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Adrian Sargeant: Relationship Fundraising
There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donors expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian Sargeant is a professor at Plymouth University and directs its Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy.
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into pulmonary history. Oh, sight. Oh, cece, if i breathed in the idea that you missed today’s show relationship fund-raising there’s a lot of conventional wisdom about howto be donor-centric and build strong relationships. But what the social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donor’s expect from you at each of the relationships stages. Adrian sergeant is a professor at plymouth university on tony’s. Take two and dc is next week and i have a referral for you. Sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com it’s my pleasure to welcome professor adrian sergeant to the show he’s, professor of fund-raising at plymouth university and director of the center for sustainable philanthropy. There he used to hold the hartsook chair in fund-raising at the lily family school of philanthropy at indiana university. Fact he’s calling today. From bloomington he’s, a prolific author, researcher and presenter. If you go to the center for sustainable philanthropy website, you will get bored scrolling down his list of books, papers, articles and presentations. Center, by the way, is c e n t r e we have ah so snooty english university there. Plymouth he’s at adrian sergeant and his last name is spelled like the military rank. Welcome, doctor. Professor. Agent sergeant. Well, thanks. Pleasure. Welcome from from bloomington, indiana. How is it there? It’s worth a lovely spring day here. And i’m looking at into blue skies in sometime. Which and it’s? Not not always the case in the u k either. No, certainly not. In my part of the uk, everything you hear about british rain and british weather is pretty much true of my region. I see. What reason? Where is plymouth? Ah, thomas is right down in the southwest tip of the country. On its claim to fame, i pose for your audience. Is that it’s where the pilgrim fathers set sail from years ago? The mayflower left from the steps of the barbeque in the area in the diplomas. Oh, excellent. Okay. That’s. Interesting. No. And then plymouth. Then we have plymouth rock on the us side, so yeah. So that was a very symmetric trip. I never knew that total symmetry ever visit. You could actually see the steps that the pilgrim fathers used teo to board the mayflower before they set bail on that. Well, that point. Very epic journey. Yeah, of course. I i guess they they called it plymouth rock teo to make it symmetric. So it’s. Not like it was named. It wasn’t named plymouth rock when they landed on it. I don’t want people to think that that’s what? I was assuming that it was named plymouth rock when they landed. I don’t believe it was ok. Very cool. Interesting. Thank you. All right. Relationship fund-raising adrian it’s. Okay, if i call you adrian, right? Yeah. Okay. I don’t get doctor. You know, you’re not calling on me for questions or anything. So doctor, a professor. Okay, adrian what’s, the current state of this i gather it’s not what it ought to be. No. Sadly, the quality of relationship fund-raising but not ugly in the states. But around the world is not in a particularly happy space right now. And the reason i say that is because now about quite a lot of data on the patent of dahna retention and loyalty that we’re able to generate and obviously the whole, the whole thrust of relationship fund-raising is that you want to build a longer term, mutually satisfying relationships and supported yes on all the evidence that the moment is that it’s going in entirely the opposite direction we lose, typically in the states, we lose around seventy percent of our supporters between the first and the second donation and then probably around two, thirty percent of them year on year thereafter. Well, you try running a business. Yeah, i’ve had other guests on, quote, that exact same statistic, and i don’t understand how this khun b because there is so much talk about donor-centric donor-centric ism, and we have to listen to our donors and pay attention to their needs and put them in the center. What? Why? Why is this not working there’s so much talk about it, why we’re not doing it? I think they’re pulling two two reasons for that one is that often when i talk about dahna lorts him attention in the sense. That kind of preaching to acquire a lot of fundraisers know what they should be doing or could be doing, but they don’t always necessarily get the stain level of investment from the board that they’re looking for on it could be oftentimes quite able to push that level of change through the second reason, i think buy-in wait might talk more about this, but i think one of the problems we have in fund-raising is that it’s one of the few professions, in fact, probably the only profession you’ve been join without actually meeting to know anything. Come on, good luck, you know, you’re going to see a dentist too haven’t studied or doctor that has studied or even employing a plumber who hasn’t studied it’s important, i think that fund-raising they’re exposed when they come into the profession to a body of knowledge. Then it’s agreed that this is what you need to know if you’re going to be a successful, competent fund-raising on that, then organizations would employ people who had demonstrably, you know, got that body of knowledge because we don’t have that right now because we don’t value it. Oftentimes people end up in fund-raising rolls where they’re really having to discover things that we already know for the first time yeah. Now, are we getting better? I mean, there are programs. There are degree programs and including at plymouth university and the ones i can think of in the us at new york university and columbia. I think fordham and those are only new york’s. You know, those ones? The ads that i get new york city, those only new york city. So there are more programs, are we? Are we starting to