Building Meaningful Relationships Online By Being Quiet

By David Lawson
Too many nonprofits make the mistake of one-way communication in their online relationships with constituents. An email blast here, an e-newsletter there and constituents will become more engaged, right?

The answer is: yes and no. Supporters will certainly become more familiar and aware of your organization's mission and successes. But, what are you learning about them? The key to developing truly meaningful relationships online is to "listen" carefully to what constituents are -- or aren't -- telling you.

A 2006 Choice Stream survey found that 57 percent of consumers indicated willingness to provide demographic data in exchange for personalized content, which is a 24 percent increase from 2005. This data indicates you must reengineer your processes to accommodate this new consumerism. Specifically, this means providing mechanisms for supporters to deliver feedback and then, not only remember the feedback, but be able to take action. In addition, processes must be reengineered to eliminate the internal barriers that obstruct relationship-building activities.

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Developing and executing a clear constituent relationship strategy will be increasingly critical to determine which supporters you plan to attract, retain and cultivate. And, it's a balance of technology and process that's necessary to drive the constituent relationship.

The world we give in dictates the technology choices you need to be making. For example, the world is always "on," interactions and expectations are driven by donors, and people expect greater accountability. Take, for example, the Amazon.com experience. Every time you log in, Amazon has made recommendations that are waiting for you based on past purchases or preferences. The recommendations might be for DVDs, CDs, magazines, even if you've only previously ordered books.

What if you were to harness the power of this technology to not only feed supporters the specific information they've requested, but provide recommendations for additional information, resources and campaigns that they might be interested in as well? Nonprofits can use integrated social CRM systems to capture and store supporter data and preferences in their database, provide personalized, relevant content back, and use predictive analytics to offer additional content recommendations.

It's critical, however, not to silo the data, that is, to keep supporter information in database silos within single departments. Data shared across departments, such as direct response, events, communications, major/planned gifts, and program services, can evolve into a larger, more complete profile of a constituent.

If you have an effective Web program, you are acquiring valuable data on a daily basis. But, what are the true interests of your donors and prospects? What is the right "ask" amount for each constituent? Technology can prioritize your prospects based on their affinity and ability to give, but centralized, shared data provides the most complete picture with which to accomplish this.

Let's take the example of Jane Smith, a constituent of a healthcare organization. Using its own department database, the events team knows that Jane participated in last year's Walk-a-thon -- and that's it. But if they had shared data with the Web team, they'd also know that she signed up for an e-newsletter and took an online quiz about "Steps to a Healthy Life" This is beginning to show a much more engaged supporter than simply a participant in one event.

In fact, if the events team had also shared data with the advocacy group, they would also know that Jane had advocated online for recent legislation. And if this information had all been combined with the data the development department had about Jane -- that she was the married CEO of a major company with two daughters, born in 1952 and has a father with the disease -- each department could greatly benefit from the more complete picture.

Imagine the possibilities that a Baby Boomer CEO with an active, engaged interest in the organization would pose for your nonprofit. Each organization has the power to use technology to "listen" to what constituents are telling them -- but it's up to you to capture, store and importantly, share the information so that your nonprofit benefits from a complete constituent picture.

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David Lawson is vice president of market strategy for Kintera in San Diego. His email is dlawson@kintera.com

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