Getting along – conflicts among staff

By Kirsten Bullock

There seems to be an invisible line drawn between fundraising staff and programme staff, executive staff and frontline staff, support services, such as accounting and technology, and everyone else. It exists in some way in most of the organisations I’ve worked with in the USA and I would be interested to hear from readers elsewhere to see if this staff divide is universal.

As a lifelong student (and someone who tends to think too much), I have spent time trying to determine the root of these conflicts. It seems to me that they stem from three different areas:

1) A belief that everyone else is just like us.

2) A tendency to think that the area we work in is the most important.

3) Focusing on what we heard – rather than what was meant.

We are not all alike

I confess that I am not a detail-oriented person; however, I have the utmost respect for those who are. I must also confess though that I used to get really irritated with people who dwelt on details when I wanted to talk about the big picture (and still do occasionally). Over time, and through communications tests and profiles such as DISC and Myers Briggs, I’ve come to have a much greater respect for the importance of diversity on work teams. It ensures that we will be less likely to overlook items essential to the success of our project, among other benefits.

Marriage was a similar learning curve for me in this area. My husband and I folded our towels differently, put our toilet paper on the holder differently, squeezed the toothpaste differently and had very different cooking styles (it was a few years before we were able to cook together). It didn’t mean either of us, or our families, were wrong, we were just different.

We are equally important

While there could probably be some very energetic discussions about the most important part of an organisation (programmes, fundraising, operations), the truth is that none of them could be successful without the others. We need money to operate programmes, but we need strong programmes to warrant funding and we need good systems in place to assure that everything is operating smoothly.

Communication, especially listening, is the key

Communication is an on-going challenge for people, as evidenced by the deluge of self-help books covering this topic and the increasing number of coaches focusing on it. Two people might be using the same words but mean very different things. Add another culture, even a second or third language into the mix and it’s a wonder we’re able to communicate effectively at all.

Several months ago my mother had some friends from Denmark visiting her. They had gone on a trip to a store and while they were waiting to pay her two friends were having an animated conversation about something fairly mundane. The person behind the register expressed concern to my mother about the argument he assumed they were having because, based on what he knew from his cultural norms, he thought their animation was hostility.

Creating a collaborative environment

So, with these challenges (and many more that we don’t have space to cover here), how do we begin to create a more collaborative environment?

First, understand yourself (with a goal of helping to understand others). The things you find most irritating about others may be things you yourself struggle with, or could be the exact opposite to you. Spend some time thinking about your reaction to other people. If it’s a negative reaction, try to identify what’s causing that reaction and why.

Next, try to see the good in others. When you’re able to identify differences between you and others, try to see the benefits that those differences offer. If you’re like me and love to push forward on projects, it’s good to have one or two people on your team providing cautionary words about possible obstacles. If you’re the type of person who gets stuck because of all the obstacles, it’s beneficial to have someone on the team pushing to move things along.

Bring internal partners into the conversation early. Ask questions about how things operate in their department and understand the implications for their department of what you’re trying to accomplish. Bringing all the parties together at the beginning of a discussion can help avoid delays later on. The primary objective for this meeting would be to discuss what you’re trying to accomplish and then ask for ideas of the best way to get there. It does take longer, but there will be more support for the implementation phase – and you might be pleasantly surprised when a better idea emerges to accomplish whatever it is you’re trying to do.

Understand your organisation’s programmes. Take time to learn about the programmes you’re raising funds for and what the hoped for outcomes are. This is a great opportunity to build bridges with programme staff. And remember, people don’t always remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. Listening goes a long way in helping to build a strong relationship.

Recognise programme and operations staff, talk about them whenever the opportunity arises. As fundraising professionals, we often have the chance to do so publically. Let your programme and operations staff members know how much you appreciate them.

Start a giving programme for staff so, just like donors, they can become investors in the organisation beyond the day-to-day work they do; in some cases, introduce them to the joy of giving. Perhaps in a small way it helps other members of the organisation to get a small glimpse of the way we, as fundraising professionals, have the privilege of helping our donors use their money to accomplish something that they care deeply about and would not be able to accomplish on their own.

So, to summarise, it boils down to being a strong partner by listening and appreciating the strengths each person brings to the table. Hopefully through this process mutual respect will develop and a fruitful partnership can begin. Please let me know how these tips impact your work.