recognize the value of a professional pressure, professionally trained fund-raising force? I think for now that no, no, we’re not. Some of the some of the programs are burying quality. I mean, there are some good ones. Always see that there’s one come on by you and there’s, one of seminaries in minnesota. And, you know, i could go on, but the sweet spot for fund-raising education is where you gotta blend of delivery by practitioners and academics so that you get some of the emerging science of dona behavior that impacts on what people? Noah’s well, sadly, i think some programs are run entirely by practitioners. So you only get one half of the equation there on what you’ll get, obviously their, you know, their background in their experience, which obviously has a place but that’s not the same as being exposed to the modern research findings that example, on social psychology, we’re gonna talk about that. Could the incoming what they yeah, yeah, you know, you end up with more of the conventional wisdom. Yeah, we’ve got a you know, i’ve mentioned we’ve got a problem with attention right now. What i didn’t say is that actually getting worse. I’ve just completed a very large scale study in england of six million dahna records we’ve looked at people recruited way back in two thousand and compared them with people recruited in two thousand ten on their substantially less loyal now so no only we’ve got very leaky bucket, but that bucket is getting weaker by the day. Okay, uh that’s ah that’s pretty positive motivation and enthusiastic motivation. Let’s ah, let’s, go out for a break. Adrian and i are going to continue talking. Of course we’ve got what? What drives donorsearch multi. And how do you measure it? And the stages of the fund-raising relationship? Stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, adrian let’s jump in and explore what what it is that we know we’ll drive the donor loyalty that we’re trying to reverse the trend of, well, the fact of ah, really quite similar to any relationship that somebody might have with an organization so there’s a lot of learning that we can take from the commercial world that we find it equally relevant. The non-profits place andi, my guess is that many of your listeners will have had the car service recently or they’ve stayed in a hotel or they used the service online that probably they’ve been asked at some point tell us what you think of the service has satisfied were you with the quality of that experience on these kind of satisfaction, that is, in a sense, kind of quite ubiquitous? I think the’s day on the re homeless ubiquitous is because there’s a huge link between her status side somebody with the court in service they receive on their level of loyalty on people who are very status by are six times more likely to come back and purchase again, on average than people who just satisfied so there’s um active behavioral, different on the extreme of the scale, right? So the goal needs to be for our organizations to get people to the point where they’re very satisfied, actually with the way that they’re treated as a donor. That’s the last one i make here is that the multiple in our world isn’t as big as it is in the trading context. Duitz and trading world, very satisfied equates to six times more likely to come back again in our world don’t say they’re very satisfied, but the cause your service provided by the fund-raising to you are twice as likely to be giving in years, and i think people who say they’re just satisfied. So it’s been a massive factor, but the multiple isn’t quite as big as it might be in other contexts, okay? Any any thoughts? Why? That is why i don’t how come we only get one third of the the likelihood of returning that compared to the corporate world? Well, i think there’s a range of other factors that player in our space that also have an impact on loyalty and retention satisfactions an important one on one of the things i like to do is focus unconference isn’t the season, then write in the satisfaction is this is a major driver of dahna loyalty, which in terms of which in turn, is a major driver of the value of fund-raising database. So how many people actually measure it then on, if you’re lucky in a room of two hundred people, you might get one hand god, and then you are people well out of those folks, you know, who’s actually remunerated how good they make their donors feel on dh you won’t find any hands that go with that point, so we don’t take that factor seriously enough. But then there are other things that creeping in our world, the trust in the organization of your listeners might be thinking got agents talking about satisfaction with a coarse service provided by the fund-raising team. Well, what about all that really great stuff we do with beneficiaries? You know, surely that’s gotta count for something incense of retention and loyalty writhe difference that we make it on dh that’s true, but for most donors, unless they’re major donors, the mechanism for that it’s trust if i’m a major donor and i’ve given you five million to put up a building in a sense, i don’t need to trust you because i can see the building up, right? But if i’ve given you fifty dollars to help starving child that i really have to trust that you say you do exactly what you’ve told me you’re going to do with that resource s o trust for the vast majority of our donors is a big driving factor in terms of lorts potential. Okay, okay. Um, and, you know, these sound very much like not only, you know, relationship factors in a commercial sense, but also in a personal sense, they are our friends and our parents, no loved ones. Yeah, a lot of these relationship variables are just as relevant toe all human relationships. I mean, originally this study of things like satisfaction, trust and commitment all came out of something called relationship marketing, and what that was trying to do is to take ideas from human relationships on apply in that case, teo relationships, that businesses have customers, and at the core of all the relationships that we have of these notions of satisfaction, commitment and trust. No. Anything you want to tease out about commitment. We spent