Your donor relationships are not your brand

by guest blogger Andrew Rogers

One-to-one marketing exponent and DMA Hall of Famer Don Peppers of the Peppers & Rogers Group (no relation) has a post on LinkedIn (Brands Aren’t the Same as Customer Relationships) stressing the crucial difference between a corporate brand and the company’s actual relationship with its customers.

I’d recommend reading the whole thing, substituting organization for company and donor for customer. But here’s the key point:

If you want your [charity] to be [donor]-centric, you need to know how profound the difference is between how your brand works, and how a [donor] relationship works.”

A “brand” is about how an organization sees itself and its place in the market. A relationship is about how the donor sees herself, what motivates her, what she responds to, and how supporting the organization helps her fulfill her goals.

Both have their place. But a successful, sustainable, and responsible fundraising program has to be based on relationships, not just branding.