Many fundraisers –regardless of the size of their organization—tell us that donor acquisition is one of their biggest problems.

The numbers support this. In the UK eight of the largest charities are losing donors faster than they acquire themby a rate of 5 to 3.   In the U.S., for the fourth quarter of 2017 the Fundraising Effectiveness Projectreports a 19% decrease in the number of new donors.

If acquisition is such a big problem then why in the world are so many fundraisers attempting to solve such a large and complex problem with cookie-cutter strategies and woefully incomplete plans, procedures and analysis?

To help answer this question The Agitator is devoting this week’s posts to some of the most critical elements involved in planning and analyzing donor acquisition. Many of the insights come from research and pilot projects conducted by DonorVoice using its Commitment System over the past five years.

There are two overriding reasons why acquisition is in trouble:

• Failure to understand and plan for the true, detailed complexities of acquisition;
• Unwillingness to invest the time and money needed to effectively plan, execute and analyze the actions required for a first-rate acquisition program.

In this series we’re not focusing on the hundreds of hours and countless millions of dollars our sector invests in picking lists, perfecting copy, testing incremental changes that usually lead nowhere. These are merely tactical– albeit expensive — mechanical steps,

What concerns us is that most organizations and their consultants stop right there. Response rates are cheered or condemned. The campaign is pronounced a success, failure, or about the same as others, and the numbers are entered spreadsheets.

From there the Excel jockeys take over, calculating the average retention rates, the average gifts and the average amount of time it will take to pay back the investment. Done!

Wrong!  Not Done. Far from it.

Far more attention needs to be given to the planning, analysis and investment decisions required to undergird a successful acquisition program.  And to look carefully at ‘bad’ or ‘poor’ practices and mindsets that stand as barriers to success.  We’re going to do exactly that this week.

Tuesday.  The #1 excuse we hear about poor acquisition involves money.  More specifically, the lack of it.  “Our board just won’t let us lose money to acquire new donors, let alone spend money to properly onboard and communicate with them.”  So, I’ll  start this series off tomorrow with What Your Board Can Learn from Starbucks and the fundamental importance of helping the financial powers-that-be in your organization understand why investment in acquisition is so important and how to best explain it to them.

Wednesday, in What to Do When-Cost-To-Acquire Lies to You?  Nick explains why acquisition costs are a flawed metric and suggests far better indicators to guide your acquisition efforts.

Thursday is ‘silo’ day, meaning those internal organizational structures and functions that separate acquisition strategy from the donor development/retention strategy.  They create a dangerous and damaging disconnect. Anyone managing an agency or team responsible for acquisition knows the pressure is always on to keep the response rates up without dropping the average gift too low. But quality is easily sacrificed for quantity when a team or agency is trying to justify their budget or keep their contract.

So, you’ll want to read and heed Nick’s Breaking Down Your Acquisition Silos as he highlights the perils that spring from the mental or actual budget buckets of money devoted to “mail”, “online”, “digital advertising” and “reactivation”.

Friday.   We’ll end the week by hopefully disabusing anyone who’s just deposited a new donor’s check of the notion that they’ve just acquired a donor.  Not!

In When Have You Acquired a Donor? Nick covers the steps required before you can proclaim a new donor as “acquired.”

We hope when you finish this week’s series you’ll  understand why we feel the term “acquisition” as generally used could benefit from greater definition and analysis.

Roger