Donor-Centric initiatives to consider implementing:

1. Develop a donor services department with trained professionals
2. Toll free number on everything
3. Extend hours as much as possible
4. Empower service representatives
5. Throw out “rules”
6. In-bound calls give the organization a much greater ability to build the two way relationship with the donor
7. Implement an ongoing donor service training program
8. Regular meetings and a branded philosophy that everyone can rally around
9. Make the donor reps as involved as possible; a little training and a lot of recognition/motivation goes a long way
10. Develop a donor task force committee that reports directly to the Executive Director or CEO.
11. Monthly meetings
12. Discuss positive and negative issues
13. Develop solutions to issues
14. In addition to direct mail accept phone calls, emails, faxes
15. Don’t rely on one response medium
16. Email and phone response have a 2-3 times larger average gift
17. Email and phone response helps develop a better relationship
18. Multi channel donors are more loyal and more likely to respond again
19. The more touch points you offer the more likely someone will respond 
20. Respect for donor and her intent; listen to the donor
21. Publish and honor a Donor Bill of Rights
22. Honor their request to be removed from marketing programs
23. Treat them with dignity, respect and charity
24. Develop an Annual Customer Satisfaction survey mailed to 5-10% of database
25. Score results and share results with the entire company – the good and the ba
26. Act on results! Listen to the customer
27. Develop ongoing surveys such as card selection, etc. let the donor be heard
28. Focus groups with donors
29. Develop an internal employee opinion survey as well…..
30. Focus on retention
31. Find, acquire, and retain only the best donors
32. Go out of your way to treat the better donors better…
33. Concern yourself with the relationship, not the transaction
34. Live the 80/20 rule.
35. Exceed industry (non-profit and for-profit) best practices
36. Model the organization after all types of organizations by looking beyond the non-profit arena. There is a great deal that can be learned by studying and adopting the best practices of the best companies in the world.

Why a Donor Centric philosophy?  The world has changed over the last several years. It just isn’t the world we grew up in and the game has changed – globally and domestically. Putting the donor at the center of everything we do is of critical importance. Their choices have increased, their expectations have increased, and their access to information about your nonprofit has increased. We can no longer treat our supporters as a number or worse as an ATM money machine. They need to know we care about them as a person and that we count on them not just for financial support but as true advocates of our cause.

The Customer is King!  Although this phrase was coined by John Wanamaker almost one hundred years ago very few organizations have been able to adopt it as a driving force. According to a study Accenture conducted in 2000, an entire organization must become obsessed with what the donor wants because there is a direct correlation between excellence in a company’s overall interaction with its customers and the overall financial performance of the company. Wow – that’s quite a statement. If we become obsessed with a donor and their involvement with us our financial performance increases.

When you’re operating in a commodity and/or extremely competitive industry, you have two choices. Either create a new/innovative product or service that takes you out of commodity/competitive status, or differentiate on service.

I propose that you differentiate your nonprofit based on exemplary service.

An overwhelming 90% of donors said that the criterion, “Your gift will be used effectively and efficiently” is very important to them. (Accountability). This is followed by the organization’s effectiveness overall (83%), its effective use of past gifts (81%), (Results). and its use of the gift to meet an identifiable need (78%). (Cause). (comments/statistics are from a Campbell Research Study)

We must realize that:

• We are totally reliant on the donor
•  Loyal donors are cultivated in an environment of open and honest communication
• The donor desires a two way relationship that is fruitful not a continuous barrage of direct mail packages
• The donor expects results for their money which means we have to inform them what we are doing with the funds we raise
• The donor must feel the organization is reliable and using the funds raised appropriately; that we are squeaky clean
• The donor wants to believe they “belong” to something meaningful; they must feel connected to you

Adopt a simple plan to create a donor-centric work place. The employees and donors are equally important to this strategy. It has been proven that loyalty to the company by both the donor and the employee make for a winning combination by increasing market share and profits.

1.        Internal customer – the organization must meet the needs and expectations of its employees; the employee in turn must understand and accept the donor-centric philosophy and accept the mission and values of the organization.

2.        External customer – meet the needs and expectations of our donors; we must understand and accept the donor’s needs and expectations. Listen, respect, and serve the donor. Employ an outside-in viewpoint. What is the donor’s perspective?

3.         Constant improvement – do what we did yesterday better today; develop a winning culture full of excitement, commitment to the cause, personal entrepreneurship and personal empowerment.

An Internal Audit – first step:  Although donor-centricity is a simple concept to envision it is difficult to implement when there are entrenched methods of doing business. You should take immediate steps to:

1. Re-examine how business is conducted – review all facets of people, processes and technology
2. Ask a lot of questions about how your organization acknowledges gifts and stewards the donor
3. Avoid the status quo and a culture of mediocrity
4. Challenge the employees to be donor-centric
5. Empower the employees to make informed decisions that will benefit the organization and enhance the relationship with the donors
6.  Set high goals and expectations
7. Develop a winning culture; every job and every person can make a difference at every level of the organization; Instill performance, excellence, service measurements and expectations

Development Audits (or Development Assessments depending on who you talk to) are a genuine way to get a clear and logical snapshot of the overall health, effectiveness and efficiency of a fundraising organization. Furthermore, depending on the objective of the organization being assessed, the audit can include a review of the overall business operation, including organizational structure, business processes, marketing efforts, positioning in the marketplace, employee and volunteer staffing and so on.

All nonprofit organizations, especially those relying on fundraising as their primary source of revenue, will benefit from this top-down review of their operation. But we can’t wait until the train falls off the tracks – the best plan is to conduct a periodic review, every ten years at a minimum, to ensure that the organization, especially the fundraising efforts, are on the right track and going in the right direction.

Some of the symptoms that might prompt you to consider an audit include: declining response rates to direct mail or other marketing plans, increased costs and overhead, stagnant giving levels across any level of donor, increasing attrition, complaints from donors, shrinking database size, fewer major gifts and a reduction in planned gifts.

It could also be prompted by a lethargic environment in the organization that is reluctant to tackle the new challenges and complexities of the nonprofit world or simply an employee base that lacks skill, motivation, energy and a general inability to embrace innovation. These are all signs of a dying organization that may need to face significant challenges.

The fundamental focus of a good audit will look at three primary areas of the fundraising process:

1) How donors are acquired,

2) how they are retained and most importantly,

3) how the relationships are cultivated.

Of course this is rudimentary at first glance but this tree-top view is where the review process must begin since successful fundraising rests in the health of the portfolio of benefactors. The review will simply drill down through these three primary areas and assess the health of the database by looking at trends and historical data pertaining to metrics such as retention, gift frequency, response rates to marketing efforts, return on investment of programs, costs to raise a dollar, average gifts, and so on. It will also dig into how the marketing and fundraising efforts are conducted by measuring them against best practices, industry trends, emerging techniques, and historical data, etc.

Additionally, it will look at the fundraising channels being used – including direct mail, special events, advertising, online, etc. and assess their individual and collective effectiveness on the fundraising program. Perhaps most importantly the review will take all of this into consideration and formulate a high level summary of pros, cons and recommendations for moving forward.

A development audit really boils down to a periodic maintenance check-up just like you do with an automobile. We wouldn’t dream of totally neglecting our car no matter how well it works; preventive maintenance and foresight is always the best maintenance. It can uncover existing problems as well as potential problems or problems that are developing and need some sort of attention.

We can always conduct these reviews our self but there is nothing like an outside, objective perspective from an unbiased party to help us evaluate things more clearly.