Tom Ahern Wants To Know … And So Should You
Lots of great questions and comments popped up in response to The Dangerous Dictum of “Mail more. Make more”.
Especially appropriate was a question by Tom Ahern: “Is there a bottom line for various sized groups?”
Of course, as other commenters noted, there are different approaches depending on the organization or type of organization. For example, as Chip Heartfield noted, the political or advocacy organization in the midst-of a hard-fought, time-sensitive campaign is likely to use different or special approaches.
HOWEVER … none of what I tried to convey has anything whatsoever to do with organizational size. My points apply equally to all organizations.
Clearly I needed to be far more explicit about the issue of frequency.
You see, the argument/discussion about ‘frequency’ is a red-herring, a distraction from dealing with two essential elements in building donor commitment and value — donor identity and donor preference.
‘Frequency’ doesn’t figure in, except that almost always fundraisers mistakenly believe that somehow it’s key to the bottom line. And too often they claim — without careful testing — that frequency is the answer to an improved bottom line.
One of the reasons I used the example of a large organization (Union of Concerned Scientists) in my earlier post is simply because it is generally the large organizations that have the resources and the need to engage in quality research. After all, once a group is bombarding its donors with 15 to 25 appeals a year the volume of donor complaints and sheer financial waste demands attention.
[Coinc
identally, it is the abuse of frequency and other donor abuses by the large organizations — what Tom Ahern calls ‘established brands’ — that is to blame for a good deal of the current attrition and disgust by donors in the U.K. and the U.S. Thus, the need to explode the myth of frequency.]
One other note on ‘big’ vs. ‘small’. Big groups start small. Every group I ever worked with in my direct response career was small when I started. ACLU had 12,000 members, the Sierra Club 9,000, Greenpeace less than 4,000 and on and on. They grew for a reason, and not just because of me.
They grew because they harnessed the power of building a relationship and honoring donor preference.
Do you want to be a real fundraising rock star? Let’s define ‘rock star’ as having your donors give an average of 2.0 times a year instead of the average 1.4 times a year that is average in the Blackbaud Chritable Index.
If so, the first question you should NOT ask is, “How many times a year should we contact our donors?”
Wrong question.
That’s the type of question or mindset that quickly takes an organization from 2 to 4, then 6 to 8, then 10 to 12 or more contacts, and on and on to as many as a planning schedule allows. Ultimately a doomed-to-fail scenario as witnessed by the assembly line approach employed by far too many large organizations.
If you want to grow your organization — and most fundraisers want growth — there is a better, sustainable way. (Mercifully, most small organizations haven’t reached the ‘assembly line’ stage of donor abuse and can easily avoid it.)
In our upcoming book, Start Over, Kevin Schulman and I urge young organizations, start-up organizations and groups in need of renewal to set aside the ‘how often’ question and follow these proven principles in building your plan:
- Other than a ‘thank you’, you have no right or permission from the donor to send anything more until you know the following:
- Why that donor gave in the first place (donor identity); and,
- What types of information and contact does the donor want (donor preference).
In Do You Want to Be Wanted Tom notes the recent Wunderman study that “56% of US consumers and 54% in the UK say they feel more loyal towards brands that show a deep understanding of their priorities and preferences. More than eight in ten are more loyal to brands that share their values.”
In short, organizations that are guided by the precepts of donor identity and donor preferences attract and hold their customers and donors.
I’m a big admirer of the skillful work of pros like Tom Ahern and many others (with apologies for neglecting to list them here) perform for organizations large and small.
But, for the life of me, I can’t help but think about how much more fully their talents could be utilized if their clients could provide them with information on donor identities and preferences.
The absence of this key information is like flying a 747 through a mountain pass in a snowstorm without radar. Lots of intuition and dependence on ‘best practices’, but no compass. No radar.
As Lisa Sargent notes, “A huge problem I see with nonprofit communications (every channel) is that no one mentally walks through these ‘donor journeys’ before sitting down to create: so when the donor actually starts across the chasm from potential giver to repeat giver, or from casual giver to bequest (the ultimate destination), etc., they’re forced to leap over broken boards in the communications bridge — and daunted, some turn back. Our job is to make the path beautiful, clear, and easy to follow, with the full understanding that at any time, they can choose to take a better-maintained one.”
