Latest / Nonprofit Launch Plan Podcast for Startup, Small, and Growing Nonprofits / Beyond A Thank You Note: Building A Donor Communication Plan
Transcript
- So when you choose to limit communication because you don't want to bother them, and I use air quotes around bother them, the message that you are actually telegraphing to them is we don't care as much about having a relationship with you as you do with us. Welcome to the Nonprofit Launch Plan podcast for startups, small and growing nonprofits. This podcast is here to help you build your nonprofit from the ground up on a strong foundation. So every episode. It's all about frameworks and tools and personalized guidance that you need to be able to create lasting impact from day one. My name is Matt Stockman. I'm your host, thrilled you're here at Nonprofit Launch Plan. We've built this entire business on the big idea that every nonprofit has gotta be operating at peak performance in six crucial areas in order to be successful. The six areas are leadership fundraising. Marketing programs and services, operations and finances. So on every episode of the podcast, we talk about a topic that is core to at least one of these six areas. And today we're tackling a question that I hear from nonprofit leaders all the time. How often should I be in touch with my donors? And, and let me start with this. Maybe you've had these thoughts. I don't want to annoy people by emailing too much, or I just don't have time to stay in touch with everyone the way I should. Or if you're honest, maybe that ship has already sailed and you've realized that you haven't communicated with your donors and way too long, and now it's like. How do I even break the ice again, and where do I start? This is actually a really common challenge for most small nonprofits, and here's the thing, most donors don't stop giving to you eventually because they lose interest in your cause, but they do stop giving because they don't hear from you. Which good news is super easy to fix. So, coming up in this episode are both some principles and strategy to guide your thinking on the topic as well as a framework. You know, if you listen to this podcast for any length of time at all, you know how I love frameworks. We've got a framework to help you plan and systematize how you're gonna communicate with your donors so that it becomes a normal part of your. Routine and your nonprofit's routine because this communication piece is really important. Now, before we dive into all of that, fundraising is a core pain point for every nonprofit leader and every nonprofit organization, and as the leader, until you get to the point in your growth inside your organization that you have another team member that's responsible for fundraising, meaning like you've hired a development director then until that point. 80% of the time that you spend should be spent on cultivating donors and building donor relationships. Now that number, when I share that, is not typically received all that well, and I understand why you probably got into this work to serve and to fulfill the mission, not to have awkward conversations with strangers about money. And yet this guy and this podcast is telling me that most of what I should be doing is. The leader is to have these awkward conversations with people about money. Well, we're gonna fix all of that. That is why I've created the Fearless Fundraising Framework. It's a simple five step process that will give you clarity on your fundraising messaging, and will give you a game plan on how to share your mission and vision and invite people to partner with you financially. You can get the Fearless Fundraising workbook and the videos that go along with it. Absolutely free. It's on my website right now@nonprofitlaunchplan.com. Again, nonprofit launch plan.com. Alright, now into the meat of this week's podcast. The reason I'm talking about donor communication basics today is because I've had a recent coaching conversation with a nonprofit leader. Let me pause right here and say a a little peek behind the curtain. Oftentimes the topic that I come up with for a podcast episode has come out of a coaching conversation that I've had with somebody who does just like what you do. And I think to myself, this person's having this challenge or problem that we're solving together. I wonder if a lot of other nonprofit leaders are having that problem. And so hence the podcast comes together. That's the case here. I was having a recent conversation with a nonprofit leader that was struggling with many of the thoughts that I was just talking about, about not wanting to annoy their donors by emailing too much and just never really having a enough time and so on and so forth, and yet their nonprofit is at a really. Critical time financially, and he had some really understandable concerns about communicating the urgency of the need without coming across as panicked or like he was pulling fire alarms or anything like that. So in the coaching session, we address both the short term issue of the immediate financial need with clarity. By working on a letter to his donor base. Together, we got the letter put together, which, by the way, that letter ended up raising about $40,000 pretty quickly, which is a huge windfall for that nonprofit. But also in the same session, I was then able to kinda let him know that because he didn't have a systematized communication rhythm in place with new donors and existing donors, that that was actually the cause of his concern. And fear when the summer giving slump had ended up hitting him kind of harder than he expected. So it's that conversation that brings us to this episode. Now, before we get into tactics and details and a framework for you, let's talk a little bit about principles behind donor communication. First and foremost, donor communication is not about transactions. It's about building a relationship. Which relationships are built over time and through consistency. Let's say for a second that you're on vacation with your family and you're in some tropical locale and you strike up a friendship at the pool with another family who's from a different part of the world. And even if you all have the best of intentions at the end of the vacation about building a relationship that started on the family vacation with that other couple, it won't actually happen. Unless you're intentional about communicating with each other after the vacation, you've gotta exchange email addresses and phone numbers, and you gotta start texting back and forth and making plans to follow up and so on and so forth. That's when you figure out whether or not you actually have a relationship with