how to find new donors for your nonprofit now€¦ · fundraising, called one of the top 10...

How To Find New Donors For Your Nonprofit NOW

How to find, engage and retain your nonprofit donors

Presenter: Mazarine Treyz, Author, The Wild Woman's Guide to Fundraising

About the presenter

Author of The Wild Woman's Guide to Fundraising, called one of the top 10 nonprofit books of 2010 by Beth Kanter.

Through teaching and consulting, Mazarine Treyz helps nonprofits to make the right decisions with fundraising and marketing.

1. What are 9 new places to find donors offline?

2. What are 4 effective ways of building your email list?

3. Buying potential donor mailing lists: How do you vet the list? How can you use the list?

4. What are the stages of giving to help you steward your donors towards larger gifts?

What will you learn today?

5. The overwhelming value of keeping your existing donors with stewardship and cultivation tips

6. How does transparency raise you more money?

7. How often to mail and email your list?

8. What are 5 cheap and fast ways to thank your donors?

9. How to cultivate your volunteers to become donors?

What will you learn today?

Have you ever surveyed your donors?Do you know where your donors are active online?Do you call lapsed donors?Do you strive for transparency on your website?

Poll

To start out,

You are very smart for being here today.

Most money is given away by individuals.

Check out this chart from GivingUSA.

Intro

The Good news:

Overall fundraising grew 6.8% from June to August 2011 compared to this period last year. -Blackbaud

Intro

The Bad News:

The number of donors continues to decline. It's down 3.8% each year, total drop 21% in the last 5 years. -Target Analytics

Intro

What are 9 new places to find donors offline?

1. Your Volunteer base

Volunteers give 10x as much money as non-volunteers.Have something for everyone to do. Make a special appeal just for volunteers.

2. Annual Reports

From other nonprofits similar to yours, local, regional, national.

Look at their board members. Look at their sponsors.Look at their Foundations.


3. Faithbased Organizations

Ask to come and speak about your cause.

Ask to get a percentage of the offering. Ask for volunteers and board members.


4. Mailing list companies

What can they tell you about these names?How often do they update their list?Is the list for one-time or multiple uses?


5. Your board

Who do they know?Who do they work for?How do you make it easy for them to talk about you?


6. Your neighbors

Stores in your strip mall Businesses in your

county Families in your zip code


7. Your Vendors

Grocery stores Utilities Telephone provider Credit union or Bank


8. The Business Journal Book of Lists

Most charitable companiesFastest Growing CompaniesTop revenue in each category


9. Speaking Engagements

Lions ClubsRotaryChamber of commerceCorporationsShrinersBoard member companiesLibraries


Government employee meetings Open house Festivals Special Events Conferences Farmers Market Radio

Use this diagram to help you find your connection to donors offline


Must Know

Volunteers give 10x more.

Giving is up even if number of donors are down.

When you do speaking engagements, you can create a one-on-one connection.

Must Do

Consider buying a mailing list or doing a one-time list swap.

Research other nonprofit annual reports.

Talk with your vendors.

Make it easy for your board to talk about you with a 1 page bullet list.


Finding Donors Checklist

Have you looked at:

Your VolunteersYour DatabaseBuying a mailing listFaithbased orgsSpeaking EngagementsYour VendorsYour NeighborsYour BoardAnnual reports of other nonprofitsBook of Lists

Poll

How big is your email list? How many followers do you have in your social media efforts? Have you surveyed your donors to see where they are online? Are you doing text giving?

What are 4 effective ways of building your email list?

1. Facebook page email capture

Allow people to take action after Likes

Offer chance to get the latest news /sign petitions

Don't ask for too much info.


2. Bonus for signing up for your e-newsletter on your website

Use Google HeatMapsFirst Name, Email, ZipCode?Give an incentive to sign up.

Who is making it hard to sign up?http://www.amnesty.org/en

Let's go see who is doing it right:http://front.moveon.org/


3. Signup for email list at your events Open House Walk-a-thon Speaking Engagements Tabling


4. Hover popup on your website

Can use a Wordpress PluginCan make it popup once a weekPut a free offer in the popup


Bonus: Can you swap email lists for a one-time email with a sister nonprofit in your town?

This example is from the Touching Souls website

Building your Email List Checklist

Have you:

Set up your Facebook page email capture tab?Mailing list popup on your website?Put your email list signup above the fold?Added bonus for joining your email list?Asked to do a one-time email list swap?Did you bring an email list signup to an event?Let people sign up for text alerts?

Buying potential donor mailing lists: How do you vet the list?

Why would you buy a list?

People give 79% of the time through direct mail Attrition in current list of donors Engage new people in your area

How much does a list cost?

For example: According to Blackbaud, both their targeted and zipcode lists cost $1,500 for 15,000 names, minimum.

Vet the list by asking good questions:

What can you tell me about these leads? Is segmentation possible? When was the last time this list was updated? How do you clean your list?