little time with satisfaction. Trust anything more you want to say about commitment? Yeah. Commitment is one of the really big drivers of loyalty on beauty that comes out stronger than thin. The others i’ve mentioned on what that is is a really burning passion to see the mission of the organization achieved. And you can imagine that, you know, people who are committed to finding a cure for breast cancer, you know, tend to support charities that do that on dh for extended periods of time. But that really passion to see the mission achieved eyes one of the really big drivers of lorts in retention, andi. So the question, i suppose then, is well, i had you build commitment then and again, we know from research quite a few things help build commitment that one is at risk. So if you’re running a shelter for homeless folk and i’m a donut, your organization and i believe that by canceling my gift today, somebody somewhere is going to be without a bed tonight. I am a bunch more likely to continue to support that shelter. S o that element that i see a risk in canceling will help drive commitment. So too will a personal connection. You know, if my life had been touched by breast cancer because i had lost a loved one to it, you can imagine that i’d be pretty fired-up about finding a cure for that being committed to those sorts of organizations andan also it worthy of note, is some thing i called multiple engagements and there’s a micro on a macro level to that, the macro level is that people who are donors and campaigners and service users and volunteers, and and wait till you get and you get a whopping more loyalty. And in the micro level is every time you have a two way interaction where there’s a little bit of cognition that takes place, maybe the organization asking your question, what would you like to receive? What do you think about this? How many times do you want to hear from us here? Do you want to get news? Whatever it might be. Every time you have to weigh interaction with water, you get a little teeny tiny bit more loyalty. And, of course, in the digital space, it’s now by easy toe have those little, many interactions with people and it’s really worthwhile, because ultimately it drives behave excellent. Now, there’s research supporting all this, right? Yeah, absolutely. I’ve bean doing work in the non-profit space for the best part of twenty years now, andi, we’ve done in a large scale survey work with probably a couple hundred thousand donors here in the states now getting on for two million donors in europe, um, tracking the relationship between satisfaction, commitment, trust and then behaviors of interest like like who e-giving next year with assembly upgrade on even actually leaving a bequest to the organization? What about that that’s a significant how is that a significant factor? Well, one of the big drivers off, in fact, the single biggest driver i’d say really the likelihood that somebody will leave a big quest for nonprofit organization is how long they’ve been supporting it. Yes, on and typically find working with clients, i’ll say, you know, we’re gonna have a request program that is you forget all the complicated plan giving vehicles, but just right asking somebody to remember a charity with a gift in their will or a state document. Then the single to get indicators of willingness to do that is how long people have been giving onda anytime we were three years actually is a pretty good indicator that that person cares about you is committed to the cause and therefore will at least give some consideration to that request. So surprise, surprise, you know, commitment is a pretty big indication the likelihood of doing that, okay, yeah, i don’t know if you know that, but i know this, but i do plan to giving fund-raising consulting ah, and that’s where we’re always looking for the best potential bequest donors is who are the most committed, loyal donors, and i didn’t know that a ce feu is three years can be can be a positive factor, but i’m always looking for some organizations are easily, you know, decades older sometimes sometimes even one hundred years old couple of the university’s i’ve worked, so you know, if people have been giving twenty, thirty years or twenty five of the past thirty years, they’re ah, enormously good potential donor for ah for bequest or some of the other plan gives to yeah, yeah, i’d agree wholeheartedly with it and it’s. Amazing how very few organizations even bothered to ask for a request on if they do, how many organizations think that somehow people will be inspired by the mechanics of death and dying? Some of the communications we generate just thank you. Make a will and you may change your will. And then the mechanics of the plan giving vehicles well, actually, you want the company to give you you want to inspire them with a vision of what the future could look like, that people are inherently more positive about the future on so good, positive messages about what the world might look like that evoke a little bit of emotion are actually a lot more useful in that quest. Space non-technical brochures about you know how you die. I mean that’s. Just miserable. Okay, thank you for that little digression. But it’s it’s what? I spend my time doing when i’m not when i’m not done non-profit radio. Very interesting to going back to the little micro engagements you get. You get a little uptick you said of of ah commitment when with just these small engagement. Yeah. If you heywood follow my knife on dh, you would’ve. Measure let’s say satisfaction and commitment, and you sent out a little survey to a sample of your darkness, our guarantee. If you can’t that sample of people over time, you’ll find that they’re a little teeny tiny bit more loyal than the balance of the database on that administration of this little bit of cognition, you’ve got a communication from the red cross, let’s say, and you think, oh, yeah, that’s right? I got a relationship with the red cross. I’ll go back to them and all. Well, that’s kind of a relationship with the american cancer society all that’s, right? Every time you get that little bit of interaction, you get a little bit more loyalty