Of course we all know the donor is not the enemy. Don’t we?

Maybe not.

Given the language so much of the sector uses, I wonder.  If we’re truly about the business of building committed and lasting relationships, why do we use language that is better suited for an Army field manual? As in, ‘target’ an audience … ‘acquire’ hostages donors … ‘recapture’ them. And, if all else fails, put them through a ‘conversion’ program.

Our friend Tom Gaffny makes this clear as part of his wonderful Myths and Dark Legends: How Old Conventional ‘Truths’ About Fundraising are Holding Us Back. You can see a summary of Tom’s thoughts in an earlier Agitator post. However, for a real treat I recommend you watch the video of Tom’s presentation just released by Blackbaud and available on YouTube.

Indeed if the language we use reflects attitude — our attitude toward donors — it’s time for some serious attitude adjustment.

Sadly too many organizations seem to believe they ‘own’ the donors (after ‘acquiring’ them). After all, they’ve spent lots of dollars ‘targeting’ them and ‘capturing’ them and sometimes even ‘recapturing’ them. With an attitude like this there isn’t much room for the type of attitude needed to build donor loyalty and commitment.

Does the language we use in describing our actions toward donors poison our ability to build meaningful relationships with them? Possibly so. Imagine walking up to a virtual stranger on the street and saying: “Hello, you probably don’t know how much money I’ve spent targeting and acquiring you, but because I now believe I own a relationship with you I thought I would ask you for money.

Faced with this situation any normal person would call the cops or head for the hills. Loyalty and respect can be won, but that won’t happen if you start off believing you ‘own’ the relationship.

Every Agitator reader knows from personal experience that strong relationships begin with a conversation, develop a bit more with the discovery of shared values and blossom because we enjoy spending time with the person and can trust them. Trust that is only built by two-way communication, consistency and reliability.

Lasting relationships with donors are built the same way.

Unfortunately, too many organizations persist in ignoring these key building blocks of a committed relationship. They mechanistically churn out one-way messages focused on the organizations’ needs and conquests. They ignore the donor’s need for conversation and dialogue (feedback), ignore the need for first rate, responsive donor service, while continually bombarding their donors with an ever-increasing number of one-way appeals.

Not a great prescription for building donor loyalty.

What if we changed our language and our attitudes from ‘targeting’, ‘acquiring’, and ‘recapturing’ to words and deeds focused on ‘conversation’, ‘dialogue’, ‘service’ and ‘relationship building’?

I think we’d begin moving a lot closer to the true tasks of a good fundraiser.

What do you think?

Roger