Month: December 2013

Christmas challenge – the answers

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So Christmas is over. And if you spent it wondering what the answers were for the challenge then apologies. As one of 10’s of thousands of people who had 48 hours with no power and no phone signal until Christmas Day evening, I couldn’t get the answers out.

But I hope you all had a fantastic day, and now I can put you out of your misery.

The 10 worst Christmas songs ever are…

Christmas In Blobbyland
OK, the easy one. Everyone got this. I couldn’t find the lyrics anywhere online so I listened to it over and over on Youtube writing down the lyrics as it played. A horrible way to spend an afternoon.

All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
Another easy one.

Mistletoe and Wine
We’re spoilt for choice with Cliff Richard songs, but I limited myself to one to stay on the right side of my wife’s mum – the world’s biggest Cliff fan. (She’s never forgiven me missing Cliff sing on a rainy day at Wimbledon when, instead of being in my Centre Court seats, I was in the bar.)

Feed the World / Do They Know It’s Christmas?
How can a fundraiser hate the song that changed the way music can raise money? One, it kept Wham! (Last Christmas) off the number one spot. Two, I just don’t like it!

White Christmas
A classic, but I’ve heard it too many times. And what’s with the whistling in the middle?

All I Want for Christmas Is You
Last year I put this in my top 10 songs as, although it’s sung by Mariah Carey, it’s a great pop song. This year it’s in my worst 10 as, although it’s a great pop song, it’s sung by Mariah Carey! Harsh, but true.

Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy
This also made my favourite 10 last year. As I put my worst 10 list together a few weeks ago, I decided I didn’t like it. And a few weeks later I think I do. I can’t make up my mind, but well done on everyone getting it right!

Walking in the Air
The Snowman. It’s beautiful, but I’m afraid I just never really got it.

Do You Hear What I Hear?
The tricky one. My teenage daughter, with the help of Google, was the only person to get this right.

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
Mel Smith was a fantastic comedian, and sadly died too young this year. I’m sorry to say this wasn’t his finest hour. Another charity record (Comic Relief) record condemned! Funky pie, anyone?

Actually, in researching this list I discovered many truly dreadful songs that I’d never even heard of before: John Denver with the wise words, “Please Daddy (Don’t get drunk this Christmas)”; Elmo and Patsy singing “Granny Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and other contributions by The Cheeky Girls, Crazy Frog and Alvin and the Chipmunks. They almost make Mr Blobby sound OK.

Thank you so much for everyone who entered, and for all the comments and fun that was had. A donation for £200 is on its way to Sofii.

And massive congratulations to everyone who got 8 out of 10 as you had the highest scores (except my daughter who spent far too long on it and cheated, so is disqualified!) The first to be selected at random from these people was Duncan Batty, Head of Fundraising & Development at Sheffield Hospitals Charity who now has £50 to give to the charity of his choice.

Well done Duncan!

So that’s it for another year. But don’t worry, I’m already thinking of something fiendish for Christmas 2014!

Loyalty driver 1: Personal connection pt 1

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Building donor loyalty is, I believe, one of the most pressing challenges our sector faces. As the cost of finding new donors gets higher and higher, it is about time we did something about the shockingly low retention rates that we all have.

And if we’re serious about growing retention then we have to grow donor loyalty. But how do we do this? How do we change the way they feel about us to create that “feeling of support or allegiance” (as loyalty is defined)?

We know a lot about the drivers of loyalty and in this, my first post in a series looking at these drivers, I’m focussing on arguably the most important of these (at least for some charities) personal connection.

We know that often people give to you because of something that has happened in the donor’s life which means that your cause or your charity is particularly important to them. It’s why people give to their local air ambulance or the university they went to or the hospital where their daughter was treated; it’s why people who have lost someone they loved to cancer give to cancer research charities; it’s why older people tend to give to elderly charities and why Christians give to Christian charities. The experience has created an affinity.

If these are your donors then you have a huge responsibility to them. You have a cause that is very important to them and you will be talking to them about issues that will often be very personal. And, at the same time, you want to develop their support and giving over time.

But how do we do this? Here are seven points to help you to nurture these important donors and grow their loyalty to you:

1. Remember that every donor’s personal connection is unique

Don’t make assumptions. A donor’s connection may be with the cause (e.g. cancer), the organisation that they received support from (e.g. Macmillan) or maybe the individual part of the organisation they received support from (e.g. the nurse or a ward). The person with the experience may be the donor themselves or a loved one and the outcome could be extremely happy or desperately sad.

Everyone’s connection is unique to them because everyone’s experience is unique to them.Perhaps most importantly, everyone’s emotional response is also unique to them.

2. It’s not about you, it’s about the donor

It isn’t for you to tell these donors why they should support you – they have their own reasons. Prompt by all means, but remember that encouraging someone to think about why they support your work is far more powerful than telling them why they should.

3. Remind them why they give to you

If they have told you why they give then talk to them about this. Many Livability donors (a Christian disability charity) have told the charity that they give because of their Christian beliefs. And Livability mentions this in appeals because it increases response.

If they haven’t told you, create tools to enable them to think about it themselves. This could include writing down their story, either to share it as many do or to put in a private place and to look at in special moments (as Cancer Research UK did when people decided to leave them a legacy – the note sits with their will and will be a reminder should they ever look to re-write the will).

4. Use the sense of community

Bringing people together and creating a sense of belonging is incredibly powerful when people have a shared experience. Membership is obviously a fantastic tool for this but there are many other ways as well.

If the community doesn’t yet exist then create it yourself. When Addenbrooke’s Hospital launched an appeal to raise money for the Rosie (their maternity hospital) they created the Rosie Born facebook group. Anyone who had been born at the Rosie could join. And much of their fundraising was run from this group.