questionnaire getting people to take other actions on your behalf that aren’t related to fund-raising getting them to participate in an event that you’re doing online are tuning in to a podcast or tell us what you think. All of those things are really smart in terms of loyalty, because every time we have that interaction punch up just a little bit how loyal these individuals are outstanding love this. Okay, um, we need to be able to measure dahna loyalty how how, ah, what are what are the metrics? Uh, well, one of the one of the big issues we’ve got in our sector right now is the metrics are, well, frankly wrong aunt to be even more blunt about it. I think a lot of our non-profit boards need to be taken out, inspector eyes that a bare bottom spanking or they keep their pants, they keep their pants up. Isn’t this america bare bottoms bank with a paddle? Or is this a bare handed? Yeah, i think it really depends on the degree of a degree of redness you want to achieve. Okay, yeah, i mean, why did i say that? Well, because oftentimes people who serve on non-profit boards are actually quite bright. Oftentimes they had very successful business careers and that’s one of the reasons that they’re there because they’re plugging in their advice as well. Andi it’s, almost as if they part their brain that side the boardroom before they go through and into the meeting. Because in the commercial space, they know very well the measure customer, lifetime value and they understand what that is, and i understand why it’s important, they understand to the merits of measuring the things that drive customer lifetime about so that’s, why you get satisfaction survey reason people measuring commitment and so on you walk her into the non-profit boardroom and suddenly somehow all of that knowledge and understanding they had get forgotten on the only metrics we’re interested in is how much raised with part year or month having me don’t do it attracts andi, you know, don’t start the metric that short term thinking doesn’t help you think about the lifetime value of your database and you, and that was fund-raising suboptimal what you end up with this fund-raising that its content to recruiting donors on then lose seventy percent of them between that first and the second donation, but that complete kind of focus on short term measures get people to the point where all they do is chase their short term measure. So we’re going to continue trying to find you don’t no, you don’t we’re going continually trying next to my spanish money, we get out of the spokes, actually, what we need to do is to take a step back and say, you know, affection, maybe we should be measuring the things that drive longer term or lifetime dahlia and beginning. To reward our fund-raising it’s with the quality of the relationships that they build. Ron avam, you know, the dollars and cents that they raised get today. Okay? And immediately you do that. You get a huge changing culture because suddenly what people are interested in doing is building relationships, not just having that sort of burning churning. Wait. You must have a lot of examples of what we should specifically be measuring in our fundraisers. Uh, well, i would. If it were me, i would be using some of the same things that the commercial world have been using for twenty years. So i would measure satisfaction, commitment on trust on dh. You know, there are measurements girl to doing that. It’s a little survey. You track how how people feel on dh if you do that, it’s. The margin of those measures that makes the difference. Remember, i talked earlier about the percentage of people who were very satisfied, very satisfied business, that’s the important thing latto it’s the extremes of those scales and changes in that that make the difference on the good news is that even small improvements in loyalty in the here and now translate. A whopping improvements in the lifetime value with fund-raising database. So if i can improve the level of retention by little can percent in the here and now, i can increase the last time value fund-raising database by over fifty percent. Why? Because they affect compounds overtime. So if you’ve got more donors left at the end of this year, you’re gonna have even more the following year and even more than you know, the year after that, you know, for many organizations that’s not the end of the story either because most organisations lose money on going to requisition just to go out and keep finding lots of donors to replace the ones we’ve lost. Of course, that he knew a lot of money on if you factor that into my equation, my little improvement in loyalty in the here and now of ten percent and improve the lifetime deliver fund-raising database for anything up to one hundred percent. You can make a huge just by having little improvements and lucy and hearing that all right, i wonder if weaken, drill down to ah mohr, micro level in terms of the measurement of the performance of our our fund-raising staff are there? Are there individual metrics? I mean, in terms of how, how they have moved donors from one stage to the other or, you know, in terms of the the actual performance of the fund raisers themselves or their metrics there? I think i think the answer to that question depends on the form of fund-raising that you’re looking at, okay, um, and so the metrics will be different depending on what it was dark, dark now dot response or someone that made you get andi, you make you give officers a remunerated too, for the amount of money that they raised, but they’re also remunerated for the amount of time they spend in front of clients remember proposals they made the number of recognition events there, kendall, all of those good things, but one of the things i think you know it can be shared a causal the forms of fund-raising is good. Do we make our donors feel today on dh measuring that that quality of the relationship and that does come back again? The satisfaction, commitment on trust in the dark spots space? I would also be saying, you know, we should be taking decisions about investment on the basis ofthe donor lifetime value, andi what that means in your complaining that issues that