Donor Growth

Does your nonprofit have a community advantage? 

Almost all organizations talk about their community of supporters. But few have a true participatory community. 

Most simply have an audience; a list of people they blast communications to.

Then again, some nonprofits have a competitive advantage in that they naturally have engagement opportunities that tend to create community.

What types of nonprofits have these opportunities?

• Performing arts
• Athletics
• Religious organizations
• Professional associations

...just to name a few. 

On today's podcast, Louis and Mike talk about how organizations can leverage their community advantage—and how they can screw it up.

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

What if our fundraising problems don't stem from the ‘technicians’ not being good enough?

What if our fundraising problems aren't fundraising problems at all, but organizational and cultural problems that stem from us not having healthy organizations—and healthy leaders.

On today's podcast, we argue that fundraising technicians aren’t enough to be successful and grow a sustainable nonprofit. We must operate as—and hire—organizational development specialists: relationship players.

We get into the difference between technical players and relationship players, and why the most successful leaders are often highly relational and strategic. 

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

Are nonprofits putting too much stock into attributing where each gift came from?

It's never been easier to measure as many things as we're able to quantify now. And yet, in our omni-channel world, it's never been harder to truly measure the things that matter.

That's why on today's podcast, Mike and Louis get into why focusing too much on gift attribution could be causing you to miss the bigger picture.

Because what drives donor behavior is often very different than how we measure donor behavior.

So do we need better attribution, or does attribution matter less than we think it does? 

We argue that—generally speaking—many orgs need to worry less about perfecting attribution. And instead focus more on team KPIs and a holistic way of looking at fundraising. Things like:

• Meaningful conversations with donors at all levels
• Supporter success and satisfaction 
• Donors giving in subsequent years
• Donors upgrading 
• Deeper level of engagement 
• Net revenue

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

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

McKinsey built an $11B brand by leaving nothing to chance. Not even building trust. Can nonprofits learn from their model?

Here's the formula they've distilled: 

TRUST = 
(CREDIBILITY x RELIABILITY x INTIMACY)
-------------------------------------------
SELF-ORIENTATION

On today's episode, Louis applies the trust formula to formula—and goes through a scorecard of the nonprofit sector. What do you think?

CREDIBILITY

✔ Most large, established nonprofits (universities, healthcare orgs) still possess a lot of credibility, although… 

❌They could do more to honestly characterize its limits.

RELIABILITY

❌Lots of progress needed in this area. Calls that go unanswered, reports that are promised and then never arrive…

INTIMACY

✔ Kudos to the development profession for trying to overcome this, but… 

❌ Overall, nonprofits have serious intimacy problems ;-) This is why video and social media are powerful trust-building tools

❌ In general, I would say we’re not generally perceived as being open to external input

SELF-ORIENTATION

✔ This is kind of the crux of donor-centered fundraising. Align with the donor’s goals, and yet…

❌ The perception from the vast majority of our constituents beyond the tip of the pyramid is that we only show up when we want money


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

It's true that every nonprofit CEO is different—and every leader plays to their strength.

Many are great operators. Others are fantastic visionaries. And some are charismatic fundraisers. 

But on today's podcast, Mike argues that regardless of personality, skill or talent, every CEO has one main role. 

It’s something that cannot be delegated. 

What is it? 

To create future value.

Future value is answering the questions:

1) where are we going?
2) how will we get there?
3) what are the future opportunities and roadblocks that the team focused on present value can't see yet?

To be clear, creating future value isn’t about predicting the future. 

It’s to  anticipate the things we can—and creating the right conditions to be in a place to respond well to the things we can’t predict. 

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of 1,600+ 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
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 is the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. He also hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast.

Have you started planning your next fiscal year? 

Chances are you're running into some common challenges: 

• It's hard to align the whole team around a shared vision
• It's easier to focus on trivial issues than to  make the hard decisions
• Your plan ends up sitting on a shelf, only to be re-visited in a year before the next planning session

Wherever you are in this process, Louis shares the steps he's used successfully to coordinate complex projects, gain internal buy-in, and achieve peace of mind

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of 1,500+ 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

Louis Diez is an expert 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 is the founder and CEO of BuildGood, a fundraising agency that helps nonprofits raise more money from individual donors. He also hosts the Build Good Fundraising Podcast.

Successful fundraising appeals are 20% the strength of the appeal, and 80% how you treat donors in between appeals. 

At least that's a point of view we find helpful when developing fundraising and stewardship strategies for effective donor communications. 

So what's the work savvy fundraisers do between appeals to have deeper relationships with more donors? 

On today's podcast, we walk through 5 ways to raise more gifts that don't involve asking at all—but that will make your fundraising more effective. 

We get into: 

1. Measuring the donor experience 
2. Surveying donors
3. As-it-happens updates and asking for advice
4. Personal impact reports and letters
5. Quarterly town halls 

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of 1,500+ 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

Louis Diez is an expert in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project.

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

The donor development continuum is dead.

Discovery -> Cultivation -> Solicitation -> Stewardship

This framework was based on the premise that you have control over the relationship. That’s no longer the case.

Instead, here's what's happening now:

❗ Donors are DISCOVERING you and forming their own opinions through social media and other digital or in-person gathering places.

❗ They can see right through your “CULTIVATION” efforts. They come off as insincere and actually undermine trust.

❗ SOLICITATION, when disconnected from feeling involved in co-creating the project, yields smaller and token gifts if at all.

❗ STEWARDSHIP, if it is being done, again feels insincere. Don’t tell me how much you love me (and my wallet). Show me what we achieved together.

What is a fundraising operation to do?

Louis and Mike get into some ways that nonprofits can adapt to the changing reality.

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of 1,500+ 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

Louis Diez is an expert in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project.

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

Time and time again, nonprofit leaders makes sales analogies when it comes to fundraising. 

They draw parallels between the commercial world and the nonprofit world, as if the two were one and the same. 

This we know is true: 

“Fundraising is different. Fundraising is different because charitable decisions are different. They’re different at a fundamental, neurological, chemical level.” -Dr. Russel James 

That's because philanthropy engages the family-bonding system—and purchasing decisions do not.

But...can fundraisers learn anything from sales teams? 

On this episode, Louis and Mike get into 3 things fundraisers can learn from great sales people and sales teams.

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of 1,500+ 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

Louis Diez is an expert in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project.

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

Many organizations run engagement scores on their supporters to identify the right people to reach, at the right time.

At least that's the premise.

But often times, engagement scores are used as an internal tool to justify department budget—or activities we want to do rather than strategic directions that might serve our organizations better in the long term.

And at that point, it's just a window dressing exercise that wastes time and resources.

On this week's episode, Louis and Mike get into the common pitfalls of engagement scores and the factors that can make engagement scoring effective and useful.

GET CONNECTED

Follow Louis Diez on LinkedIn 

Follow Mike Duerksen on LinkedIn 

Join the Donor Participation Project here—a community of 1,500+ 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

Louis Diez is an expert in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Annual Giving at Muhlenberg College and hosts the Donor Participation Project.

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