A quick recap from The Agitator on the importance of Understanding Donor Identity:
“It’s not just that ‘no one mentally walks though these donor journeys before sitting down to create’, it’s that almost no one has the slightest inkling of what that donor’s identity is and how she’s feeling about your organization.
“In short, it’s difficult to create a journey if you don’t know anything about the traveler.
“And so we push out communication after communication in as many channels as possible with little positive effect on retention or lifetime value.”
AND … On Ignoring Donors Needs and Preferences:
“It’s really time we all understand it’s not about the budget, it’s not about time. Organizations that don’t bother determining their donors’ needs and preferences are doing so because they don’t want to.
“They make a choice not to spend money and time surveying, seeking feedback from donors and understanding preferences simply because they don’t think it’s important enough.
“Bottom line. The sad truth is that most organizations don’ think this sort of activity is important enough. The reason? They don’t care enough about their donors to find out what they should be delivering to them by way of communications, appeals and services. Donor experiences that meet the donor’s needs and preferences, not the needs and preferences of the organization. Not experiences derived from the fundraiser’s own hunch, nor the collective hunch and conjecture of so-called industry ‘best practices’.”
When fundraisers take seriously the importance of donor identity and donor preference, the issue of frequency becomes an ancillary, unimportant by-product of building out a plan for a year or several years.
In short, if you have a group of donors for whom you know identity (what motivates them) and preference (what do they want from you to reinforce that identity), then you’re well on your way to sustainable growth in ways that don’t abuse your donors.
Cats and dogs
For example, it may be that Hypothetical Charity X that helps cats and dogs has two identities: ‘Cat people’ and ‘dog people’.
For the dog people, Charity X has a kennel they run, a volunteer program, a robust advocacy program and of course, ways to give both monthly and one-off.
But within the dog group there are some folks who are very turned off at the thought of advocacy and they’ve made it clear they only intend to give one time a year.
For this group, where we know identity and preference, we have 8 things to send over the course of the year – not all asks for money but all very relevant to the donor.
For the other dog group, who is into advocacy, the list of touchpoints is 12.
For the cat people, where Charity X is less well developed, there are really only 4 things that match identity and preference and so that group has fewer touchpoints.
What do you think raises more money? Marketing in a way that increases donor satisfaction and commitment and reinforces the decision to stick around? Or sending every donor 4-12 things based on some subjective, naval gazing exercise or internal arm-wrestling among staff over the number of touchpoint items?
Without the knowledge and insight that spring from understanding the donor’s identity and the donor’s preferences we end up with what Kevin described in his comment as ‘one hand clapping‘.
He asks: “But what about this ‘other hand’ to clap with? It is the one answering the ‘what’ question, as in what do we send/create/make available by way of touchpoints, interactions and experiences and how should this differ by segment?
“This answer, also fundamentally misunderstood by the tribal wisdom, is very knowable. You get to the ‘what’ by understanding the ‘why’ of donor motivation, preference and need. This answer will never come from behavior data alone. Nor will it come from the ‘best practices’ of today (that were made up many decades ago).”
Questions? Comments?
Roger
10 responses to “Tom Ahern Wants To Know … And So Should You”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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It’s hard to disagree with any of the fundamental points in this article Roger. It’s built on a rational, sensible premise.
Where the difficulty may lie for the fundraisers in organisations is that old chestnut – short term targets vs long term goals.
Often those that understand best the concepts you’ve laid out are those at the coalface – the Direct Marketer, the Retention Officer etc. But these are the individuals who have their targets set for them in firm $ terms at the beginning of the year, and their success (and perhaps career progression) is linked to achieving these targets.
So while adding another mailing is likely not the right step to long term donor engagement and value development – it does get the marketer to their short term goal. And so, the cycle repeats ad nauseum.
The responsibility is on the person sitting at the higher level – I think middle management – to put together a business case in whatever form may be, to demonstrate why investment in time and resources is warranted to deliver long term growth – perhaps to the detriment of short term income. A business case for mindset change is another way of thinking of it.