The unstoppable rise of social entrepreneurship

By Noam Kostucki

You may know a charity that makes money from selling products and services. Maybe you wonder how you can do the same, but have no background or experience in doing so? Perhaps you’re put off by the idea that it might be risky? Don’t be.

I often meet people from charities that struggle through the process of selling goods or services as a way of raising income. So, to help all those looking to take their first steps in the social entrepreneurial world, I’ve put together a short guide to help you on your way.

You might be impressed to learn that, according to the Charity Commission, charities in the UK have raised over £52 billion, of which broadly five per cent is claimed to come from trading. On the other hand, I am amazed by the Hidden Social Enterprise report from Delta, which shows that ethical and social trading represents a staggering potential contribution to the UK economy of £110 billion.

It would seem that trading in itself is no longer the savviest option. Only the organisations that can adapt to this new ethical opportunity will see a growth they could never have expected under the old paradigm. So if profit organisations are starting to realise that it pays to be nice, then why can’t charities capitalise on ‘being nice’ as a way to boost their income too?

Here are three key things to think about if you’re looking to make the most of your assets. And I’ve provided some examples too, so you can get an idea about what other people are already doing.

1. What are you best at?

What is it that your charity does best? Is it a skill, an attitude or even a specialised knowledge you have? How do you help others and what helps them most?

For example, look at the cancer charity Odyssey. This charity gives a one-week course of activities to help cancer patients boost their self-confidence and rebuild shattered spirits, but they were facing an uncertain future because of a drop in their income. Thinking outside the ‘charity’ box and with the help of some social enterprise expertise they are now developing the same course for healthy people who are looking for an injection of positivity in to their lives and who are happy to pay for the service. Odyssey have also now tapped in to the corporate market and are tailoring their course for company team building days which has a huge potential for growth and a secure source of income.

This is a great example where using your existing knowledge and charitable services along with a little commercial thinking can mean finding new sources of fundraising for your charity.

2. What is your business model?

You need to find a model in which your beneficiaries don’t lose out. You should be making money from people who want the same benefits as the groups you help by tailoring your services and products to a wider audience that is ready to pay. Your customers can be individuals and/or companies.

My favourite example is TOMS shoes: for every pair of shoes you buy, they send a new pair to a child in need. So the more they do for a good cause, the more money they make. The more money they make, the more they do for a good cause.

It is best when your charitable purpose is linked to making profit, directly or indirectly.

3. Use technology to make your life easier

Don’t do it all yourself, you can’t be an expert at everything. Social media can be a great tool for charities to make the most of the chance for free publicity and be sure to use all the free services available.

In the UK, we have initiatives like Eclector.com. This for-profit social enterprise helps you build your own bookshop online at no cost. They host the shops and manage all customer service issues. All you have to do is tell your supporters about the books. Every thousand visitors generate an average of £50, with so many charities having large donor bases it’s a great opportunity to generate new income for your charity.*

There are also a number of free services that can offer you a variety of help. Websites such as getsatisfaction.com and uservoice.com can provide you with feedback from customers; ping.fm and hootsuite.com will help you manage your social media and you can even create your own social network for free at sites like webs.com. Ultimately you need to explore what’s out there and make the most of the free technologies.

Seeducation is my own social enterprise company and we look to help individuals and organisations make money whilst having a positive social impact. Right now we are working on preparing a free eLearning tool called, ‘Making money from doing good’, thanks to a generous donation of a £40,000 eLearning platform by GrowthEngineering. We’ll keep you posted as soon as this is up and running.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for social entrepreneurship: a new era has definitely started.

NB: SOFII is not able to endorse or recommend the websites in this blog.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

By Lucy Gower

Fundraisers, think about your most successful fundraising campaign, mailing, event, individual gift, trust application or corporate pitch. I bet that they all have something in common. In some way they have fulfilled a need for your audience, captured their imagination and evoked some form of emotion that has inspired them to take action.

In the charity sector there is a lot of talk about the ‘donor journey’ but for me the start of any donor journey is you finding your story and telling it in a way that touches people’s hearts as well as their minds. Telling a story written by your marketing team isn’t good enough. You have to find your own stories that evoke passion and power in you.

People give to help people. The relationships you build with your donors are your relationships – you build rapport, you build trust, you inspire donors to get involved, you make a difference.

I think perfecting the art, and it is an art, of seeking out real stories and telling them in a way that inspires both you and your donors is the essence of being a fundraiser.

A book that has inspired me is Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath (Random House, 2007). They outline six principles that will help your stories to inspire your audiences’ hearts and minds.

