I’ll never forget the little old lady.

Early in my career I called on her to discuss the college’s plan for a new library, hoping she’d become a major contributor.

She served tea and little cucumber sandwiches. We chatted amiably and then got down to business. With great enthusiasm I showed her the architect’s schematics, explained why it was a sound idea to raze the old dorm that had stood for ninety years, and how attractive the new library would be in its place.

My confidence grew as she took it all in. She asked bright, incisive questions and didn’t wince when I suggested the amount of a gift that would represent her share of the project.

“Young man,” she said as I concluded, “I’m very impressed. But I won’t be contributing to this project.”

I was startled. “May I ask why not?”

“Well, you see, I’m all in favor of progress, but I’m absolutely opposed to change.”

At our peril all too many fundraisers tend to mistake change for progress. We claim we’re in favor of income growth and a sustainable future. But in practice we ignore the dangers  of huge changes that threaten both.

Under the cloak of “best practices” we blithely continue doing the same thing over and over—asking more and more, listening less and less, ignoring the preferences of our donors, drowning them in rising tides of digitized pap and on and on–  ignoring the eventual day of reckoning.

Well, that day of reckoning arrived some time ago and we can see it in sinking donor retention rates and declining numbers of donors that are nearing an all-time low.

You can imagine my joy in reading comments by the always perceptive Gayle Gifford  about “best practices”.  Commenting on Kevin’s post There Are No Best Practices Gayle confessed to being on a crusade to stamp out the use of “best practice” when “what people are really talking about is ‘common practice’, not best practice with a definition of evidence-based.”

Bravo!

More sloth and sin are covered up by the excuse “we used best practices” than there are Power Points at an AFP conference.  Too much reliance is placed on fishing in recycled waters of the Strait of What Everyone Else is Doing.

It’s long past time we move toward—or return to—the time when knowledge of the identity, preferences and needs of individual donors were sought out and honored in practice.

Today’s research and technologies make understanding and serving the donor far easier and less expensive.   Sadly, much of this technology –especially in the digital realm– is employed mindlessly with the volume-driven mindset principally in control.

Perhaps a real-life story, from a master marketing practitioner, best makes the point. In a recent post Venture Capitalists Turn A Great Direct Marketer into a Spammer marketing guru Denny Hatch outlines his experience of what happens when change is mistaken for progress.

Although Denny’s story involves a customer relationship it can just as easily be applied to a donor relationship in our world.  A lifelong customer of clothier Paul Frederick Denny relates how his solid, loyal 20-year relationship with this merchant was ruined by a stream of  nightmarish customer experiences brought on by the more-is-better-mindset put on steroids by digital email.

I hope you’ll read Denny’s entire post.  It’s a real-life reminder of the dangers of coupling inexpensive technology  with lack of understanding of basic relationship principles supercharging those with inexperience and/or stupidity.

In what Denny terms a “Litany of Greed” he illustrates how Paul Frederick wrecked the relationship by “glutting my inbox with e-junk”.  A pattern so different than his years’ long earlier experience with the same company that once demonstrated an understanding and appreciation of his needs and preferences.

Denny wondered how this happened.  He figured:

• Either the owner –whom he had positively profiled in a 2004 Target Marketing piece –“had hired an ignorant millennial digital marketing kid looking to score points with the boss (and maybe commissions for himself) by generating instant add-on business.

OR…

• [the owner] was bought out by a VC desperate to get some instant maximum ROI.

Number 2 it was.

A Venture Capitalist  running a gaggle of businesses with only one of its other companies in the same field as Paul Frederick.

Bottom line: Denny reports that the shirts he did order “are glorious—the best shirts by far that I have ever owned.”    But, the bombardment of emails between his order and the arrival of the shirts ruined the relationship.

“What I don’t need for the rest of my life are two (or more) emails a day from shirt importer Paul Frederick.  What was once valuable information has become common spam that irritates the hell out of me and reminds me of my mortality.  I told the Paul Frederick stooges to take my name off their lists and never contact me again.”

Denny then sums up his experience with these “Takeaways to Consider”:

• “Direct marketing is intimate advertising.”
  —Stan Rapp
• “Direct marketing is not advertising in an envelope.”
  —Bob Hacker
• “To be successful in direct marketing you have to get inside the heads and under the skin of the person you are contacting: think how he thinks, feel what she feels andbecomethat person, just like a Method Actor becomes the character being portrayed.”
  —Denny Hatch
• Just  because e-marketing and e-mail are essentially free, it’s imperative to treat customers and prospects with respect.
• “The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.
  —David Ogilvy.
• “I eat three meals a day. I can’t eat four.”
  —L.L. Bean
• “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
  —Jesus of Nazareth, Sermon on the Mount, AD 30

Beware of following today’s herd.  Today’s common practices ( the more-is-better mindset is the most common) may be practiced by most organizations but they contain real dangers.  Be mindful of your donors…understand they look to you for information that reflects their interest and values– not mail or email to fill their inboxes—and be especially alert that many of your organization’s donors may have a longer tenure with your organization than any of the fundraising or communications task.

When someone in next week’s meeting recommends “changes” challenge the suggestion and determine how and whether that change will truly equal progress.

Roger