if we’re going to invest in an acquisition campaign, we’re no goingto assess that campaign is a success simply because we bought in two hundred, donors on one hundred donors because it may be that most people were recruited won’t come back and give again. We’ve gone with the other alternative campaign we could have run, you know, we only recruited in one hundred donors, but actually most of those people stayed giving for the next five years, so taking longer term decisions based on that lifetime value, i think, is really smart and even in small organizations that made behind a little difficult to do some of that math, maybe because they’re working on even like a simple excel database or something, they could still be looking at things like retention lee on beginning to shift the focus of the way in which the team is remunerated to the level of loyalty that engendered. Now, if you can also measure the things that drive multi that’s great, but if you can’t, then the starting point for me is at least to get a sense of the health of that program and the health of relationships that just by, you know, the numbers of people who were still actively engaged. The portal agent, i love the idea of measuring how donors feel of, um alright were going to come back. I need you to hang out for a couple minutes while i do a little business don’t go anywhere he drink just just dahna just keep listening. Um, i have to talk about pursuant. They are a midsize. Well, they had a mid size social service agency using their tool velocity and therefore gift officers in that organization not meeting their close rate goals. The director of development challenged them to close proposals in the velocity pending repose. Als pending proposals report within two weeks. So he took this report. You have a two week challenge issued by there. There. Ah, there, boss. The foreclosed twenty gifts from the report and raised over sixty six thousand dollars, which had been their average monthly preach challenge production. But they did it in two weeks. And s so. Not only did raise the same amount of money and half the time. One hundred percent. Rate of increase, but they also increased longer term performance using that that same report. So this is all a tool at pursuing dot com the tools called velocity and, you know, along with what adrian is talking about, measuring there don’t have to be these measures as well of, you know, how much did you actually raise? And, you know, how are we doing against all of our goals? And the velocity tool helps you measure that time against goal pursuing dot com crowdster they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners get thirty percent thirty days for free or fifty percent off, that means you try crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising have them put together one of those sites for you, which are very easy to do, actually, and you try it completely free for a month or get fifty percent off, and that would mean pay for months. Get a month free pay for two months get two months added on for free. You can claim your deal, make your choice at crowdster dot com in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and which deal you want or if you are like me and you like to talk and not chat on ah, chat window call joe he’s the ceo. Joe ferraro. He wants you to have his number. It’s two a one, three one six forty six. Double xero two oh one, three one, six, forty six double xero you can meet joe at ntcdinosaur provoc technology conference. The crowdster booth is number five forty four. Tell joe you’re from non-profit radio. I can’t make it any simpler now. Time for tony’s take two. Yes, that non-profit technology conference and tc is next week in san jose, california. Buy-in booths one thirty four and one thirty sixth, right at the main entrance to the exhibit hall. You cannot miss me, i’m there. I’ve got twenty nine interviews scheduled as of this morning, and i’m sure we’re gonna get more than thirty. There are about thirty five slots available so filled up, but not entirely my video and interview schedule for ntc is at tony martignetti dot com is my my that’s, a plural video and interview schedule are at tony martignetti dot com who writes this crappy copy? I don’t know this is why i need an intern, so i have someone to blame for this for this, i have an easy e newsletter to recommend for you it is by jonathan lewis it’s called making social entrepreneurship happened. It’s social change stuff from the book that he’s in the process of writing, he has been a non-profit radio guest. He runs the opportunity collaboration conference that i’ve been to in mexico, and he teaches social entrepreneurship at new york university. He’s, one of the adjunct professors that adrian was just saying i can add value to a program but not standing alone. He’s a very good, very good, smart guy with good ideas you can sign up for jonathan’s newsletter at cafe impact dot com and that is tony’s take two i gotta send live listener love i want to shout you out by city and state, but sam here is having board back end problems, something more talk about spanking or in the back end again. Um, we can’t see you by city and state, so i know that you’re out there. New york, new york st louis, missouri, boston, massachusetts, new bern, north carolina, california. I know there’s somebody in california listening, probably san francisco, but i know there’s, a california listener. Those are the live lister love people, the loyal, live look that loyal, live listener loved that i know are out there love, of course, toe all the current live listeners and going abroad. I know there are listeners right now in tokyo monisha while i know we have listeners in china and taiwan because we always do ni hao and i know that south korea is checking in because it does week after week. Anya haserot now, in case we are in in mexico, we’ve had listeners in mexico with no star days, the czech republic occasionally does check in dobre den, germany, we can’t get germany guten tag, okay, i think that covers the most frequent live listeners. Sorry, we can’t do you no city and state as usual, we will get this back end problem slapped and