Donor Relationship Stage 6: Endear Me – ft. Cassandra Bailey from OzHarvest

Donor Relationship Stage 6: Endear Me – ft. Cassandra Bailey from OzHarvest

by | Dec 11, 2021 | Customer Journey, Donor Endearment, donor engagement, donor-centric, Donor-centricity, Sustainable Fundraising

Endear Me.

This is the rekindling stage. A time to focus on reminding your donors of why the relationship exists. What attracted you to each other in the first place and why you still belong together? Furthermore, it’s an opportunity to reflect on all you have accomplished together so far, through the impact that has been made from your relationship. How can you re-ignite the passion to continue your journey together?

For this stage of the donor relationship journey, we were joined by guest NFP speaker Cassandra Bailey; the resident Development Lead at OzHarvest.

 A bit about Cassandra:

15 years ago, Cassandra’s favourite philosopher, Peter Singer, changed her life. His work led her to a place where she wanted to help change the lives of others. Prior to that, Cassandra’s experience was in loyalty & memberships in the corporate world, working with the likes of Ticketek and hotels.com. Fast forward to now, with 10 years of experience in the not-for-profit industry under her belt, Cassandra would be described as a motivated, driven individual who is determined to improve the world we live in. She also has a love of process and automation and believes there is no limit to the technology we can implement to grow and diversify revenue streams and strengthen our relationships.

Cassandra is proud to have worked with World Animal Protection, Four Paws Australia, Sea Shepherd Australia, and now OzHarvest.

I grew in the fundraising sector with a strong supporter-centric focus, which has shaped a lot of how and why I approach my work now. One of my earlier mentors introduced me to a quote by Maya Angelou who was a wonderful poet and civil rights activist; “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – and that is how I approach fundraising, by giving people an opportunity to feel good about what they are doing. I focus on how it makes the donor feel and the impact it creates for our beneficiaries. For me, it is all about creating lasting relationships and genuine connections. So, today’s topic of endear me really resonates with the way I work.  

I believe it is important to talk with your audience, not at your audience. Creating a 2-way conversation, means giving back and not just taking. Donor recognition and gratitude are a must-have, not a nice-to-have. Delight, delight, delight and endear all the way!

Several years ago now, I had a wonderful volunteer at one of my earlier orgs. A vibrant and dedicated soul who was pushing 80 years old. When I left that organisation, she chose to come along with me to my new org. This volunteer used to write birthday cards, call donors to say thank you, reconnect with lapsed supporters and generally be our resident “endearer” who made each and every supporter feel special, connected to cause, and strengthened the sense of community and belonging. Now we can’t all be lucky enough to have such a treasure like this, but we can all learn from her. Whether it is leveraging our technology to make supporter journeys personal and customised or sticking to grassroots tactics and picking up the phone at every chance we get. It is important to plan and make time for these moments. Even if it can’t be every day, but perhaps scheduled twice a year to share gratitude and impact and keep those relationships alive. Our funding is a by-product of the relationships we make, a necessary by-product yes, but without these relationships, the bottom line runs dry.

(You can view the full session show notes from the Endear Me stage here).

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

(Ref. LemonTree – The Donor-centricity e-Book – Page 30).

Remember, trust and loyalty, are the building blocks of any long-lasting relationship.

If you’d like to hear more from the likes of Cassandra and your fundraising peers, we invite you to join the LemonTree Donor-centric Collective; a community built for fundraisers. The community attracts 1000+ fundraisers across Australia, ranging from small to large NFP’s and guess what…its completely FREE! Enjoy member-only access to community luncheons, webinars, our LinkedIn community group, the chance to speak on behalf of your cause, and most importantly be involved in the donor-centric movement!

Thank you to Cassandra Bailey for sharing her knowledge on the Endear Me stage in the donor relationship journey.

Previously in this series:

 Next up in this series:

  • Renew Me – 2022
  • Win Me Back – 2022
What stage is your organisation at in the donor centric journey?

What stage is your organisation at in the donor centric journey?

by | Oct 20, 2021 | Customer Journey, Donor Endearment, donor engagement, donor-centric, Donor-centricity, Sustainable Fundraising

In a survey to our Donor Centricity Collective (DCC) community, results showed that a common challenge amongst Fundraising Managers is ‘knowing your data’.

In our quest to help solve this common problem, we’ve taken our learnings from the commercial world and created an 8 step journey roadmap to the Donor Centric environment.

We encourage you to challenge your thinking by rating your organisation at each stage of the donor centricity road map (on a scale of 1 – 10).

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY:

  • Keep up to date with all the juicy fundraising goss, tips and education!

LemonTree and its data-driven fundraising solutions for the NFP industry ft. Niharika Singh

LemonTree and its data-driven fundraising solutions for the NFP industry ft. Niharika Singh

by | Sep 10, 2021 | Behind the scenes, Sustainable Fundraising

You work closely with the LemonTree team to grow and develop the LemonTree solutions. Why is this so important?

The product LemonTree has been a first mover of providing data-driven fundraising solutions in the industry. Even after seven years, it is still one of the most unique value propositions available to the market and has immense potential. Working with the LemonTree team has been fulfilling for me both in terms of personal and professional growth.

From a personal growth perspective, working with not-for-profit clients has opened my mind towards their philanthropic objectives. Interacting with the fundraising managers on a daily basis demonstrates the hard work they put in to make the world a better place.

In terms of professional growth, working on this product has encouraged me to wear many hats at the same time. Even though I was hired only to streamline the delivery of jobs, I have been given the opportunity to participate in product improvement, resource management, project management of the jobs, and support marketing initiatives of LemonTree. Such a vast experience with a steep learning curve is something I cherish and am grateful for. It has motivated me to wake up and thrive for the greater good of the product and hence, its members.

