Future Fundraising Now

Four things you need to know about donors

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by

Jeff Brooks
in

From the Return Customer blog, a great post on what you need to know to be good at selling stuff: 4 Keys to Successful Customer-Centric Selling.

Here are those four keys, adjusted into our world of fundraising:


  1. What donors want. Not what you want.
  2. What donors need. Sometimes, we offer donors something they never knew they wanted to do until they saw it.
  3. Donors’ language. Our jargon is not persuasive. It’s usually not even comprehensible. Be sure to communicate the way donors understand.
  4. Donors’ fears. Probably the biggest fear of donors is that their gift will not do what they want it to do. They’re afraid we’re anything from con-artists stealing their donations to stumble-bums who try to get it right but fail. Help them believe otherwise.

    Comments

    4 responses to “Four things you need to know about donors”

    1. Event360 Avatar
      Event360

      Putting yourself in your donor’s shoes and framing your fundraising efforts from that perspective is essential to any successful campaign. Thanks for these simple, yet incredibly important, pointers.

    2. Event360 Avatar
      Event360

      Putting yourself in your donor’s shoes and framing your fundraising efforts from that perspective is essential to any successful campaign. Thanks for these simple, yet incredibly important, pointers.

    3. Joe Avatar
      Joe

      Thanks Jeff for mentioning my post on ReturnCustomer.com. I like how you apply the principles to donors. Whether a person is a customer or donor, they are still the center of our efforts (as a business or organization) and we can’t forget their perspective as we try to influence them to take action.

    4. Joe Avatar
      Joe

      Thanks Jeff for mentioning my post on ReturnCustomer.com. I like how you apply the principles to donors. Whether a person is a customer or donor, they are still the center of our efforts (as a business or organization) and we can’t forget their perspective as we try to influence them to take action.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    Jeff BrooksJeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    About the blogger

    Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.