The Extreme Fundraising Blog

Well, the PRWeb approved press release is live and available at:
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&hl=en&ned=&q=recession+proof+fundraising

It was #1 when I last checked.

Reading through a recent issue of Contributions Magazine, I was delighted to stumble across a summary of a new book, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits.

The authors underwent an incredibly thorough research project to try and ferret out the things that made nonprofits excellent. It sounds a lot like the research style of Jim Collins and Jerry Porras.

Their findings include six myths and six real factors. The six myths they found were:

• Myth #1: Perfect Management
• Myth #2: Brand-Name Awareness
• Myth #3: A Breakthrough New Idea
• Myth #4: Textbook Mission Statements
• Myth #5: High Ratings on Conventional Metrics
• Myth #6: Large Budgets

And the six practices of high-impact nonprofits are:

1. Serve and Advocate
2. Make Markets Work
3. Inspire Evangelists
4. Nurture Nonprofit Networks
5. Master the Art of Adaptation
6. Share Leadership

Did you see the #3 practice of high-impact nonprofits?! High-impact nonprofits inspire evangelists!

About this, the authors say:

High-impact nonprofits build strong communities of supporters who help them achieve their larger goals. They value volunteers, donors, and advisers not only for their time, money, and guidance, but also for their evangelism. To inspire supporters’ commitment, these nonprofits create emotional experiences that help connect supporters to the group’s mission and core values. These experiences convert outsiders to evangelists, who in turn recruit others in viral marketing at its finest. High-impact nonprofits then nurture and sustain these communities of supporters over time, recognizing that they are not just means, but ends in themselves…

Not all of the high-impact nonprofits we studied had an organizational model that makes involving supporters easy. Yet almost all of them found creative ways to convert core supporters to evangelists and to mobilize super-evangelists.

I’ve been teaching nonprofits to inspire evangelists since 2004 with the Creating Donor Evangelists report.

It’s great to see others agree!

Read the a report on the Stanford Social Innovation Review at http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/creating_high_impact_nonprofits/.

I’m having quite a week!

Tuesday, I was invited to train the super-elite fundraisers for Habitat for Humanity International in Atlanta. I’ve been a fan of Habitat for years. And what a terrific group of development people they have!

Now I’m at the Consortium for Endowed Episcopal Parishes annual conference speaking on fundraising to people employed by their parish as stewardship directors. What a cool job!!! These folks are right in the thick of engaging Christians with the place of their resources in their spiritual journey.

It’s an incredible privilege to be speaking to such terrific people. These people are expanding the Kingdom in some pretty creative ways!

One of the neatest things is that both groups are actively transforming their understanding of what it means to “engage” the people that invest in their causes. And both are seeing it in a much more comprehensive way than just finances.

What an inspiring week!

[This post was cross-posted at marcpitman.com.]

Chris Busch has a great blog post on the differences of political campaign websites.

You may remember that in the “Create a Cause” tenent Creating Donor Evangelists, I recommend looking at political sites to see what they do well.

Well check out the sites of the front runners:

John McCain

Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama

Two are totally focused on the candidate. One is focused on “you” believing in your potential.

I’m not endorsing Barack, but you’ve got to love the way his campaign is about people, not about him.

How is your nonprofit’s website? Is it for the “us” that work at the nonprofit? Or is it about the “them” that want to support your nonprofit?

Liz Strauss has a great post on innovation at Brainless Business Bible: Customers want innovation.

She says a speaker at a conference emphatically said “Customers want innovation.” He even had a powerpoint slide with that on it.

But, as she points out, customers are people. Does the statement People want innovation stand up to scrutiny?

She goes on to say:

Do we? I suppose some folks put down hard earned cash for “innovation.” Personally, I’m not fully sure what innovation is.

When I go looking for something, when I buy something on impulse, when I spend my money on what I need, want, or desire, innovation is not on my mind. Solving a real or perceived problem is.

Solutions make my life, easier, more fun, more elegant. Solutions make me feel better about myself.

Innovation isn’t about me. It’s about the person who thought it up.

Solving a real of perceived problem. Isn’t that what motivates all of us?

So to with our donors. If we’re solving a real or perceived problem, they’ll more likely make a gift. The problem way be personal, like being seen as giving to the socially “cool” nonprofit. Or it may be more philanthropic, like increasing literacy in the community. In reality, it’s probably a combination of many things.

So the next time you think you need to innovate by changing your branding, or redesigning your letterhead, or recrafting your website so you can raise more money…DON’T.

At least not without asking, “How will this solve a real or perceived problem for our donors and the people we serve?”

