Your Web site: Working or Problematic? April 30, 2012 By Ewlacasse

It’s someone on the outside who notices the label turned out at the back of your collar, the spinach on your teeth, or that your shoes don’t match!  We’re not good at finding the flaws in our own presentation.

That’s why you should have someone outside of your organization test-drive your website.  Someone who isn’t familiar with what you’re trying to do and what your basic message is.

With online donations becoming more and more important, you want your website to make finding information and making a donation really easy!

Jakob Nielsen, a web page usability expert, has found that bad nonprofit web sites result in fewer online donations. Nielson asked participants to choose one of two charities (within the same category) after looking at their websites; and then to donate to the chosen charity, through the charity website, using their own credit cards.

The study found that participants wanted, most of all, to see an organization's mission, goals, objectives, and work. Secondly they wanted to know how the charity uses their donations and contributions. Shockingly, only 43% of the 23 sites tested provided information about mission, goals, objectives, and work. And only 4% of the nonprofit websites gave information about how they use a giver's donation.

The real "donation-killers" Nielsen cites are these:

• Surprisingly, 17% of the sites made it hard for users to even find where to make a donation.
• More than half (53%) of the usability problems were related to unclear content, missing information and confusing terms.
• One of the worst problems was poor integration of local chapter sites with their national parent sites. When donors moved to a subsidiary site to find out what was being done in their local area, these sites looked completely different than the parent sites.

Don’t tell your “tester” what you’re looking for.   Ask them to visit three websites. On each, find the answers to two questions (such as “who is being served?” and “what specifically are donations needed for?” and make a donation using a personal credit card.  Sit back and listen to their answers.

You’ll have a good measure of how well your website is working for the typical user—the one who isn’t already familiar with what you’re trying to do and how you’d like to do it.  In fact, visit the sites or your competitors or those you admire, and see what you can learn from the functionality (or nonfunctionality) of their sites!

Panning for Gold Nuggets: March 27, 2012 By Ewlacasse

The “real stuff” of development often boils down to establishing and maintaining an intimate relationship between the donor and someone within your organization.

Because you never know when this cultivated relationship might be interrupted, due to staff turnover or when Mr. Donor goes to Florida for the winter, it’s vital to think about how your donor knowledge is captured and how it can be transferred to others inside your organization.

For the nitty-gritty stuff (name, address, gift amounts and dates), it’s a no-brainer.  Most software programs have specific fields designed and structures to capture and retrieve this data upon request.

The tricky part—and, frankly, the part that is of most value to you (now) and your organization (when you move up or leave for another job)-- is the way you capture, organize, and save those tidbits of information which are the “gold” in your knowledge base.

If this invaluable information exists only in your head or in the head of your CEO, or on handwritten notes in paper files or on your PDA, there is a good chance that it will not be readily available when needed.  To lose this critical information is to squander the valuable history of your organization—the foundation upon which your organization’s fundraising success is based.

We’re talking here about real insider information. You know what I mean: information about who is related to whom among your constituency, who has what special interests or has expressed a desire to help, who has a friend or relative that is highly placed in an organization related to your cause.  These invaluable pieces of information can’t be sought on a minute’s notice; they are gleaned over time through valuable relationships.  And if they aren’t stored strategically and easy to locate, then they can be lost, particularly with a change in personnel.

Here are some Prospector’s Secrets to Capturing and Storing Fundraising Gold:

Get a pan for your gold.  Define fields where essential donor information will be stored.  Be sure to have a system in place so that your successor will find this stuff.  Your system can be as simple (a field called “Notes”) or as complicated as serves your needs.  For example, you might use special fields so you can search for those whose interest is “music,” or those who have held civic office.

Listen between the lines. Focus on listening to what people say and don’t say.  Take note of special interests they might have, even if the interests are outside the area of your current needs.

Get some read insider information.  We often obtain donor information through informal routes—cocktail party conversation, on the basketball court, or a business meetings.  For example, you might learn that the library at the University is named for Mr. Donor’s mother.

Capture the emotional reasons.  Document a donor’s point of view toward a particular project—is he or she interested in the music building because young Johnnie plays the piano, or because of its architectural relation to the rest of the campus?  Then use this information the next time you contact the donor.

Keep donor clippings on news and views. Collect donor information from a variety of sources:  press, surveys you conduct or that are available to you, newsletters.  Look for great stuff:  They’re alumni of where?  They previously volunteered for Habitat for Humanity:  They’re founding members of the local theatre?  This is invaluable donor information which a good development director (and not many others) is “wired” to glean.

