How To Kill Off Your Multi-Donors

By Herschell Gordon Lewis

Oh, how easy it is to ignore the multitude of insidious forces that build and reinforce donor cynicism.

No, the circumstance isn’t our fault. We’re guiltless and blameless. But also, yes, it is our fault for not recognizing how competing nonprofit organizations, not as psychology-savvy as we, have torn holes in the fabric of emotional acceptance.

I’m being wry. Like you, I’m both the originator of a great many fundraising messages and the recipient of a great many more. And the Barnum-like effect of so many appeals no longer is a surprise. It’s just an ongoing irritant.

Some of the venerable techniques we’ve taken for granted for two or three generations have run afoul of an attitudinal shift. Instead of enhancing response from multi-donors, these approaches push those most valuable of all allies away. I’ll risk the accusation of being branded both iconoclast and troublemaker by offering to 21st century fundraisers The Five Rules of Multi-donor Elimination Avoidance.

These rules aren’t absolute. After all, as the French writer Alexandre Dumas said so sagely, “All generalizations are false, including this one.” But they’re valid enough to warrant reporting, and you can observe them or ignore them as you like, based on your own confidence in your current approach and appeals.

The First Rule of Multi-donor Elimination Avoidance: Don’t congratulate multi-donors, except as participants in a program worthy of congratulations itself.

Part of this is the Web’s fault. Half the online scams use “Congratulations!” as a heading -- “Congratulations! Free Motorola Razr V3” … “Congratulations!

The Second Rule of Multi-donor Elimination Avoidance:Don’t use exclamation points. Why not? Because the very nature of an exclamation point transforms “information” to “sell.” A calm demeanor, in person or in print, is a confidence-builder. An excited demeanor, in person or in print, diminishes stature.

The Third Rule of Multi-donor Elimination Avoidance:An invitation should be from an individual, not from the organization at large. How is it that so many professional communicators who are implicitly aware of the distinct difference between “We” an “I” don’t employ that difference in one-to-one messaging? “I’m inviting you” has octane “We’re inviting you” can’t match.

The Fourth Rule of Multi-donor Elimination Avoidance:Sincerity trumps production. This rule can be the most valuable, financially as well as emotionally. It’s geared to a psychological truism: Skepticism and rejection increase in direct ratio to the distance you establish or maintain between you and the person you are trying to convince.

The Fifth Rule of Multi-donor Elimination Avoidance: If you repeat yourself in subsequent communications, begin by saying, “I know I’m repeating myself.” Why start this way? Because, if you don’t start this way you run another risk -- the recipient concluding that your appeal is impersonal and boiler-plate.

Oh, you think it’s assumptive and patronizing to treat prior donors as family? Maybe. But chances are 99 to one they don’t think it’s assumptive nor patronizing. Rather, they think they are family. They’ve shown loyalty. They’ve shown belief. They’ve shown sincerity. And, they’ve shown all these in the way it counts -- financial support.

So a question so primitive I’m semi-embarrassed to ask it: Would you begin a letter to a member of your family with “Dear Friend”?

The answer, so primitive I’m not in the least embarrassed to supply it: For the rest of your professional career, don’t start a letter to prior donors with “Dear Friend.” You’re pushing them away just at the moment you should have them hugging you.

Does that apply to cold lists? In my opinion, saying farewell altogether to “Dear Friend” wouldn’t be the least bit damaging. But if you’re crazy-glued to it, then apply it only to outsiders. If that means splitting a mailing into two segments, that’s a logical notion anyway, regardless of the greeting.

If you accept the concept that prior donors are your immediate family, all you have to do to be in sync with that notion is to mimic what you’d do relative to your relatives in any situation.

You’re getting married? You wouldn’t let your family find out by reading a notice in the paper. That certainly would diminish family values and eventual wedding gifts.

You’re moving? Would your family discover the move by having mail returned or by getting a frosty dispassionate change of address card?

You’ve been promoted? Would you mail family members a clipping from a trade publication without including a personal note?

The same rationale applies to your donor-family contacts. When making an announcement of import -- and deciding whether the announcement is one of import or not is a business decision -- what a donor-welding technique it is to send advance copies. You’d send to those you want to believe have made the announcement possible, if it’s a positive one; or who can prevent the consequences of a potentially downbeat situation, if the announcement is negative.

Budget permitting, this communication can be a news release to which you’ve added a stick-on note with the simple handwritten wording, “For your personal information,” plus either initials or the name of the individual mentioned as a source in the release.

The entire point: Warmth out pulls coolness.

Email is an increasingly popular way of reaching your family of donors.

Wonderful! It’s inexpensive, it’s quick, and it doesn’t carry the dangerous “Here they go again” baggage an abundance of mailings can engender.

But email is an even more competitive medium than direct mail, because all sources, commercial and noncommercial, are parallel. An email came to me from a nonprofit I’ve supported spasmodically for some years. The subject line: “I’ll bet you didn’t know this.”

Now, why did I find this objectionable?

We don’t always spend much time analyzing the “Why” of an email rejection. The “What” is sufficient to instigate a “Click! I’m outta here” reaction. On analysis, though, my negative reaction was the same as yours might be when a known source says, however obliquely, “Nyaah, nyaah, I know something you don’t know.”

I’m out of space. Maybe, reading this, you’re out of patience. Please, please, don’t shoot the messenger. Everyone reading this distinguished publication has the same worthy goal: increased organizational health. That may mean swallowing a pill or two, but sometimes a few pills can mean seeing a smiling, happy face when one looks at the mirror.