We’ve said all along that the most important relational thing you can do with your donor is to have a meaningful connection via the communication type preferred by the donor.
Just last week, a client of ours shared a story that makes this point.
His donor likes to communicate with him over instant messaging – at all hours of the day and night. One early morning (a little after midnight) he was IM’ing with his donor. The donor was asking all sorts of questions about the best timing of a gift, where his gift would be most helpful, and a multitude of other questions.
After he got all his questions answered, the donor gave a $200,000 gift! Yes – over Instant Messaging!
Remember this one point during this busy and noisy holiday season – the most effective thing you can do is relate to your caseload donor the way THEY want to relate. (Tweet it!)
Avoid the temptation to be efficient and cluster your communication in a way that makes it easy for you. No – that will not work.
Instead, be especially thoughtful about each donor’s communication preference, passions, and interests as you decide WHAT to communicate and HOW to do it. It will cost you more time and effort. But it will also have the biggest impact and result.
Richard
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Great reminder and so true, especially when pressed at CYE to try and leverage communication en-mass…not so fast…slow n’ steady wins the race, good ol’ Aesop! Thanks! Give my regards to Carter.