Donor Relationship Management

Twice in the past month I visited with a CEO who had the sinking feeling that it was time to replace the nonprofit's chief development officer. The reason in both instances: a failure to connect with people. Both explained that unless pushed, their chief development officers would go to events and prefer to sit at their tables and not connect with the guests...

In the past, philanthropy was predicated on the not-so-average person doing a not-so-average thing. Giving his or her money to people and trusting us with his or her investments. Many times, this was done in what I call blind faith, meaning that the donor saw an organization doing good in the world, wanted to make…

If you’ve paid even the tiniest amount of attention to popular culture in the past decade, you’ve surely noticed that a lot of people really, really love comic books and superheroes. What was once perhaps looked upon as "nerdery" is now embraced as mainstream. And so it stands to reason that comic behemoth Marvel will…

"All you care about are the numbers! Relationships really don’t matter to you!" or "All you care about are relationships. We do need to secure our budgeted revenue, you know? The numbers do matter!" These two statements—these two positions—came into sharp focus for me when a good friend and colleague told me he had been part of a discussion about how some folks just care about the numbers and others just care about relationships. Hmm. Interesting, I thought. At least there’s a discussion about this important subject...

I hear this all the time. “Where do we find rich people to give to us?” Ugh. No. No. No. No. If you’re looking for rich people, that tells me you care more about the money than the donor, and, my friend, that is backward! If you want to be wildly successful at fundraising and…

I once worked with an 85-year-old philanthropist who liked to communicate by text. Forget everything about seniors avoiding technology. Forget that some of our elders believe that email and text are a rude replacement for good, old-fashioned conversation and letters. This particular octogenarian liked to text because it was hard for him to hear on the phone...

You have a donor offer you a gift before you are in a pending major campaign. What do you do? The ideal result of ongoing cultivation and engagement is for a donor to say, "How can I help you?" It is important that you have an answer where the donor can be a hero and make an impact. And this opportunity needs to be in the near future to keep his or her interest, create momentum and honor the offer...

Silos are death. The more we learn about what works in fundraising today, the more we’re encouraged to focus on the donor’s journey or experience. Customer service—something that has always been important—is suddenly getting more notice. That’s a really good thing. One thing guaranteed to hurt customer service is when internal staff and systems aren’t…

If you’re stuck trying to figure out a special way to show appreciation to your donors, how about having an open house at your organization? If you can’t hold one on site, have it at a restaurant or other venue. You may be able to find someone to donate space. Invite other supporters, too You…

Summer is vacation time. You and other members of your staff may have a fun vacation planned. I recently came back from a wonderful trip to Spain. Even though this might be a slower time, don’t hold back on your donor communication. Yes, your donors also are taking vacations, but they still want to hear…