How Creativity in Fundraising is Contagious

There are now over 1.5 million tax exempt organizations in the United States. Since most of them are raising funds, you should consider every one of these your competition.

In a time when a constant stream of social media and in-your-face offers and solicitations are bombarding our donors, I ask you one question –

What is setting you apart from the 1,536,084 other charities who are targeting your donor base?

In the good old days, perhaps there were two or three charities targeting an individual. Now, between the television, your computer and your phone, every day your donors are being asked to give, give and give more.

If a guy can raise over $50,000 through crowdfunding to make potato salad, we really need to take a step back and focus how we are going to capture our donor’s attention for those same dollars.

The potato salad guy has something right. I learned from a mentor early on that fundraising is something you do with donors, rather than at or to them. And to capture and keep donor attention, you must be creative. This is easier said than done, especially when working with a larger annual fund base.

Why do people give? An experience.

From my perspective, it all comes down to an “experience.” Whether they attended your institution or had excellent care in your hospital, they give back because of an experience they had with a particular organization.

The overwhelming corporate leader in this experience exchange is the Disney parks, a brand and experience that has weathered decades of cultural change and economic challenges. Disney wants to give you an experience which you will not forget and will bring you back time and time again.

In every appeal, in every solicitation, I want to give my donors another “experience”, but this time, it’s one that encourages them to give back.

Experiment, personalize, and provide a genuine experience.

My most memorable and most successful direct mail experiment was targeted to a leadership annual fund prospect base. My dean was one of the initial researchers who studied and published the benefits of olive oil on the heart. So, I found small bottles of olive oil and attached a note on the bottle that said: “What do you have in common with olive oil”? I included a letter that described the research, how and why private support helped make this research possible happen, and then posed the question, what other great research will your annual gift support?

The response was amazing and I did what I set out to do: we captured the attention of my audience and made them feel part of the conversation. The appeal cut through the noise and other requests and moved many donors from making just an annual gift to making a more impactful major gift.

Creativity in fundraising is contagious

I started to see results, and I knew I was on to something. Our donor culture as well as our internal culture started to change. Others in my organization started to show interest in coming up with the next idea. Once your culture shifts, being creative isn’t hard at all. All it takes is a little imagination, a little faith and a little trial and error. As I look back, I have used some interesting things: puzzles, chicken wings, origami notes, peppermint sticks, donuts, tea bags, bells and many other items to help my donors remember and feel their positive experience all over again.

And I didn’t ever have to feed anyone potato salad.