The 8 Steps (& 4 Principles) to Becoming More Donor-Centric

The 8 Steps (& 4 Principles) to Becoming More Donor-Centric

by | Jul 6, 2022 | donor-centric, Donor-centricity, Sustainable Fundraising

Having explored some of the barriers to donor-centricity, it’s time to focus on the 8 steps you can take to help your organisation become more donor-centric.

At LemonTree, we define donor-centricity as: “The continual dedication to increasing the depth and breadth of your donor understanding, so you can connect more meaningfully, collaborate more effectively, and – most importantly – genuinely care for your donors in order to create ongoing value exchange, build trust and increase loyalty.”

Much like the relationship we have with each of our friends, the members of our family and the people we work with, there is no single, linear path you can take to build trust, earn loyalty and nurture a long-term, sustainable relationship with your donors. However, there are some critical steps we can take to create the right environment for a relationship to flourish.

It’s a bit like growing a lemon tree. You have to do some groundwork first before you can expect a seedling to grow into a fruit-bearing tree. You need to consider the type of lemon tree you want to grow, the seed itself and whether it’s viable, the soil, the pot, the light, the positioning, the climate, the water, the fertiliser, and so on. You have to cultivate the perfect conditions for your lemon tree to grow. Even then, with all your nurturing, it can still take upwards of three years for it to produce fruit…and some trees never will.

The same is true when it comes to creating a donor-centric environment. You need to be in it for the long-haul. This isn’t a quick ‘low-hanging-fruit’ strategy (excuse the play on words!). It takes time and effort to cultivate the perfect conditions for your donors to grow – but it’s an effort worth taking because it leads to long-term, sustainable relationships.

8 steps to cultivating a donor-centric environment

Step 1 – Maximise the quality of your data: the most important asset you own right now is the data on your donors, both past and present. When it comes to data, quality is just as important (perhaps even more so) than quantity. Data is your key to building sustainable relationships between your donors and organisation, so be sure to practice good data hygiene!

Step 2 – Find ways to collaborate: your own data will only ever tell you so much. Donor-centricity is a commitment to increasing the depth and breadth of your donor understanding. Finding ways to partner and aggregate data insights will fuel your donor understanding and lead to best practice communication and donor management.

Step 3 – Ensure strong donor governance: your donors are the life source of your organisation and the beneficiaries you serve. Without your donors, the solution to your cause disappears. Protect your donors by introducing strong governance practices for all your donor engagement processes. Remember, protect your donors to protect your cause!

Step 4 – Recognise their life stage: a donor’s ability and willingness to donate to your cause will vary in both time and dollars as their circumstances change and evolve. Always take into account the life stage and household composition of your donors in order to provide the most engaging experience.

Step 5 – Listen to their needs & wants: “seek first to understand, then to be understood” – so Stephen Covey told us. To build trust in a relationship you need to listen to and understand the wants and needs, hopes, fears, likes and dislikes of the other party. Only by understanding and capturing your donor preferences can you communicate with them in a way that will resonate, connect and build trust.

Step 6 – Lifetime value & share of wallet:  with a wider donor understanding of engagement, a level of sustained giving over longer periods is achieved. History has shown us when donors are over-communicated to, they suffer donor fatigue and reduce overall giving. Factor in share of wallet when calculating lifetime value. Know what is fair and reasonable for your donors.

Step 7 – Optimise your communication: sometimes silence really can be golden. Your messages, channels and the timing of your communication should be based on your donor insights. It’s not always about when you have something to say, it’s about contacting a donor when and where it is appropriate for them.

Step 8 – Nurture & grow: just like any other relationship, it takes time for donors to get to know, like and trust your organisation and the work you do. Invest the time in leveraging your knowledge of your donors, your cause and its beneficiaries to find common ground, make connections and demonstrate your value. Grow the size of your donor pond, by nurturing tomorrow’s givers, today.

Regardless of the path you choose to take, your journey towards donor-centricity should be underpinned by 4 core principles.

4 Principles of Donor Centricity

  1. Donors are people, not ATMs: loyalty will be created by treating donors as equally as important as your cause itself.
  2. Knowledge is power: the best, most engaging donor experiences will be created by leveraging the data, analytics, insights and observations available to you.
  3. Relationships are ‘give and take’: trust will be created by having meaningful, two-way conversations that foster reciprocity and fair value exchange between you and your donors.
  4. It’s a marathon, not a sprint: create the maximum return on your investment by measuring the lifetime value (LTV) of a donor, not just the campaign value.

These principles are the cornerstones of creating a donor-centric environment. They are non-negotiable. They are a mindset. They are a manifestation of your intent to connect, collaborate and care for your donors…whichever path you choose to take to get there.

