Communicating with supporters and donors is the lifeblood of ministry. It's what makes every non-profit viable, invaluable, sustainable, and successful. It's not crass to mutter to one's self that, "ministry takes money." It's how this world operates. It takes money to feed the poor, house the impoverished, drill wells in West Africa, start micro businesses in the Congo, raise someone's quality of life, or bring the Good News to unheard ears.
Conversing with supporters and donors is not a communicative dance whereby an organization works to position itself to be in good standing with an individual so financial support can be acquired.
Communicating with supporters and donors must be seen as a privilege, an honor, an opportunity, and finally as an occasion to begin to shape a life-long, mutual relationship of passion, support, and trust-an organization and an individual yoked in a common cause to make someone else's life-situation better.
Ignite Your Donor Passion begins by identifying the five goals effective communication accomplishes: it informs, educates, engages, inspires, and causes action on the part of the recipient.
Ignite Your Donor Passion then discusses thirteen ingredients that contribute to the success of the communication between "the writer" and "the recipient.". The writer needs to reveal some personality when writing, some insights into who the writer is and why he or she have taken on the work. The communication methods, no matter what, must be donor-centric. The line of communication should first focus on building relationships not the needs of the organization. The writer needs to always be blatantly honest. The calls for the support whether financial or physical, should be clear, concise, and obvious.
The stories being told must talk about the impact the organization is making and how lives are changing. If needs are lacking, then a sense of urgency must be conveyed and explained.
The remaining portion of the first section deals with answering the one question all potential donors ask themselves, "Why should I give to this organization, instead of some other worthy cause?" it also talks about ways to boost donor generosity, trumpeting your value proposition, ways to cause lessen friction when asking someone for their personal information, segmenting your audiences, asking for permission before adding someone to your newsletter list, and the all-important three metrics that spell success: traffic, conversions, and average gift.
Ignite Your Donor Passion, in greater part, discusses the most popular communication channels: websites, blogs, email, newsletters, appeal letters, brochures, presentations, and face-2-face meetings. Each section breaks down the anatomy of what makes an AMAZING email, newsletter, brochure or face-2-face meeting. From there it talks about the process for launching each method, as well as how it can be used to inform, educate, engage, inspire, and prompt action. Along the way, many sections outline methods on how to increase the size of donor files, boost traffic and conversions, and increase donor generosity. The chapters close with addressing not Settling for "Good Enough" and ends with a list of pros and cons.
Ignite Your Donor Passion end with a section titled: What's Working-What's Not which deals with ways to think about developing a continuous improvement plan. We should always be striving to improve. Vince Lombardi, Hall of Fame football coach of the Green Bay Packers, once said: "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."
Ignite Your Donor Passion is written with three audiences in mind: those organizations starting out, those who have stalled out, and those who desire to make their organization even more impactful.