slapped ah and fixed by next week. I gotta send podcast pleasantries never forget the podcast listeners, whatever it is you’re doing painting your house, washing your dishes at whatever time you’re listening. Whatever activity whatever device over ten thousand of you, so grateful pleasantries to the many podcast listeners and affiliate affections to our multiple multiple am and fm. Stations throughout the country. Listeners from the finger lakes in new york. Two salome, oregon and lots of states in between affiliate affections to our many affiliate listeners. Ok, adrian sergeant, thank you so much for for holding on. I have tio after acknowledge all of all our listeners of whatever ilk in variety they come, they all get a special shout out. So thank you for your for your patients. Um, we have ah, i love these measures, but we gotta move on. Let’s, let’s talk about the different stages you’ve identified stages of the donor relationship and there were different strategies appropriate for each first. Just please just lay out the but what the the stages are, and then we’ll come back and revisit. Well, there’s a unawareness say’s where people become aware of the organization for the first time on exploration plays people begin to kind of extraordinary that relationship might might mean for them on then you’re kind of deeper into the relationship where there begins to be an element of commitment. And then eventually, over time, you know, some relationships will come to an end. Of course not. Everybody’s going to continue giving for forever. But what we do know is how you treat donorsearch different points in that journey can make a very big difference. Unsurprisingly, how loyal durney yes, and especially knowing that these micro engagements make a difference in loyalty, i going back to that because i admire it so much, i love it. Um, okay, we have a few minutes we can spend, you know, on each of the stages, we’ll help us with awareness what’s going on and what should we be doing to give our donors what they’re seeking at that stage? Well, at this point, i suppose we’re talking about people who haven’t given to the organization before, so we’re talking about individuals that you’re trying to solicit, too get them to make a contribution for the first time on dh one of things i care about fund-raising in general is that some of what we generate is is really plan, and if you want to get people to give and you want them to give reasonable sums of money, has to make you feel something logic, leap to conclusions, emotion leads the action on dh fund-raising don’t want conclusions provoc greatest buy-in large one, people take action. Yes. And you’ve gotta get latto feel something if you’re going to stimulate them to give to your organization on dh. Too many particular kind of somebody’s letters in this country, you know, a bland three or four paragraphs in-kind all of my fire. Somebody was on the cusp of making a gift. I could, you know, that’s not gonna happen. You’ve gotta generate materials, the talon emotional story and telling to stimulate that all important first. Okay. Okay. Emotion. It’s. Very intuitive. But we still see a lot of bad practice out there. Yeah, way. Still see a lot of those sort of very bland one page letters signed by the chief executive. Maybe even the picture of the chief executive. When actually there’s a lot to say around the nature of the cause. That could be compelling. I give you one example of a pact. That’s doing the reins again has been around for years, but amnesty international, they sense that a flat pain catch a piece of card with a picture of somebody whose eyes have been gouged. Eight on the strap line effectively says what you hold in your hand is an instrument of torture when you read to your horror that actually why this person’s eyes against that is because some somebody somewhere in the world used the pen on this youngster teo teo, get guy just either and it’s horrible and you knew when you read it and you’re outraged. And of course the pen can also be a mechanism for doing something about it on immediately i get youto feel the anger or feel the compassion for that child i talked you into the corps was you understand why what i do is important at that point. And are you more likely to respond and make a gift? Of course on you know, there are lots of other examples we could talk about that solution is absolutely critical to getting people to get for the first time. That’s a brilliant one. Well, well done. The amnesty, brother, i give you one other from kidney research in the uk there was a cent a pack. I told the story of a little girl. Uh, who has kidney disease on very likely won’t won’t live for many years on the letter that was contained with the picture of this little girl was actually a letter. From her kidney, two little katie apologizing for the fact that, uh, you know, the kidney is not able to do its job and rending little story, but, you know, when you read it, you have given a really strong connection to that little girl, and you feel the heartbreak that her parents must be going through, and immediately you do that if you’ve got kids yourself, you know, you get that lump in your throat when you think, well, goodness, you know, i have to do something about that because that horrible i don’t want the little girls like katie not be hurt. I may be able to have the operation the care they need. My okay. Ah, very touching. Let’s go to aa exploration what’s happening there? Well, at that point in the relationship that they’re kind of getting to know you stage that was taking place. Andi, i know now that there are a number of chances playing very creatively with three d communications. S o you see people less in the us, but in other parts of the world out on shopping malls and high streets with three d headset so that people can experience what? It’s like to be in a school in botswana what it’s like to be in a hospital in northern nigeria or wherever it might be in the world. So you can sort of transport people away for a few moments to be able to see the work that’s being done on the ground. And i think those things are quite powerful here in st pete’s one international