Has The Annual Report Become A Shrine To Transactions?

The fall is a great time of year, it's back to school, it's back to work from summer vacations, it's the start of annual fund season, football and it is the time of year the publication houses are excited about printing millions of annual reports. A google search reveals 768,000,000 results for annual reports less than %4 of that number for customized donor experiences.

What I find remarkable about this habit of producing annual reports is I can't quite tell if we do it because of the impact or because it is exactly what we have always done. If the AFP Fundraising Effectiveness (Ineffectiveness Really) is correct we are mere creatures of habit.

In many ways the annual report is our industries shrine to honoring the transaction. Our obsession with tying success in fundraising to simple measures around transactions has produced the lowest donor retention numbers our industry has ever seen. And please remember the annual report that describes how awesome the organization is is not at all about our most valued customers.

I ask you to consider if something else is at all possible? Do individuals wish to be funding a deficit? Or do they desire making a difference? Which would you value?

Might it be possible that the annual fund is actually an opportunity for people to become stewards of an

institution? What would your communications strategy look like if you were designing an opportunity for donors to have a sense of purpose and feel a level of responsibility in ensuring that the organization's mission could be maximized. Wouldn't that be more powerful than conversations such as: “doesn't really matter what you give as long as you participate.” That statement diminishes the organization, its purpose and trivializes individual investment and commitment.

I hope that you will consider that creating an opportunity with real purpose is what your donors and prospects desire. Here is a quick test to evaluate where your organization is:  write down on a sheet of paper the current average length of time your donors stay on the books, compare that with what that number was five years ago and then compare it to the same number of decade ago. If you don't know those three numbers it's highly possible that your organization has been building and maintaining a fundraising model that honors transactions.

It is remarkable that in an industry that suggests real success is about the quality of relationships that not a single national Association recognizes organizations that have had the longest relationships with financial supporters. There is also no recognition for those organizations that have dramatically improved the length of time they sustain their most important relationships. We do however award organizations that have turned their annual reports into beautiful works of art. Artfully honoring transactions appears to be valued.

Might it be time to honor something other than financial transactions? What does the data on your donors suggest, continuing 5 decades of similar strategy or creating something else? 

If you are interested in reviewing online tutorials on new ways to approach your Annual Fund click here

AF Strategy Habit Or Data Driven?

40 years ago this month Art Garfunkel sang this tune “All I Know”. In those four decades all we have seemed to know in the nonprofit sector is to continue doing the same things and measuring things the same as well.  Almost a decade ago the concept of donor centric fundraising hit the street and today I can't find where that model has led to significant increases in donor retention. The reason is really quite simple. Saying the words donor centric but not creating any new metrics or implementing new strategy has just become a catchy phrase for the status quo. 

As you prepare for this year's annual fund initiative I'm sure you're acutely aware that the single activity that will generate the majority of your success in the current fiscal year will be related to your organization's ability to renew your donors from last year.  The donor centric model conversation never seemed to advance anything that changed the nature of the questions regarding this highly critical fact.

Peter Drucker made a wonderful statement decades ago that every business model reaches a point of

diminishing return. To use the title of Art Garfunkel's song, “all I know” is the way we've measured and designed our fundraising is pretty much over. Best Practice, as we've known it, is of little value, look at national statistics on sustaining donor relationships. The rock bands of yesterday don't fill the seats based on their latest hit, they are living off of what use to be. How many bands do you see able to do that for 5 decades? It may work in music despite their venues get smaller. Is your operation a breath of fresh air and original or are you

going through the same old motions. Are you and Mick Jagger trying to figure out how to keep living off Jumpin Jack Flash?

Today's donors require significantly different customer experiences and this new thinking requires a

completely new dashboard and strategy. I had the privilege in the last month of being part of two board retreats. What was exciting for me was seeing that the data in the new dashboards were compelling from a measurement perspective and logical when reviewing the organizations track record over a decade. Both boards could quickly see that the logic of the past four decades was simply no longer able to generate the kind of roi needed in today's development effort. One example: we did an exercise on naming a single invoice that could be paid by a participation number. zero

I would love the opportunity to discuss how your organization can dramatically benefit from shifting from decades of similar metrics to a new and dynamic dashboard that will accelerate your fundraising success. Email

If you are interested in an online tutorial of new annual fund strategies that can accelerate your operational cash flow click here.

Is Your Strategy Set In A Donor Retention Silo?

If you have never increased donor retention it is easy to believe that it is a magic number of steps, more

targeted communication, asking for a gift within 90 days after the first ask or simply being donor centered. The fact is that these barely scratch the surface of what is truly required to have any significant impact on increasing retention or donor lifetime value.

