Almost 40% of those surveyed said they stopped supporting at least one organizations in 2007. When asked why they stopped, their top five reasons were:
#1 No longer felt personally connected 57.7%
#2 Decided to support other causes 51.3%
#3 Too frequent solicitation 42.3%
#4 Mission no longer relevant 19.7%
#5 Organization not fulfilling mission 18.7%
(multiple answers were allowed)
Now assuming you are continuing to fulfill your mission, I would suggest that if you take care of #1 and #3 you can decrease your donor/annual member defection rates dramatically.
Obviously it's a tricky thing when donors say they don't feel connected but in the same breath say they are solicited too much. Step back a second though, and you can understand their point. We all have someone in our lives that we only hear from when they need something. It makes you dread getting phone call or email from them.
Your donors agreed to support your organization because they like what you do, support your mission and want to hear more about it. They want to know about your exhibitions, come to your performances, see your lectures and presentations. Sure, they understand you'll be asking them for money again, but if the only time they hear from you is when you want something, they'll start dreading you as well. Worse, they'll find somewhere else to spend their time and money with.
A friend that's a fine fundraiser told me her golden rule was to always ask on the seventh touch. Follow that rule and it will give you six opportunities between every ask to build a personal connection. That's the very connection that could have kept the contributions flowing from the donors in the Center on Philanthropy's survey.
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