No, it’s not an Italian dessert wine, Tom!

In Esperanto, the international auxiliary language, ‘donacanto sperto’ translates into ‘donor experience’. And whether used by fundraisers speaking Esperanto, French, Spanish, German, English or Urdu, this buzzword raises the legitimate questions: “What is it?” and “Why should I care?”

I suspect no one is quite sure because every day I see the phrase used to cover a wide range of nonprofit communications and fundraising activity.

And because The Agitator and Donor Voice are hosting a free Webinar titled “How to gain massive ROI by understanding and fixing donor experience” on February 17th, I thought some illustration of what we mean by “donor experience” is in order.

Using some real examples as an illustration of ‘donor experience’ as we view it, here goes:

The Context or Setting

In the same organization, two online donors — Maggie and Mark — go through exactly the same online giving process, complete with filling out memorial tribute cards honoring a deceased relative.

Both donors give $150. Both donors have exactly the same recency, frequency and money amounts in their transactional history with the organization. So, in most Fundraising and Constituent Relationship Management environments Maggie and Mark are likely to be treated the same.

They both will receive at least 2 years worth of marketing/communications/stewardship collateral and appeals and that will be that. Done.

BUT … despite this similar treatment, Maggie is frustrated and dissatisfied, while Mark is more than satisfied, he’s delighted with the organization.

The reason for the difference is that each had very different ‘donor experiences’.

Donor experiences occur every day across all our interactions with donors. These experiences are generally uneventful and pedestrian, and only tangentially related to mission or brand or the mechanics of fundraising.

But, they can be the ‘make-or-break’ reason or motivator for giving again or not.

And in a world with:

• Almost limitless choice for donors (given the proliferation of charities);
• a ‘sea of sameness’ resulting from the widespread copying/knocks-offs of packages and techniques (sometimes called ‘best practices’); and,
• traditional RFM selection mechanics that virtually assure most fundraisers will fish for the exact same people in the exact same water …

Can you really afford to ignore these experiences?

What happens in reality (not on the Excel projection of course) is that, unbeknownst to the charity, Maggie will go elsewhere to an organization offering roughly the same product and memorial opportunity, but with a far better process leading to a far better ‘donor experience’. As a result the significant spend that went against this donor and everyone else like her is wasted.

As Tom wrote last Friday, you’ve been weeded out of her giving garden.

The Fix

As you’ll find out more specifically when you register for the free Webinar, there is a fix to this dilemma.

It first requires internally deciding to assign value to the experience the donor has when they interact with us and then recognizing we can’t assume it was positive by only measuring our ‘successes’ — which is exactly what the usual CRM Fundraising does. Remember, CRM Fundraising rates Dissatisfied Donor Maggie and Happy Donor Mark as equal. Consequently, CRM Fundraising will falsely guide us to waste a lot of money on the former.

The extended fix however is not just assigning value to the reality that these experiences are creating, it is to turn up the volume by … (drumroll please) … actually asking donors about their experiences and then following up, donor by donor.

How? For example, a five minute phone call to Maggie will have an ROI of 70%. That is the result of increasing the probability of her giving again and having a fighting chance to achieve the average Lifetime Value for the organization.

The alternative? Keep the ‘mute’ button on. Run an assembly line of industrial, mechanically produced experiences and assume that loyalty and commitment come from the volume and the passage of time, rather than delivering quality, positive experiences.

Please join us on February 17^th and you’ll see the value of turning the mute button off, listening to, measuring and acting on ‘donor experience’.

Roger

P.S. Here’s a real illustration of the quite different attitudes of Maggie and Mark as determined by their ‘donor experience’ surrounding those $150 gifts from each.

Maggie

“I wanted a memorial card to be mailed and was concerned the mail option did not appear to work. 

I checked mail, and the site would not move on without an email address. I switched to print and it still would not move on.

I clicked chat for help, the expected wait time was 9 seconds and no one came on after 3 minutes, so I backed up and tried again. No one came on the second or third times either. I am very dissatisfied with the estimated wait time feature.”

“I will have great hesitation before donating again because I couldn’t easily get a card mailed or printed and chat help did not work. Sounds like a great organization, but you are losing me on service.”

Mark

“Already received my memorial card, it was a simple process. And, just making good on my pledge (was $100.00) plus another $50 for $150.00 total. Keep up the great work!”

P.P.S Please mark your calendar for 11:00 a.m. Eastern on 17 February and plan to be with us. Register free right here.