For too long too many nonprofits –especially those focused heavily on direct response –have behaved as though they’re still operating in a by-gone time when donors placed blind trust in nonprofits and their brands.

This failure to recognize—not through lip service and jargon but by the way we practice our craft — the vast changes in donor and consumer mentality has led to overreaching, manipulation and donor abuse.

The result of this failure manifested itself most recently in the massive outcry—and consequent demands for “reform”— in U.K. (See Playing the Blame Game in the UK)

The tsunami of press and public revulsion over the tactics of overreaching and donor abuse –whether in the U.K, the U.S. or anywhere else –will continue to repeat itself as long as fundraisers ignore the new reality.

There is no clearer evidence to me that despite all the lip service about understanding demographics and using demographics and appending demographics, blah, blah blah…there is an absence of a fundamental understanding that consumer/donor attitudes have changed in ways unrelated to demographics.

In short, today all consumers/donors are “Millennials.” Not by reason of age or income or other demographic factors, but reason of “skepticism”—a trait that especially marks Millennials.

American consumers and donors are no longer blindly loyal. Nowhere is this clearer than the trust or confidence Americans–across the demographic landscape– have in nonprofit institutions. The June 2015 Gallup Poll provides startling evidence of the decline of ready confidence in institutions of all types in just the U.S.

Compared with the early 1970s, Americans who have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in institutions, has fallen–some by more than 50 percent, including banks, newspapers, medicine, and, of course, Congress—now at a low of 10 percent.

Religion, the Supreme Court, schools, organized labor, and the presidency have all seen confidence ratings fall by 25 percent or more.

And now a full 33% of all Americans have “not too much” or “no confidence” in nonprofits.

Despite this erosion of trust and confidence too many nonprofits and their agencies persist in doing business the same old way. Send ‘em more and more of the same and send it more frequently.

A generation ago most direct response fundraising involved what in reality was then called advertising. Large target audiences and repetitious messaging. That was before the internet, TV on Demand via your tablet, mobile phones and constricted broadcast and cable schedules. Before blogs and non-newspaper news services. Before social media.

What many of us seem to be missing is the fact that today people are not only more skeptical they are very much more aware. They search. They want what they want. And increasing numbers want what their friends want.

Most of all they want to be treated with both respect and the truth. Not bombarded and pushed ‘til they scream. They expect to have their voices heard and be listened to and responded to.

Yet too many organizations persist in the 1950’s thru early 1990’s model of the burn and churn one-way chute dumping its own needs and demands on new and existing donors.

Blind trust on the part of donors is dead. And that’s a good thing for fundraisers who care about donors and truly want to build relationships.

Failure to understand and act accordingly is no small part of the rigor mortis affecting so much of the sector that has ignored this reality.

Roger

P.S.  Tom returns from vacation and will be back on his Agitator soapbox on Monday.