This blog post is the second in a series of six titled, “The House Your Donor Lives In.”

I’m sure you’ve been in a home where the occupants each have a different view on how things should be done. There’s a different view on when and what to eat; a different view on cleanliness, or whether it’s important to make the beds every day; whether to lock every door when you leave or not; what lights can be left on; what level of noise (music) one can have; what guests may or may not come over… The list can go on forever.

A non-profit is no different. Jeff and I have seen places where there are three or four different views of the role of fundraising within an organization; where donors are prized and loved and where they are seen as a necessary nuisance; where as little money as possible should be spent on fundraising and where a lot of money is spent on fundraising and hardly any of the money gets to program; where finance and operations rallies to take care of donors and where those same functions do as little as they can to care for donors in the receipting and thank you process; and where the belief is that one does not need to ask – you just simply talk about the problem and then allow the donor to respond.

This is where things start to go wrong. When the staff has the wrong philosophy of giving – where they think the donor is simply a source of cash rather than a true partner. Where this way of thinking creates a hostile environment for the donor and prompts them to go away or give less.

I remember the non-profit I visited in early March one year. They had made a major push for donations in December. They were not prepared for the response because the CFO would not approve additional receipting help for the holiday season. So, over 900 letters were just sitting on a table in the receipting area.

I said the following to the person giving me the tour of the office: “What’s that stack of letters on the table?”

“Oh, they are donations from our Christmas campaign that we were not able to process,” he said.

“May I look at them,” I asked?

“Sure, no problem,” he replied.

So, I picked up several of the envelopes and peeked inside each of them.

“I notice that the checks are missing from each of these envelopes. Why is that?” I asked.

“Well, we didn’t have the help to do the thanking process so we just banked the money,” he replied.

“But that was over two months ago,” I said. “It is now March. Why haven’t these been processed so that the donor is thanked properly?”

“We still do not have enough staff,” he replied.

Here’s an example of an organization where the whole fundraising operation is about the money – where no culture of philanthropy exists. And that’s why the donor and value attrition in this organization is high and they are not doing well financially. The CFO and his staff do not value donors.

What kind of home do your donors experience in your organization? Do they feel welcome and valued? Or do they simply exist to provide money?

This is an important question to answer because before you get into all the strategy and messaging of acquisition, cultivation, mid-level, major, and planned gifts everyone in the organization must have their hearts and thinking right on this very point. Because, if they don’t, the organization will suffer economically.

The house your donor lives in needs to be a warm, inviting, inclusive and caring place. The Donor Journey Health Checklist we will share at the end of this series of blogs will help you assess how caring and inclusive your organization is.

Richard

This is Part Two of the Blog Series: “The House Your Donor Lives In”

• Part One: What Kind of Home Have You Created for Your Donor?
• Part Two: How Does Your Organization Think About Fundraising? (this post)
• Part Three: How Does Your Organization Treat Your Donor During Every Phase of the Journey?
• Part Four: Something to Present to the Donor Who Wants to Help MORE
• Part Five: How Should You Spend Your Fundraising Budget?
• Part Six: Answering Your Donor’s ‘If Only’ Question