Donor Relationship Management

Have you ever started a new job, only to discover that no thank yous had been sent for months? Or even—(gasp!)—years? I ran across that very situation in what I fondly refer back to as my last “job-job...

If you’re an organization that has had monthly donors for a while, you’ll know that some of your monthly donors can and will stay with you for decades! Of course that in part depends on their age when joining. Typically, I’m seeing that those donors continue to give monthly for 5 years to 7 years...

Throughout the last few years, the entire world has been buzzing about the power of story. On the surface, all this conversation makes it seem like we've collectively forgotten the millennia of storytelling sprawled out before us in museums, history books, novels and campfires...

Two decades ago, Human Rights Campaign introduced “Partners,” our new monthly giving program. But we did so much more than that—in large part, unknowingly. We didn’t just create a program. We embarked on a journey to create an organizational culture. A culture of sustained giving...

Generating compelling success stories won’t happen by magic. In order to get the stories, you need to help your staff understand the importance of stories in the organization’s marketing and fundraising efforts and to feel comfortable asking clients for their stories...

Motivating everyone to get involved is critical. Last week’s blog was about cause marketing. This week’s blog is somewhat similar, but is about a company (hint: the name is in the title of the blog) that is aligning their brand with the idea of community involvement...

In one of the webinars I present on monthly giving, one of the polls is: “How often do you ask someone to become a monthly donor?” The answer in some 50 percent of cases is not at all. Twenty percent say once a year and others more often than that—maybe twice or three times...

The No. 1 strategy for sustaining good-standing relationships with donors is by engaging with them on a personal level—not just the major donors, but all donors. And yes, this includes your mid-level donors, too...

Through my experiences of fear and working to move past it, I also know what it’s like to live in freedom. Believe me, that freedom place is so much better. Today, I’m going to outline what it looks like when major-gift professionals allow fear to take over and then what it looks like when we can live in freedom. ..

Philanthropists, especially those who become evergreen, see giving as a relationship—an ongoing relationship. They give for reasons, which are intensely personal. Those reasons are almost never material. They give to realize their personal values for self-actualization. Nonprofits that understand this appreciate that when they ask for an investment, they’re offering something of far greater value than the financial resource a donor offers...