“For the sake of your cause in ten years time, ditch the short-termist attitude and focus on cultivating individual donor support,” says Sean Triner. If you remain proactive and be really, really nice to your donors, this downturn could pay off in the long term.
You may recall that my last agitator addressed the first of three obstacles the sector needs to get over if it is to succeed and grow despite all this economic mess. The last one was about parochialism, and the other two problems are complacency and short-termism. So let’s get stuck into short-termism.
According to research in Mal Warwick’s new book ‘Fundraising When Money is Tight’, shortly after economic hard times, charity income growth declines. The obvious assumption is that people are skint, so they donate less.
Since the latter part of 2008 I know of several charities in Australia that have decided to pull back on donor acquisition and/or donor care because of the economic crisis. This is madness! Pulling back on acquisition because it is not working is sound business sense – but pulling back because of the economy and what might happen is daft.
I reckon the reason that there is a decline in charity growth following an economic downturn could well be recession suicide at work.
I have no doubt that the recession and economic woes will affect charities – it already has with investments, corporate giving and some wealthy individuals, but equally we know of charities that are doing better now than ever before. One of the big face-to-face agencies in Australia celebrated their best week ever last month.
With the recession, media space is becoming cheaper and print prices will begin to come down as old orders are fulfilled. Even Australia Post may bring in some better incentives.
It is a great time to get out and try and get some more donors – and not just face-to-face.
If you rely on individual donors for your income, make sure you look after them and get what you can from them (remember, for the long haul). And make sure you get some more supporters this year.
Still on short-termism, in the most recent benchmarking cooperative (where a load of charities share their data and look at trends and average donations etc) we saw that the biggest income source from individuals was bequests. And the charities making the most money from bequests had well established bequest programs.
But bequests take years to come in. A good ready reckoner is that your total income from donations and non face-to-face regular giving income should be about the same as your bequest income. If it isn’t, then your organisation didn’t do enough on bequests about ten years ago.
Your successors in ten years can benefit if you get that bequest marketing working now. And that doesn’t mean rush out and get a bequest officer – the most successful modern bequest programs don’t need them – just have a brilliant warm donor program, with a bequest ask thrown in (surveys are a great way to identify your best prospects).
The bequest ask is a direct mail piece and phone call. That really is most of it. One extra mailing (the survey should be done as part of donor care anyway) and a load of calls. Cheap! But … the money won’t come for years; probably not whilst you are still working there if average fundraising manager tenure is anything to go by.
And your best prospects for bequests are your donors, so make sure you are getting plenty of them too.
Please, don’t be short-termist! Take the cash hit now to get new donors, develop the relationship and get your charity in their will. For the sake of your cause in 2019.