aid organization that does that very powerful lee was trains, and it’ll take a trailer to a community, then you can go inside that trailer and you can walk around a school in the developing world, and you can see the kind of experiences that those kids for having so thinking in a very creative way about taking people inside the cause i think is really important, you don’t necessarily need to involve the latest technology. They certainly video pictures that take you into that world, i think, is very important on the other thing i would say at this point is that you might begin to creep some choice in to the kind of relationship that you’re having with individuals i used to when i was teaching this twenty years ago, i’d say, well, it’s, awful people choice from day one. So you you allow people to choose whether they want a hardcopy newsletter. Oh, our digital newsletter or no newsletter, but just appeals or whatever since realized that it’s smarter to wait just a little bit until people get into the relationship so that they could take smarter decisions about actually what they want. Because if you ask me from day one, adrian, do you want a newsletter, then? Adrian is almost certainly going to say no, right? Because newsletters sound boring, and i’m probably not gonna want that, but if you wait, you know, for five months into the relationship, i’ve read your newsletter and actually i realized that this is really quite moving or, you know, the information that there is compelling, and i’m interested, then i’m all like, so no, actually, i’ll continue to receive that. So giving people a little bit of choice of the communications is a smart thing to do in relationship fund-raising logo, but i would begin to creep that in as the relationship begins to develop over time and i’d allow people toe, you know, identify the times of things they want in the frequency. Okay, we’re going to go out for a break. I have to mention then that so the people who attended your early programs, i did not get the they got screwed. It better be better to come to a later adrian sergeant presentation or webinar. If you were doing webinars back then probably not know. Twenty years ago, there was no, there was no web, but but you get checked the guy out now because he’s learned from his own his own research. All right, probably by the time you are exactly what i’m talking, yes, that’ll be brilliant, okay, there’s going to be, oh, it’s gonna be a nursing home. It’s going to get great, great probono advice from you, okay, let’s, go out for a break. Adri and i will talk about the next stage commitment, and then we also got to talk about next steps for you and for adrian’s research. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy, tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m chuck longfield of blackbaud. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oppcoll chuck longfield of blackbaud will be on the show next week, a little more about that coming up later on um, i won’t let you know that you can get this research at pursuant dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing is one of the funders of this research, and thankfully through their sponsorship, i met adrian, and we’re getting this enormously wonderful value on today’s show, so thank you pursuing thank you, adrian. Uh, welcome pleasure, all right, let’s go to aa now, we just have, like, five or six minutes left, so we need to be a little efficient without time. The next stage commitment what’s what’s happening there? Well, in commitment you’re really beginning then, teo buildup, that strong relationship bond with a supporter of one of the things i would be doing much earlier on at the point of acquisition, actually to gather information about the sorts of things that the individual is interested in if you’ve got a non-profit that has four or five different kinds of program or things that are going on, i’d be asking them early on in the relationship which of those things they’re particularly interested. In because if i do nothing else. But i’m going to make sure that when i’ve got something going on in one of those spaces that they’re interested in, that they know about it and have the opportunity to report it, they’re being respectful of people’s interests. I think is a particularly kind of key thing in building that commitment, okay? And that on but comes back to some of what you were saying about giving people a choice. Yeah, if you understand why people are supporting the organization that you know that that’s a powerful thing, you can then use to shake the communication going. Okay, by the way, i created a false sense of urgency, but not deliberately. When i said five or six minutes, i was alone. We have more like nine minutes left, so don’t you got an extra three minutes, so take a nap, and, uh, and then we’ll pick up after a three minute nap. No. What else we got? You can laugh openly, so i should hope you please way need somebody to be laughing thinking that my students would probably appreciate that. Thank you. Pass that on to them, but do it at the end of the class. Duvette the very end of the class. Um, yeah, okay, um, i mean, any more, you’re not good if i pick up on on the notion of commitment, i think one of the other things that the people possibly don’t realize and then came through from from our report is the the value that don’t get from the relationship shifts. A bit of the relationship deepens. So initially, when you’ve got that really powerful, emotional, packed communication that you’re not going to use, people are really interested in the impact on the beneficiary write all about did you do what you said you were going to do and have the impact on that child’s life? Well, as the relationship deepens, the donor becomes at least as much concerned about water impact on the child. I mean, from my sense of who i am, ana, i think you know what we’re talking about them is something psychologists. Call identity and i think that’s going to be the next big thing in fund-raising because it’s a little different from understanding the motives that people have for supporting you, you know, the motives for supporting little katie and