It’s Giving Friday … Now What?
It’s ‘Giving Friday’ today.
Giving Tuesday 2014 is over and judged a raging success. Tuesday’s ‘take’ has been counted: $46 million, up from $28 million last year, according to a first estimate from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. What do we do next?
I suggest your #1 priority should be getting a second gift from your new, only days-old donors … quickly. To make Giving Tuesday truly successful, you need to hang on to those newbies.
To that end, I commend Joanne Fritz’ latest About.com article: Donor Retention: How to Keep Donors Coming Back After the First Gift.
Joanne borrows from a 2011, but timeless, presentation by retention guru Adrian Sargeant (here are the slides). Joanne and Adrian emphasize that most of the reasons donors cite for no longer giving are wholly under the control of the organization. Here are the reasons:
- No longer able to afford support
- No memory of ever supporting (more frequent than you might imagine!)
- Still supporting in some other way
- Thinking that the cause no longer needs their support
- Relocation
- Not reminded to give again
- Nonprofit did not inform donor how donations were used
- Nonprofit’s communications were inappropriate
- Nonprofit asked for inappropriate sums
Except for two of those reasons, the causes can be addressed and fixed.
In looking back over Adrian’s slides, I was struck by his advice on building trust (the necessary precursor of commitment) as the keystone of retention.
To build trust, he advises:
- Drip feed performance data.
- Demonstrate role competence.
- Demonstrate good judgement.
- Be honest when things go wrong.
- Develop and promote complaints procedure.
Great advice.
So, ‘Giving Friday’ is not a day to simply rest on the laurels of last Tuesday. It should be a day to recommit to donor retention!
Tom
P.S. And of course, for more retention advice, pull out your copy of Roger’s Retention Fundraising: The New Art and Science of Keeping Your Donors for Life.
One response to “It’s Giving Friday … Now What?”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Iām not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019ās charitable giving. The researchers didnāt find a reduction. Actually, they observed an āincrease in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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Great tips not only for Giving Tuesday but for the all year for any fundraising campaign š