It’s certainly not easy to create a strong fundraising program based on your two principles – Donor identity and Donor Preference, espeacially in an established fundraising organisation – it takes personal and organisational courage, as well as technical skill and behavioural insight. I’d contest that those qualities are often not seen on the same place.
And perhaps most of all, it requires one person with a vision, willing to advocate and battle in order to make this approach a reality.
I’m going to step in it when I say this, Roger… and I know UK fundraisers face a whole other kettle of fish, but… I have a huge issue with reading that nonprofits don’t have the right to mail donors anything other than a thank-you until donors lay out their preferences. If a donor has never received your warm, grateful, and much-loved donor newsletter, how then are you doing them a service by asking them to opt out before they’ve even received it? And how is it okay to prime them to tick a box that says “Don’t send me a thank you”? And how is it okay to ask them how they’re feeling about you when they’ve only just met you? Ask for preferences, conduct identity surveys, absolutely. But I for one don’t think the time to do that is when the train has barely left the station… and before you show donors what a beautiful, vital, fulfilling journey it can be. Results, so far, haven’t shot me in the foot on this yet. (p.s. No disrespect intended here, Roger: this was a superb writeup, like most everything you and Tom put forth. But I know I can ask painful questions w/ you guys.)
Lisa,
Maybe a definition is in order, donor identity is their internal motivation to have taken the first act (give/do) with you. They own this, not the charity. It is the most important ‘driver’ or causal lever of their giving. It is the main reason they responded and it is the main reason they will continue responding but only if the charity is successful in reinforcing and priming this identity to let the donor know their support will reinforce Identity A by doing A, B or C. It is, in Roger’s example, cat folks and dog folks. (As a footnote, often identities (once validated as existing and driving behavior) seem so obvious after the fact – e.g. people give to disease charities because of their direct or indirect connection to it.)
Right now, for 99% of charities, the reinforcing of identity is luck. Why? Because 99% of charities have never thought about, researched or analyzed what identities exist among their donors. This is part of the reason retention is so poor.
These identities should be your marketing segments. Instead, the charity uses internally derived ‘segments’ based on transaction type (e.g. one-off donor, monthly, RFM buckets, year 1, year 2). These outcome segments tell us absolutely nothing about the donor but nevertheless, much of what someone now receives via 1-way, push marketing is tied to their transaction type. Again, crappy retention.
Preference is not first and foremost about ‘how many times do you want to hear from us?’ or opt in/opt out. Preference, before it got co-opted as a term for these administrative niceties (or necessities in the UK) means in what ways does the donor want to reinforce their identity with the charity. In Roger’s example this might include asking, at point of acquisition, whether folks are interested in supporting the cause beyond giving $ or if they have ever gotten involved with advocacy (defined in lay terms).
This preference gauging up front is intentionally broad in order to give mental ‘permission’ (to the charity and the donor) or not to send the advocacy/campaign ask.
By all means, send the newsletter as your planned 2nd (or 3rd or whatever) touchpoint. But, have versions of it. Keep it simple at first – crawl, walk, run. Maybe it is two versions – cat and dog. Then, build out to a sub-version for the dog people where one includes advocacy content and the other does not.
I mention that 99% of charities do it the ‘flat-earth’ way. There are the 1%ers out there who are setting up pilots/skunkworks efforts to completely transform how we raise money. These large charities do this in the crucible of a pilot to manage perceived risk (I say perceived because the status quo is far more risky but it is familiar). For small charities, as Roger notes, you aren’t burdened with having to undo decades of status quo thinking.
A final note, the notion that “results are good” doing the way you are doing it is inherently relative. And maybe, just maybe, we aren’t aiming high enough because the way we do it now (volume based) has fundamental, unavoidable limitations; namely massive diminishing returns and donor irritation.
This all requires think time, the right kind of research (most of it is crap practiced and counseled on by non-experts) and yes, a different mindset. The future is here, it just isn’t evenly distributed.
