Succesvolle fondsenwerving gaat altijd gepaard met de juiste of zelfs geweldige donateurservaringen. Zie hieronder een ervaring van Matthew Sherrington: 

"When I was Fundraising Director at Greenpeace USA a few years ago, we had a supporter who gave a huge amount of money in memory of her son, who had died tragically. With it, we bought a RIB – one of those orange inflatable boats Greenpeace is famous for. It was sent to join the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, which was on a mission to stop Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Southern Ocean. And the RIB was named the Billy G.

As it happened, Celeste Stewart, the manager of our mid-donor programme, got the chance to join the Esperanza’s mission for three months as Assistant Cook. (I know, I know, don’t even ask). Celeste knew Billy G’s mother, knew the whole story. And even knew Billy G’s birthday, which came up while she was on board. She organised the crew into the Billy G for a photo. One photo, used only once, as a gift to Billy G’s mother to mark his birthday. Wow!

Can you deliver the same wow moment to everyone, all the time? No. But you can make sure you have an attitude and approach aimed at giving supporters a better experience than they expect, and then wow moments will come. I had a couple of simple wow moments recently as examples. Probably like you, I got several Christmas emails from charities I support. Very easy to do. But also very easy to ignore. I also got three proper Christmas cards. Just for being a supporter. And they stood out for being unexpected."

Matthew geeft nog een aantal voorbeelden, maar waar het om gaat is het volgende:

"Doing the basics of what’s expected is fine, but leaves no real impression. It’s looking for and taking advantage of every opportunity to exceed expectations that will surprise, and enhance your reputation and your relationships. It’s depressing that amazing supporter care has often been viewed as a cost rather than a necessity. Does it add value, people ask? Can you demonstrate an ROI? As it happens, at Greenpeace we did see our supporter retention measurably and dramatically improve as a result of the supporter engagement approach we took. Our friends at Target Analytics confirmed it. But you know what, sometimes its just the right thing to do.

If your charity has only just come to its senses because of recruitment challenges and in the UK at least, the recent scandals of bad fundraising: don’t worry. It’s never too late to start. You have supporters out there with very low expectations of you. It shouldn’t be hard to wow them. And if you don’t, other charities will."

Als jij de contactmomenten met jouw donateurs op een rijtje legt. Welke maken dan echt indruk? Niet op jou, maar op jouw donateurs?

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Deze blog post is eerder verschenen bij De Toekomst van Fondsenwerving.