1. Simple

Keep your story simple. Focus on your core message. Using analogies helps simplify

complicated information.

Help the Aged’s ‘make a blind man see’ press advertisement is a great example of a simple story.

2. Unexpected

Say something unexpected to get attention. Ask questions to hold people’s attention and curiosity.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn. A six-word story by Ernest Hemingway. Think about it for a moment. Those six words are somewhat unexpec

ted yet hugely powerful. You can read more six word stories here or submit your own.

Amnesty produced an award winning unexpected message to ‘throw away this flyer’ in their insert campaign.

3. Concrete

Be specific. Paint a mental picture with words by using sensory language. The famous president of the USA John Kennedy painted a picture with words in a powerful speech when he said, ‘I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.’

An RSBP campaign to save the albatross brilliantly uses this technique. You are asked to picture the scene: imagine you are in a restaurant tucking into your first bite of succulent Pacific salmon. Something is not right. Read more about what happens next here.

4. Credible

Provide compelling details, whether it’s research and statistics, the name of an industry expert, or something down to earth about the difference you are making. Research shows that many people respond better when they can link their contribution to providing help to a specific situation or person.

‘If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one I will’, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

The Child’s i Foundation raised £10,000 in 38 hours to save baby Joey’s life. The story is all about baby Joey and his parents. Take a few minutes to watch the video in the link. I challenge you not to be moved. Which leads to sticky principle number five.

5. Emotional

People care about people. People care about situations that they can identify with. There is a range of ways in which you can do this and I particularly like Action Aid’s latest campaign, which is a brilliant example of tapping into our emotional need to belong to a community of people like us. Action Aid asks the question ‘How does it make you feel to be part of the Action Aid community?’

6. Stories

The very process of telling a story helps people see how an existing problem might change and how they could help that change happen.

St Mungo’s, a charity for the homeless in London, uses real life stories and includes inspirational accounts of how, with help, people can change their lives.

How to seek stories

Does your storytelling spell SUCCESS? The more of the six principles that you can weave into your communications, the more likely it is that your messages will stick. Your challenge is to continually and deliberately seek stories that inspire you and that you can tell to inspire others. Here are some tactics to help you do just that.

· Carry a notebook with you. Use it, make collecting stories and observations on life a habit. We know that the more connections we make the more likely it is we are going to put those connections together to come up with something new. That something new could be your wonderfully compelling story… or the next big fundraising idea.

· Read more stories. Millions of authors have spent time writing stories. Read them. Think about what the author does to keep you eagerly turning the pages. Try using that author’s tactics on your own stories.

· Watch films and consider their storytelling styles. What keeps your interest? What turns you off?

· As with everything, if you are going to become good you need to practice. Practice telling stories; practice on your friends and family, use your voice and body language to bring the stories to life.

· Volunteer at a local school or a reading stories project – or perhaps you have a Ministry of Stories near you? What a cool place!

· Practice writing. Start a blog.

· Get some storytelling training. It will be one of the best investments you and your organisation will ever make.

· Enjoy your story-seeking adventure.

Have a go. Tell us how you get on.

Oldies but goodies

By Christiana Stergiou

Most of us spend a lot of time focusing on what’s new and on chasing the latest trends. We fail to see that some of the best fundraising methods out there aren’t new, they are traditional and old – but they are executed to perfection. With that in mind, I am going to recommend three ‘old’ fundraising books.

The oldest book on my fundraising bookshelf is Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. It was first published in 1932 and since then has been reprinted numerous times. Caples himself revised it four times and the last edition, which alone has been reprinted 14 times, is still available in paperback.

Caples wrote thousands of direct mail pieces over many years and collected thorough results from each campaign. Advertising genius David Ogilvy said Caples ‘has no theories only facts’ and he shares hundreds of them in this book. Not only will Caples teach you how to test, he will teach you everything he learnt as a result of his body of work and research, including his mistakes. He also provides excellent guides for all aspects of direct marketing – from writing headlines, the first paragraph of an advert or letter, through to hundreds of ways to improve your overall copy to increase response.

I often hear fundraisers say ‘we tested that’, but in reality they didn’t. They just gave something a go to see if it would work. That’s just trying, not testing. Testing involves comparing, learning and continually improving what you do and how you do it. This book will teach you the genuine ins and outs of testing. I’m confident it will improve many fundraising campaigns.

