What Is Your Touch Point Objective?

As Diana shared in the last touch point blog, we aim to share one touch point per month for qualified major gift donors (and every 45-90 days for mid-level donors).

But an important thing to remember is that not every touch point is going to lead to a meaningful connection with your donor. Some are just meant to build name recognition, share impact, spread joy, and keep your organization top of mind for that donor.

Still, over the course of your 12-month plan, you should be striving to have meaningful connections and achieving critical objectives through some of your touch points. And achieving those critical objectives really requires planning and intent.

The Mistake Gift Officers Make

As a Veritus coach, I will often hear from gift officers: “I’ve sent my donor so many touch points, but they just don’t respond to what I’m sending.”

When I dig in with the gift officer, I often learn they’ve been doing things like forwarding an impact report, sending an event invitation, or sending a handwritten holiday card with a little gift. None of these are bad touch points, but they’re all passive. They don’t invite a two-way response or encourage a donor to take action.

As gift officers, we can’t just passively send items and then be surprised when we don’t get any responses.

The Objective of Your Touch Point

When you're crafting your 12-month plan for touch points, think about the objectives you want to accomplish with your communications:

• Is this just a nice simple touch point to keep your organization top of mind?
• Are you aiming to actually get a meaningful two-way connection?
• Is there something specific you want to learn from the donor about themselves? (Passions and interest? Communication preferences?)
• Is there some kind of action that you want the donor to take?

Your objective should influence what goes into the touch point and how you frame it.

If your objective is to get a meaningful connection with the donor, plan to include a phone call follow-up to what you’ve sent. This can be particularly effective when you’re sending something like an Annual Report or Impact Report. Give them a little time to read it, then follow up to get their feedback.

How to Ensure a Response Back

We also advocate using pull questions in email touch points. A pull question is a question at the very end of the email that is designed to get a donor to respond. It should be related to the content of the touch point in some way, and be written directly so the donor knows we want them to respond. One gift officer received a lot of responses when sending an emailed impact report by using this pull question: “Which of the statistics on page six of the report surprised you the most?”

Let’s say there is something more you want to learn about the donor. Maybe it's about their passions and interests, or to confirm their giving preferences. It’s not always feasible to only learn new things about donors through phone calls or in person visits, especially when so many donors tend to prefer email or text. Instead, use your touch point to ask the donor directly!

“John, we’ve talked in the past about our school feeding program. I hope you like the story I’ve included today. Would you be interested in hearing about the impact of some of our other programs, or is our school feeding really what’s closest to your heart?” OR: “Susie, I know that you’ve typically chosen to give around the end of the year in the past. What information can I share with you next month to support you as you consider your giving this year?”

Use an event invitation to inspire a two-way response and learn more about a donor’s preferences. Rather than just forwarding the invite, where they may RSVP online and you wouldn’t even know, send an initial email that says “We have an invite to an upcoming event [explain a little of the event details]. Is this the kind of thing that you would be interested in? Would you like me to forward you the event invitation?”

Keep Your Touch Points Focused

Remember that if you want your donor to take any kind of action as a result of your touch point, make sure that the call-to-action is front and center. And only include ONE action item per email.

Be careful not to overload your email with too many things. Truly ask yourself: "What am I hoping to accomplish here?” Read the email back to yourself and assess if the donor will know that we want some kind of response or action.

All of this requires a little extra work on the front end—like making notes and plans so that when you send your touch point, you have a specific objective you want to achieve.

Block off the time to do that work and I promise, a little work on the front end will lead to a lot more results and meaningful connections with your donors over time.

This blog is part of a series about touch points:

Part 1: Why Do You Need Touch Points?