Are You Donor-Obsessed or Merely Donor-Centric?
Customer experience guru Gerry McGovern warns that even if a company is indeed “customer-centric” that may not be enough these days.
“To truly be successful, you need to nurture a customer obsession culture within your organization.”, he warns.
The Agitator says, “Amen.”
So, let’s kick ‘donor-centricity’ up a notch and focus on what makes for a “donor obsession” culture? (Pick your own synonym for “obsession” –passion, love, devotion—any of these will do.)
The essential question: What are the characteristics of a donor obsession culture?
Humility. Most organizations focus entirely too much on their own needs. Consequently, one of the most difficult tasks for many groups is to put the donor first. Sadly, too often the claims, needs and whims of the CEO or senior managers come first. That’s Organization-Obsessive.
Here are some signs that you’re succeeding in becoming donor-obsessive:
- Constantly listening to and observing donors.
- Making decisions based on evidence of donor behavior and attitudes, not opinion or ego.
- Most importantly, it means measuring success based on donor commitment and satisfaction, not tactical or “meeting the numbers” success. In a donor-obsessed culture, the organization’s success flows from, and is dependent on, donor success.
From Wednesday through Friday this week Nick will cover ways in which you can boost your humility quotient with examples of the methods and value of listening to and observing donors.
As he points out in Thursday’s post: “We are not our donors. Even if we know we are not our donors, we don’t know how we are not our donors. Playacting that we know our donors’ desires is pure folly.”
Nimbleness. Donor-obsessed organizations understand that donors change faster than the organization itself. For example, many nonprofits are somewhere between arthritic and dead when it comes making changes in their websites based on donors’ changing needs or in their ability to listen to and quickly act on donor feedback.
Simplicity. If you want to be obsessed with one element of donor-obsession focus on simplicity. Make it as easy as possible for donors to get information, to get help, to make their thoughts and preferences known and to donate. Providing convenience and saving folks time is increasingly important in this Amazon-dominated age.
See Nick’s The Complexity of Simplicity.
In my experience nonprofits spend a hellacious amount of time figuring out how to save time and money for themselves, and devote precious little to understanding and improving the donor experience.
In the past organizations could get away with ignoring the donor by focusing on “let’s-cost-cut-our-way- to- success” measures like automated phone systems and other impersonal, annoying tactics. (Like burying or not providing proper contact information on websites.) No more.
At a time when donors are increasingly skeptical and independent-minded, with access to the empowering world of the internet and social media, those “obsessed” organizations that listen to donors, heed what they’re saying, and act on that feedback will lead the way.
What actions are you taking to nurture a donor-obsession culture?
Roger
5 responses to “Are You Donor-Obsessed or Merely Donor-Centric?”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Roger, you nailed it again, especially with this comment: “measuring success based on donor commitment and satisfaction, not tactical or “meeting the numbers” success.”
This shows up often in the mid/-level donor space. Programs and strategies focused on building stronger relationships with donors are deemed “unsuccessful” for failiing to generate revenue growth in the short term. We need to break out of one-year budget cycles and look at the long term value of positioning our donors as true partners in achieving the mission. The financial rewards will follow.
The other side of the coin?
Maybe I’m being naive, or just plain simple, but when I support an organization, I want to make sure they are doing the best job possible caring for people, or sloths or rain forests.
I would rather have an organization that makes the best possible use of my gifts rather than spending my donation stroking me or making sure I can communicate easily with them.
Of course, I’m a crotchety old lady. So who knows…
Well, Cindy, I have strong credentials as a crotchety old man. In general, I agree with your concern for “best possible use of my gift.” But I have an equally great concern for how I am treated as a donor. If I am treated poorly or “merely” indifferently, then I assume (safely I think) other donors are treated that way too. And if that is the case, then the organization is losing donors unnecessarily and has squandered the resources spent on attracting those donors. And that is most certainly NOT, the “best possible use of my gift.”
I would agree, Robert.
But do we really think donors in general are aware that an organization they support is loosing donors or squandering resources attracting more donors?
Or is that primarily a concern of those of us in the business.
I’m a longtime lurker, so I’m going to break my silence and comment to share my thoughts on Cindy and Robert’s exchange.
Firstly, I’m a crotchety young fundraiser (30 years old) and I definitely agree with Roger’s thesis that fundraisers on the whole aren’t “donor obsessed” enough. As a fundraiser, MY job is not to make sure we’re caring for clients, or saving the rainforest, or building the sloth population. That’s the job of program services staff.
MY job is to have a pipeline of people who know, love, and support our mission monetarily. Without those supporters, there IS NO WAY that the program staff can do their job as effectively and efficiently as possible, with no loss of continuity or productivity. If I don’t have sources of funding to support their work, their work goes away. Plain and simple.
To me, people who want every dollar of their contribution to go directly to services are like people who want every minute of a child’s class time to go to curriculum and instruction. It’s dehumanizing. A charitable organization is not a machine, and the people who lead it, support it, and work for it are not automatons. It’s like the 2nd law of thermodynamics – the entropy of an isolated system always and irreversibly increases. There is no “perpetual motion machine” that spontaneously converts donor interest, enthusiasm, and money into program services, work, and expenditures. The activity that it takes to convert a donor’s interests into a monetary gift, and from money into program services, will always and irreversibly incur costs. It is utterly impossible get around this expense.
The question is whether that expense is incidental or intentional. The incidental costs accumulate haphazardly, because we’re ashamed or afraid to communicate to donors the real cost of maintaining their support. The intentional costs can be managed, controlled for, and communicated to our supporters. I like the adage that “what gets measured, gets managed,” and the opposite is true as well: “What doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get managed.”
We have to be intentional about preparing for, carrying out, and reporting on the activities to which our organizations devote donors’ dollars and our own energies for the sake of maintaining sustainable sources of funding. I’ve never known a donor who was upset that a $50 expense brought in $500 to put towards our programs, when the likely alternative was that we would only have the $50 itself to put towards our programs.
“Don’t step over a dollar to pick up a dime,” as they say.