If you’re on the journey to donor-centricity, why not join LemonTree’s free Donor-Centricity Collective (DCC)? As a member of the DCC, you can learn from your peers, share your experiences, ask questions and keep up-to-date with the latest strategies to become more donor-centric…AND be part of a movement to help grow sustainable giving in Australia! Simply click here to sign up for free.

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Next up in this series:

  • The different stages of the donor relationship and how they impact donor-centricity

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Good News for Charity Mail

Good News for Charity Mail

by | Mar 1, 2022 | Sustainable Fundraising

FIA has worked collaboratively with Australia Post over many years, advocating for the needs of the charitable fundraising sector and have been successful in helping to achieve temporary rebates for qualified Charity Mail campaigns to support fundraising organisations. The rebates were provided to assist charities with their fundraising, lowering costs and encouraging them to undertake additional mailing activity to help supplement income from fundraising activities which have been impacted by COVID-19. 

Recognising the financial challenges charities are still facing, Australia Post will provide a postage rebate of 10% on any incremental Charity Mail activity undertaken from 1 April to 30 June 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. The 10% rebate applies to the incremental Charity Mail volume achieved from 1 April to 30 June 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, adjusted for:

any Charity Mail volume shortfall that occurs in the following quarter ie, 1 July to 30 September 2022 compared to 2021 and any applicable credit claims in those periods.

The rebate is only available where Charity Mail volumes have been lodged on the charity’s own charge account both last year and this year.

Charities wanting to be considered for this initiative need to apply by 31 May 2022 by sending an application to charitymailchanges@auspost.com.au  

On behalf of the entire sector, FIA appreciates the ongoing support of Australia Post.

Original source – https://fia.org.au/good-news-for-charity-mail/

Good news indeed and well done to FIA for their continued discussions with Australia Post.

It may be a small saving, however every 10% counts. Most fundraisers would experience when preparing forecasts and ROI calculations for direct mail, particularly for acquisition, the numbers and business case can be challenging, so these incremental cost savings are all important.

We are seeing that diversification of fundraising channels and activities is a common strategy across many charities, so again when comparing ROI across the channels and activities, every 10% counts to keep as many of these open as a viable opportunity.

LemonTree hosts FIA networking evening

LemonTree hosts FIA networking evening

by | Apr 16, 2021 | awards, Behind the scenes, Sustainable Fundraising

LemonTree hosted the first Fundraising Institute Australia (FIA) networking event for 2021, on our panoramic rooftop, on the evening of 14 April. It was wonderful to catch up and network after the recent COVID-19 restrictions, as well as have the opportunity to meet so many new NFP crusaders!

We were also thrilled to have the opportunity to share more about our award-winning solution Primed; recent winner of the FIA Awards for Excellence in Fundraising – Most Innovative Campaign. This year, the awards program featured 13 categories and 173 entries judged by 44 senior fundraisers working for a range of fundraising organisations.

Primed is our end-to-end engagement solution that can be constantly optimised and is based on understanding your supporters and their emotional connection with your cause.

Ft. Matt Small, Regular Giving Manager at Bush Heritage Australia

Thank you to those who joined us on the evening and a special thank you to our Primed partners and co-sponsors of the evening More Strategic, Conversr, and Cornucopia Fundraising.

Thank you to our partner FIA for extending the invitation to host this event:

Donor Relationship Stage 3: Teach Me – ft. Jody Crooks from WWF

Donor Relationship Stage 3: Teach Me – ft. Jody Crooks from WWF

by | Mar 22, 2021 | Sustainable Fundraising

Continuing with our 8-part blog series reviewing the different stages of the donor relationship, this blog delves into donor relationship stage 3: Teach Me. 

For this session, we were joined by guest NFP speaker Jody Crooks, the resident Head of Donor Engagement & Retention at WWF. Jody expanded on maintaining donor loyalty, aligning donor and cause values, listening to your donors and more (Queue the famous Julie Andrews line from The Sound of Music – “Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you.”) 

When I think about the ‘Teach Me’ stage of the donor relationship, I draw parallels with the early stages of a romantic relationship. You’re acclimatising to each other and working out whether you’ll still like them when you scratch below the surface. Will this be marriage or just a short fling?

We all know attrition is at its highest in those crucial early few months. So it’s really important that we help our donors avoid ‘buyer’s remorse’. It’s when they’ll start noticing first debits and will consider whether they really can afford it, or is it really the best use of their money. Will you deliver on what you said you would? To me, if we’ve delivered a successful experience in the ‘teach me’ stage, then our donors will be thinking “It’s so great to know more about WWF and how I’ll be helping for the long-term. I’m going to stick around!”

