Three Items are All the MattersYou can have your head spinning around for days – even weeks – with all you need to consider when relating to the qualified donors on your caseload.
Or you could take the word of Grey Matter Research and focus on just three items that matter the most in your work with your donors.
Grey Matter asked a thousand donors to identify the three main factors they use when choosing a charity to give to – and, I would say, to keep giving to.
It boiled down to results (32%), trust (28%) and personal connection (22%).
Pretty simple, huh?
Let’s take each of these apart:

Results – At the end of the day, if the money a donor gives is not making a difference, then what is the point of giving it? This is a cold, hard fact that many non-profits seem to ignore, as evidenced by the lack of outcomes measurement and reporting. Jeff and I see so much of this in the non-profit sector.

We still do not understand how the smart, professional people who lead many of these non-profits can’t see the logic of this sequence: “I give you money. You tell me it actually did what you said it would. I stay with you and give you more money.” Seems pretty clear to me.

Instead, what happens too often is: “I give you money. You don’t tell me it actually did any good. I go somewhere else to do good.” This is scary and urgent stuff! Seriously. Results are so important to donor retention and upgrading.

Trust – How is trust built? By answering the tough questions your donor will ask. By admitting mistakes you make. By telling the donor that the program they are giving to is not working as expected and telling them as soon as you know it. By including them and asking them for their opinions. By handling their gifts promptly. Trust is such an easy thing to secure and just as easy to lose.

One organization lost a $4-million-a-year gift because they didn’t tell the donor that the project they were giving to was going slightly sideways. $4 million a year! Had they followed our advice and just told them what was going on, everything would have been all right. But no, they maneuvered, packaged, and avoided themselves into losing the donor and their giving.

Just tell the truth. Just be authentic. And everything will be just fine. Trust is so important.

Personal Connection – This is not surprising. Donors want to have meaningful connections, NOT transactional connections. When we all finally get it in our heads that this fundraising thing is not about the money, and that donors want to be partners with us in doing good on the planet, then all of our work, strategies and plans will be different in their approach and style.

Spend time connecting with your qualified caseload donors. Get to know them. Care about them and genuinely listen and serve them.

These are the three things that really matter in major gifts. How is your work and your personal style aligning to them? It would be good to check.
Richard

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