How often does your donor think about you?

Don’t kid yourselves folks, most of your donors never think about your organization spontaneously! They are busy living their lives, taking care of kids, watching TV, worrying about their jobs or retirement security or next date, cheering for their team, planning vacations, grocery shopping for tonight’s dinner.

So what might break through all that real life stuff and make them think about an organization they made a donation to several weeks or months ago?

Maybe a high profile event out there in the real world — brought to their attention by media, mainstream or social — reminding them, first, of a lingering concern they have (or once had), and second, if you’re lucky, your organization’s role in addressing that concern.

[I’m always amused by the inevitable finding in donor surveys that 10-15% of ‘donors’ don’t recall that they actually gave!]

Maybe a private event in their own life —  a death, a thrilling performance at the arts center, a graduation — that has the same reminder effect.

All you can do about those exogenous reminders is … be ready to capture the spark of recollection! These days, more than anything that means your online presence must be timely and compelling. That’s where they will turn.

More often, you will take the initiative. You will try to interrupt their daily lives, fight through the distractions and clutter, and deliver a message you consider important and urgent.

Yes (nod to Seth Godin), somewhere in the hazy past they gave you permission, at least tacitly, to interrupt them.

But permission notwithstanding, you are still interrupting them! Indeed, ‘Lifus interruptus!‘ might serve as the motto of fundraisers.

So you better have a damn good reason. And you’d better communicate it powerfully. Which starts with making your message irresistibly relevant to them (as opposed to you).

Whatever the communications occasion, I think all nonprofits would be more successful at fundraising if they approached each and every communication to donors — from newsletters to cultivations to appeals — with this mindset: I’m about to interrupt this donor and ask for their precious attention. Why is this message truly deserving of their attention? What makes it relevant to them right now?

“It’s time for the September special appeal” is not the right answer!

However, chances are, if your message does stand up to those questions, it will win a response.

Tom