We are trying to distribute by preaching this new form of gospel. It will be considered heretical by most but the tide is turning and whether this is because folks see the light or feel the heat becomes unimportant.
It is way past time to get much more rigorous in understanding the why of donor behavior and marketing/communicating accordingly. This is neither simple nor easy and mostly because mindsets need to change but also because it requires core competencies that are in short supply.
But, raising money from human beings and having them be satisfied, committed and willing to stick around year over year can no longer be reduced to a handful of tribal wisdom ‘to-do’s”. What happened in the UK did not happen ‘to them’, it happened because of them. They have definitely seen the light (after feeling the heat)
Roger, dahlink…
To quote: “But, for the life of me, I can’t help but think about how much more fully their talents could be utilized if their clients could provide them with information on donor identities and preferences. The absence of this key information is like flying a 747 through a mountain pass in a snowstorm without radar. Lots of intuition and dependence on ‘best practices’, but no compass. No radar.”
Not really, Roger. Well, true, we probably don’t know donor preferences. Of course, they won’t, either. “Do I want an email once a month telling me what a wonderful person I am … or, given my recent depression, would once a week be more comforting?”
But their identity? That, my friend, is where ALL the magic happens. And has for a very long time. Remember VALS? Values and life styles? I do. I got the training back in the ’80s. Kinda debunked now, but you roll with what you have at the moment.
The copywriter’s ONLY job is to get inside the head of the donor prospect. There are some aids: Cialdini’s principles of persuasion are one form of radar. (Missed that mountain!) Becoming a frequent donor yourself clears up lots of stuff. (Missed another one! Cabin crew, serve more drinks!!) Talking to donors is a lovely thing; you do it all the time for capital campaigns. (Look at how beautiful the snow is on those mountains! We’ll be landing in the next few minutes….)
This is what competent professionals do: go inside heads.
And they try to keep up as much as they can, so they subscribe to specialty pubs like The Agitator. In which they encounter disdainful commentary such as “99% of charities have never thought about, researched or analyzed what identities exist among their donors. This is part of the reason retention is so poor.”
That describes not a single self-respecting professional I know and would probably be insulting if I’d had a cup of coffee and could think straight.
What are you guys selling? Really selling? Because it’s getting a little flagrant you’re selling something.
Thank you everyone for all the comments and sharing. I’m printing it all out and imagine the good conversations to have with clients and fundraisers and at training programs and and ….
Tom nailed it in his reply re donor identities and preferences. A hospital foundation sends 4 appeals + a “hot sheet” 10x a year. Their metrics are off the chart compared to other hospital foundations. The hot sheet goes to +$100 donors and is a 8.5 x 11 and is inspirational, informative, and occasionally features new grandparents. . It has connected their donors as “family”.
A children’s home mails +10 times but has collected precise donor preferences. For example, If I give in August to the “back to school appeal”, I only receive that appeal next year + the year end appeal.
One thing about donor identities. If I look at it from Kevin’s definition as their “internal motivation to have taken the first act (give/do) with you,” I still think it’s dangerous to assume that the initial motivator (or driver of that first act) will hold true going forward and then base all future communications off that. Especially since a huge percentage of acquisition packs are designed with hyper-specialized (vs broad-based) offers that attract impulse givers.
A lot of nonprofits would I’m sure give their eye teeth to have the capacity to do different versions of a donor newsletter (dog people v cat people). None of my clients have anywhere near the staff or the budget for that. We’ve found however that in having to do it “the flat-earth way,” donors are quite happy to read about the wide spectrum of work… and often surprise us with new areas they choose to support. By “results are good,” Kevin, that wasn’t meant to imply complacency… I’m talking 10-19% response rates on newsletters, a number that we’ve worked damned hard to move the needle to, so not shabby.
And, AMEN Tom A.: we copywriters spend a herculean amount of time crawling inside a donor’s skin and listening to the secret meaning of their hearts and listening carefully to the calls and notes and comments they make/send.
But that said, if there’s skunkworks research going on, Kevin and Roger, I am all ears, all day. Thanks for letting me stir the pot.
