‘Tis the season…for connection
Photo by Irina Vodneva/iStock / Getty Images
I joined the fundraising profession at the height of a heated debate: Is fundraising sales?
Facing insolvency and decline, many nonprofits had shifted decidedly toward a sales-oriented approach, recruiting leaders from the commercial sector. Nonprofit and fundraising veterans pushed back, fearing the shift would ultimately cost our identity—and purpose. Today, the conversation continues, but thriving nonprofits have demonstrated that transformative results become possible when we combine the best of sales and the best of traditional fundraising.
If you’ve ever worked with Aperio, you’ll know that our model takes just that approach, integrating the intentionality and rigor of sales and the heart and authenticity of traditional fundraising.
As we head into this holiday season unlike any other, we’re seeing the power of that approach. When we combine intentionality and rigor with heart and authenticity, the result is connection—at scale. And not just connection with one or two donors, or surface connections, but real connection with a broad community.
With just a few weeks left in 2020 (phew!), now is the time to set intentions so that you can hold yourself accountable and spread the ‘heart’ of your mission and work with as many people as possible.
Take a few minutes today to make a plan—that you will stick to between now and the end of the year.
How will you connect with your community?
How will you connect with your donors?
How will you connect with your colleagues?
Connect with your community
The biggest difference between sales and fundraising is that in fundraising, we are ‘selling’ an idea—a vision for change, hope, or beauty we would like to see in the world. Effective fundraisers bring that vision to life for donor and inspires them to be part of it. To do that, fundraisers must believe the vision; more importantly, the vision must become part of who they are, moving them on a gut level.
Representing a vision, and the community behind it, is a great responsibility. We must listen first, openly and humbly. We must learn to centering the community we serve at every step, learning to tell the story of our community in authentic and empowering ways. And we must continually invest time and energy into curiously learning more—not about facts and figures, but about the driving hopes, motivations, and ideas that fuel our community.
In the holiday rush, it’s easy to retreat into our usual appeals and taglines and message maps. Those are useful tools.
It’s also critical to make space to connect back to the why behind your work. Make a plan of connecting with your community in the next six weeks—yes right in the heart of peak fundraising season. Maybe it’s a volunteer opportunity. Maybe it’s a conversation with a stakeholder, like a scientist, a patient, a musician, a community volunteer, a service recipient… Get it on your calendar. And get ready to listen.
Connect with your donors
I recently wrote that one of the common—and costly—year-end fundraising mistakes is spending too much time writing and worrying about appeals and not enough time actually talking to donors.
At the end of the day, donors don’t give because of the persuasiveness or artistic quality of your appeals. They give because of their emotional connection with your mission and the community around it. The most effective and meaningful way to build that connection is through good, old-fashioned human-to-human conversation.
And this year, it’s important to remember that donors are people too. Like the rest of us, they are craving conversation, interaction, and purposes. Fundraisers are reporting that supporters remain more open than ever to email conversations, phone calls, and virtual meetings.
This is where the intentionality of sales comes in. Conversations with active, loyal supporters are great. But unless we set stretch metrics, concrete outreach plans, and a rigorous pace, we will run out of time to reach a broad list of supporters.
Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Here are our recommended metrics for now through the end of the year for anyone in a full-time fundraising role.
Now, make your plan:
Block out the time
Make a list of projects and tasks that will wait until January
Communicate your intentions with your leaders and your colleagues, explaining why it matters that you follow-through on your intentions
Make your list of people to focus on, combining typical year-end donors, lapsed donors, recent donors (including to events and direct response)
Spend the remaining time this/next week to request all of the meetings you want to have by year-end
Finally, make a list of questions that you will ask the people you speak with that will help you connect to them. Keep them open-ended:
This has been a challenging year for everyone. How have you and your family had to adapt? How are you feeling about the coming year?
I want to thank you for your loyal support. Share with me what has inspired your involvement with our organization?
What impact do you see COVID/crisis having on our work?
How are you thinking about your philanthropy in this new landscape?
Connect with colleagues
Building connection at the pace outlined above is tough work—not because the work is particularly difficult, but because it requires a lot of courage:
The courage to make a big list
The courage to say no to distractions
The courage to disappoint people
The courage to pick up the phone, not knowing what is to come
The courage to be vulnerable with a near- or complete stranger
The courage to represent your community
The courage to talk about sensitive issues
The courage to openly talk about money
The courage to do it all again after you get ghosted, or a no
…
To stay brave and to stay healthy while spending so much time out of your comfort zone, you will need your tribe. Who are those fundraisers in and beyond your organization who understand what you are going through, support you no matter what, celebrate successes with you, and help you bless and release failures?
Take time today to coordinate calendars with them. Despite how busy you all are, now is the season when you need each other more than ever. Make a plan so that it doesn’t fall off your list of priorities. (Feeling alone? Don’t hesitate to use this community of fearless fundraisers as a resource. Feel free to book a free session with us anytime, or join one of our upcoming small-group, conversational events.)
Connection can feel like an ephemeral goal, but as fundraisers, we all know it when we see it. And the great news it, with intentionality and rigor, we can create opportunities for it, putting ourselves in the driver’s seat of our fundraising programs. The more and more real interactions we have, the more connections we will experience—and the more opportunities we will uncover for lasting, meaningful partnerships with supporters of our mission.
Don’t wait another minute to make your plan and get going. ‘Tis the season!