Keep Your Goals To Yourself!

I have long believed in the power of having a goal but have also thought it was very personal. Since I entered the fundraising profession I could never figure out why the practice was to tell the donor that it was important for them to give because of the goal the organization had. Never made sense. I mean how might you feel when you entered the car salesroom and the sales person came up to you and said, "Hi great to see you, I nee to sell 5 more cars this month for a bonus". That would so be not about the customer right?  Why have we ever thought this worked in our world, but certainly our industry retention numbers let us know how not about the customer we are.  But here is another poetential reason.   Enjoy

Have You Spotted The Social Mediaprenuers This Season?

What is great about the social media hustle is that you can witness it in real time.  I am amazed at the number of social media experts we have to choose from, perhaps that is because I spend a great deal of time in that space reading and learning. I do love the capability to create incredible customer experiences that these rapidly evolving tools provide. But I have yet to find a single person who has in any meaningful way connected the dots for the nonprofit community. While I am quite aware of all the self proclaimed or endorsed experts, what I find when I scroll deeply into their work that there is very little substance or practical understanding on the mechanics of philanthropy. A recent book on metrics for nonprofits does not offer a single connection between social media and the ability to identify, acquire and most importantly sustain the relationships that have the ability to transform your organization. I find embracing such publications for nothing more than a high buzz index remarkable. Yet because of the power of social media tools thousands flock to see if maybe this time there is actually something really worth learning. Anecdotal stories are nice and often can inform but without any real substance leaves us hungry like a Chinese food buffet …. But the stories do take up the pages and thus there is a book to sell. In addition telling someone else's story becomes the slight of hand for genuine competency. 

Today I have have nothing to sell, yet J, but would love to share with you a great read that could save you a lot of time and disappointment, but also provide incredible value for your time invested. In April of 1999 I read the Cluetrain Manifesto and quite honestly I have not read another creative thought on the topic of web-based communications since. Its all there for the taking and it is also the book that gave birth to the first blog, in North America, for marketing in the nonprofit educational sector. Check out Chuck's Corner at Proctor Academy, who is part of the advancement team that kicked of blogging in 1999, something NAIS could state with some pride that this kind of innovation came out of independent schools, years before other nonprofits flipped on the on switch.  

Click on the image to go to theoriginal site from 1999

These are challenging times and our ability to weed through the pile of  inexperienced nonprofit “experts” is a new skill that we all need to sharpen Just because someone has a website, blog or a small twitter army does not mean they have any real practical experience in the business of creating a place for philanthropy. P.T. Barnum is credited with the saying that “a sucker was born every minute”. I think if he were alive today he may suggest that now one is published every minute, just check your rss web aggregator!

Good luck!

That Is Not Retention

Recently on a LinkedIn discussion in the CASE group there was a fairly typical discussion regarding the retention of donors. It started off as a loyalty thread, which is a topic I look forward to addressing here in the very near future. At one point an individual stepped up to outline the significant success his program had at moving retention from 67% - 70%.

Introducing The New Science Of
Philanthropy in San Francisco last month

First, what is the logic of measuring retention in a percentage? Let’s take the higher number as a quick example. If you kept 70% of your donors that means you are losing 30%.  A next logical step is to stretch that out over time, you would go through 100% of your donors in 3.33 years.  In the business of building and sustaining relationships our questions need to be based on longer-term outcomes.

Measuring a year over year retention rate as a percentage will only hurt your ability to actually do what you want to do. In the above scenario the 70% does not hold level for multiple years, as a result the loss of donors accelerates. The above LinkedIn member’s donor base is most likely barely surviving 3 years on the books.

Founders New Science

I will go much deeper into retention on this blog but let me suggest that retention is measuring by years. Example: ten years ago our donors remained on the books 2.5 years. Today the average length of time a donor remains is 4.28 years.  Now that is a 71% increase in donor retention.

The New Science Of Philanthropy currently has a patent pending on a proprietary dashboard technology that for the first time assists organizations in building strategy for actual retention results. It will impact social media, communications, stewardship and acquisition.

Targeted Curation For Nonprofits

This is a cool new tool that I am enjoying getting to know. However, it is quickly easy to see that if your organization was generating online content you could serve it up nicely and targeted to your customers. Take a few moments and watch the clip and then go play.