Are we asking too much of donor relationships?

This piece was originally posted in the Leading Nonprofits newsletter. Sign up here to get newsletters sent to your inbox. Read almost any job description for a nonprofit CEO or chief development officer, and you’re bound to see the word “relationship.”

“Strengthen relationships with major gift donors.”

“Build relationships with prospects.”

“Foster relationships within your portfolio.”

You’re probably thinking that sounds about right. Relationships are obviously a good thing, right?

But I think there’s risk in asking relationships to be your main (or only) fundraising strategy.

You and I have both seen it: fundraisers leaving, CEOs retiring, and responsibilities changing. And then what? When the relationship with one person is all you have, there’s a mad scramble as soon as something changes.

Not to mention the enormous pressure on fundraisers and CEOs to build and maintain relationships that may have a very real impact on the organization’s success.

And that pressure can get pretty personal, too. These are genuine relationships, but we’re also developing them on behalf of an organization… and with fundraising goals in the background.

I’m not suggesting we stop building donor relationships. Far from it. I’ve personally built deeply impactful relationships with donors over the years and cherish many of them.

What I am suggesting, though, is we’ve decided that “relationships” are the be-all, end-all of fundraising, when they’re really one part of a much larger donor experience.

And it’s time we challenge some of the assumptions we’ve built around them:

Assumption 1: Every donor wants a relationship with you.

Not necessarily.

Not everyone wants a relationship with the organizations they support. Some people want to know you and feel personally connected to the work. Others may care deeply about what you’re doing without wanting that kind of relationship at all.

One of my clients recently told me that a donor said they’ll continue to give, but they never want to go to lunch and don’t want to attend any events. I get that a message like that can feel personal, but it’s almost definitely not.

That donor isn’t looking for a relationship. That’s fine. There are plenty of other ways to build affinity for your organization, which leads me to…

Assumption 2: Strong relationships will always create the fundraising outcomes we want.

Sometimes they absolutely will.

A great relationship with a fundraiser or CEO can be incredibly powerful. It can build trust, create connection, uncover what matters to someone, and open the door to opportunities that might never exist otherwise.

But that’s an awful lot of responsibility to put on a relationship.

For the vast majority of our donors, the chief development officer or CEO may have, at best, a handful of meaningful conversations with them a year.

Instead of thinking only in terms of the relationship, think in terms of the total experience:

• Do your communications deepen their understanding of the work between personal conversations?

• Do regular CEO updates give them greater confidence in where the organization is going?

• Does an event give them an opportunity to experience the work in a way a fundraiser can’t quite fully explain over lunch?

• Does your case for giving help them see what their investment could do?

• Does what they hear from board members, community leaders, and other donors reinforce why the organization is worth backing?

• After they give, does their experience continue to connect them to the work and reinforce the decision they made?

  
  

Put simply, the relationship shouldn’t have to do all the work of building understanding, connection, and ultimately support.

And a list of activities won’t get us there either…

Assumption 3: A strong donor relationship creates a strong donor experience.

A strong relationship with a fundraiser or CEO can be an incredibly important part of someone’s experience with your organization. But it’s still only one part.

Donors experience your organization in all kinds of ways that have nothing to do with that individual relationship. And we tend to rely on another fundraising mainstay to fill in the gaps: stewardship.

I hate to say it, but a lot of stewardship plans I see are perfunctory. After this event, we send this kind of thank-you note. We send this group a holiday gift and this group a holiday card. We call people in our portfolio four times a year.

Don't get me wrong. Please keep sending thank-you notes and tax letters! 

But thinking about donor experience asks a different question: What is it actually like to be a donor to this organization?

The donor experience is everything someone sees, hears, and experiences as a supporter of your organization.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about evidence mapping and the importance of thinking beyond a single impact report or set of statistics to consider how evidence builds understanding and confidence over time.

The donor experience is similar.

Instead of expecting the relationship, the event, the newsletter, the case, or the stewardship plan to create an outcome on its own, we need to think about what all of those experiences are building together.

This is something I spend a lot of time looking at with clients: What are donors and other stakeholders experiencing across all the different ways they encounter the organization? What is each interaction helping them understand or believe? And, collectively, is it all adding up to a stronger reason to back the organization?

Final thoughts

I recently read an article arguing that fundraisers may have more control over a donor’s gift size, cadence, and timing than they think.

I’m not sure I’d call it control.

I’d call it influence.

A strong fundraiser can absolutely influence a donor’s next step. But they shouldn't walk into that conversation alone.

Ideally, that conversation is already built on a strong foundation: the organization's case, the thought leadership of the CEO, evidence that the work is working, and everything else that has told the donor exactly who you are and where you're going.

That’s why I don’t want the relationship to bear the full weight of the fundraising outcome.

Donor relationships are one piece of the donor experience puzzle, but they’re not the whole puzzle.

When we start thinking more expansively about the donor experience, we can strengthen the relationships that do exist, create meaningful experiences for donors, and make every interaction part of building toward greater support.

To your success,

Angela