Donors rarely interact with just one division or department of a nonprofit organization. Just like the rest of us when we’re walking through the grocery store we rarely shop in just one aisle. Because of this it is no longer possible to dramatically impact donor retention with knowledge that only lives in the silo of the fund-raising  or communications department. In order to fully customize and design the donor experience one must have a cross organizational view. In addition to all the data we keep internally we're all well aware of the vast amounts of unstructured data that is being produced daily outside the walls of our organization.

It will no longer be enough for organizations to build stewardship models that are limited by the 360 view in the development office. The only way to be successful in today's market and with today's

donors is to have a cross organizational view that is always current.

Data scientists will have to clear the way for a new breed of data artists. The ability to see our donors within the entire landscape of our organization, understand their networked world and connect these pieces in order to grow the relationship with our organization's mission will be the new masterpiece required of every nonprofit. This will be the ONLY way to truly maximize lifetime value of a donor’s relationship.

If you are interested in learning about new dashboards that capture data in ways never before possible click HERE

Modernizing Yesterday’s 8 Basics Of Donor Retention To Achieve Retention

I was recently reading a blog post where the author was commenting on another blog post about the eight basics of donor retention. The author correctly notes that the list of eight has pretty much been the same for almost 2 decades. Well, if the list has been sort of the same, and our retention rates are as dismal as they are, then it is logical that the list may no longer be relevant in its current form.

I have professionally wrestled with this list over a decade and a half ago. My team and I believed that

the items on this list were NOT capable of creating the outcomes we wanted. We wanted to dramatically increase our donor retention rates. After making significant changes in how we approached the items on this list we were able to increase donor retention well over 250%. The adjustments we made to each of these basics were as follows.

1. Listen more (traditional)

We realized we couldn't just listen more we needed to listen effectively. In order to be effective it required us to ask the right questions. What we learned over time was asking the right questions and listening to our donors response gave us the tools to be listened to when we designed a communication for them. Listening more without purpose or design was meaningless. 

2. Produce valuable content (traditional)

Over a decade we produced an incredible amount of content. The kind of content that was read at the highest percentages was content that was of personal value to the recipient. A foundation of any effective donor retention strategy requires content that is of personal value to the recipient. We learned that when you produced something for everyone it was not for anyone. Just producing content was not enough.

3. Communicate consistently (traditional)

After generating thousands and thousands of pieces of content we began to see a pattern. What emerged from analyzing our readership was individuals were uniquely consistent not globally consistent. This meant that if we were going to communicate consistently, and be effective, we needed to define what was consistent by individual donors.

4. Recognize contributions (traditional)

On the surface this seems fairly easy and something that our industry has focused a lot on over the past four or five decades. Recognition is critical, but again that looks different for individuals. Be careful in creating global recognition strategies, while they are appreciated global actions will not have the impact of a highly personalized recognition plan arrived at by asking the right questions and then listening intently to the response.

5. Show outcomes prove impact (traditional)

This seems quite logical yet in building an initiative that dramatically increased retention we learned that we needed to slightly adjust how we approached this item. What we learned was that we didn't need to demonstrate what we had accomplished in the past tense what we needed to do is design a communication strategy that validated the donors investment decision. As close to real time as we could we had our supporters part of major milestones. We celebrated our partnership and are shared impact so it was always clear that we were in this together. Designing communications as if we're partners is a critical element in shaping all conversations and communications with key donors, if your goal is improved retention.

6. Be responsive (traditional)

Our sense was being responsive was a minimal expectation. Who among us doesn't expect a timely call

returned or a gift acknowledged personally and quickly. Instead what would help us stand out in a very crowded philanthropic marketplace is anticipating their needs and being proactive in our communication. This required us to ask good questions listen to the answers and then design a proactive communication strategy that would wow our donors. Designing retention strategies with minimal expectations will rarely reap strong results.

7. Exude positivity (traditional)

Well of course it's important to be positive. What we learned was designing a ride for our donors that was wrapped in a feeling of passion for our shared belief was incredibly impactful in their desire to stay connected and create a tomorrow that we jointly believed was possible.

8. Put the donor first (traditional)

We started believing that this was true, but it turned out to really only being a half truth. Putting the donor first or being donor centered in the traditional manner will not dramatically impact retention. What we learned was what we needed to put first, and this required significant understanding of the individuals we worked with, was who the donor was looking to become. Tom Asacker, friend and author, was interviewed recently where he spoke about individuals each having their own personal narrative that is always evolving. To be effective in donor retention you need to understand the momentum of the individual narratives your donors are creating for themselves. You also have to put that evolution in the context of your mission. Understanding how those two things work together is probably the most impactful ingredient in designing a sophisticated, impactful donor retention strategy. It requires asking the right questions, understanding their life stage and effectively listening in order to create strategy.

Retention requires new thinking drawn from real experience and not traditional best practice.