Must Know

Physical mail evokes a more visceral response.

These prospects will not be as good as your small original list.

You can only use the list once.

Must Do

Research all of your options.

Look at one-time list swapping to cut costs.

You MUST ask the right questions if you buy a list.


Impulse

Habit

Thoughtful

The Most Thoughtful Gift

What are the stages of giving to help you steward your donors towards larger gifts?

What's even easier than finding new donors?

Cultivating existing donors!

It's twice as expensive to get a new donor as it is to keep an existing donor.

How do you keep donors?

The overwhelming value of keeping your existing donors with stewardship and cultivation tips

Dealing with Attrition

First, Look at how many donors you retain. What's the attrition after a first gift? Look at number of donors you have lost. For attrition after first year, break down attrition by giving behavior. Beyond statistics, “loyalty” means having an continuing emotional connection with a cause.


What creates emotional loyalty?

Confidence you are accomplishing what donors want you to accomplish.

Consider that when people stop giving to you, they probably didn’t go away. They went somewhere else.

What happens if you don't get their donation? Do they know the consequences?

How do you deal with complainers?


Cultivate donors with an online survey

Tell them you want their opinion

“We’re so glad to have you with us, and as a supporter and participant, we want your advice on how we set our priorities in the coming year.”

Let's look at a sample online donor survey:http://65.36.230.81/survey/magic_donor.cfm?area=6


Cultivate donors with an offline survey

Mail the survey, personalize with a donation slip at the bottom.Ask donors to check which items on the survey they want you to pursue, then ask them to give you some dollar amount for each item they check. Give a courtesy reply envelope


Must Know Must Do

Create a donor survey online and offline.

Engage your complainers and ask them to make your organization better.

Segment donors who lapsed, over a certain $ amt, call.

Attrition is important to look at in terms of hard numbers, not percentages.

A system to deal with complainers.

Surveys can be a big cultivation/solicitation tool.


How does transparency raise you more money?

#1 reason major donors give:

The organization has a track record of producing measurable results.

#2 reason they give:

Asked by someone they know or a leadership volunteer of an organization.

Let's look at http://Dashboard.imamuseum.org


Dashboard includes:

Electricity Use Number of Visitors Number of

memberships Horticulture stats

What could YOUR dashboard include?

Http://Kiva.org


How can you replicate what Kiva does?

Donation thermometer for each program. Make the goal achieveable. Volunteer Blog for each program. Put 1 real human story on each aspect of

your programs.

How does transparency raise you more money?The More You Are Transparent about how

to Partner, the More Corporations Want to Partner

Example: Humane Society lists

Affinity Program Cause marketing/Trademark License Sponsorship Advertising Ad Revenue Share Additional Opportunities

All Corporate Giving Questions Answered! AW yeah.

http://www.humanesociety.org/about/corporate_support.html

How Often To Mail and Email Your List?

4x a year for mailings

1x a month for email newsletters

We know the usual ways:

Via an acknowledgement letter Phonecall & email On your website In your annual report

What are five cheap and fast ways to thank your donors?

How to Thank:

Thank your donor profusely. Talk to them in “participation” language. Tell them how their money is being used.


1. Twitter, a la @DCShoutouts2. Facebook


3. Youtube4. Linkedin Group


5. Annual Report Donor Page On Website AND

BONUS:

6. Have a Thank-A-THON! http://www.sofii.org/node/852Love

How to Cultivate Volunteers to Become Donors?

Make it easy to raise money

Make the barriers to entry low, like a walk-a-thon. Make raising money a social thing.

Remember:

ImpulseHabitThoughtful GiftMost Thoughtful Gift

http://www.projectbread.org/site/PageServer?pagename=walk_register

Project Bread raised almost $4M with the Walk for Hunger in 2010. (pictured above)


Make it easy to give.

Get them a donate page on your website, like MercyCorps.org

Benefits: 3 easy steps Give Talking points Merchant

processing

You build your fundraising army with minimum of hassle.


Get to know your volunteers

People usually volunteer to socialize, gain new skills, or feel needed.

Ask questions to get to know what praise will be meaningful to them.

Let them take ownership of a project.


Corporate Volunteers

Send a thank you note to their workplace, telling their HR person what a wonderful job they're doing.

Call and ask if employee volunteerism is compensated by the company.


Must Know Must Do

Make points of entry casual, social.

Allow them to create a personal fundraising page.

Allow them autonomy, and find ways to praise.

Send a thank you note to their company.

Stages of giving work for volunteers too.

- Impulse - Habit - Thoughtful - The Most Thoughtful Gift

Segment volunteers and create an experience.

Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for attending today.

I would love your honest feedback on this presentation. I am always trying to improve. Follow up questions Mazarine [email protected]: (512) 763-5161

Thank you

how to find new donors for your nonprofit now€¦ · fundraising, called one of the top 10...

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