Track giving trends.  Find a way to track a donor’s giving trends—upwards or downwards, triggers, in the form of stocks, or memorial gifts.  You can’t act if you haven’t noted the behavior.

Assign an owner.  Record the name of each person who gathers information, when it was gathered, and where it came from so that a change of interest doesn’t catch you unawares.

Personalize your outreach.  Use this information to personalize contacts with donors; nothing conveys friendship more than someone remembering a particular interest of yours.

Show the mother lode to staffers. Make sure all staff understand the importance of this kind of information, know where this information resides, and what types of information should be gathered and recorded to enhance your records (and their job performances!).

The challenge is to craft a system to meet your needs without creating a nightmare of miscellaneous data that adds to the confusion rather than enriches your knowledge base.  By panning for gold in this way, you’ll be in a position to share your discoveries with new prospectors in support of your fundraising goals.

 

Guaranteed to Open Email! January 30, 2012 By Ewlacasse

Daily we hear about the glut of email we’re all receiving. (Not to mention the torrent produced by social media.)  Email is still the most effective online communication for fundraisers.  But, amid all the clutter, how will you keep your donors and prospects opening your missives?

Email subject lines should be short.  Without a quick attention-getter, your message will get no more than two seconds as the reader’s eye scans downthe list of the morning's emails.

Email subject lines need to put the punch in the first word (it’s capitalized!)  Not:  “Wondering how to help in the crisis in Haiti?”—but: “Haiti: Help Now!”  The reader knows your topic at the first glance.

Email subject lines need to identify the immediate benefit. In “Haiti: Help Now!” there’s an implied urgency which may well match up with your reader’s pangs of guilt about not acting yet. You want the readers to open your message right now, not later in the day when other matters are swirling in their minds.

Email subject lines should provide a specific value proposition. Implied in “Haiti: Help Now!” is the message that your gift will get there quickly; the donating will be easy—directly from the email--; there’s no sluggish bureaucracy which will tie up your money for six months while some board struggles to determine which phase of the crisis to support. The donor reaps the tangible benefit of acting to help, acting now, with little hassle and no further delay.  “Haiti: You Can Help Now!” might improve this, but you have to decide whether the shorter title is more effective.

Take a look at your own inbox right now.  Which subject lines are “grabbers,” and which are “ho-hum”?  Need I say more?

Handle Donors with Kid Gloves; Handle Donor Data with Double Checks January 10, 2012 By Ewlacasse

A good way to start the year is with a staff review of the Most Common Missteps you can make to turn off otherwise-happy donors.  You might want to lighten the atmosphere by making up examples in the extreme.  People learn better in a cheerful atmosphere than with a knife being held to their throats..

Not necessarily in Disaster order, since in each case, it all depends on the generosity of the donor and the perceived flagrancy of the staff member.

 In the category of database negligence:

• You misspell the donor’s name
• You misspell the donor’s wife’s name
• You misspell the donor’s child’s name
• You address “Vaughn Hanline” as Dear Sir, when Vaughn is a lady. You address “Marian Thomas” as Dear Madam, when Marian is anything but a madam.
• A donor’s name got duplicated in the database; you mailed two appeals to the same donor at the same address before the donor asked you to stop (if you’re lucky!)
• You address a 10-year donor as “Dear Friend.”

 In the category of more personal negligence:

•  A thank-you letter (gift acknowledgement) arrives a month after the receipt of the gift.
• The donor asked for no more phone calls and the receptionist phoned her to say OK.
• The donor asked for no more fundraising appeals by mail, but someone decided that Christmas was an exception.
• A donor’s  spouse died and left you a large bequest.  Direct mail appeals continue to be addressed to “Mr. and Mrs.”
• The donor asked that his gift not be acknowledged in the annual report, but it was.
• You promised to follow up with a donor in a week, but (for whatever reason) you did not.
• A major donor asked the Development Assistant to send him your audited financial statements, but it never happened.
• You engraved your wealthiest donor’s name on the donor wall, at the wrong giving level.  
• A donor who attended last year’s gala was not invited to this year’s gala.
• Your new Major Gift Officer sat next to your most generous supporter at the gala and didn’t say a thing.
• Your on-hold music/radio station plays “Give it to me one more time."

In most cases, the misstep is not intentional, but the damage can spread farther than just a disgruntled donor.  It’s clear that you need to develop (and reinforce) systems of “check” and “double check” to avoid these potential catastrophes.  Making all staff aware of the danger of a moment’s inattention can save the day all around!

Year-End Reports: Beyond LYBUNT January 5, 2012 By Ewlacasse

GiftWorks Certified Consultant Sally Funk offers some insights into making your year-end reports work for you.  Based in Colorado Springs (CO), Sally is Donor Systems Specialist with McConkey-Johnston International, a fundraising and marketing consulting firm for nonprofit organizations.

