need scholarships from the collective impact of gifts of less than $100. 

8.     Have a call to action.

There’s a reason why late night infomercials insist you call within the next 15 minutes.  Give your reader a task and a timeline:  Make your Presidents Society gift by May 31!

9.     Rest and edit.

Once you’re written your solicitation or acknowledgement, put it aside.  Good writing, like good wine, benefits from an opportunity to breath.  Then edit the heck out of it! 

What principles do you follow in your advancement writing?

Thank you to Mary Solomons for her fantastic addition to the donor relations Guru blog this week!

Cheers,

Lynne