them. It requires consistency and purpose. I one time worked with a nonprofit leader who admitted to me, Matt. I don't want to bother my donors, so I just usually reach out when we're in a campaign and we have a need, which I quickly asked him. What if you had a friend who only called you when they needed something, how long would it be before you were now dodging their calls? He laughed, but it did hit home. Donors want to hear from you. Outside of campaigns, they want to feel like a friend and a connection, not an ATM. So when donors consistently hear about the impact of their giving, when you say thanks to them, when you celebrate what they're doing and how they're adding to the impact of your organization, and when they're included, the relationship gets stronger and deepens, and that is what leads to long-term generosity and loyalty. Think about this from a different angle, a donor. Giving you the hard earned money that they have put their blood, sweat, and tears into is one of the most selfless and intimate things that a person could do because most people just don't have gobs of disposable income lying around that they don't care or think about all that much what happens to it. So when a donor gives you a financial gift. They're saying to you in a really, very special way, I want to have a relationship with you. So when you choose to limit communication, because you don't want to bother them, and I use air quotes around bother them, the message that you are actually telegraphing to them is, we don't care as much about having a relationship with you as you do with us, which is not a message any of us really wants to intentionally send, but that's what donors are receiving when we go silent. Okay, so now let's drill down and make it a little bit more practical. How often should you be in touch with your donors? I have four things to keep in mind. One is I think you should have an immediate thank you within 48 hours of receiving a gift. That thank you is a quick phone call, a handwritten note that goes out, even a short video message that goes a long way. And remember this, it doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to be timely. It needs to be heartfelt, and here's what this isn't. This is not the thank you receipt or the gift acknowledgement email. For example, if a donor gives a gift online, they should get a receipt that acknowledges the transaction was complete and you just didn't put your credit card number into the ethernet for anybody to have at some point or another. That's not what I'm talking about. You could easily go, oh, well, they get a thank you acknowledgement. That thank you acknowledgement really is more like the receipt that you get after you've made an Amazon purchase from something in your shopping cart. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about above and beyond that. Sometime in the first 48 hours after receiving that gift, a simple thank you, a phone call, a handwritten note, or that video message, that's number one. Number two is then following up on the impact within a few weeks. Reach out to that individual. Again, you're not asking for money in that moment. You're just showing them how their gift has been used. It could be a story or a photo or just a even a text message that says, Hey, because of what you gave three families were able to get food boxes this week. Because of your generosity. Thank you again. So number one is an immediate thank you within 48 hours. Number two is following up somewhere between two and four weeks. And then after that, this individual should go into an ongoing rhythm of communication. I say a good benchmark is one donor touchpoint. Every month, which could be your newsletter. It could be a story email, an impact story email that you send out every month. It could be a behind the scenes update or even just a short personal phone call. Remember, it doesn't have to be fancy. It does have to be consistent. Shoot for a regular consistent rhythm rather than something that feels like it's a home run every time. So that's three. And then the fourth thing to keep in mind is these special, I call 'em touch points throughout the course of the year where you kind of. Reach out on the anniversary of their first gift, or you send them a birthday card, or you share something at Christmas. It's these extra things that do remind donors that you see them as an individual, not just as a source of a donation. So. You may be hearing all these things, and again, it's a immediate thank you in the first 48 hours following up within two to four weeks. Then once that happens, that person goes into the regular rhythm of your communication, which should be at least monthly, and then from time to time over the course of the year on birthdays and anniversaries, or just because from time to time you're making a few extra special touch points. You may be hearing all that going. Matt, that sounds like a lot. Remember. The communication doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be complicated, and consistency is way more important than length or production value or how slick it looks. I once heard from a donor who had given a lot of money to a small nonprofit for a really long time, and one time after making one more gift, they just never heard back. For months. No thank you, no update, no nothing. And they told me, she's like, I figured they just didn't need me anymore. So I just stopped. The organization wasn't struggling because people didn't care. They were struggling because people never heard anything from them. That single thank you and that rhythm that I just kind of talked about, those four bullet points will do everything you need it to do to help keep a donor engaged. So that's frequency. Let's talk about the, how. I would say mix it up first and foremost. Email is great, but that is not the end all. Pick up the phone. That never hurts. Handwritten notes are huge. I want you to think about the mail that you get every week. If you got something in the mail that was handwritten, a card looks like a birthday card, looks like an anniversary card, looks like a, like, you're not gonna not open that. That's always gonna get opened. You can record a 62nd video on your phone. It's the variety that keeps it all fresh and really helps donors to feel like they are a part of something, uh, personal. The other thing is to keep it really donor centered, uh, and make sure the language is always facing them. Here's what I mean. Instead of saying, our nonprofit raised $10,000 for the food pantry. Flip it around and say, because of your generosity, you helped put meals on 50 family tables last week. Feel the difference. One is about the