You’ve finished entering gifts for 2011. Now’s a great time to run “big picture” reports to help you plan better and work smarter in 2012.

But which reports?

Remember, the main purpose of any report is to answer a question. With that in mind, what questions are the most important to ask – and answer – about your fundraising efforts last year?

The first thing that comes to mind is usually something like “How did we do last year?” or other performance-related questions. Basically, you need to know: “Did we work the plan?” and, “Did the plan work?” This translates into a number of comparison reports: actual to goal, this mailing vs. that mailing, this year vs. last year, etc. Use your Appeal and Campaign reports to get this information, but you’ll also need to gather data like expense and number mailed/invited to get the clearest picture.

The next question should be, “Did it make a difference?” Did your efforts to acquire new donors actually bring donors in the door? Are your continuing donors increasing, both in numbers and in giving amounts?

Think of the different steps donors can take with your organization. How many signed up last year? How many gave their first gift (and how much)? How many continued giving from 2010 to 2011? How many lapsed? How many lapsed donors came back on board? Of your continuing donors, how many gave more – or less?

You can use Smartlists to create these reports, and then you can compare growth – or lack of it – to your efforts last year. Here’s a sure way to focus your efforts for the year ahead.

 

Keep your database at a sustainable healthy fighting weight! October 12, 2011 By Ewlacasse

“Database records are like monkeys on your back—either you feed ‘em regularly or you must shoot ‘em,” quips Duke Speer on GiftWorks Linked-In Users’ Group.*  What’s he talking about?

Here is what Duke has to say about keeping “miscellaneous lists” that come to you.  (These are different from your warm-leads and prospects that are more thoughtfully sought and for whom you have adequate information and intend to follow-up in the foreseeable future.)  Sometimes you have:

• “prospect” lists that fall into your hands from other organizations and events,
• people who live in a neighborhood/zip code you’re targeting,
• a Board member’s holiday card list to which you are expected to mail the
  end-of-year letter or invite to the annual gala or golf tournament, or
• subscribers to your website or newsletter.

Except for the subscribers, you have NO relationship to the prospects; they are cold leads. 

And for the subscribers, they have self-selected that they have some form of interest, but they are not donors (no need to import them if they are) and you frequently have no more reliable information than a valid email address to go with a questionable or partial name. 

My recommendation is to not put these cold leads into your GiftWorks database just because they are on a list.  The people in these lists are not worthy of a Donor record until “something more” happens: they contact you and ask for information, they send a gift, they register for your golf tournament ... something that indicates that they have a personal interest in either your mission or your social events. 

But why? 

Because incomplete and irrelevant records are “monkeys on your back.”  Once a record is in your database, it continually consumes resources.  It nags at you until you feed it with attention in the form of more details and fresh data, until it is placated and leaves you alone … for awhile; then those records want your attention again!  If they are not fed regularly with updated information, they become interruptions to your campaigns and distract you from working your hot prospects and ‘real’ donors.  They never go away until you finally shoot them.

“Don’t create a record unless you can feed, maintain, nurture, develop, and potentially get a gift from it.”

For weeks, months, and even years, an incomplete non-gifting Donor record will keep popping up needing your attention.  For each major mailing you have to think about whether to keep it or delete it, at a time when you can’t really remember why and how the record found its way into your database, so you err toward keeping it.  Incomplete records interrupt your workflow, making you feed it more attention.  These records slow searches for your true constituents and bloat reports.  They are forever a distraction consuming resources, yet will rarely become a productive donor record solely because it was imported into the database, if the initial campaign of touches were not successful in triggering “something more”.

Granted it is easy to import and then delete based on a Smartlist that selects by Source.  And by importing, you accomplish some deduping and data grooming.  But that whole process consumes staff time without a significant benefit.   The ROI doesn’t justify the effort.

Sure, use those lists for a mailing, or three, or seven.  But date them and discard them after a those uses.  By then, the few real prospects from the lists have emerged and responded in some way and thereby have their own Donor record as a result. What’s left of the original source list isn’t worth keeping.  Self-selection has cherry-picked the best; don’t let the rest take up space in your database.  If non-producing records are not imported in the first place, you don’t have to clean out the garage as often.

The result is that you keep your database at a healthy sustainable fighting weight.  No point stuffing it till it explodes.  Don’t import non-giving donor records beyond those warm leads and prospects that you and your staff can actually research, update, contact, and effectively campaign within the next year.  More than that is needlessly adding hungry monkeys to your database, instead of spending your time working your lists, making friends, sending appeals or dialing for dollars. 

Duke Speer is a member of the GiftWorks Consultant Partner Advisors Group, a group of independent specialists who help bring a community focus to the GiftWorks development team to better meet emerging trends in the not-for-profit community.  His home is in the pine trees near Park City, Utah, where he conducts GiftWorks training sessions between chairlift rides while skiing or mountain biking.  In his spare time he designs database-driven websites and newsletters for nonprofits using Joomla!  Give him a shoutout in the Linked-In Group or go skiing with him.

*If you’re a GiftWorks user who has not yet joined the GiftWorks Users Group on LinkedIn, join today.  This  customer-only community of more than 1500 members is where clients and experts help each other use GiftWorks to the fullest and share lessons learned.

 

 

Giving the Media What it Needs in 20 Seconds! September 27, 2011 By Ewlacasse

Rich Foss, CEO of Evergreen Leaders and author of “Greenlight Fundraising,” offers a time- and stress-saving tactic that can win you friends in the media community.

Be prepared to provide the media with exactly what it needs in terms of support materials.  Imagine this:

      You’re on vacation. You check your voice mail and NPR wants to highlight your latest program on the radio the next morning. You call the reporter, who says: this is the topic we want you to talk about and here’s what I need:

• your publicity photo
• five questions we should ask to get the story
• a brief bio, just two sentences;
• another link where people can go to learn more

Then he says, “Can you get that to me in 20 seconds?”

How could you provide him everything he needed in 20 seconds?

By planning ahead and saving yourself a lot of time and stress AND winning the appreciation of the media for enabling them to get their story fast and accurate!

Just as you know what needs to be in your organization’s “elevator” speech, you can anticipate the information requested in a call from the media:

      Name, title, contact info, photo, bio.

      One sentence description of organization, logo, top-notch program photo(s). board list

      Five questions (and answers!) that you and your executive staff have crafted to get to the heart of your organization, tell your story, and invite further interest.

Put this gold-mine on your website and/or have it handy to send in response to an inquiry.  Next time someone asks, you’ll be ready with your best shot!

Support Doubles the Value August 26, 2011 By Ewlacasse

“Sometimes I call 5 times a day, but usually about 5 times a month, depending on what I’m tackling!” jokes Kim Stutzman, Executive Director of the Clarke County Education Foundation (CCEF).  Who does she call when she gets stuck?

The GiftWorks Customer Care Team!

Because CCEF purchased the SmartPlan when they upgraded to GiftWorks 2011, Kim can utilize phone support every business day from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm (EST) in addition to free email assistance.

Clarke County, Virginia, is a small agricultural community of 13,000 in the northern tip of Virginia. An evolving culture and economy means that children no longer can-–or want to--assume a future on the farm.  To better prepare students for success, Clarke County schools have adopted an aggressive posture to help all the community’s children compete in today’s changing job market; not an easy task in a small rural community without substantial resources. To support major school projects and provide scholarships, parents and a local banker created the Clarke County Education Foundation (CCEF) in 1991.

When Kim transitioned from CCEF Board Member to the only paid employee about a year ago, donors files were managed manually or on spreadsheets.  Wanting more ways to “slice and dice” her existing donor records, Kim implemented GiftWorks. (She learned about GiftWorks at a conference for MidAtlantic Consortium of Education Foundations.)  With GiftWorks she can easily find a donor’s gift history or relationships.  She also uses the Pledge function to remind donors of the date they've chosen to make for  their annual gift.

In 2005, the Foundation led a Science Summit bringing together Clarke County high school students and Nobel laureates, professor, and politicians around the subject “Science and Creative Thinking.” The Foundation’s Dictionary Project puts a dictionary in the hands of every third grader in public and private schools in the county.  Other funds support:  Auditorium, Bridges, Science camps, playgrounds, BookFest, and athletic team grants.

Kim considers GiftWorks a significant contributor to the success of her organization. She states that the design is “professional and organized” and Customer Care makes GiftWorks even more enjoyable to use.

One of the processes she uses for the mailing for the annual October gala is zip code select. Rather than mail to a donor living in California (or someone else unlikely to attend), Lisa-–a GiftWorks Senior Customer Care Associate - helped Kim screen her general list for distant zip codes which eliminated wasted time, materials, and postage.

Kim also appreciates that GiftWorks allows her to personalize the many different types of communications she keeps in the Letter Library. She estimates that she has at least 18 different donor letters and 25 different donation letters.  She uses the appropriate letter to make specific references to scholarships, grants or projects of particular interest to the addressee.

