Dining With Donors
It had been years since I visited an all-night diner.
So, the other night, road weary and longing for a cheeseburger and fries, I pulled into a real live, old-fashioned, aluminum clad diner and made my way to a booth with its own jukebox. Heaven.
BUT… something was amiss. Out of place. Unfamiliar.
With my cheeseburger and fries fresh before me I reached for the ketchup bottle. The kind you turn upside down and pound with the butt of your palm hoping to speed delivery of the red stuff.
Surprise. No more glass bottle marked “Heinz.” In its place was a squat, red plastic container proclaiming that it was “Heinz.”
So much easier. Just a few light squeezes and the goodies were delivered, smoothly and effortlessly without pounding on the bottle’s bottom.
Which, of course, got me thinking about donor-centricity. (Hey, it was late and I had this post to write.)
I thought about how the comparison between the old, rigid glass Heinz bottle and the new squeezy version perfectly illustrates the difference between an Organization Centric approach and a Donor Centric approach.
Clearly, the good folks at Heinz had heard from customers about the frustration of banging that glass bottle or waiting an unconscionable amount of time for the ooze to hit the burger and figured out how to eliminate that annoyance. Ahhh the brilliance of paying attention to customer experience and then doing something about it.
(Surely, they were reading The Agitator as we pounded the feedback drum pounded the feedback drum over and over and over. On our homepage we even offered a free—forever—feedback widget that’s easy to use.)
Before I finished the fries, I began wondering how many hours, how many meetings and how many “NO! s” it must have taken before Heinz made that change. I know how long it would take many nonprofits –especially the big ones—to get to the point where they even bothered to measure donor experience and then took the steps to do something to improve it.
All organizations whether they make ketchup or a better world get trapped by lots of processes, rules and customs. A web of complexity. For some folks in our sector “complexity” means job security. The more complex my job the more secure because other depend on me.
And most organizations have to deal with ego. In ego-driven organizations strategy flows from the top downward. Staff are waiting for the next command to act. Donor are waiting for who knows or cares. These types of organizations once worked OK in a slow, no-change environment.
The problem these days is complexity and ego morph into rigidity. Defenders of the status quo call it “stability”. Of course, when the environment of giving changes rapidly these organizations often find themselves going in the wrong direction.
As we’ve noted again and again modern technology –in information, commerce, and accessibility—have liberated the donor. Organizations that persist in remaining embedded in the past will find it increasingly difficult to survive.
Please pass the new ketchup.
Roger
9 responses to “Dining With Donors”
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What a great analogy, love it! I do love diners but they seem to be going out of style! too bad…
Diners first: Zips is a famous diner in Killingly CT. It was in Steve King’s novel about JFK and time travel. And lots of other photo journals and stuff. Ah yes. Zips… generations of the same family.
Questioning the status quo. How dare you? How dare you not! Real true cage-rattling questions to stimulate conversation so we can learn because it’s the learning that produces change. (Thanks Arie de Geus.)
And so…ketsup. (Or catchup Or?) I like tomato sauce but definitely NOT ketchup. I like my fries naked – and my burgers, too.
Notwithstanding the Heinz’s current bottle is made of plastic, likely poisoning us as we use it, and definitely destroying our environment and planet. I am not sure how to feel about the fact that the new bottle really just helps us squeeze more out faster. At the end of the day, it’s still the same amount of ketchup in the bottle.
Rick,
I hope the business model of Merkle isn’t based on missing the point.
But, really, how could you possibly confuse donor centricity with ketchup?
In writing the Agitator I really need to remind myself that when it comes to conventional fundraisers I shouldn’t be shocked. Rather I should simply repeat Kris Kristofferson’s refrain:
“If you waste your time a talking
To the people who don’t listen
To the things that you are saying
Who do you thinks gonna hear?
And if you should die explaining how
The things that they complain about
Are things they could be changing
Who do you thinks gonna care?
There were other lonely singers
In a world turned deaf and blind
Who were crucified for what they tried to show
And their voices have been scattered by the swirling winds of time
‘Cause the truth remains that no one wants to know”
Pass the ketchup
Roger
And yet I’m old enough to remember when the Heinz ad strategy was to promote the slow flow of its ketchup as a benefit. . .”The taste that’s worth the wait.” Coupled with a soundtrack of Carly Simon singing “Anticipation” and showing what looked like slow motion but may have been real time video of that reluctantly exiting its classic glass home to top some kid”s burger and fries.
What’s the donor-centric lesson? I’m too hungry. . .
Dan,
Terrific comment. Terrific song. Lesson: terrific illustration of how companies (and hopefully nonprofits) change with the times by listening to their customers and improving customer/donor experience.
In an “Amazon Age” of near-instant gratification apparently the wait for the taste is no longer worth as much as having the product promptly delivered.
What’s for dessert?
Roger,
Too hungry to comment.
Headed to Nick’s near downtown LA for a burger and fries!
Roger,
Disappointed that you would choose to take someone agitating with a bit of license around your analogy so harshly, and that you would choose to drag my employer into it. My humor (clearly still too foreign) was my own and has nothing to do with whom I work for.
Rick,
My apologies. Clearly our pathways to humor diverged. Keep on agitating.
Best
Roger