Therefore, it won’t be wrong to say that the growth of the product LemonTree has encouraged me to grow with it. The above mentioned are two of the many reasons which encourage me to constantly improve and develop the LemonTree solution and will always do.

– Niharika Singh, LemonTree Fulfilment Manager

When people are deciding to give for the first time, they aren’t yet our donors

When people are deciding to give for the first time, they aren’t yet our donors

by | Aug 19, 2021 | donor engagement, donor-centric, Sustainable Fundraising

At LemonTree, we believe that donor-centricity is the ongoing dedication to increasing the depth and breadth of your donor understanding. In doing so, you generate insights that can be used to tailor your communication and engagement efforts and demonstrate to your donors that they are at the heart of your entire organisation.

Why you ask? Well, essentially this builds trust and loyalty – the critical foundations of any lasting and sustainable relationship.

I recently read an interesting article from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, which made a powerful observation:

“When people are deciding to give for the first time, they aren’t yet our donors. But they are a parent, a cancer survivor, a humanitarian, a moral person, a liberal, a patriot and so on. So the key to raising more money is to resonate with who the donors are, or rather that aspect of the self that is activated during their engagement with your organisation.”

Long ago the commercial world realised that the ‘customer is king’ and so adopted a customer-centric approach to their business strategy. Marketing teams work tirelessly to get inside the hearts and minds of their customers so they can position and promote their products and services in the right way, at the right time and with the right message to engage and nurture the customer and eventually make the sale.

A positive customer experience makes us feel something and – as humans – we are motivated to act based on how we feel. We tend to make decisions based on emotion, then find a way to justify that decision based on logic. This is why we choose to walk that little bit further to get our morning coffee, even though it costs 50c more…but the barista greets us by name, remembers our order, and takes the time to ask how our kids are getting on with that school project. We walk further and pay more because of the way the experience makes us feel; that’s what keeps us coming back. It makes us trust the barista; makes us loyal to the cafe and gives them a competitive advantage. 

In today’s challenging times with COVID-19, this entrenched loyalty – built up from years of providing a positive customer experience – is keeping many businesses alive, and for that, we applaud them and wish them every success.

To deliver the best customer experience and earn a sustained competitive advantage, businesses need to earn trust and build loyalty by adopting a customer-centric approach:

  1. Understanding what their customers want, need, like, dislike, hope, fear, and value at each stage of their life:
  2. Infusing these customer insights across all their business functions to help shape decisions.
  3. Creating a unique and ongoing value exchange for their customers.
  4. Engaging in open, honest, and transparent two-way conversations with their customers, across many different channels; and
  5. Empowering customers to interact with their brand on their own terms.

This same approach applies to not-for-profits looking to secure sustainable giving. You need to earn trust and build loyalty by adopting a donor-centric approach, and that starts by increasing the depth and breadth of your donor understanding.

So how can LemonTree help you understand your donors more and implement practical solutions to help you connect with your donors in a more meaningful and valuable way? We have a range of proven solutions for acquisition, growth, and conversion; used regularly by charities such as Cancer Council NSW, World Animal Protection, The Shepherd Centre, and many more!

Explore our FREE resources:

Primed wins FIA award for ‘Most Innovative Campaign’

Primed wins FIA award for ‘Most Innovative Campaign’

by | Mar 2, 2021 | awards, donor engagement, donor-centric, Donor-centricity, Maximizing Investment Potential, Sustainable Fundraising

The LemonTree team is beyond excited to announce, that our end-to-end engagement solution, Primed, is the winner of the ‘Most Innovative Campaign’ award, at the recent Fundraising Institute Australia (FIA) Awards for Excellence in Fundraising. 

Together with our Primed partners, Conversr, More Impact, and Cornucopia Fundraising, we have collaborated our unique services and created a multi-stage engagement solution, designed to assist fundraisers in finding the huge untapped potential sitting on their databases.

 

How Primed helped Bush Heritage Australia connect meaningfully with their donors 

We worked closely with Bush Heritage Australia, an independent not-for-profit that buys and manages land, and also partners with Aboriginal people, to conserve our magnificent landscapes and irreplaceable native species forever, to identify where they could potentially grow their existing regular giving base.

Bush Heritage Australia wanted to actively engage with people in a way that went deeper than just getting their details, then making a phone call and expecting people to commit to their cause.

Step 1: The LemonTree team, started by auditing and consolidating a wide range of dormant donors and leads that most charities have typically given up on. Then through best practice hygiene techniques and leveraging LemonTree’s large collaborative insights universe, we were able to identify the most contactable donors. Finally, with machine learning, our unique collaborative propensity models identified the most likely donors to be regular givers to Bush Heritage Australia.

Step 2: This is where More Impact and Conversr stepped in, to design the customised multi-channel engagement journey, informed by behavioural economics.

Step 3: From here, 24,000 people were put through a three-step engagement journey using Conversr’s SMS and email platforms. The idea was to educate people around Bush Heritage Australia’s purpose, give them a gift (which was a downloadable calendar full of beautiful images of wildlife and bush landscapes) and finally, ask them for their opinion on what Bush Heritage Australia does and why, through a short survey.

It’s been really beneficial for our organisation so far in terms of the number of regular givers that we’ve generated and the outcomes, but also the fact that we’ve engaged so many people in such a positive way and that helps to make sure they keep on giving.

Matt Small

Regular Giving Manager, Bush Heritage Australia

At LemonTree, we believe the most powerful relationships are founded on human connection. One person, engaging with another, over time. Something so simple, but it can translate into loyalty that lasts a lifetime.

Bush Heritage Australia Case Study