Think Like a Donor and Tweet Often

As I’ve been discussing, fundraising is the lifeblood of a nonprofit. There are a host of elaborate strategies that can help an NGO launch a successful fundraising campaign. There are also simple ones as well. One of them that I read about recently suggests that NGOs merely think like a donor.

Rachel Muir, CFRE & vice president of Training at Pursuant, wrote: “The hardest thing to do in fundraising is think like a donor. Let’s face it; thinking like other people is just plain difficult. This may be why most marriages end in divorce. Or why teenagers feel so woefully misunderstood. Yet, getting this one thing right has the greatest power to unleash your donor’s generosity towards your cause. Why is it so hard to think like a donor? How do we stray off course and lose our way? It’s easy. We get sidetracked with all the great things we want to tell our donors and we forget that the heart of our communication should be the exact opposite: it should be about the great work our donors have done.”

She suggests the following points to thinking like a donor when preparing to approach an organization or individual for financial support:

1. Remember what it’s like to be a donor.  

2. Treat your communications like a mirror you hold up in front of your donor.  

3. Embrace your emotional (right-brained) side.  

4. Consider the questions they are asking themselves when they get your appeal.

5. Give them a problem to solve.

When fundraising, your attitude can make or break the attempt. A warm and fuzzy appeal can win the day.

I’ve been urging nonprofits and small businesses to seriously consider launching a Twitter campaign to push your marketing and outreach campaigns. Evidence abounds that it will only benefit you. However, you should take into consideration the following point about tweeting. Undoubtedly, you may want to make the widest affect with your tweet but there is a good chance that the desired eyes may not see it. Yes, the receiver may scrawl to find as many tweets as possible but that’s not enough. You have to take advantage of Twitter to outreach by taking advantage of the entire Twitter system. We live in a large village despite two dozen time zones around the globe. It’s quite likely that someone who you want to reach may be asleep or not on line. Therefore it’s a wise tactic to tweet the same information several times a day to increase the chances that you’ll catch the attention of readers with your information. Four times a day in the course of a couple of days is a workable solution. But because Twitter oftentimes does not allow you to retweet the same content, you will have to be a clever wordsmith to get your information into twittersphere.

Contact me for more ideas and guidance.