Donor Growth

A few months ago, we started a company. 

We tried to solve a pain point for nonprofit leaders who want to build trust at scale using content—specifically, short form video that is authentic, responsive and not boring.

We spoke to many of our ideal clients.  Leaders at large NGOs and Universities. They gave us great feedback. 

The loudest, clearest feedback of all?

No sales. 

So on today's podcast, we're taking you along for a post mortem where we go through: 

• The story of how LeaderVoice came to be
• Why we were betting on content creation as a service 
• How we quickly spun up a sales page, aka a Google Doc
• Why you don't need high tech to validate an idea: just an idea, a good message and a good offer
• How we tried validating the concept—and failed
• How we booked calls with busy leaders at large institutions 
• What we learned in the process 
• Why we still believe in the idea for ourselves, even if the market didn't value it the same way we did 

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

Will the financial outlook in 2023 mean less donors will give?

Will crypto donations actually become a thing?

Will trust in the nonprofit sector continue to decline?

Will mega donors be more—or less public—about their philanthropy?

We have no idea.

Still, we forge ahead and make wild predictions for 2023 we have no business making. 

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

Today we're joined by special guest Dan "Indie" Long from the St. Baldricks Foundation to explore the topic of the creator as a fundraiser.

How are creators like nonprofits? How can they use tools of individual fundraising to grow their revenue? How can nonprofits learn from the content creator mindset? 

We get into that—and more—with somebody who used to make a living being a full-time creator, and now works with creators to raise funds for childhood cancer research.

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

Last week we talked about how AI might change the way we create fundraising communications—and our fears around nonprofits creating commodity content.

This week, we talk about 7 other use cases of AI that we're really excited about.

From creating smarter asks, to standardizing gift entry, we get into how the biggest promise of AI might just be to give you back your time to do the things only humans can do: build messy, unpredictable, 1:1 relationships with donors.

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

Will the rise of AI replace the job of some fundraisers? 

Will robots be able to write donor communications that stir the heart and lead donors toward greater generosity? 

What is the real value fundraisers will bring to the table as more and more tasks will be done by marketing automation and AI tools?

On today's episode, we test out some AI tools and talk about the increasing value of building trust with our supporter communities. 

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

Louis has collected all best practices when it comes to creating appeals—and on today's podcast, he's sharing his Fundraising Appeal Checklist. 

It's the same checklist that has helped many organizations consistently achieve strong results. 

But...does a checklist work for fundraising? 

Think about it this way. There are two types of checklists. 

The first is like a list of instructions (think of McDonald’s), specific steps that you need to follow. 

The second is like a reminder of important areas (think of an emergency room). This is the second type. 

Workflow-wise, you can require every appeal to be accompanied by a checklist before publication, or you can review as a group to make sure every appeal is the best it can be. Not every box has to be checked, but at least you should have thought about it.

Download the checklist here

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors.

Fundraisers in small nonprofits often envy their counterparts in larger institutions. 

Sometimes for good reason:

• they have more budget
• they have more support
• they have nice offices
• they go to a lot of conferences
• they have name recognition and people return their calls 

BUT…there is a downside to being big. And an upside to being small. 

On today's episode, Mike and Louis encourage smaller nonprofits to lean into their small-ness and use it to their advantage. 

Because if you're small, you don't have to worry about large approval committees, procurement departments and tight brand standards.

You can build deep community by getting closer to your donors (and you can forget about having the 'right' pantone colour logo on everything you do). 

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

How do you change paradigms? 

In today's show, we get into the growing importance of creating engaging online content to grow and nurture a community of supporters. 

From the old paradigm:

• Command and control mindset
• Low context, “I know better than you” approach
• Scarce content

To the new paradigm:

• Building influence and trust
• High context: building in public, I value your thoughts
• Rich content

So how do you change paradigms?

"Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about the great paradigm shifts of science, has a lot to say about that. In a nutshell, you keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you keep coming yourself, and loudly and with assurance from the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don’t waste time with reactionaries; rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded." -Donella Meadows -Thinking in Systems

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

Low donor retention. It's the issue plaguing the entire sector, or at least that’s what we say. We all beat ourselves up about it. We say “if only nonprofits care more about their donors, we wouldn't lose so many of them every year."

If it really is such a big problem, then in the words of Peter Drucker: "The most effective way to manage change successfully is to create it. This requires the organized abandonment of things that have been shown to be unsuccessful, and the organized and continuous improvement of every product, service, and process within the enterprise."

And that begs the question: who owns donor retention?  

Some common answers: 

• Major donor officers own retention for their portfolio
• Middle donor reps own retention for middle donor file
• Annual giving owns retention for the annual fund
• The Director of Development

But is that too short sighted?

On this week's episode, Mike and Louis get into why so many fundraising problems—including donor retention—might not be fundraising problems at all. They might just be business decision problems.

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. 

In this special episode of Donor Growth, we do a live consulting session with podcast listener Ranger Kielak.

He's the president of the Northern California Herpetological Society—a membership driven nonprofit org that provides reptile and amphibian education, as well as aiding in rescue and rehabilitation of captive species.

In fact, they once put a rescued snake on a plane and sent it to the Denver Zoo.

Ranger's got questions about growing membership and monthly giving, and Louis and Mike provide some different ways to think about growth.


GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of fundraisers who get together every month to co-create solutions that increase donor participation.

Get access to the 5 Minute Fundraising Fix—a FREE mini course that will help you craft compelling fundraising messages that move donors to action and increase response. 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Louis Diez advises nonprofits in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

Mike Duerksen hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast. He’s the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors.