WANTED!
Curious, concerned, innovative volunteers
to participate in discovering the vaccine for
Defecting Donor Syndrome

We’re about to undertake an applied research project aimed at helping nonprofits increase the retention and Life Time Value of their donors and members.

We’re looking for four or five pioneering volunteers to participate with us.  At our cost and risk.

Here’s why you may want to consider taking us up on the opportunity.

Lots has been written, talked and preached about the need to create, maintain and grow donor relationships … with near unanimity in the immense value derived: Higher retention. Higher net income.  Higher Life Time Value.

We endorse nearly all we’ve seen others write and contribute to the subject.

In fact, over the past three years The Agitator itself has covered or commented on the essential issue of Donor Relationships — and too-often-squishy concepts of ‘trust’, ‘loyalty’, ‘commitment’, ‘engagement’ — in 112 posts.

But what is missing is: 1) a systematic, math-based, proof-based and theory-based process to measure the strength of the donor relationship and what impacts it; and 2) the practical tools and guidance nonprofits need to do something about it.

THEORY (Urban Myth?): For example, when it comes to the fundamental theory  of good donor relationship management, most of us as a matter of faith accept that if a donor feels she/he has a good relationship with an organization it positively affects their giving.  Conversely, a weak relationship or absence of any relationship negatively impacts giving.

Not so fast! Maybe this is just another urban myth of Fundraising. Or maybe not.  Where’s the proof?

Proof. Assuming we can show that it’s factually true that a donor who feels good about an organization actually gives more, or more frequently and over a longer period, then can we find out what key factors are universal and how they inter-relate?

HYPOTHESIS: We can measure the strength of the donor relationship to your organization by asking your donors 3 survey questions.

These 3 questions, taken together, form a Donor Commitment Score. We want to prove this score is strongly correlated to ACTUAL giving … and that there are practical, inexpensive steps you can take to improve the score.

GETTING TO THE ESSENCE:  To do this, in addition to a large national sample of donors (which we’ll provide), we need a select number of nonprofits to participate in this timely project using online research to ask the 3 survey questions.

The project is being directed by our colleague Kevin Schulman, a veteran marketing and fundraising researcher with tons of successful experience at nailing down these types of difficult issues with mathematical certainty.

Any takers?

Click here to learn more about the project, the minimal demands on you as a volunteer, the rewards of participation, and to sign up.

Roger and Tom

P.S.  One of the helpful “goodies” to come out of this project is a briefing where we’ll share the results with those who participate, along with all the ways this scoring can be applied to drive retention higher. For example, as an early warning sign for RFM-identified “good” donors who are at risk of defecting, and identification of donors with real potential despite their “bad’ donor label via RFM segmentation.