Here’s a killer strategy for increasing your gifts by up to 39%.

And what is the magic ingredient? It’s your board members, who else?

Can you possibly employ ONE FUNDRAISING STRATEGY and have it return up to a 39% increase in gifts?

Yes, it may sound impossible  – but it’s true.

Here’s your chance to put your board members to work where they won’t have to ask – all they have to do is thank.

This is one of my NO ASK fundraising strategies for board members. It’s a perfect place to put your board members who are nervous about soliciting to work.

I’ll be talking about this and several other NO ASK fundraising strategies for board members in my next webinar on Thursday May 13 “NO ASK Fundraising Strategies for Board Members.“

Be sure to join me when I’ll discuss lots of ways board members can support fundraising without ASKING. And bring your board members – it’s tailor-made for them! You can find out more and register here.

Here’s one of my favorite ways for board members to directly impact the bottom line: without soliciting:

THANK YOU CALLS TO DONORS

Try this test, and track your results. You’ll be amazed:

The next time you send out an appeal, employ your standard thank you processes – letters, personal notes, etc.

But select out a random group of donors for a special thank you treatment:

• Organize your board members to make thank you phone calls to these donors within 24 hours of the gift being received. It’s really important that they make the call within 24 hours of when your organization receives the gift.

• Have your board members talk to a real person if at all possible.

• After several tries, they can just leave a message that simply thanks the donor.

• The phone calls are NOT about asking for another gift. They are for stewardship only.

If your board members are adventurous, they can ask the donor why they chose to make this gift. They can pull out the donor’s story  – and the donor will be even more pleased and honored.

THEN, a few months later, send another solicitation out to all your donors – both the ones who received the extra thank you phone call and those who just received your regular thank yous.

And when repeat gifts come in, compare the results of both groups.

You’ll find, when all other things are equal, that the donors who received a prompt, personal thank you from a board member within 24 hours of the gift being received will give up to 37% more than the other group.

THE ORIGINAL RESEARCH FINDINGS

Fundraising pioneer Penelope Burk performed the original research that found these amazing results. She’s the originator of “Donor Centered Fundraising” a fundamental paradigm shift that changes the emphasis away from the organization’s needs and instead focuses on what the donor wants.

Penelope Burk shared these statistics on board member thank you calls at the AFP International Conference in Seattle back in 2004:

• Donors received a thank you phone call from a board member within 24 hours of receiving the gift.

• The next time they were solicited, they gave 39% more than the other donors who did not receive a call.

PITFALLS

I know several organizations who have tried to implement Thank You Calls to Donors but could not achieve board member buy-in for the project. They found that board members would say “sure, I’ll make some thank you phone calls.” But they failed.

Many of the board members were not prompt. They were lackadaisical.  They took assignments but didn’t follow through.

HERE’S HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN

1. Share the statistics with your board members about the amazing results that happen when they make prompt, personal thank you calls to donors. Be sure they understand the “why” of the project and the upside positive potential from making these calls promptly.

2. Have one board member take charge of the project and create a small committee to work with them. (Board members respond better to a request from a peer than they do to a request from a staffer.)

3. Make sure the committee members are all focused, committed, understand that prompt timing is essential, and are ready/willing to do this. (Don’t ask ALL board members to do this- only those who are willing to commit seriously.)

4. Make specific phone call assignments to each committee member. Don’t send out a whole list to the entire committee and hope that someone will make the calls.

5. Have each board member report back weekly on the results of their calls.

One organization I know had all the board members post their thank you call results on a shared Google document. That way each board member could see who was making their calls. Word had it that a competition took hold and each board member tried to outdo the others. The busiest person on the board – a busy lawyer – made sure his calls were as up to date – or more up to date – as all the others.

A TRUE SUCCESS STORY

I have to close with a story of my own:

When I was consulting with the Orange County Rape Crisis Center a few years ago, I dragged my boyfriend to their annual Fundraising Auction. It was on a Sunday night and wasn’t a big social event, but it was a nice, happy gathering.

I told my boyfriend, who had plenty of money, to bring his wallet because these were good people. I dragged him around deliberately, and pointed out items that I liked.

Well, bless his heart, he bought all this stuff that night.

Then the next day I was sitting in my office – it was about 1pm in the afternoon. And I got a call from my friend.

“Gail,” he said, “you won’t believe what has just happened!” He was clearly wrought up.

“What??” I replied anxiously.

“I’m speechless,” he said. “I just that minute got a phone call from a board member of the Rape Crisis Center thanking me for . . . for   . . .  for being the largest donor at the auction last night!!”

“I just can’t believe it!,” he gushed. “I’ve given money all over the country and I’ve NEVER gotten a call from a BOARD MEMBER!”

I could just feel him beaming all the way over the phone line. He was absolutely thrilled.

And the Rape Crisis Center had him forever at that point.

The next year, he was asking me, “Is the Rape Crisis Center having their auction this fall? I haven’t gotten an invitation yet?”

That year, he bought an entire table and hosted the president of the largest foundation in North Carolina at his table. I think the Rape Crisis Center has him for life now!

Try this tactic and see what your results are! And join me for my webinar next week: NO ASK Fundraising Strategies for Board Members.

Tell me what you think or what your experiences have been with Board Member Thank You Calls to Donors.

Donors are always carping on the whole issue of “overhead.” They act like it is a terrible thing that their funds would go into the black hole of “administration.”

