Probably the best way to be a better fundraiser is to think of your donors as heroes — and to treat them as such.
Here are some hints from re:charity on how to do that, at 7 Ways To Be A Hero Donor Fundraiser:
- Write and design for donors
- Tell stories
- Inspire, don’t educate, your donors
- Offer choices
- Acknowledge and thank in meaningful ways
- Close the loop
- Create a great giving experience
Let me add a couple more that might surprise you:
- Respect them enough to ask with urgency. Don’t water down the importance of the need until the act of giving no longer seems important.
- Communicate with them often enough that you are part of their lives. If you think you’re doing donors a favor by going silent on them, you don’t understand why they’re donors.
Jeff 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.
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