her kidney operation, for example, identity is a bit different instead of what motivated used to support the organization that stays you’re asking, what are people saying about themselves when they give? So what kind of person are they saying they are when they support my non-profit adrian york, let me understand that we can begin to shape our communication to make them feel good about being that kind of person. Gen shang, your colleague at the center for sustainable philanthropy, cnt ari was on was on non-profit radio talking about something that this makes me think of she had research from public radio when people would call in to public radio to make a gift, they were greeted with something along the lines of thank you for being a kind supporter or a loyal supporter or a generous supporter, and she had different adjectives and tested different adjectives against outcomes and eyes, particularly among women. The right adjectives would increase. The the women’s giving through the through these phone calls does that sound familiar to you? Yeah, absolutely on what you’re talking about there, of course, is one kind of identity you’re talking about moral identity. Okay, so, you know, a lot of giving might be because i’m saying adrian is a moral person. I might also be saying, i’m a father, i’m a parent, i’m a cancer survivor, i’m a patriot, i’m a liberal i’ma environmentalist, i’ma, i’ma, i’ma on dh when you understand the identity that’s being articulated durney you make people feel good about that, right? Because if they’re going to give when they’re that kind of person lets lets tell him it’s good to be that kind of person and give him the kind of content that really reinforces that i don’t see it makes him feel good remember we said earlier in this conversation, i think you know, one of the things we need to do moving forward if toe worry about hitting the need of our beneficiary, so sure, but we could be at least this concerned with how good we made our donors feel today on one of the keys to unlocking that. Is to understand what they’re saying about themselves when they give tow organization and what that report of us ruling means to the sense of who they are. And i was saying that the relationship deepens people away, so what that really means for them and who they are on dh, we start to be looking for relationships over time to meet some of our hyre orr durney and by that i mean, the connectedness, personal growth, self fulfillment, yes, but what is my support my five years support of your non-profit organization say about my personal growth and how connected i am with people that are important to me and where i am in terms of myself fulfill it, andi, if we start to think about right that there are longer term supporters are maybe we could help them. I can make some of those reflections on feeling better about their support of our organization because actually, when we communicate across more than any other sex er we should really be concerned with maximizing how good we can make our supporters feel ok, adrian, i i have to stop our our substance because we’ve got to move to next. Steps, and we just have a couple of minutes left, and i want to get to both parts of this. So what can a non-profit do with this wealth of information? Well, if you visit, if they visit the pursuant website, there’ll be other download a copy ofthe there really two key volumes to the research? One is lessons from relationship marketing one is less in some social psychology, andi, they could trial some of those ideas for themselves and their fund-raising so that’s the most obvious thing that might be able to do at the end of the call go to the website, haven’t reports and see if there’s anything there that piques their interest try okay. And again, that it’s pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising that’s where you’ll find the four volumes. But adrian, you’re recommending the first two as being most valuable sounds like that, but they’ve suddenly covered most of material we talked about today, okay? And there’s a lot of other ideas from social psychology on the other thing that’s so might like to do if they’re in an organization of of a reasonable size, we’re planning on doing a serious of field experiments. Over the next two years. Yes, well worked with a number of non-profit partners, andi blitz there don’t know. Find it too. One half would continue to get the communications that they get. Now the other half would get communications. That being tweaked in some way to help build up foster. That dahna relations. Okay, very quickly. What type of organization are you looking for? We’re looking for organizations that has, um, groups have done those that are above six hundred people. So we’re not looking for organizations that are necessarily massive, but we’re looking for organizations that have a reasonable number of donors in each of the segments they want to study. Time will be willing to work with us bearing the cost of doing those experiments. Okay, we’ll get the impact of that relationship approach on money raised, but also on how good people feel. Okay? Oh, excellent. Getting to the feelings what’s your email address. If people would like to submit their organization or talk to you more about being on in the research. It’s adrian dot, sergeant a d r i n dot es a rg e a n t at plymouth a y m o u t h dahna a si dot uk. Excellent. Adrien, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much, so much valuable information. Thank you. Cheers next week. Lead and matching gif ts with another professor, john list from the university of chicago and corporate. Imagine gifts that’s with chuck longfield, chief scientist at blackbaud. If you missed any part of today’s show, i implore you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go? I just don’t know about that. Responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com, our creative producer is clara miree off sam lever, which is the line producer. Gavin doll is our am and fm outreach director. Shows social media is by susan chavez, and our music is by scott stein. Thank you for that, scotty. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
