The big question almost every nonprofit official had after the Ice Bucket challenge — other than, “Why didn’t all those dollars get splashed on our cause?” — was whether their fundraising team would be ready to seize a similar moment in the spotlight.
But even the best laid plans can’t predict the future. Sam Perry, associate vice president for membership at the Environmental Defense Fund, says he and his team a counterintuitive lesson when they had to retool their planned response to a possible Trump victory in 2016.
Like other nonprofits, EDF had prepared messages for either outcome: Trump or Hillary Clinton. But the messages that Perry and his colleagues had ready for a Trump victory didn’t seem appropriate, he acknowledges now. The election result felt more earth-shaking than just a loss of political clout.
“Even though we had prepared some emails to go out that night, we didn’t think that it hit the right tone,” says Perry. “So we canceled those emails and regrouped that next morning.”
The nonprofit’s communications and political-affairs teams suggested that its initial message to supporters should emphasize that the Environmental Defense Fund would stay in the fight for environmental protection.
But Perry and his team wanted to be sure that future fundraising emails struck the right tone. Within about a week of the election, the fundraising team sent a brief survey by email to donors and activists, which helped them better understand members’ mood and what they would need to hear to stay engaged. They learned that donors weren’t angry that someone who lacked a strong climate record had won; they were gobsmacked.
“We knew that we had to answer that fear and despair with our determined resolve,” Perry says. “And so really the message became about standing up, standing together. That became kind of our mantra.”
The Environmental Defense Fund’s decision to retool its response paid off. That November it raised twice the online revenue as in the previous year, benefiting from the so-called Trump bump that other organizations experienced as well.
Perry says he’ll keep that lesson from 2016 in mind as he plans the charity’s response to the 2020 election. One thing he realized is that groupthink may have set in, and that fundraisers and other nonprofit leaders may need time to think on their own before responding to an unexpected opportunity to get donor attention.
Anticipating the emotions around a news event are as important as coordinating the response, he says. “Put yourself in that world,” he suggested that fundraisers ask themselves. “What does it feel like to you?”