David Ogilvy said he learned all he knew about copywriting from John Caples. In 1983 Ogilvy’s own book Ogilvy on Advertising was published and it too has been revised and reprinted many times. Whether it’s advertising, direct mail copy or advice on how to work with an agency, Ogilvy on Advertising is a must read for the savvy fundraiser. You can read a more detailed review of it on SOFII here.

Published in 2000, Mal Warwick’s Five Strategies for Fundraising Success: A Mission-Based Guide to Achieving Your Goals is a book I often refer to when putting together a fundraising strategy for a charity. Mal identifies the five main strategies as growth, involvement, visibility, efficiency and stability (GIVES). So often boards and management want all those things at once. Oh, to live in that perfect world.

Thankfully, Mal methodically explains the best strategy for any organisation’s current situation and future needs. He also assists in answering some of the frequent questions about developing a fundraising strategy. These include: should we run special events? Are we ready for a capital campaign? And should we launch a direct mail campaign? He also outlines ten key benchmarks that will assist in evaluating your success.

You can find out more about the latest fundraising book news and reviews at www.fundraisingbooks.net. You can also contact Christiana at christiana@fundraisingbooks.net.

Legacy giving: the greatest privilege a fundraiser will have.

By Kimberley Mackenzie

When my mother in law was dying I asked my friend, who is a minister, what I could do. I felt so helpless. Kirsty told me that when people are near death they really just want to talk and need someone to listen.

My mother in law took her last breath in a room that was full of laughter. She was finally at peace. I now know that death, while sad, can be as natural and as beautiful as the loud and painful birth of a child, it’s the circle of life.

What does this deeply personal experience have to do with fundraising? A lot...

This past week a man came into our office for an appointment he had arranged before Christmas. We had talked in December about his will and the potential of including our charity as one of his top three beneficiaries.

Dear reader, you don’t need to know any more about that visit with ‘Mr Jones’ other than to know that I am speaking from experience and not theory. I was deeply honoured to be a part of such important decision.

I am a generalist fundraiser and by no means consider myself an expert in any given area. But, there are some things I have learned through working with legators (people who have bequeathed a legacy) that I want to share with you.

Make the time

Nothing that you have to do that day will be more important than talking to your donor about his or her final wishes in life. Nothing – even if the meeting that was scheduled for an hour turns into three. Gently move it forward to make sure the business objectives are accomplished and be available to listen to your donor talk about her life, her dreams, her regrets and final wishes. Legacy gifts are not about you or your charity. Legacy gifts are 100 per cent donor-centred. Always make the time.

Be sure you can keep your promise

Sometimes donors suggest something very specific like a place they visited or a play they saw. Try to understand their motivations by asking open-ended questions such as:

‘It sounds like you love visiting the XYZ exhibit in the museum. Can you tell me more about that?’

Actively listen and turn off the ‘yes but...’ thoughts swimming around in your head. Be truly curious. Once you understand the true motivations of the suggestion you will be in a much better position to meet a desire to be affiliated with a certain feeling or place or programme. You can then offer a less restrictive solution.

For example, perhaps you work for a theatre company and your donor fell in love with a contemporary new play. What the donor might say is ‘I love the David Mamet plays your company produces and I want to leave a legacy toward that’. Through active listening we can get to the underlying motivation. It isn’t realistic for a bequest to be directed toward producing David Mamet plays every year ­­– in perpetuity. Perhaps the legacy your donor is striving for is an endowment to ensure that your theatre company always has the funding to try new, leading edge and risky productions.

You can get to this place through actively listening to your donor.

Be truly honest

If you don’t think that your charity is the right one or that perhaps the donor has your charity mixed up with another make sure you clarify it immediately. I have had a few donors talk to me and use the name of another charity and it is always a little risky to make sure they called the right place. No one wants a bequest that was intended for someone else.


Be respectful

It may seem like I’m pointing out the obvious but I’m going to do it anyway. Your legator is very likely to be much closer to and have more experience of the cause than you. Organising their affairs may be slightly overwhelming due to frequent conversations with financial advisors and lawyers, as well as balancing family needs and obligations. With some people, their thoughts may wander or their bodies may be frail. Respect their experience and wisdom. I believe our job is to help make the process of finalising an estate as simple as possible.

Through empathy and understanding of their love for our cause, we can offer peace of mind that no financial advisor or lawyer can.

