Ken Burnett - Changing the public’s perception of fundraising

Recently the influential 101 Fundraising blog started a debate headed ‘Climate change needed for donor-centric fundraising’. This posting followed a meeting of five leading Dutch fundraisers at which one of their number raised a particular obstacle facing his charity, KiKa, as it aspires to grow faster.

KiKa’s director Frits Hirschtein pointed out that a major barrier to his charity’s further income growth is the image of the charitable sector. Donors, he observed, are more and more suspicious of charities. Some charities spoil things for the rest. Frustratingly, the whole sector is held accountable when one organisation screws up. If charities would be more transparent, many problems would be solved. This negative image has an impact on those organisations that are doing terrific work.

I’m inclined to agree, so I added a comment to the debate, as follows.

‘I think you are spot on with this observation and it doesn’t only apply to Holland, far from it. It’s universal. Given the opportunities our sector provides for donors to make a difference, to change the world, we seem to have done a rather poor job of convincing our publics that through us they can experience joy, pleasure, satisfaction, fulfillment and a feeling that they’ve really had value for money and done something worthwhile.

‘This is mainly a problem of communication and feedback. As a sector, we need to get much better at it. So you are right. It’s time something was done.’

Reiner Spruitt, organiser of 101, came right back at me, as follows.

‘Thanks Ken! Do you have a practical suggestion for our readers? We’ve already seen some options in the above comments about donor research, inclusion, education, experience, communication, understanding, etc. What would be the most practical tip you would give in the area of communication and feedback?.

That could be a cue for me to go on at some length. So how can I put this relatively briefly? Here’s my attempt.

Well, I rather liked the way Michael Rosen from Philadelphia put it recently. He said, ‘We have to turn common sense into common practice.’

This is so true. We all know what we should do and how we should behave towards our donors. But so many fundraisers take shortcuts and go for the quick and easy money. Often they’re compelled to do this or colluded with in the process by their board or senior management team. In this we are architects of our own misfortune. So people who say, ‘For our cause our only duty is to get as much money in as we can as quickly as we can’, just so they can hit their short-term targets are doing a great disservice to the voluntary sector as a whole. Particularly in the way that the public views charities and the people who, in the process of raising money for those charities, ask them to give so clumsily, crudely and relentlessly.

‘We have to turn common sense
into common practice.’

Michael J Rosen

We fundraisers should always remember what our parents told us as children: you won’t get if you don’t ask properly. That common sense needs to become common practice and we – and our publics – need a much stronger, clearer idea of what responsible asking properly is.

The core of this is that we need to perfect the art of feeding back. Quality feedback should become our hallmark. So we can answer the donor’s most pressing question: did my gift make a difference? And his or her secret personal wondering: what’s in it for me?

We should answer the first of these questions with powerful emotional communication that will move our donor irresistibly, so that he or she will have no doubt of the value for money that her gift has secured. If you can’t provide this answer you’re in the wrong job. Fundraisers should only ask for money when it will make a real difference. Our mission should be to convey this constantly, creatively and carefully to our donors.

Information is putting out. Communication is getting through. Our answer to the second question should be to get through to our donors – with power and passion that will move them to action – the pleasure, meaning, purpose, fulfillment, achievement and sheer joy that can and should be experienced by every donor who’s given a gift that made a difference. Do that and it won’t be hard to persuade people not just to give regularly but to go out and tell the world; to become real ambassadors for our causes and our organisations’ approaches to tackling them.

Thus, in time, our publics might begin to form a different perception of fundraisers and the causes they ask for.

There are of course many other initiatives that might improve how the public views fundraisers, particularly on streets and doorsteps. So I could go on, but this is a good place to stop.

My next post will focus on the use of emotion in fundraising and what scientists call the emotional brain. It contains the best thing I've learned in a very long while. It’s coming soon.