It may sound harsh but they probably care less what colors are on the letterhead or what teaser is on the outside envelope. If they do, you may not want them.

What you want to find is donors that are excited about funding your organization because of the problems it’s solving. Those are the ones you should invest time in!

Let’s revisit the idea of clubs. In his article, Michael Masterson gives an example of a dining club. Summing up the example, he states:

The basic elements of a club that are at work in this example:

• Association with like-minded people
  This is the fraternal aspect of the club. If you sell gourmet food, for example, it makes perfect sense for your customers to share their similar interests with each other. You reinforce this camaraderie with a forum for your members to keep in contact.

• A sense of social advancement
  Clubs provide a sense of exclusivity, a sense that their members have more refined tastes than regular people. This only works if there is a natural way to provide a more sophisticated, not just more expensive, version of your product or service.

• Financial benefits
  Your club members are presumably your best buyers. You already know that 20 percent of your buyers contribute 80 percent of your profits. So your club should cater to that 20 percent. Your back-end sales increase when you accommodate those frequent and loyal customers.

• Hierarchy
  You can create different levels of exclusivity within your club. In other words, the more a club member is willing to spend, the higher level she can attain. (Think silver, gold, and platinum memberships.) You can create an incentive to move up in the club by setting up a visible hierarchy that is reinforced through well-advertised discounts for members at higher levels.

Read this list carefully and see if you can apply it to your donor categories.

Particularly in light of the 80/20 rule: 80% of your donations come from 20% of your donors. So how can you make those 20% feel “part of a club”?

At one school I worked at, I ran a report of the top 20% of donors since the school was founded. It turned out, anyone that had given $1000 or more at any point in the previous 60 years was in the top 20%. To my surprise, many current faculty were on the list.

In the past, we’d simply treated and solicited all faculty alike. We always had around a 99% participation rate so we thought we were doing fine. Now I knew that some of my colleagues would be considered “major donors” if they didn’t work at the school.

Armed with this information, I started treating them like the major donors they were. When we gave the $1000 donors a gift, I made sure the faculty members got it too.

It was a blast watching those teachers walking around campus with the special travel mug or whatever other gift. And it warmed my fundraising heart to know that other teachers would be asking them, “Hey, where’d you get that cool travel mug? How can I get one?”

So what about you? Can you work the club concept into your donor stewardship? This could be a very important step in creating donor evangelists!

Would you recommend us to your friends?

On a recent teleclass, Jackie Huba says this is one of the best questions to help you identify your organization’s fans.

You should be able to listen to the podcast here.

One of the most effective ways to not create donor evangelists is to talk a language nobody but your inner circle understands.

Jeff Brooks at Donor Power Blog, has a great post on How To Position Yourself as Human. He offers a great link to “succint positioning” and some practical advice on how to test to see if your tagline is making you more human or less.

Today, I’m giving my Creating Donor Evangelists seminar at the annual conference of the New England Association of Healthcare Philanthropy. Part of that seminar involves posting the pictures of real people that are impacted by your mission. Your organization’s website and publications could always have a place with a powerful testimonial and a picture of the person.

Last week, I read a blog post that took this to a new level. The bloggers at BlogBaud.com recommended checking out MercyShips.org. This link brings you to there “Success Stories.” The first page is pictures of happy people with their name. If you click on their picture, you are brought to a page with before and after pictures. There’s Ali before and after the successful cleft lip surgery. There’s four-year-old Ami before and after a successful eye surgery. And check out Abu. This guy had a tumor the size of a grapefruit in his face before it was successfully removed. And there are dozens more pictures in this area.

With the smiling “after” pictures, Mercy Ships doesn’t even need testimonials. The pictures speak for themselves.

My favorite part? “Success Stories” is very easy to find on their home page. One of the tabs at the top. Genius! Why bury these compelling images?

You know you’re changing the lives of the people you work with. But are you telling the story?

And are you telling it with pictures?

Give it a try. It’ll make the people proud to be supporting you. And it will be an easy answer to a donor’s possible “how do I know you’re still successful at what you do” question.

Special reminder for Extreme Fundraising Blog readers

There are just 13 days left to enjoy the special $14.97 price and free Priority Shipping on the digitally remastered “Creating Donor Evangelists Audio Program.”

On March 20, the price goes back to the normal $19.95 + $4.50 for shipping and handling. It’ll still be a bargain but why not buy it today instead?

For more information, got to the Creating Donor Evangelists Audio Program page at Fundraisingcoach.com.

To buy now with credit card, click here: