One Bucket Or Many?

November 21, 2016      Tom Belford

Anyone who’s followed The Agitator’s campaign to get fundraisers interested in donor retention is familiar with this leaky bucket illustration …

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Donald Trump himself couldn’t come up with a better shorthand for illustrating the foolishness of adding new donors, only to allow existing donors (and pretty quickly the new ones) to trickle away.

But wait, as our pal Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now recently blogged, maybe there is a useful enhancement of the image. He cites Bloomerang’s suggestion in this post, Let’s Stop Putting Donors Into A Bucket. Says Bloomerang: “The primary reason we have a leaky bucket is because we are putting donors into a bucket.”

The point here is … in the same bucket, which means we wind up treating all donors the same from a communications and engagement standpoint.

OK, fair enough, we shouldn’t treat all donors the same.

And in his post, Jeff indicates a whole range of ‘buckets’ that might reflect meaningful differences among a nonprofit’s donors … differences calling for targeted treatments. Jeff suggests some appropriate donor segments — first-time donors, monthly donors, donors who’ve given negative feedback … and so on.

Again, fair enough.

But here’s the thing — and what most agitates Roger and me.

We don’t care how differentiated and clever your segmentation scheme is. If you treat your donors like commodities, they’ll trickle through any and all your buckets. Don’t thank them properly … through the bucket. Lousy customer service … through the bucket. Ignore their stated preferences … through the bucket.

Here’s the reality: An organization’s culture tends to be pervasive throughout the organisation and its processes. No matter one bucket or twenty, if you mistreat first-time donors, you’re just as likely to mistreat donors who have upgraded or who are monthly donors. If one bucket is leaking, most likely they all will.

So absolutely … differentiate. But make no mistake, if you’re not performing the fundamentals of donor servicing, the leaks will still drown you.

Tom

 

 

3 responses to “One Bucket Or Many?”

  1. Lisa Sargent says:
    November 21, 2016 at 5:53 am

    Let me just tell you, Tom: for the first 80% of your post I was gearing up for a rant. “Oh, pul-leez *eye rolls* more about those when NPOs first have to be able to communicate with donors properly and consistently.” I almost clicked away.

    Then I reached the last three paragraphs. THANK YOU for saying this. After a lot of years copywriting only for nonprofits I can confirm that the success stories and the turnarounds follow a pattern: refined buckets after basics.

  2. Pamela Grow says:
    November 21, 2016 at 8:05 am

    Yes, THANK YOU, Tom. And thank you, Lisa. I’ve been refining both the communications calendar class and our stewardship class in our Basics & More course roster for 2017 – and creating a plan for every conceivable donor bucket. “An organization’s culture tends to be pervasive throughout the organisation and its processes.” – toughest nut to crack.

  3. claire axelrad says:
    November 21, 2016 at 6:30 pm

    Have to agree re importance of culture. If fundraiser does everything perfectly, but receptionist is rude, there goes your donor!

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