organization, the other is about the donor. The donor is always the hero of the story. You hear me say that all the time. Third thing is don't overthink it. Sincerity beats polish every single time. I have seen nonprofits delay sending thank yous because they wanted the perfect stationery or they wanted the wording to just be just so don't wait. A heartfelt message today is much better than a perfect message three weeks or a month from now. I like to think that donor communication is kind of like gardening. If you water a plant once every six months. By like just dumping a gallon of water on it, it's not gonna thrive. But if you give it water on the regular, it grows strong and healthy. And donors are the same way. You don't have to overwhelm them with a lot of big, fancy gestures. What really matters is steady, regular touches of connection. So how do you make all this happen without it taking over your week? Here's a couple of things to think about. One, as soon as you get a gift, have a plan to acknowledge it. That could mean 20 minutes every day, checking to see what came in and writing those notes, or making those fa phone calls. It couldn't be an hour every week, but have a rhythm that you set aside dedicated time to take care of this. On a consistent basis, then schedule reminders in your calendar to follow up. Two to four weeks later. It could be automated. If you use a donor management system or some sort of CRM, you can put all of that in and after a certain amount of time that that. Person's name gets entered that after three weeks or whatever, they automatically get communication from you. So it's not something you even need to think about. Uh, and then make sure the donors go into your monthly rhythm. If you already are sending out a newsletter, that's great. If not, consider some sort of a monthly update. One story. One picture, one little blurb about impact. It doesn't have to take a lot of writing time, it doesn't have to take a lot of creative thinking. It's just a, Hey, we're here. We want you to know how your gift is making an impact on a regular monthly rhythm, and then a few personal touches. Uh, throughout the year, pick three or four times throughout the course of the year where you go above and beyond the holidays or an anniversary or a small appreciation event that you put together. It's the combination of those four things that will really make all the difference. And here's one last pro tip that I'll give you. Try your best to batch your work as much as possible instead of sort of trying to do donor maintenance on the fly. There's gonna come a point where that's just impossible to do so you really have to schedule some intentional time and keep it blocked off in your calendar each and every week to take care of this kind of stuff. In that hour that you set aside, that's where you write the thank you notes. That's where you make a couple of phone calls. That's where you draft your next monthly update. And when you do it consistently, it just doesn't feel overwhelming. This is really an important ingredient to your role as the leader in the nonprofit to do this kind of work from day one. So build that habit from day one. All right, so to wrap up, remember this donor communication, it's about consistency. It's not perfection. Your donors, they want to hear from you. Don't let the other voices in your mind say, oh, I'm bothering them, or, uh, I'm just gonna be annoying to them, or whatever. Keep in mind, not every donor's gonna read every email that you send, but that doesn't mean, you know what, I shouldn't go through the effort to send it, because a lot of donors. Are gonna read those emails because they do want to hear from you. They want to know that you are making a difference in how they plug into that. And if you can show up regularly with just a, a sense of gratitude and stories about impact, you're gonna build a relationship that lasts. For years. So if this episode, this conversation today has got you thinking about how you can strengthen donor relationships with your nonprofit, and you need help building a communication plan that fits with you and your life and what you're doing, I. I would love to help. I would encourage you to grab some time with me. You can book a call on my website. It's absolutely free. Go to nonprofit launch plan.com and just click the book a call button. It's pink. It's huge. It's right there. Click that and schedule some time with me. I would love to chat with you more about this. Now, before we wrap up this episode, if you or somebody you know is still in the dreaming phase of launching a nonprofit. I've got a really cool special freebie for you. It's a PDF resource I put together. It's called From Dream to Action, your nonprofit pre-launch checklist. 10 Essential Steps from Moving From Nonprofit Idea to Impact. It's 10 things that you're gonna want to think about as you start to. Crystallize your dream for a nonprofit, and this tool will take you through 10 steps, uh, that will move your nonprofit from just an idea toward a launch plan that will get your nonprofit dream off the ground. It talks about your why considering your board and putting, putting together your first teammates, honing in on exactly who your beneficiary is, choosing your name, your IRS application, and a lot more. There's an easy to do action step for each one of the 10 things to consider. That brings your dream for a nonprofit into a whole lot clearer focus after you've walked through the 10 item checklist. If you want it, it's a free PDF called from Dream to Action, your nonprofit pre-launch checklist. 10 Essential Steps for Moving from Nonprofit idea. To impact. You can either email me at Matt MAT t@nonprofitlaunchplan.com, or you can look for the pop out on my website. Just go to nonprofit launch plan.com. You'll see it right there. Also, don't forget about the other free resource, the Fearless Fundraising Mini course. It's the workbook and the five short videos that go along with it that take the fear out of asking people to partner with you financially. Go through the mini course. You come out with a game plan and a fundraising messaging script, that's crystal clear. It's free on the website for you as well@nonprofitlaunchplan.com. Again, thank you. That's it for this episode of the Nonprofit Launch Plan podcast for startups, small and growing nonprofits. I am thrilled to have you tuning in. Do not forget to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out on future episodes. And if in some way or another you found this helpful. Please share it with another nonprofit leader who you think might benefit from it. Until next time, keep making a difference.