Know your job

Remind your donors several times that you recommend they discuss their plans with their financial advisor and their family. Then explain why. It is very important that everyone understands that your charity is in the will because the donor wanted it there. Not because you did something to entice, manipulate, or coerce. Harsh words I know. You might try saying something like:

‘Mrs Norman, It really has been a pleasure talking to you about your estate plans. We at xyz charity are very grateful for your decision to include us in your will. Please remember to discuss your plans with your financial advisor (or executor or lawyer) and, if you are comfortable doing so, with your family. If we are all aware of your desires it will be easier to ensure that your wishes are granted.’

Discuss recognition

It can be very helpful to a charity to have details of how the legator would like to be acknowledged, even including the wording they would like placed on a bench or a plaque. Having these details in the will can ensure that in the future, when the donor is gone and you have moved on, your charity doesn’t have to guess what was promised. Your charity will be legally bound to carry out the donor’s wishes if it is written in the will. Just make sure that you negotiate something realistic and easy for your charity to implement.

In summary

In my ten years of fundraising, nothing has been as rewarding as my experience working on the planned giving programme. I know that I am better able to do this work for having had first-hand experience with the final stages of life. If you haven’t had the experience of taking the final steps of life with someone then I would suggest reading Tuesday’s with Morrie by Mitch Albom. It is an amazing story, which is not just on how to die but also on how to live. And that really is what legacy fundraising is all about – helping people live in peace, knowing that they have helped make a difference in the world, long after their lives will be over.

Direct mail (social media, email, [fill in the blank]) is dead.

By Pamela Grow.

‘The minute that you’re not learning I believe you’re dead.’

Jack Nicholson.

Do you remember when the experts said ‘bricks and mortar are dead’ because everyone would be shopping online?

‘They’ have been saying that for over ten years now and I’m finding that my local supermarket is still filled with shoppers. How about you? Oh sure, e-commerce has changed the way that we shop, but retail is still alive and kicking (and it isn’t because people don’t know that they can buy online). How is this possible? Well, lots of reasons but three of the biggest are:

a) Change (even welcomed change) is very difficult.

b) Shopping is still a popular activity.

c) There are items people still want to touch, see and try before they buy.

d) The big one: people want immediate gratification – I’ve simply got to have the item now!

What about direct mail, is that dead? Nope. According to DM News, income from direct mail is expected to grow 5.8 per cent to 47.8 billion in 2011.

Has it changed? Yes it has and in a really good way. Junk mail has declined, mostly because mailer

s are becoming smarter by targeting better. So you’re seeing less mail in your mailbox but what you do see is more relevant. Think about how that information can help set your organisation’s next piece of direct mail apart.

Email marketing? Oh yes, I recall when the spam laws were going to destroy email marketing. Did they? Nope. According to Pew’s latest research, 90-100 per cent of every generation from millennials (those born after 1985 who have grown up with the Web and who are now entering the jobs market, higher education and the electorate) to the silent generation (people born between 1925 and 1945) use email. And even though we gripe and moan about it, it still works ­– if it gets opened. That means putting together a strategy for acquiring email addresses and putting some thought and effort into creating attention-grabbing subject lines and a compelling message. What is dead is the easy ‘send anything’ emails that were popular circa 2001.

Now social media is dead. Really? Someone must be sleeping under a rock to completely miss all the media attention Facebook is getting (heck, the movie alone has won more than a few awards). Is it being over-used and over-populated? Sure, but just like retail, direct mail and email this is a natural progression of business. Come to think of it, the same thing happened with the gold rush – a new frontier was discovered to have gold and early adapters collected the easy gold. Others saw this and rushed in and soon someone declared the gold rush was dead.

Now have you taken a look at the price of gold in the current market? It’s experiencing record highs. So, perhaps you can’t get rich just panning for gold but there are lots of companies that have adapted and are using sophisticated equipment to make money in the harder to reach but still well alive gold market.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Are direct mail, email, and social media dead? Keep buying into that so that my clients and other organisations ‘in the know’ can keep these gold mines all to ourselves.

Seriously, what should you do? Use every media that you can afford ... and get strategic about how you use it.

Take a cue from my friend John Lepp of Agents of Good, ‘Donors don’t give to the channel. They give to the campaign. Give your donors a reason to care, be frank with what you want, tell them how they will help, spread across channels evenly and you will win.’

Sound, donor-centric fundraising is not and will never be an overnight process. Before you dismiss a medium spend some time learning its finer points and developing a strategy for how you can apply age-old tried and true concepts to the new.

Do your donors trust you?