Ideally they’ll be feeling informed, more knowledgeable about your work, maybe even a little bit obsessive, and that they’ve found their tribe – they belong and they’re proud to be a part of this.

Whilst you’re in this familiarity-growing stage, you’ll want to be setting the groundwork to maintain loyalty. Some key principles to consider to help do this are:

  • Ensuring the donor can see how your cause aligns with their values
  • How can you help your donor trust you
  • Making it clear how the core benefit you deliver is impactful and what they expected
  • Communication touch-points and personal interactions are positive
  • You make supporting you an easy experience – you are convenient.

A donor will have made the choice to support your organisation because your cause aligns with their values and interests. Like many NFPs, WWF has a wide remit, and our staff are often keen to tell them about everything we do! However, just because someone joined because they love tigers, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re inclined to care about the impact of climate change on people in low income countries – despite both being focuses of our work. They may choose to learn more over time, but it’s important not to overwhelm a new donor. That’s why we’ve developed our communications during this stage to deliver a gradual introduction and exchange of information, specific to the area of work they joined us, before opening it up to broader areas.

Knowing your donor’s motivation is obviously critical in helping you do this. Perhaps it’s based on the product or proposition they signed up on, creative messaging testing, or perhaps you have a post-up sign up survey to help you determine this.

Trust is another key factor to establish at this time, and including a supporter promise in welcome materials is a great tool for letting your donor know what they can expect from this relationship. At WWF we’re always focusing on demonstrating impact as a way for donors to feel confident we’re putting their funds to best use. For example, by sharing regular impact updates, inspiring stories from the field and transparency on use of funds.

We also take the time to welcome all of our new regular givers by calling them to say thank you, and to check that they’ve received their welcome pack. A personal touch-point early on in their relationship is a really positive way to help us both get to know more about each other. We’re seeing great retention uplifts too.

As the relationship develops, it’s time to start peaking their broader interests as we introduce other ways they get can get involved. For example, including advocacy asks in the later on-boarding journey, value exchanges such as advice on sustainable living, bequest normalisation in supporter care newsletters or opportunities to fundraise on our behalf. We find the more actions a supporter takes, the higher their engagement and the relationship is stronger as a consequence.

It’s so important to get this stage of the relationship right if we want to see those depressing early month attrition rates go down. Focusing on the key principles of loyalty should really help you do this, and never losing sight of the donors’ ‘why’. This is a person that cares about your cause – let’s make sure they know how grateful we are that they’re here!

We hope you enjoyed reading Jody’s experience in the Teach Me stage of the donor relationship journey; if you missed out on reading more about stage 1 Catch Me and stage 2 Welcome Me we invite you to check these out. WATCH THIS SPACE for our next guest blog post on the Grow Me step – This is the enrichment stage. It’s a time of excitement and opportunities. It’s time to demonstrate the value each of you brings to the relationship and highlight the impact you can have on the world if you work together.

DID YOU KNOW? Our free donor-centric community – The LemonTree DCC attracts more than 1000+ members across the nation, ranging from small to large NFPS’s?!

Thank you to Jody Crooks for sharing her knowledge on the Teach Me stage in the donor relationship journey.

 

Previously in this series:

 Next up in this series:

  • Grow Me
  • Keep Me
  • Endear Me
  • Renew Me
  • Win Me Back
The importance of leadership in the fundraising sector

The importance of leadership in the fundraising sector

by | Dec 10, 2020 | Sustainable Fundraising

Reset, Reimagine, Re-equip for 2021

We’ll say it…Fundraising is hard! The world of fundraising is fundamentally shifting all the time; with old communications meeting new communications. And its a no brainer, COVID-19 has accelerated the impacts of a lot of underlying pieces of technology and environmental factors. The way in which we decide, buy, work, connect and live, have all altered – creating a different need for the human aspect, human element and human leadership.

Ashton Bishop, the founder of Step Change, knows how busy Fundraising Managers are. Which is why he’s taken his 3-day leadership course and condensed it into a 6-hour digital learning module, in a fun and interactive style of learning. And wait for it…you also have 3 months to complete the course at your own pace!

In challenging times we all need a set of tools to lean on and tap into. So why not challenge yourself and lead your cause into 2021, with a clear mindset and vision. Create your own sustainable change, challenge yourself, acknowledge your weaknesses, and build a better you!

Step Change have extended their BLACK FRIDAY pricing for our LemonTree community, offering 20% OFF their $299 leadership course ‘Leaders Mindset’.

Our unique discount code – LEMONTREE
(Offer ends EOD 18 December 2020)

BECOME A LEADER FOR YOUR CAUSE!