When the United Service Organizations wanted to reach out to big donors in May, it went out of its way to avoid staid reports and bring the organization’s programs to life on a videoconference call.
Its regional vice president for Southwest Asia spoke from Dubai about the group’s work in the region. The regional president of USO West in Los Angeles stood in front of the Mercy, the medical ship docked in that city, which at the time was providing medical support for the city. He told donors about the group’s efforts to provide services to those working on the ship.
“It allows donors to so easily have access to what we’re doing,” says JD Crouch, the USO’s CEO, who plans to continue to use video calls with donors. “I think it’s going to allow the frequency of contact to go up, and it’s going to allow us to pull people into the conversation from across our organization.”
Just like the USO, other nonprofits nationwide are seeking alternative ways to reach affluent donors now that longstanding approaches like home visits, lunches, dinners, and other in-person gatherings may be out of the question for many months. Those donors are crucial to many organizations’ survival plans because they aren’t suffering the same loss of jobs and other income that’s hitting the lower and middle classes especially hard. And experts say now that donors aren’t distracted by busy travel and event schedules, this is the moment to build close and personal ties to them so they will give again and again.
Some groups are finding that old-fashioned techniques like a simple phone call work best in unsettled times, while others are creating educational sessions or thanking donors by video. Still, it’s not clear what will work in the long run, especially because some nonprofit experts say wealthy donors might over time end up recoiling from an onslaught of so many virtual charity events.
“Because videoconferencing has now become integrated into so many parts of people’s lives and everyone is living on videoconferencing and getting tired of it, fundraisers are competing against that fatigue,” says Lucy Bernholz, director of the Digital Civil Society Lab and a senior research scholar at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.
Some fundraising experts say to counter that concern, the wisest move is to focus on efforts that maximize interaction, a move they say may have been smart even in the days when big in-person events could be held.
“When you’re at a gala with 500 people, you only have a few minutes to really say hello and engage with a donor,” says Sunil Oommen, a former fundraiser who founded a New York consultancy. “If you do it more one-on-one, the opportunity for relationship-building is that much deeper and the cost is much lower.”
Oommen says fundraisers should also be planning for the long term since donors and prospects will be far less likely to allow nonprofit officials into their homes. And they’ll need to discuss masks, hand sanitizer, and other precautions with people who do consent to visits. Those conversations will be less awkward for fundraisers who’ve established closer relationships with donors, he says.
Not Going Silent
As fundraisers experiment with new ways to interact with donors, they’re sometimes venturing out of their comfort zones.
Jennifer Dow Rowell, development director of the Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse, a San Mateo, Calif., domestic-violence charity, known as CORA, is recording 60-second personalized videos that she emails to wealthy donors to thank them for their support and update them on the group’s programs and clients. The response from donors has been positive.
“At first I thought it might be goofy, and then I realized it is absolutely the only way I can make eye contact with our donors at this point. It’s the closest I can get to being in-person,” she says. “They are not professionally polished; every now and then a cat wanders into the frame, or you can spot some workout gear in the background, but that’s how our lives are now, and it feels very human. I have gotten great feedback; it isn’t unusual for someone to email me back and comment on the video. I can also see when videos are replayed, something I doubt ever happens with voicemails.” Rowell continues to call big donors to update them as she normally would. But she says many fundraisers are unsure whether donors are up to hearing from them right now. Even the wealthiest philanthropists are dealing with personal issues and uncertainty brought about by the pandemic. Still, Rowell says, it’s important to make the call, even if you’re simply checking in to see how a donor is doing.
“They’re supporters for a reason, and it’s our job to let them know what’s happening and to give them the opportunity to offer support if they can,” Rowell says. “If it’s a reduced amount, that’s fine, and if they can give more than expected, then celebrate and honor that. But the last thing any of us should be doing is going silent.”
Rowell recently heard from a donor who usually gives about $100,000 annually and has now decided to give $110,000 in each of the next three years. But she has also spoken with donors who plan to reduce their giving because they’ve lost money in the stock market.
“We recognize that this impacts everybody, including our wealthy donors, so we approach it from a place of empathy and understanding and also really clearly communicating the needs and how they can continue to support our work,” says Rowell. “Even if it’s in a modified way, we still need them on board with us.”
Budgets in Flux
Young New Yorkers, a charity that provides art therapy and other programs to help young people accused of breaking the law, started using videoconference meetings with big donors several weeks before most people began working remotely. But founder Rachel Barnard doesn’t know whether her group will continue to use video calls extensively after physical distancing ends.
Right now, she’s most concerned about raising enough money to keep going and how the economy is going to affect what she can raise over the next year. She’s using both videoconferencing and phone calls to try to confirm funding from existing donors and foundations for her group’s next fiscal year, which starts July 1. A number of wealthy donors who confirmed gifts in the first two weeks of March called in May to say the ups and downs of the stock market changed their financial situation more than they had expected and they are rethinking whether or how much they can give.
“I’ve done five different budgets, and I’ve presented three to the board,” Barnard says. “I’m constantly readjusting the likelihood of getting repeat funding.”
That’s something no amount of new technology or creative fundraising strategy can solve, she says. “Change is always an opportunity, but change also means some things will inevitably be lost,” Barnard says. “I really don’t know how the dust is going to settle yet.”
A New Perspective
Those unknowns are being keenly felt across the nonprofit world. The fundraising consultancy Marts & Lundy surveyed 200 colleges and universities, private schools, and health-care institutions, 85 percent of which said they had developed new ways to measure the performance of big-gift fundraisers since the coronavirus crisis started, disrupting the economy and putting big donations at risk.
Many of those surveyed said they see this time as an opportunity to “enhance relationships and refine donor strategies.” To emphasize that those priorities are important, nonprofits are revising performance measures to ensure they are evaluating fundraisers based on their work to build long-term ties to donors and not simply on how much money they raise.
Penelepe Hunt, a principal at Marts & Lundy, says that makes sense because “we know that when donors feel a stronger engagement and attachment to an organization, they tend to give more, so these deeper conversations will have a long-term effect.”
Fifty-one percent of the nonprofits in the report said the public-health crisis led them to make greater use of digital tools to engage big donors.
Nonprofits that are using online tools reported more participation from donors in these online settings than they would normally see at in-person events.
Hunt says nonprofits told her that donors who never attended in-person events are now showing up to virtual ones because it’s easier for them. They don’t have to get dressed up and travel to the event. She cautions, however, that Zoom fatigue is real, and charities can’t rely on online events to reach donors unless the events are creative and interesting enough to hold people’s attention.
“If you put on a boring Zoom call, no one will come to it just like they won’t come to a boring gala,” Hunt says. “It’s got to be something that engages them.”
Jim Rendon contributed to this article.