By Damian O'Broin

Last year, Oxfam Ireland posted on their website a copy of a thank-you letter they received from a donor. It is both inspiring and terrifying, and is worth reproducing in full here.

Please find enclosed a cheque… to pay for raffle tickets… Oxfam is my primary charity. Castlebar, the place where I work, has an Oxfam shop and I can go in and make an extra donation for a specific purpose either because disaster has struck somewhere or for a special occasion in my own life… I would like to let you know that I give money to Oxfam in good faith. There are many people in the world who live in dire circumstances and I trust Oxfam and its employees/volunteers to do the best for them that they are able to do within the given circumstances. I like it that Oxfam is a large organisation so that they have expertise in various fields and a large body of personnel to draw upon.

You are unable as an individual to deliver aid to whoever needs it. That would be impossible and very wasteful. The money you received from me is real money – with that I mean, if I didn’t give the money to you, I wouldn’t have difficulty finding another use for it. What I am really trying to say is this: I trust you to spend money wisely and carefully and give aid appropriately with consideration to people’s background. I don’t expect Oxfam employees to work for nothing, they need to be properly paid.

I am proud to support Oxfam and I know that puts a responsibility on all Oxfam personnel.

The first thing to say is that this is a genuinely committed donor we’re hearing from. While she or he is clearly responsive to emergencies, there is also the intriguing line ‘I can go in and make an extra donation... for a special occasion in my own life’. This is not someone who sees giving as a chore or a burden. There is no suggestion of guilt rather there is the hint that giving is a joyous thing, something for a special occasion. We don’t know if the donations are made in celebration, in thanksgiving, in memoriam, or for some other reason but they are clearly very meaningful and deeply important.

It’s also clear that not only does this donor trust Oxfam to put his or her money to good use, she or he also understands that it costs money to run effective charities and that the staff need to be paid. Hurray! An enlightened donor. There can be a view in our sector that donors think fundraising is free and staff should work for nothing. Sure, there are people who believe that, but I think this donor is more typical of the public view.

It’s fantastic to hear a donor express her trust in your organisation and its work in this way. And she’s not even expecting miracles. She or he doesn’t want Oxfam to end hunger or defeat poverty, merely for their staff and volunteers to ‘do the best for [people that live in dire circumstances] that they are able to do within the given circumstances’. There is genuine understanding here, along with a genuine desire to change the world for the better. And a recognition that the best way to do so is through large, professional organisations like Oxfam.

In many ways, this person is a dream donor.

But in amongst the praise for Oxfam’s work and expressions of support is the faintest of threats. And also the deadliest. While this trust is freely given, it is conditional.

The line ‘I would like to let you know, that I give money to Oxfam in good faith’ is not a compliment. It’s a warning, one that Oxfam and all other charities neglect at their peril. If we don’t live up to the trust placed in us by donors, that trust – and the support that goes with it – will be withdrawn.

So what must we do to maintain that trust?

Well, I’m assuming that you have the basics covered – you use the money given to you for the stated purpose, you’re honest and reputable and there are no skeletons about to pop out of your cupboard. If that’s not the case, then you really have more important things to be doing than reading this blog.

It turns out that one of the simplest things you can do to build trust is to just remind donors that they can trust you. Researchers have found, for instance, that adding the line ‘you can trust us to do the job for you’ at the end of an ad for an auto service company, caused people to rate the ad higher in every category tested:

Fair price – up seven per cent.

Caring – up 11 percent.

Fair treatment – up 20 per cent.

Quality – up 30 per cent.

Competency – up 33 per cent.

It appears that trust is contagious. This is a crucial point for a charity’s relationship with donors; if they trust you to handle their donations properly – thank them for their gifts, process them promptly and correctly – then they’ll trust you in the rest of your work. They’ll trust that you handle your finances properly and that you deliver on your mission.

Conversely, if they don’t trust you to handle their donations properly, then that lack of trust will leak into other areas. They may start wondering about your financial probity. They may question whether you’re delivering on your promise to change the world.

The other key way to build trust with donors is to tell them how their money has made a difference. Giving donors feedback on their gifts not only reinforces trust, it reminds donors of why they gave in the first place, helping to build loyalty and motivate further giving. In fact, we know that for major donors, demonstrating the difference a gift has or can make is one of the strongest motivators for giving.

And to finish, here’s a great, simple example from Amnesty International Ireland on how to provide real, emotional, tangible feedback to donors.

Click here to view letter.

Happy New Year.