We are big believers in the need for the non-profit space to catch up with its commercial brethren in soliciting and acting on donor feedback.  If we had a motto (and we don’t), it would be that non-profits need to start measuring and managing – i.e. acting on – donor attitudes with the same focus and energy they spend measuring and managing donor behavior.

The reason is quite simple – donor attitudes stand between what you do and what donors do and unless you understand those attitudes, you will forever be inefficient at driving behaviors.

Two big questions should quickly arise,

1)     What does it mean to more regularly measure and manage donor attitudes and

2)     What is the likely benefit?

First question first.  We think of two types of donor attitude measurement,

1)     Strategic & Infrequent. 

1. This work is done once a year, maybe once every other.  It is enterprise wide or segment level in focus.
2. It includes attitude based segmentation, establishing of baselines, competitive analysis, identifying specific actions you can take to impact donor attitudes, etc…
3. Representative sampling, drives strategic insights and some tactical recommendations

2)     Continuous and Donor Specific.

1. This might be called donor feedback, ideally attempted in every channel
2. It is usually tied to an interaction (e.g. website visit, event attendance, signing petition, making donation)
3. The goal is to use the data for relationship building at the individual donor level.  This is an attempt at a census, not a sampling.
4. With enough data, over time, organizations can identify process breakdowns and implement strategic fixes that address recurring issues (e.g. website navigation, sign up page, poor customer service)

To answer the second question about benefits, consider a recent blog post by Vovici, a software as a service company, that provides an online platform to do both types, but especially Type 2 (continuous, census based, post transaction, feedback).  As a quick sidebar, there are literally dozens of these type companies competing in the for-profit space and exactly ZERO focused on non-profit clients.  Tells us something about how far behind non-profits are….

All of these benefits can accrue to non-profits if they get serious about understanding, measuring and managing donor attitudes.

1)     More advocacy and referrals

 By placing the voice of the customer at the heart of its business, SYKES has reduced costs, improved efficiencies, increased the number of customer recommendations and skyrocketed advocacy 600%. AMD used Vovici to build a deeper picture of its market, refining its customer profiles. These profiles more efficiently funnel website visitors and helped increase partner referrals 51% from 2008 to 2009.

2)     Increase chances of new product launch success (this is exactly how ALL non-profits should think about their fundraising offers, programs and benefits)

Prior to launching a new jewelry line to plus-size brides, David’s Bridal conducted a survey using Vovici that showed adoption would double if the jewelry was marketed as “extended” rather than “plus-sized”. AutoTrader.com built an in-house normative concept test program that saves them $125,000 annually and has led to the rejection of 31% of new products. “Even if the rejection was 90% it would be okay,” explained Morgan Richards, Senior Manager of Research at AutoTrader.com, “because it would save the company money from developing unsuccessful products.”

3)      Improve Customer Retention

One European client recouped its entire investment in Vovici after its first survey, which included email alerts from the 1% of its B2B respondents who were dissatisfied. Senior account managers were able to intervene to correct issues and improve satisfaction, keeping some of its largest customers from defecting.