So You Think You're Donor Centric?

This one is easy: Who is donor messaging for?

The donor, right?!

No... not JUST the donor - and that's the problem. If you're really for your donor - your mission will change too.

While everyone says they're donor-centric in their marketing and messaging, the reality is most #nonprofits are only playing around with pronouns.

But there's so much more to it than hiding behind 'you' and 'your' while still obsessing over mission and vision statements. Our brand-centric identities will bleed through any 'and you make this possible' addition to our self-congratulatory newsletter about our accomplishments.

Here’s what that looks like for me:

• Donors are stakeholders (people without whose support the organization would cease to exist). Why aren't they explicitly part of your mission and vision statements?
• So, stop treating donors like ATMs and start treating them like people - you need THEM not just their money (so stop saying stupid things like, "All we need is your gift to...").
• If you win them as people, you'll get more - more peer influence, closer relationship and longevity with your nonprofit, and you'll be their priority.
• Donors are changed by their giving, you're changed by their giving, the target audience of your nonprofit's work is changed by their giving... everyone is changed by their giving!
• So, be thankful (not just passive-aggressively grateful) and thank early, thank often, thank thoughtfully (and a ‘thank you’ is NOT an ask, but it is if you do it right).
• Stop defensively defending your brand, your unique niche (cue, 'Nobody does it better' because you think you're the James Bond of nonprofits), and start creating DONOR newsletters instead of organizational newsletters.
• But brand and brand-building are important - it's just HOW we do that should be focused on the donor... how to capture THEIR attention and that means talking about THEM, not your nonprofit.
• Yes, your newsletters are organizational puff-pieces, touting your accomplishments and expecting donors to empathize with you, your mission, your plight. (instead find ways for the donor to become the protagonist of the story - and it is a story - always).
• And get out of the way (and imply your competencies instead of showcasing them), put your donors in the role of hero or protagonist and collapse the distance between the donor and the lives they change.
• Affirm the donor's values, compliment them for caring, knowing and believing, thank them for wanting to change the world, and talk about how their giving will also change their lives, help them be the people they want to be, and give everyone a reason to brag.
• In a word - empathy. Embrace it, learn it, practice it, celebrate it in your organization by caring about what the donor care about. It's that simple.

Notice what’s missing? Branding for the sake of branding, nonprofit competencies (and the humble brag of doing what everyone else does better than everyone else does it), operational minutiae, and that great cost-saving audible Joe in accounting called that saved 0.04% year-over-year - Wow, that was great work Joe! (Save Joe's praise for the staff retreat please.)

And a word of encouragement to most in the fight to get over ourselves and really convert to donor-centric messaging and mission...

Unless we’re working in a small shop (as in a me-myself-and I operation), we’re also fighting to influence and convince our officers, reps, fundraisers, colleagues, executives, boards, and anyone and everyone who gets between the messaging and the money.

It's the industry standard today - getting in the way of messaging - and it's BIG business with a lot at stake.

This is our deepest, darkest secret: the biggest, toughest, most-donor-resistant obstacle facing nonprofit organizations is the organization itself.

It's the operations director and the CEO who asks us to brag to donors about year-over-year comparisons and ratios, or how we've reached 427% of our projected goal for the fiscal year.

It's the accountants and auditors who for some unknown and unknowable reason are included “as another set of eyes” on donor copy and comment, 'You can’t say the donor does that because they gave only 0.035% of our total budget. It’s more accurate to say the donor helps… or, does their part….' And they add, 'There are a lot of steps - and good people - between the donor and what we do. We should be honest about that, right?!'

Every single nonprofit has this fight if its messaging is donor-centric.

Just ask yourself this question: How many times have you heard - from officers, reps, fundraisers, executives, or directors - this statement: 'I think this will really appeal to our donors.'

For every donor-facing proponent in a nonprofit today there are at least three brand- or mission-centric defenders of the nonprofit itself.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard this from beleaguered colleagues I'd be rich: 'How do I convince my director to drop their insistence on branding, boiler-plate copy, or highlighting our pedigree and how much we sacrifice to use their money efficiently, and emphasize our donors instead?'

I guess I'm saying that messaging and copy should be autonomous of these parts of our nonprofits. But that’s not realistic for most of us. We've probably heard of several prominent advocates of donor-centric messaging that make it a condition of their employment that they are not edited - I’m not prominent enough, obviously.

But I am saying it's a fight worth fighting.

Insistently ask, 'What will the donor hear?' and be ready with samples from other donor-facing nonprofits. That will help pop the bubble insulating us from real donor-centric messaging and those industry-wide best practices that care more for organizational detail than attention-grabbing stories of heroic donors. This works internally because most in the nonprofit world are naturally jealous of success, and some might actually want to be like other, successful nonprofits (at least secretly).

That is, they won't listen to you because you don't sound like you know what you're doing - you're talking about the unsophisticated donor and not about the operations, logistics, sacrifices, and efficiencies of the nonprofit itself. You're fighting the industry's best practices.

Fight for the donors, not because it's our turf or we have studied this stuff, but because we're probably the only advocate the donor has in the nonprofit that depends upon them. (Let that sink in….)

So, advocate like you’ve never advocated before…

James Callahan, Ph.D. is on a mission to change how nonprofits and businesses see others - donors, customers, stakeholders.

You can create compelling connections that change the world... if you try... and practice "It's not about you!"

Want to connect? Send me your comments or questions - jamesc@elmhurst.edu

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