by Susan Detwiler | Dec 19, 2011 | management, nonprofit, philanthropy, Uncategorized
Quit calling it donor relations.
It’s people relations. It doesn’t matter if she’s a prospective donor, a volunteer, a parent or a student. It doesn’t matter if he gives time, money, or attention. Or none of the above. 
If you care about your organization, then you should be building relationships with every person.
Every single person you encounter.
Segmenting the people you know for the purposes of sending appropriate messages is one thing. Segmenting them because you think that somehow donors are different from other people is completely different.
A person is a person is a person is a person. A person has dreams, hopes, and ambitions. A person has quirks and traits and tendencies. Anyone might have a reason to care about your organization, and it might not be the reason you think.
But if you only look at her as soccer mom, you might miss that this particular person dreams about somehow personally making a difference. If you only look at him as volunteer, you might miss that he hopes to introduce his kids to philanthropy through your organization. If you only look at that couple as stay-at-homes, you might miss that they really are seeking for the best way to invest their time and energy together.
Everyone should be in your database, so when you encounter that person, it doesn’t matter whether he’s a donor or not “ you have an entrée into a conversation about their dreams, hope and ambitions.
A chance encounter with a community member was a forceful reminder of this truth. His kids are really into soccer. My client was an arts organization that educates children. A mismatch? Not at all. Not after he wistfully said he wished his kids could learn a little discipline. What is learning to play an instrument but learning discipline? Sure, it’s a lot of other things, too. But one big part of what it brings to kids is the knowledge that if you keep at it, you become better. Maybe the class in rock can do that for him.
Everyone you meet is a potential relationship. And every relationship starts with seeing every person.
by Susan Detwiler | Oct 30, 2011 | governance, management, mission, nonprofit, philanthropy, Standards
Where are you now?
Before 1973, no one ever asked where are you? when they reached you on the phone. Of course they knew where you were. You were within 3 feet of the telephone they had dialed (now that’s an anachronism!). Thirty years later, times have changed. Today, because of mobile phones, one of the first things we ask when we reach someone is, where are you?
Where are you? An innocuous casual question that turns quite profound when you ask it of your organization. If, in 30 years, the world has changed so we call individuals instead of a place, has your nonprofit kept pace? Do you still ask your constituents to come to your location, or do your meet them where they are? Have your programs evolved to meet the new mobility of society? Has your mission changed?
Society’s rate of change has accelerated. When was the last time your board of directors evaluated whether your programs are still relevant, much less whether your mission is? Once every 10 years isn’t enough (and maybe it never was). But certainly never shouldn’t be the answer.
In fact, maybe now is when you should ask, where are you?
by Susan Detwiler | Oct 1, 2011 | management, nonprofit, philanthropy
Challenging the Relationship Model of Fundraising
Received wisdom now says that relationship building is the way to raise more money from donors. It’s why we changed the name from Fundraising to Development; we expect to develop relationships with people, with the ultimate goal of getting them to make a big gift (or two, or three).
This may still be true, but a study from Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson challenges the notion that relationship building causes higher sales in the for-profit environment. What this means for the nonprofit sector is up for debate.
Dixon is Managing Director of the Corporate Executive Board’s Sales and Service Practice. Adamson is Senior Director of the Sales Executive Council, a division of the Sales and Service Practice. Their new book, The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation, is the result of studying 6,000 sales representatives across more than 100 companies around the world. Detailing their work habits, their motivation and their results, they classified the reps into 5 groups:
- Relationship builder
- Lone wolf
- Hard worker
- Reactive problem solver
- Challenger
These groups are described in the HBR Blog, but suffice it to say that the Relationship builder was NOT the best performer.
Surprisingly, Challenger, who did not acquiesce to every client whim, who did not work to smooth over any tension, and in fact made a point of asking penetrating questions about client assumptions, outperformed the others in complex and challenging situations.
Now, if these economic times aren’t challenging for nonprofits, I don’t know what would be. Perhaps it’s time to (ahem) challenge our assumptions of how to deal with donors in these times.
More study is definitely needed.
by Susan Detwiler | Sep 1, 2010 | management, miscellaneous, nonprofit
Vision. Vision. Vision.
Everyone talks about making sure your board has a vision. To paraphrase Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady — words, words, words, I’m so sick of words…don’t talk of Vision, Show me!
Whatever happened to implementation???
Look, I’m not saying the first step isn’t important “ it is! Without vision, you stagnate. If you don’t know where you’re going, you waste time spinning wheels.
But once you know what you want to become, it takes decisions and details; process and payments; learning the laws and following them; checks and balances; good management and good manners. And all the while, staying focused on the vision.
But JUST having a vision isn’t enough. Nonprofit leadership is fostering that vision, planning to make it reality, inspiring everyone to get on board, and then, well, making it happen.
Vision AND Implementation. It takes both. As consultants, we do our clients a disservice if we stop at the first step.
by Susan Detwiler | Aug 25, 2010 | nonprofit, philanthropy
When I was growing up, any time I wanted to prove that the fact I had just spouted was true, all I needed to tell my Dad was that I’d read it in the New York Times. I’m pretty sure he knew that sometimes I just said that to get him off my back, but there’s no doubt that a trusted outside source can still go a long way toward bolstering your case.
Take, for instance, dealing with a board of directors that’s reluctant to try something new, or when a director or volunteer questions your wise counsel.
For example, I’ve advised several smaller nonprofits to accept online donations. There’s the usual grumbling about security concerns and that credit cards take too much out of the donation. But pointing to studies that show the advances in credit card and online donations go a long way to convincing the nay-sayers.
This study by Blackbaud (The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving) is a good one to show your reluctant boards. It’s particularly good to show to small and medium-sized nonprofits, whose peers had their online contributions increase by an average of 7%, year -over-year.
Personal experience, industry knowledge and good research is a hard combination to refute.
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