I may be missing something, but it seems to me that in the example of an animal shelter, the reason that prospects give and donors give again is because they love animals (but do not necessarily have a pet), cannot stand their suffering and want to do something about it. As has been said, a good copywriter will figure out how to touch the heartstrings (provided that the list person has done a good job getting the right lists). Is it really any more complicated than that, at least in a lot of cases?
And having been a development director at an animal shelter/charitable veterinary hospital, I can tell you that there are a lot of donors who are cat AND dog people when it comes to alleviating suffering, even if they may personally prefer or have only one or the other as a pet. We tested cat only and dog only letters to recent adopters and this specificity produced no improvement over letters providing stories and photos about both. We also asked major donors in a capital campaign prelim phase about their preferences and while some opted to sponsor a “doggy domain” or a “kitty condo” in the new building, most said they wanted to give to whatever would be most effective in rescuing and helping BOTH kinds of animals.
We also asked these donors about the direct mail, and not a single one said they would prefer to get a cat only or dog only mailing…because as animal lovers they were interested in hearing about and supporting all of the work that the shelter/hospital was doing.
Certainly, when it came to volunteers, most chose to be trained as cat-only or dog-only helpers, but it just wasn’t so with the fundraising. This made me happy because, as Lisa said, it would have been a huge added burden to split it up!
Finally, as to frequency of ask, I absolutely agree that some groups ask too often and ask based only on RFM, etc without fully understanding their donors’ identities/preferences, but also, I have always liked to start out by applying the simplest test of all – only write to your donors when you really, truly have something worthwhile to say. That cuts out a healthy dose of mailing for mailing’s sake.
Lisa,
To clarify, an identity is not a superficial or transient thing that triggered the first response that might fade away or otherwise be rendered irrelevant.
We all have lots of identities, they are relevant in only certain contexts – professional identity, sports fan identity, gender identity, political identity, identity as parent….
There is an identity donors ‘bring to the party’ when making a decision to give. That piece they gave to likely only indirectly tapped into this identity. The potential to increase relevance, satisfaction, commitment and retention is if we purposely work to identify, validate and act on these identities.
There are global identities such as ‘samartian’ or ‘global citizen’ that are marginally useful along with social science global findings (as Tom referenced) that are also useful. But, this only scratches the surface at the potential that exists in empirically figuring what identity is relevant for specific donors to a specific charity – like cat vs. dog.
And to amend my comment Tom took offense at, 99% of charities do not identify the specific identities and preferences (as defined earlier) causing behavior and then implement segmentation and customized marketing/comms tied to those identities and preferences. Some do look at it as a one-off project, some skim the surface but very, very few build their entire business around it. What evidence do I have? We have the great privilege of talking to and sometimes working with the best and/or biggest charities around the globe. They aren’t doing it.
My stirring the pot comment; this has nothing to do with resources. I run a relatively small company. I can create, print and mail 3 versions of a marketing newsletter tomorrow, by myself.
To Tom’s ‘what are we selling question?’, who out there isn’t selling a personal brand, idea, theology, book, product, service or some combination? Count me guilty as charged.
Sell away, Kevin. As to identities, clearly I still don’t have it right — so I’ll need that book. But let’s face it: we all buy anything Roger has a hand in! 🙂
And if you can get a donor-driven newsletter package (not a marketing newsletter) created, approved by your client, printed, and mailed in 3 versions, outer to NL/cover to reply slip to BRE, out the door by tomorrow, then I’m calling my designer to tell her she and I are out of work as of right now.
It’s not a super-evolved technique, but I for one would turn cartwheels in the street if every nonprofit simply started with timely, authentic thank-yous, 3-4 donor newsletter packs (the right kind) per year, and 3-4 emotional, personal, jargon-free appeals per year.
Thanks for clarifying identities, etc. That’s all from me.
(p.s. for Chip: I saw the same thing re: dogs/cats when I wrote for Best Friends. But there’s a really cool case study from Mark Phillips/Bluefrog on letting people choose their tribe of animal protectors — as are all things Mark, it’s a fabulous read. http://www.bluefroglondon.com/ourwork/creating-a-tribe-of-animal-protectors/)