She also called for help when she was unable to format her letters to fit appropriately on her letterhead.  Lisa provided instructions on how to format a template so that a new design isn’t required when board members change.  “This is a real cost-saver,” said Kim. With a color printer, the letterhead is created with the letter—eliminating the need for reams of preprinted stationery.

 "GiftWorks has been a significant tool for our nonprofit organization, says Kim.  "Having our database of donors and all the mailing and report functions at my fingertips has saved considerable time and money that can now be spent enhancing the Clarke County Public Schools."

Keeping the Faith-ful; reviving lapsed donors August 8, 2011 By Ewlacasse

Faithful donors are our life’s blood.  While we are working our hardest and taxing our wits developing strategies to identify and attract new donor prospects, it is the loyal base that keeps our efforts operating.  Yet do you even know when one of the faithful falls from the ranks?

The donor rarely keeps track of the time since the last gift to you.  Most rely on your gentle reminders to trigger the next gift.  It may be your annual campaign solicitation, but hopefully you are in touch with them more often than the predictable every-twelve-months.  And you should be offering them opportunities to interact with your organization and help financially more than once a year.  It takes regular communication to maintain your place in their hearts.

So how do you keep track of this?  Well, say you do two mailings a year (your Big event and your annual appeal).  Then you need to look at your lapsed donors (sometimes called LYBUNTs—last-year but-not-this-year) about every nine months.  Whether they meant to or not (or had a change in family situation), they have neglected to respond to two mailings.  You might make a personal phone call, mentioning that you haven’t heard from them in a while, and telling them about a special project they might be interested in.  It’s a good idea to ask for a specific amount at this point (but no higher than their last gift), bring them back into the flock in a nonthreatening way, then start again from that point.

When you send your annual solicitation, write a separate letter to those who didn’t give the previous year. Make gentle reference to their lapse, as in “we’d love to welcome you back to our family of active supporters.” If they didn’t realize they had lapsed, now they will and will become more attentive to their giving in the future.

If the donor fails to respond to the second solicitation, send another note saying “we miss you” and enclosing a survey asking “Can you tell us why you stopped giving?”  Offer a choice of typical responses (Too much mail, Lost your address, change in giving priorities, and I didn’t realize…).  You’ll be happy to see the number who “didn’t realize” and will return your envelope with a check.

Don’t give up on those who don’t respond to “we miss you” approach.  The cost (literal and figurative) of obtaining a new donor is still more than you’ve invested so far.  After another six months, approach them with another mailing or call with a specific offer and a request slightly lower than their last gift.  (This works especially well when you can say “your gift will be matched…).

And occasionally, in the future, send your appeal with the “we miss you” letter, and include them in your planned giving offers if age appropriate.

Track your results (and costs) over time to gauge how much follow-up—and what kind--works for you.  When someone has responded to your appeals in the past, it’s very likely that they still have an interest in your mission.  And those, after all, are the ones you want most.

Testing the Waters with Online Giving July 20, 2011 By Ewlacasse

Since we’ve taken our nonprofits online over the last few years, we’re beginning to see some of the benefits online brings, as well as some downsides.

Check your experience against recent research studies to see if your experiences with online giving follow the patterns reported—and watch for trends with your donors so you can adapt your strategies for the best outcomes.

Steve MacLaughlin discusses the findings of Target Analytics 20ll Giving Report on his blog.  This makes a good starting point for assessing what’s working—for others, and for your organization.

When online started, it was expected that younger people would adapt most easily to the “high-tech” approach.  But studies are showing that, for many organizations, a high percentage of middle-aged donors (over 40) give online, and 25% of donors aged 65 and older give both online and offline.

There was also a sense that higher income donors and large gifts would remain in the offline camp. Do only small gifts come in online? Well, no; 75% of nonprofits had at least one online gift of $1,000 or more last year.  A majority of nonprofits showed at least one online gift of $1,000 or more last year.

There was also no way to predict whether donors acquired online would remain online-only donors or would also respond to offline asks.  Experience over the last few years shows that about a third of online donors will switch channels to become offline donors, but offline donors rarely switch to online giving.

Still to be uncovered: how do the retention rates compare for online vs. offline donors?  Many believe that the multichannel donor (who responds to your requests across several channels) will be the most loyal and valuable donor over the long haul.  What’s clear is that tomorrow’s donor will expect you to provide more than one way to give.  Are you maximizing your options to appeal to the widest audience?

For more trends and insights into how nonprofits are using the Internet, check out Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools & Trade Secrets, Ted Hart, James M. Greenfield, Steve MacLaughlin, Philip H. Geier, Jr.