BUT we need to take the bull by the horns and take charge of this discussion.

We have to educate our donors on the importance of investing – not only in direct program work on the ground – but also in the infrastructure of our organizations.

You have to explain to donors that infrastructure funding is really important too – it keeps the lights on, pays for staff and computer systems – so that the good work on the ground can happen.

I think when you explain this to donors, they do get it quickly, and then they are likely to be ok with the administrative costs. If you don’t explain it, and pitch it to them just right, then you just might get in trouble with your donors.

I’d like to see a pitch for “infrastructure” right along with the pitch for “direct program funding.” We should never apologize for our overhead costs. Instead let’s re-define the words “overhead costs” into “investing in infrastructure.”
This is a proactive and proud term we can all stand by!

A friend and client sent me this email last week:

“I am a development director so am particularly sensitive to these things, but I have to say I was appalled yesterday to received a long typed thank you yesterday for a small donation I gave 10 weeks ago at a fundraising breakfast.

“I went to the breakfast at the behest of two friends who serve on the board of directors.  I also know another board member and the executive director, who gave a fabulous short speech at the event.

“The event was packed with enthusiastic people.  All was done just right, except for the follow-up.

“Why not have thank you envelopes pre-addressed ahead of time so the table captains can quickly jot a note after the event?

“Why not call everybody who attended, say thank you, what did you learn, and how would you like to get involved?

“My donation was miniscule.  What these people don’t know about me, however, is that if I don’t spend it all ahead of time I stand to inherit a nice chunk of change in the next couple of decades.

“They don’t need to spend a lot of time thanking me, but an impersonal 10 weeks later is abysmal.

What can we learn from this? So many of us are using “ask events” successfully. These types of events are becoming more and more frequent. They can be wonderful fundraising tools.

But a 10-week old thank you? This is how to drive your donors away – and FAST!

Just think of all the work that went in to the ask event. And how little work went into the followup.  Isn’t that like so much of what we do in fundraising?

It’s the week of Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and we are counting our blessings. As you consider what you are thankful for, perhaps you might remember your DONORS – the wonderful people who make the work of your organization possible.

I think most of us fundraisers take our donors for granted. And I think many board members and non-development staff members also feel this way.

I am doing a feasibility study for a capital campaign here in North Carolina, and I ran across a blatant example today. I was interviewing a donor who had made a major gift to the organization’s previous capital campaign. And the donor never felt adequately thanked.

He was invited to the groundbreaking with the other major donors. And he saw his name on the donor board in the lobby of the building that he contributed to. And he received a thank you letter.

But he also saw all the whoopla being made over a bank’s gift to the project. The organization made lots of fuss over some donors and none over other donors, including him.

And he felt sorta neglected.  Can you imagine that a major donor might feel neglected?  In fundraising, we consider this almost a crime.  But I bet it happens more often than not.

What happened in this case?

You guessed it: there was turnover among the development office staff. The vital link of knowledge and consistency was broken. And when the staff left, the relationship with the donor walked out the door too.  The new staff had other priorities . . . and the donor was left out in the cold.

During this season, please remember your donors – particularly your major donors. Go back to them and thank them for all they have done to make your organization successful.

How about thanking your organization’s founders?

How about all the donors to your last capital campaign?

How about former board members?

Hint: these folks are probably major donor prospects, aren’t they? So it is reasonable to invest some of your time thanking them.

Remember thanking donors is the first step to preparing them for the next solicitation.

When in doubt, love your donors!

Continuing in my theme of “count your blessings,” I’m encouraging everyone to consider their wonderful donors as great blessings to the cause.

Donor: “How do I thank thee? Let me count the ways.”

When I started in fundraising at Duke University, we had a great saying: “Find seven ways to thank your donors and they will give again!” And another saying was: “Hopefully the first gift is not the last or the largest!”

The Benevon newsletter for this week had a great “how-to” article on donor thankathons:

With Thanksgiving upon us here in the U.S., now is the perfect time to call your donors just to say “thank you.”

Start by making your list of who you will call. Consider how many donors you have had in the last year. Choose a dollar threshold over which you will call. For example, start with all donors who have given you over $1,000, then move to all those who gave between $500 and $999.

Put together your core team of three to five callers, made up of people of some stature within your organization. Ideally, these will be board members and volunteers who enjoy talking with people and are well organized. If you put staff members on the team, there should be no more than one staff caller for every three volunteer callers. One of the staff callers should be the executive director. Do not “require” that anyone be a caller; rather, you want to have callers who choose to participate and will enjoy doing it.

Either bring them all together for an evening of eggnog and cookies, or dole out the lists and have them call from home or office. Daytime calls and leaving messages are fine.

The script goes something like this:

“Hello, may I please speak to _________? My name is ___________, I’m on the board of _________. I was just calling to say thank you for your support this year. It has allowed us to expand/maintain our ___________ programs. We’ve been able to offer our services to _____ more families/children in our community. Thank you.”

If the caller actually reaches a real person, they may chat a bit. The caller should be prepared with a few general facts, but needn’t feel they need to take a cram course before they’re qualified to get on the phone. They can always refer the question to a staff member for a call back.

What are you telling the donor with this call?

* We noticed you gave.
* Your gift to our organization mattered.
* We appreciate you.

That’s exactly what a donor needs to know to keep giving year after year.

Starting now—and throughout the holidays—remember to say thank you (by phone or in person) and let donors know what their gift allowed you to do.