What are we going to do?
Much has been written about the challenge facing
fundraising: about regulation, permission, respect, putting the supporter at
the heart of fundraising strategies, building a new kind of supporter
relationship.
As if it was not already hard enough to raise funds to
support charities’ programmes, fundraisers can expect a new regulator, new
regulations, increased scrutiny, more empowered supporters. But the question
that remains unanswered, despite all the words that have been written on the
subject, is: how can charities respond to the challenge of the new fundraising
world? In real, practical terms, what are we going to do?
Chasing numbers
The problem is that we’ve grown accustomed to chasing
numbers. We’re driven by volumes, ROI, retention rates and average value. The
vision of a better world, and the mantra that our causes are best served by
putting the supporter at the heart of our strategies, can become obscured by
the stark figures on the monthly report. We have to chase the numbers, don’t
we?
“Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which money is
only one - and not necessarily the primary one. Yes, they seek profits, but
they’re equally guided by a core ideology - core values and sense of purpose
beyond just making money. Yet paradoxically, the visionary companies make more
money than the purely profit driven companies”
Built to last:
successful habits of visionary companies: Collins & Porras
In his
book: ‘Obliquity: why our goals are best
achieved indirectly’, economist John Kay quotes many examples of companies
that succeeded because they focused on their core purpose - making the best
aeroplanes, medicines, computers - and of companies that failed because they
chased the numbers: profit, shareholder value.
Of
course, our ‘making money’ is ‘raising money’. So does this suggest that we
should no longer focus on raising money? And if that were to be the case, what
should we focus on?
The
vision and the mechanics
Of
course no-one would deny that fundraisers’ ultimate purpose is to raise money.
But perhaps raising money - sustainably increasing supporter value in the long
term - is best achieved indirectly.
Ask
anyone who works for a charity to describe the organisation’s purpose, its
values and why it is important, and there’s a good chance they would give a
compelling, passionate and authentic account. But put them in front of the
tools of their trade and the transaction takes over: processing a donation, writing
a campaign brief, signing off a script.
As
fundraisers, our equivalent of ‘the best aeroplanes and medicines’ is ‘the best
supporter relationships’. To define that in a way that differentiates one
charity from another, we have to look behind the mechanics of targeting,
contact strategy and supporter care, important though they are, and explore how
each organisation’s values are reflected in the supporter experiences that it
creates.
What’s
the point of values?
At the
recent Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs parliamentary select
committee hearing, fundraising chief executives acknowledged that their
organisations’ values had not always been reflected in their fundraising
practices.
The
question that all fundraising leaders must answer is: how can we address this
challenge in a way that will be meaningful for supporters?
You
can take tactical steps such as reviewing communications and equipping people
to tell stories in supporter care encounters, but you need to go further,
creating a strategy and structure that drives behaviours that reflect your values.
So
what can we do?
There
are two priorities:
Authenticity: find ways of expressing your
charity’s values through every contact with your supporters, in a way that
feels natural to the organisation and the supporter. And ensure that you do
this consistently, through every proactive communication and every responsive
encounter.
The best supporter relationships: make
a long term commitment to creating the best supporter relationships as the
first priority, above every other demand that the organisation makes of its
fundraisers.
How
can you achieve this? There are a number of things you can do. You can define
how your charity’s brand values should be reflected in fundraising
communications and contacts. You can review all of your communications and
touchpoints, to question how well they tell your compelling story. You can
redefine supporter journeys in the context of the ‘best supporter relationship’
priority. You can revise your KPIs, so that you measure authenticity, brand
consistency and relationship quality, and not just financial targets.
There
is no single solution to the challenge: there are many steps you must take. It is
a major commitment: to change the way you define success; to believe that this
will lead to better outcomes for the supporter, the organisation and its
beneficiaries; to devise and implement practical changes.
But today
the need for action, not just words, has never been greater.
