Best Practice On Finding Best Practice

These are extraordinary times in the nonprofit sector. Never before have we had the opportunity to have such an incredible amount of relevant and real-time information that gives us the ability to advance our organizations by enabling strategic thinking. However, it is also a time of highly contagious misinformation.

The phrase best practice gets thrown around quite often in the many linkedin groups I participate in. While reading a blog recently about a data scientist who has thoughts on improving donor retention, I wondered what kind of an expert is this scientist. The author seemed to suggest that because this person called himself a data scientist than they were a de facto expert on the topic of donor retention. When reading his individual background I couldn't find a time in his career where he was responsible for impacting donor retention at any time. Where did this new expertise come from I wondered?

Social media has given rise to an extraordinary amount of experts. When you look up the term expert

the word experience is associated with the definition. I suppose one might feel comfortable seeing a gynecologist for open-heart surgery. But I believe, however, when it comes to our personal health we may choose to do a little research on the professional experience of the people we decide to trust our lives to.

Putting our professional lives in the hands of “experts” that have little or no experience on the topics they are providing guidance on is a significant risk for all of us. At a time when anyone can publish information to the world it is also a time for us to be incredibly good at weeding out the faux experts, whom massively outnumber real thoughtful professionals.

So I'm thinking that there is a place in the world for an expert scientist...  How many "experts" do you think read this?

6 Ways To Be An Expert.....Even If You're Not An Expert! 

Wishing you a great second half of 2013.

Engagement: The Donor Retention Myth

I know all the rage currently is to discuss both communication/giving channels and engagement as key

tools for donor retention. If you've never been responsible for creating and delivering a strategy that resulted in donor retention then these items would be incredibly logical to focus on. The problem is it doesn't really work that way. You can't create something new and different with an old mindset, ie the dude on the right :-)

If donor retention is a desired outcome for you it begins with your organizational structure and culture , characteristics of your staff and the environment that is created for them to perform within. Retention is not an outcome as a result of doing X to another person. There are a couple of accounting phrases worth a closer look: FIFO and LIFO are keys to what creates extraordinary increases in both donor satisfaction, their sense of connection and ultimately their decision whether to stay longer. Retention is a direct result of the environment that is created for the workforce responsible for delivering the donor experience. What goes in is what comes out.

If you want to begin to understand what steps that you need to take in order to increase the lifetime value of a donor to your organization start with walking out of your office door. What is the environment with the staff and how is their energy? is there laughter? are people talking about getting together after work? is there any highly engaged group having a conversation about creating something extraordinary for their customers?

Suggesting that engagement is the focus of generating retention is the equivalent of suggesting you need plates in order to have a great restaurant. Of course you need engagement, just like you need plates. However, if there isn't a spirit of creativity, sense of pride and commitment to an extraordinary dining experience in the kitchen and with the wait staff that dining experience will not create a desire for the customer to return. 

Start devouring information on creating extraordinary teams and begin the process of understand the unique talents of each person that works in your fundraising operation. Dorothy put it best in the final scene when leaving the city of Oz. It really starts with understanding your own backyard and developing an appreciation for the unique talents of your team. These are the first gifts you need to cultivate in order for others to decide doing the same.

Extending Donor Retention 5.9 Million Years

I know it sounds like a ridiculous idea extending donor retention 5.93 million years, but that number comes from translating the number of hours to years that gamers have played World of War Craft, an online game. To put that number into some kind of perspective it was about that long ago when humans in the process of evolution began to walk upright. The game was developed in 2004. So as of now people have spent more time playing this game than humans have spent evolving.

There are some powerful lessons that we have the opportunity to learn on the topic of donor retention by studying the thoughtful and highly impactful design of online games. An important first item to recognize is that successful games are designed for the player to

achieve and accomplish. They are not designed so that the game is the ultimate recipient of the experience. You could easily draw a parallel to the games that we create regarding giving. The success for the annual fund is defined by the organization achieving its goal not the donor (player). The capital campaign is another similar experience for the donor (player) to concede that the experience is ultimately about the organization achieving its goal of building or adding to endowment.

A couple of things to note about the most addictive type of games;

1.     The most successful types of games have no pre-defined ending.

This is an interesting parallel to donor retention and understanding how to create a culture that designs the donor experience. To be able to customize a donor's connection where they give for the sake of giving and also accomplish a sense of personal growth, is at the root of building a culture that will create significant donor retention. Making sure that your organization is building competencies that understand life stages is crucial to be able to assess and put a number to lifetime donor value.

James Carse wrote an intriguing book titled Finite and Infinite Games. Finite games are played to be won and infinite games are played the sake of play. We could learn much from the idea of designing a donors experience to long-term personal growth while connecting their support to an evolving mission that is experienced through a community of like minded individuals

 
   2. Addictive videogames feed a need of making social connections

This is another area where the nonprofit community has such opportunity. It is the rare nonprofit that has one donor. Our donors create a community that we could leverage to ensure that our customers are experiencing being part of something bigger than themselves. Feeling part of something significant is a key element to increasing donor attention.

It would benefit every nonprofit professional interested in increasing donor attention to spend time understanding the design of games. Jane McGonigal's book reality is broken is a powerful roadmap to sustaining relationships with donors.

This game thinking will be covered in great at the Donor Retention BootCamp.

Could The AFP Study Suggest The Failure Of "Best Practices"?

It seems like every week I read the phrase somewhere in the volume of nonprofit writing I connect with about “best practices” It is a peculiar piece of lingo for our sector of the economy.  If you have read the recent AFP fundraisingeffectiveness report you clearly see that it might be hard to find any best practices among the organizations they studied to create this report.

If nonprofits are losing donors at the rate suggested in the report then exactly where is best practice? This is not a new question for me.In 2001 I purchased the domain designthedonorexperience.com. For my team, at the time, this site and the images posted became a symbol of what our advancement effort was going to be all about. We were extremely focused on retaining the donors that were generating 90% of our yearly revenue. While our peers focused on participation and other short-term measures we focused on customizing the donor experience and extending the lifetime value of our key supporters.

Our quest for understanding customer service took us to the Disney Institute to experience what real donor management should look like. We ignored, what was then considered, all the “best practice” we could because those conversations were not at all about the donor.  Donor centered metrics are difficult to find.Run through your head the current measures you have in place in your shop. How many are tied directly to donor satisfaction or for that matter what is yourcurrent donor happiness index?  A recent book on measuring nonprofits does not include a single metric tied to donor longevity or their emotional propensity for continued support.

What is your donor (customer) retention?

The AFP study is a significant wake up call for ourindustry.  One of the many Peter Drucker quotes I appreciate: “Every business model reaches a point of diminishing returns”.  It appears, from this study, we have arrived.  

Make 2013 the very best for your very best customers or donors!!!