5. Make the donor feel needed

The number of people with this connection may be small and exclusive so you need to tell those donors who give to you just how important they are to both you and the cause. In research with lapsed donors I often hear the phrase, “I didn’t think they needed me anymore.” You have the chance to make your donors know just how needed (and how special) they are.

6. Let this drive your recruitment

I know we’re talking about retention, but part of this is about bringing in the right people in the first place.

Not everyone is going to give to you so don’t try to reach everyone. If you can target according to the personal connection (e.g. by location) then do. If you can’t then make sure that you are still writing for the connected audience – let those people who do have the relevant experience self-identify themselves to you.

7. Add emotion to the experience

Emotion is essential in fundraising. You can successfully fundraise by understanding the donor’s emotional reasons for giving even if there is no experiential connection, but you won’t be successful if you use their experience without understanding the emotions involved.

Personal experiences create a complex mix of emotions. People give to their former university because of pride and because of gratitude; in research I ran for Friends of the Elderly earlier this year I heard people talking about giving to elderly charities because they felt guilty about their own parents and grandparents; people give because of a sense of fear of what might happen when they get older; they might give because of the memory of someone they loved; they give in celebration of being given the all clear (and, again, from gratitude); and, of course, they give through sadness, or an angry determination that no one else should go through what they have.

In conclusion…
You have an immense responsibility in nurturing these donors’ giving. But if you do this in a way that allows the donor to feel that you are there to help them achieve something important to them then you will be as important to them as they are to you… they will feel tremendous loyalty to you… and they will stay giving to you for many years to come.

This is the first in a series of posts looking at the different drivers of loyalty. If you haven’t done so already, do please sign up in the top right corner to make sure you receive them all.

Christmas wishes and a Christmas challenge

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I’d like to wish everyone who reads this blog a very happy Christmas, and a successful start to 2014

Merry Christmas 2013

Once again I’m not sending Christmas cards – instead I am donating money to SOFII. And once again, how much I give will be up to you.

Yes, my Christmas Challenge is back again this year! You may recall that last year I asked you to work out my favourite 10 Christmas songs of all time. This year, can you work out the worst 10 Christmas songs ever?

My card (above – click on it to see a larger version) is a word cloud of the lyrics from the 10 songs that I think are the worst Christmas songs ever recorded. If you think you can work out which 10 I have selected, email me your guesses.

For every entry I receive I will donate £1 to SOFII*. And at midday on Christmas Eve I will draw, at random, one entry from those that have got all 10 right (or those nearest if, like last year, no-one manages it) and they will win a £50 donation for the charity of their choice.

Good luck with the challenge. And please do pass this on to colleagues and friends to increase their chances of winning too.

With very best wishes for Christmas and the new year.

Roger

PS For those of you that don’t get all 10, I will blog the answers on Christmas Eve.

* I have chosen SOFII again this year as they provide an invaluable resource to all us fundraisers. Our job is to inspire donors and SOFII makes this a little easier for all of us. Much as I love them, I need to limit my donation to them to £200, but please do enter to make sure we get there.

Our 3 top priorities: retention, retention, retention!

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Apparently retention is the new acquisition. All I can say is it’s about time too!

The 2013 Fundraising Effectiveness Report (download here) found that for every 100 donors gained by the sector in 2012, we lost 105. In any commercial setting a company that was losing more customers than it was winning would be shut down.

OK, that’s a US figure, but it’s not going to be very different in the UK.

Perhaps the worst thing is that we’ve come to think that the high cost of acquisition, low retention rates and long payback periods are acceptable. As long as it pays in the end, all is OK.

Our answer to fixing retention is to think about the mechanics. “If only we can get them onto Direct Debit” we cry, so we send them more and more DD asks. Or a strategy of, “Surely they’ll give more often if we send them more appeals” leads to more and more appeals, regardless of the quality.

Of course both these strategies work. A donor paying by Direct Debit will give more and for longer than one that isn’t. And by sending out more appeals you’ll generate more donations. For all I’m about to say, don’t forget the basics.

But there is something missing from this. Research shows that even satisfied donors lapse. They simply decide that they will support another organisation without you ever having done anything wrong.

The issue is loyalty. Loyalty not defined as whether someone gives again, but defined as how they feel about you. My favourite definition is ‘a strong feeling of support or allegiance.’

Read that again. Strong feeling… support… allegiance!

We need to change the way we think about donors. We concentrate too much on how much money they will give us before the financial year ends and not enough on how we are making the donor feel. We are excellent at measuring the effectiveness of our campaigns but we don’t measure the long term impact.

From the comments I had after my talk with Nick Mason at this year’s IOF Convention, I struck a chord with many people. All I did was exhort people to measure the donor not the activity. To really understand not just the response rate to a campaign, but the impact that the campaign will have on the donor and their long-term giving. On their loyalty!

Understanding the drivers of loyalty is key to creating a communications programme that grows loyalty and therefore value to the charity. I’ve been looking at this a lot recently. No-one has done more about this in our sector than Adrian Sargeant, and there is some fascinating and valuable research from the commercial sector too.

Personal connection is vital, as is what Adrian Sargeant calls identification (whether the charity shares my goals or values). Research we ran at Cascaid showed the increasing importance of giving a donor a sense of belonging and there is the growing issue of offering a donor social capital or status.

The list goes on. What’s important for one donor will be different for another. What’s important for one charity will be different for another.

Retention of our donors is the most important issue that we face as a sector and building donor loyalty is the most important aspect of that. Over the next few weeks I am going to share my findings of what the drivers of loyalty are and show some of the best examples of how charities are tapping into this knowledge to build their donors’ loyalty. There are some brilliant examples.

Watch this space. And if you haven’t signed up then please do to make sure you get them all.