Happy Halloween!

Also, for those in the United States, happy National Doorbell Day, National Magic Day, and National Knock-Knock Joke Day.

Today is also your last chance to celebrate Prescription Errors Education & Awareness Week, Dyslexia Awareness Month, National Spina Bifida Awareness Month, Down Syndrome Awareness Month, Health Literacy Month, National Dental Hygiene Month, National Liver Awareness Month, Bat Appreciation Month, and many others.*

Tomorrow, gear up for National Family Literacy Day, National Calzone Day, National Men Make Dinner Day, National Cook for your Pets Day and National Authors’ Day.

In the nonprofit world, we take these days, weeks, and months far more seriously than do our constituents.  For you, it’s National Think-About-The-Cause-For-Which- I-Work (TATCFWIW) Day.

For your constituents, it’s Wednesday.

It is the classic divide between what’s important to you and what’s important to your donors. Despite the lack of regard for these “special” days among your donors**, this or that  National  Day, or  International Days, Weeks, or Months often show up on your email calendars.  And I get why.  Blank calendars are scary.  Plus, we’ve been told by some that the key to raising more is quantity, not quality, so we feel a need to invent reasons to email our constituents as much as possible.

But my guess is almost everyone who would donate to you during National TATCFWIW Day would donate to you if you sent the email without the pretense but with a strong story about how their gift would help.  Plus, those who say volume is the answer have focused on  both the wrong answer and the wrong question.

What if you took the time and effort you put into National TATCFWIW Day into closing the divide ‘twixt your org and your donor?  Let’s call that National Donor Day (I’m betting that would have been a huge reveal if I hadn’t titled the post that).

National Donor Day isn’t one day; it’s a different day for every donor.  It’s something that the donor invests with meaning or you can invest with meaning for the donor.  A simple example is those who choose to give on their birthdays to a nonprofit through P2P fundraising.  That requires the cause to 1) know the donor’s birthday to make that ask and 2) have donors committed enough to make that statement and request to their peers.

It could also be something tied to their donor identity.  Maybe it’s their sponsored child’s birthday.  Maybe it’s their diagnosis day or, better, the anniversary of being declared cancer-free.  How about the day your donor adopted their shelter dog?  If you don’t think a reminder of that day would be powerful, I’ll wager you don’t have a shelter dog.  (That’s our Emma at right.  Everyone?  One.  Two  Three.  Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww….)

Or it could be a day that was transformative for them, tied to your cause.  Some born-again Christians celebrate the day they became born again as much as or more than the day they were born.  Which do you think is more important to someone who has come out: the day they came out or National Coming Out Day?  The latter may have greater power of community and advocacy potential, but the former is more deeply personal.

So instead of a shallow appeal to everyone at once, how about a deep appeal that touches people where they live when it’s important to them?

Nick

P.S. If you were looking for a spoooooooky Halloween post, check out last year’s “A Donor’s Lament” in the rhyme scheme of The Raven.  It was not repeated because 1) it was one of the least popular posts and 2) complex internal rhyme is hard.

* As a special Halloween treat, you can pick the joke that goes here:

• For Bat Appreciation Month, I’m going to say George Clooney: not a bad Batman; just in a bad Batman movie
• Fortunately for this author, it is also National Sarcastic Awareness Month; I’m trying to get this post in under the wire.
• It’s also American Cheese Month, National Dessert Month, National Pickled Peppers Month, and National Seafood Month. Please celebrate responsibly and separately.

** There are certain exceptions to this like Earth Day that are talked about beyond any one nonprofit or Girl Scout Founder’s Day (today), which was a part of many Girl Scout’s experiences of scouting and childhood and thus evoke nostalgia and community.  That said, the riposte of “well, we’ll just make our day the next Earth Day” has such a large allocation of resources and small chance of success that most other tactics are preferable.