Engage people before asking for a gift. Experts say charities are more likely to win a gift if they can first get someone to take another action in support of the charity. “We see that with something as little as sharing a post on Facebook,” says Jeremy Berman, a social fundraising expert.
Laura MacDonald, founder of the Benefactor Group, a fundraising consultancy, says people should be acknowledged for the “four T’s”—time, testimony, ties, and talent—before they’re solicited. “Are you asking them to get married on the first date?” she says.
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Engage people before asking for a donation. Experts say charities are more likely to win a gift if they can first get someone to take another action in support of the charity. “We see that with something as little as sharing a post on Facebook,” says Jeremy Berman, a social fundraising expert.
People should be acknowledged for the “four T’s” — time, testimony, ties, and talent — before they’re solicited, says Laura MacDonald, founder of the Benefactor Group, a fundraising consultancy. “Are you asking them to get married on the first date?” she says.
Follow up quickly. At the Salvation Army USA, all first-time donors who give $45 or more receive a call within 48 hours. “Donor-care specialists” learn more about the donors and their interests, and the charity uses that information to target subsequent appeals. Giving by such donors has increased by more than 10 percent over the past year.
Don’t make assumptions. If you survey your donors, you can learn who they are and why they are supporting your organization — and you might be surprised.Army veteranNick Black, a co-founder of Stop Soldier Suicide, says his organization asks whether donors served in the military and, if so, what branch. Often, the response is “None of the above.”
“You’d think it was a bunch of meathead Army guys like me,” Black says. “It’s not. Our base is actually 55-year-old women.”
Allow donors to give the way they want. Cornerstones, a human-service charity in Northern Virginia, features a “Ways to Give” page on its website, with specific information for stock gifts, donor-advised funds, qualified charitable distributions, recurring donations, employee matches, and planned gifts, among others. “We really do try to meet donors where they are,” says Katy Beth Cassell, a fundraising consultant who works closely with Cornerstones.
Break down silos. Instead of having distinct divisions for programming, communications, and development, encourage greater collaboration among those units, says Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer at GivingTuesday.
“If we think of ourselves as a storytelling organization that is inspiring different constituents to take action, breaking down those silos is one of the best things we can do,” Rosenbaum says. “And it doesn’t require any additional investment.”
Ask lapsed donors why they’re not giving. Charities love to survey existing donors, but few have substantive conversations with lapsed donors. That’s a mistake, says Kestrel Linder, chief executive of GiveCampus, a fundraising platform for colleges. The response rate from lapsed donors might be low, but those who do respond are indicating a level of caring that means they may be ready to give again. The charity can also learn a lot about what’s not working, Linder says.
“It’s going to hurt because the things you’re going to hear are not going to be nice things,” Linder says. “For the most part, they’re going to be hard truths. But I think there’s an enormous amount of value in every single one of those conversations.”
Courtesy of Starlight Children’s Foundation
The Los Angeles Ghostbusters visit patients at Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, Calif.
Ask supporters to help you reach other everyday donors. When Madison Shearer, senior manager for fundraising at Starlight Children’s Foundation, noticed a $10 donation from some Ghostbusters cosplayers, she knew who to call. The group responded to her thank-you by hosting an event, which raised far more — $10,000.
The group then asked about creating a Ghostbusters-themed gown that could be given to hospitalized kids. Shearer warned the cosplayers about the steep fundraising minimum — $40,000 — for a themed gown. Within months, the Ghostbusters crew met the goal.
“If somebody is coming to us and they’re interested in supporting us,” Shearer says, “I will use fan groups like the Ghostbusters as an example of how far you can go.”
Big donors have a role to play, too. Andrew Dunckelman, deputy director of philanthropic partnerships at the Gates Foundation, says he’d love to see more major donors and foundations contribute to efforts that lift up everyday giving. “What if every donor of a certain size were to set aside 1, 2, or 3 percent of their giving for public infrastructure that lifts up all giving?” Dunckelman asks. “Imagine the multiplier effect.”
One way that Gates helps is by covering the cost of fundraising consulting for charities through groups like Lightful. Two hundred charities that participated in a Gates-funded program through Lightful during the pandemic saw their digital fundraising climb by an average of 67 percent.
Encourage donors to take action before you ask them to give. “Are you asking them to get married on the first date?”
Engage your corporate partners. The United Negro College Fund raised $1.3 million this year through a checkout partnership with Macy’s during Black History Month, its third straight year of raising more than $1 million through the partnership. “Small gifts are a big force,” says Diego Aviles, UNCF’s vice president of development for the Northeast region.
The Mid-Ohio Food Collective has partnerships with Wendy’s and Bread Financial, in which the companies use their phone-bank operations to call the charity’s donors to thank them for their support. “Not everybody has the capacity to pack boxes of food or volunteer in a pantry,” says Christine Roberts, the charity’s senior vice president of development. “This gives us an opportunity for other kinds of corporate-engagement strategies with our partners.”
The next frontier: Use A.I. to work faster and add personalization. Charities are already using artificial intelligence to work more efficiently on mundane tasks like applying for grants and acknowledging gifts, and even on harder tasks like assembling a case statement for a capital campaign, says CJ Orr, president of the Orr Group, a fundraising consultancy. “It’s increasing productivity,” Orr says. “People are writing faster, getting more grants out, sending more invitations. You’re bound to fundraise more — the total pie will grow.”
The next step is using A.I. to bring to the masses the sort of personalization that’s typically reserved for major donors. Nathan Chappell, co-author of The Generosity Crisis and an executive at the data firm DonorSearch, says his son, who bought a car from Carvana, recently received one of the 1.3 million individualized A.I.-generated videos that the company sent out to owners. The animated video is told from the perspective of the very car his son bought and spins a tale about the experiences that the car and owner have been on together, based largely on when and where the car was purchased.
Ambitious charities will soon be using similarly creative approaches to forge closer bonds with donors, Chappell says. “The premium on personalization has never been higher, and it will continue to increase in our very atomized world.”
Ben is a senior editor at the Chronicle of Philanthropy whose coverage areas include leadership and other topics. Before joining the Chronicle, he worked at Wyoming PBS and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Ben is a graduate of Dartmouth College.
