The Big Picture Solution

We know exactly how to measure the level of trust (we call it Donor Commitment) to your organization at the individual donor level AND how your organization can impact it with your marketing (direct or otherwise), communications and operations.

Now indulge us a bit with more “white paperesque” context.

Why do people donate? One need not answer this question fully or in detail to get at the more fundamental answer – no DONOR on the planet engages in altruistic acts. They all want something – that something may be very abstract and ephemeral (e.g. to simply feel good, to know they are making a difference), but nevertheless real and ignored at your peril.

And in fact, the organization has, in all likelihood, delivered part of this “something” in order to get the first gift. It has even succeeded in establishing the tiniest modicum of trust since the donor, in the vast majority of cases, will never know if the money was well used. They must trust in your brand, your message and your (often implicit) promise. However, in most cases, as the retention data supports, this is it. The nascent relationship is over.

That’s right, we used the “R” word. No, not every donor wants a relationship, some did it on a never to be repeated whim thanks to creative that struck a chord, lighting in a bottle or some other non-repeatable event. In fact, let’s posit, for argument’s sake, that not a single donor would ever actively seek out and aggressively solicit a relationship with a non-profit.

But, if we accept this as true we should also be willing to accept that at least some are receptive to your working to establish one. And as long as that cost to establish it is less than the gain and with less opportunity cost than acquiring a new donor, why wouldn’t you make it an organizational imperative to do so?
The data is overwhelmingly in favor of retention with every donor retained increasing his/her lifetime value by 100 percent or more and often 150 to 200 percent when we include the cost of acquiring their replacement on your file (Sargeant & Lee).

The Theory Behind It
So, if the first gift represents some level of progress towards a relationship, what is NOT happening between the 1st and 2nd gift (and every foregone subsequent donation, think lifetime value here) to undo it all?

There is a large body of academic work dedicated to understanding and explaining what contributes to good and bad interpersonal relationships. In the for-profit marketing world these basic relationship principles have become the accepted framework for what is required to maximize profitability and it is this same framework that maps out the donor to non-profit relationship.

The journey starts with the need to establish a Functional connection to the brand, often expressed as being reliable; the donor knows what to expect from your organization, the experience is consistent. Fail to do this and you fail, period.

Achieve this basic level of functional or satisfaction based connection and you have opportunity to build the personal connection (while also having some impact on the trust or commitment component). The personal connection is a more emotional one, in relationship vernacular it is fidelity, the bond that says there is a two-way street of give and take, of mutual respect and of the donor believing the organization knows him/her and cares.

Trust is the linchpin to true (i.e. mindshare based) loyalty – not the often deceptive, pattern of repeat behavior via RFM analysis. The kind of relationship that moves the donor to overlook shortcomings, give greater share of wallet, promote the organization and go out of his/her way to engage with it.

With this as a framework or guide, where then does the 1st gift that never materializes into a 2nd gift fall short? How about the often cited, almost trite, thank you? If there was ever a specific, concrete action to build the bridge from functional to personal, this would be it.

And what about a firmer functional foundation? If the donor’s 2nd contact with the organization is another, largely or entirely unrelated solicitation how likely is that the donor will form a reliable sense of what to expect when interacting with you? To compound the “undoing” of the very loose relationship knot that was the first gift, the organization may not acknowledge the first gift when asking for the second. How can the donor be expected to think the organization knows them (key part of personal connection) when they are treated like a stranger? And how can the seed of trust planted with the first gift be grown if there is no reference to how it was used to help the cause?

And this is all in the microcosm of the first to second gift scenario. When you extend this thinking to all the other “touches” (e.g. call center, email marketing, website, social media, traditional media) your organization has with the donor it is almost impossible to imagine a relationship being established unless the organization is actively, consistently, strategically and tactically pursuing one.
Remind me why I should care about all this again?

The Little Picture Solution
We know that the Committed donor has a higher average gift, HPC and lifetime value than the Un-Committed donor. We know how to measure the Commitment level and how to identify the activities your organization already engages in that actually impact it.

But first things first, what are we really measuring here? What does it all mean in a practical sense?

• There are seven survey questions (2 for personal, 2 for functional, three for Commitment).
• These seven survey questions, in a nutshell, are measuring your donors’ level of intent or motivation to maintain their (nascent or otherwise) relationship with your organization.

What we really have then is a mindshare based, leading indicator of future behavior. How they feel about you should really be a good predictor of what they’ll do, right? That is what this is and it took years and lots of time and application in the academic, commercial and non-profit setting to identify the seven (out of hundreds) and how they work together.