8 steps to success for fundraisers

From the Better Fundraising Blog, here are eight foundations (plus my comments) for success in fundraising:

1. Communicate with your donors regularly. When you go silent for weeks or months at a time, you fade from donors’ awareness. You lose them. A lot of fundraisers worry about too much communication. Most of us should be worried about too little communication.
2. Focus more on improving the metrics that matter most, like “net revenue” and “retention rate,” and focus less on metrics like “likes” and “awareness.” Those vanity metrics that don’t lead directly to revenue are a waste of time and money.
3. Infuse your individual donor communications with emotion. People don’t give because you have the best argument for giving. They give when their hearts are moved by the story you tell.
4. You have to Ask, you have to Thank, and you have to Report. Fundraising is a relationship, not just a series of transactions.
5. Create as many fundraising assets as you can, and fewer fundraising art projects. Effective fundraising rarely looks beautiful and sophisticated.
6. Use language your donors understand immediately. Be aware of your internal jargon and purge it from donor communications. People don’t have the time or energy to learn to speak your language.
7. Major Donor Management systems work better than ad-hoc approaches. Anything you want to succeed at needs a system with metrics. And major donor fundraising is one of the most critical parts of a functioning fundraising program.
8. Build a donor pipeline. Have steps and benchmarks for everyone from “email list subscribers” to legacy givers. It should be easy and attractive for every donor and “name” you have to increase their connection and giving. That’s what fundraising is all about.