Why It’s Okay When Not Everyone Likes You 3438

Why It’s Okay When Not Everyone Likes You

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My good friend and well-known planned giving expert Nathan Stelter wrote a blog with this title recently; reminding us that our nonprofit organization can’t be all things to all people.  He said “In the end, understanding that frees you to be everything to those who “like you for who you are” (your mission) and earnestly want to “help you do good things in life” (your programming and services). The key then is to focus on building a stronger web of support among those groups.”
 


The conversation Nathan started is a good one and I couldn’t help but apply it to the variety of ways that our dedicated team at Target Analytics can make his suggestions easy to do.  If you’re thinking about renewing or purchasing Target Analytics products, here are my thoughts on how to align them into Nathan’s action points.

Blog: Focus, my friends. Be bold and dig deep into your donor relationships instead of casting wider nets of more anonymous support. Initially, you might get better results, but those “quick hits” are likely quicker to fade. Real long-term success comes in patience and perseverance—developing substantive relationships that last a lifetime and even across generations.

If you want to focus on the best individuals throughout your prospect pyramid, I’d suggest that you make sure you’re communicating with records scored with our ProspectPoint® Annual Likelihood scores between 501 and 1000.  Our customized predictive modeling uses past giving behavior in combination with thousands of externally derived data points to predict future giving behavior.  We’ve used big data and advanced analytics to identify who you should target and how much those individuals are likely to contribute to your organization.  Within these scores are sub-groups of donors, lapsed donors and non-donors so that you can better craft your messages to each specific group.  You don’t have to guess where your focus should go.

Blog: One for one. Remember, donors also have diapers to change, mouths to feed, college to pay for, retirement to fund—life’s concerns, just like us—and our nonprofits. Do we forget that on occasion? Continually step into their shoes to get to their giving motivations—what drives their capacity to care; see things from their perspective, not simply as part of your objective.

Target Analytics Affluence places each person in your database into a unique Donor Group and provides insights into their wealth and giving habits.  Using our proprietary consumer and analytic data we identify both the wealth AND philanthropic patterns of each person providing back a detailed description of income, net worth, discretionary spending dollars and asset investments.  We continue to guide you in understanding more deeply who you should solicit for annual vs. major gifts because you can now differentiate who is wealthy AND philanthropic from those that are wealthy but NOTphilanthropic.  If you’ve already got Affluence codes step into the shoes of your Philanthropists and Humanitarians one for one as you garner insight from their perspective.

Blog: Think of donor “conversations” as engaging, not targeting. “Target” implies one-way direction—you/the organization targeting them. Foster a more meaningful dialogue and relationship built on common cause, purpose and commitment, and it will surely be able to withstand the ebb and flow of evolving times and circumstances.

When you know how people like to communicate you’ve got a better chance of starting a two-way dialogue.  I’m not phone oriented anymore and tend to prefer web-based and online communications these days.  I’m not the only one that feels this way and if you’ve purchased Target Analytics TAGS and Channel Indicators you can easily assess each person’s communication preferences.  Either as stand-alone products or as part of our Alumni Activation package, these preference codes are built by analyzing over 3 billion philanthropic transactions giving histories on 80 million households in the U.S.  Our data helps you gain insights to your prospects preferences in donation channel by analyzing recency of giving, frequency of giving, amounts of gifts and affinity to organizational missions and causes.  Your Target TAGS might have been divided into deciles or quintiles.  Either way those in the top groups are the most likely to respond by direct mail.  Your other channel indicators help you to know if that response is likely to be by web or phone instead.  Be sure to apply this information in concert with other products you’ve purchased so that you know you’re engaging TOP PROSPECTS with the right format. 

Blog: Talk in terms of impact, not output. Donors, prospects and supporters are less concerned with the how much than what you actually did with it. They want to know—and see—how their dollars helped make their communities healthier, safer and happier, or how it made a difference in the lives of their loved ones. Give them concrete success stories, filled with vivid details, and tie your gain back to a tangible benefit for them—not just your success.

If you’d like to know what types of causes or mission elements are important to your best donors, you don’t have to guess.  Target Analytics Affinity Ratings provide a ranking of everyone’s giving interest within each of these sectors. 
  • Arts, Cultural & Humanities
  • Education
  • Environmental
  • Animal Welfare & Related
  • Healthcare Treatment
  • Healthcare Research
  • Human Services
  • International & Foreign Affairs
  • Public & Societal Benefits
  • Religion Related
  • Disaster Relief
  • Other/Unknown
Mission messages and success stories can be aligned to what makes them tick and personal when you know your donors’ interest spectrum.  Customizing communications that relate to how their contributed dollars helped in specific affinity areas opens the door to one-on-one meetings and deeper conversations that easily flow.

I’m beginning my 10th year on the Target Analytics Professional Services team and I’m more excited about working with you than ever before because our partnership answers the question “Is it Okay When Not Everyone Likes Us?”   Let your consultant or account execuive know if you’re interested in learning more about any of the products I mentioned – we’d love to show you how they can take your fundraising to the next level!  
 

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4 Comments
Great post Katherine. Thank you for sharing and congratulations on ten years with the TA Professional Services Team.
"Foster a more meaningful dialogue and relationship built on common cause, purpose and commitment, and it will surely be able to withstand the ebb and flow of evolving times and circumstances." This is a great reminder about donor engagement. Thanks for the post, Katherine. 
Thanks Shannon!
 
Very good post, keep 'em coming, Katherine!

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