บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Why first-time donors leave and the simple plan that keeps them

offer, which I could speak about for days, but what are you asking folks to do? And then 20% on the creative, on the words, the images, the the fonts, the color, the design. and if you're new, you know, it helps to just think logically like who would be interested? Start on the inside. Start with your board members and your staff and your current donors and you know, run a little campaign like make your friends our friends or do a peer to peer or something like that. Ann Fellman: No, those are great pieces of advice and they build off of one another too. it's interesting you talk about the mailing lists or again, what is your readiness and your ability to go attract those that may be really interested in your cause? And sometimes we forget about putting the energy and time into that, but that readiness to go get those donors and go get that second donation is a really important component to put your energy into. I love controversy and or love challenging kind of common ideas, you've given a ton of advice, you've written a a lot of different columns. What in your work, what's something that you believe that maybe not necessarily everyone agrees with when it comes to fundraising? claire axelrad: Okay, well this is something that I know Boomerang believes, but there's been a backlash against it. And it's donor centricity. this idea that we have as part of our mission really to love humankind. That's what philanthropy means, love of humanity. And that means all of humankind as far as I'm concerned. Which means including our donors. So, you know, you can't just like think about treating your beneficiaries really well. Donors are also your beneficiaries. I mean, they need to find meaning and joy and belonging and live their best lives possible. I think sometimes we treat donors like gumballs. We chew them up, we're done with them. We spit them out and we don't ever think about them again. and you just can't do that. You have to take time to get to know your donors. And there is this zeitgeist now that looks askance at donor centered fundraising as being sort of pandering to elites. And that you know, well, they should just do this because it's the right thing to do. But that's just not how people are. I think the late Simone Joyu said that donor centricity is just another way of saying building trust. especially in major gift fundraising where a lot of organizations, particularly the large ones, focus on metrics. And you have to make so many asks in a year, you have to raise so much money in a year. But if your culture doesn't allow time for trust building. You're gonna suffer really poor fundraiser retention, which is extremely expensive. And we're losing all the experienced fundraisers who know how to build long term relationships. and that's really what makes transformational philanthropy possible. Ann Fellman: it's interesting. I've had a lot of conversations lately about that that human relationship, that human connection, getting to know people,

there are people out here that are really excited and want to help and want to contribute, but they also want to understand that their support is needed. and so making those connections is an important component to building trust and building a relationship with someone over time and bringing them back and back and back You talked about like mailing lists and staying connected. I would love to hear from you, Claire, There are some fundamental metrics, right? You put in the effort and the work, you will get a certain amount of results. So as you think about the metrics, let's just talk about the data points that every nonprofit should be tracking in their donor database that many aren't. claire axelrad: Well again, I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but retention, retention, retention. I cannot believe how often I'll talk to a group of fundraisers and I'll say, How many of your donor retention rate? Whew, it's not a lot. And then I say, How many of you could figure it out if you had to? Similarly, not a lot. You should be keeping track of How many new donors, how many repeat donors, how many overall donors, and how many laps donors? So that where you're strong and where you're weak and what you need to work on. The other thing I would say now is visited web pages because that really shows what people care about now. So a donor in the past might have given to children's services, but now they're someplace else along the life cycle and now they're Googling all the senior stuff. So it's it's really good. It gives you a lot of hints so does tracking social media and what they click on, what they share with other people. But the easiest thing to do is tracking the web pages. And then I guess The other thing you should run the NCOA change of address connection at least annually. 17% of people in the United States move every year. That's a lot. That means Ann Fellman: Yeah. claire axelrad: every year almost a fifth of your list is wrong. it's expensive to maintain mailing lists, particularly if you're doing direct mail, purge your lists of people who have never given. I'd say if they've never given for three years, maybe you ran a campaign and your board members gave you names of people, but these people have never bit, so get rid of them. Ann Fellman: Well, tying into that, Claire, when you think about, your readiness and keeping that data clean, now let's talk about, how do you build a meaningful donor communication cadence without overwhelming that team or that audience? We hear time and time again, like, they're tired of hearing from us, but like How do you structure what are your recommendations on structuring that communication cadence without overwhelming claire axelrad: we hear time and time again, they're tired of hearing from us. That is something that we assume. So we have to remember that first of all, you are not your donors. You get tired of it. Secondly, donors lie. So a lot of times, organizations survey their donors and they say,

How often do you want to hear from us? And most people will predictably say annually. And that's just really a great way to lose your donors. Because how people say they'll behave is often quite different from how they actually will behave. And research in psychology and neuroscience shows people are more likely to give again when they hear from you repeatedly. About, and this is the kicker, the impact of their giving, your gratitude for making these outcomes possible. So you need to email them, but you have to mix up your asks with emails that show your gratitude and show the impact of their giving. So large organizations who've done A-B testing, many of them are mailing appeals monthly. But then there'll be three to four emails in between that are about impact and gratitude. And, is this right for you? the only way is to try mailing a little bit more and then see see what happens. I remember having this experience once when I was working for an organization where we always pulled out the current givers from the next mailing and for one spring mailing by accident the current givers got in they gave far and above what the other people gave so you know you just can't assume you can always and you always should offer at the bottom of every email the option of unsubscribing And when you do that, it builds trust. And the reality is very few people are going to unsubscribe. And you you need to understand, people may not read every mailing you send. I mean, they're not going to, but that doesn't mean that they don't like receiving them. And in a way, it kind of reassures them that you're still a healthy, vibrant organization out there in the community doing good things. And if you stop mailing, It's really out of sight, out of mind. Ann Fellman: Yeah, I'd agree with you, Claire. I think about that as, well, one, don't decide for your donor. But two is those are a brand impression, a moment to just tell your donor or your supporter community that I might not read the email, but I saw that, you know, XYZ organization just sent me a note. So they're at least I know they're thinking of me and they're reaching out. those are just positive touch points to kind of reinforce that. so when it comes time that I want to make another gift I think of them. claire axelrad: if they make one gift a year, especially if it's newish, they haven't been giving to you ten years, they forget. They don't even Ann Fellman: Yeah. claire axelrad: remember that they did it and let alone who you were. even the next time they get an email from you, let's say you send it six months later, they don't remember who you were. You really have to get them to know who you are. That's your job. You have to get to know them just like you would if you met a stranger. And we're starting to get to know them and then, huh, I think we might have something in common. Let's get to know each other. Ann Fellman: let's talk about that in terms of donor health and what does one look for in donor health? from what you've seen, what are some early warning signs that would tell you a donor's about to leave or ghost you what have you seen in your career? claire axelrad: Obviously, the good is that they give, they give maybe multiple times during the year. They grow their gifts over time, and they feel a strong link to you, you can tell, because they come to events or they visit your web pages or they're on social media with you, whatever. Bad is if they used to come to events and they stopped coming. They don't open your email. They don't respond to your phone calls. you need to look at those things and then go, huh, what could I possibly do to find out what's going on here? one of the easiest things is like with monthly donors, if suddenly you're having problems processing the payment, call them up. If their usual gift deadline passes, they usually give every year in December and they haven't given. Call them up. If you don't have a phone number, email them, text them, whatever you can, but just remind them gently. you usually give it this time of year. I want to make sure you didn't miss it. sometimes people don't give. Because a staff person that they had a close relationship with left. If you start to notice those people aren't giving, and you're the new person, again, you need to really make an effort to call them up and connect with them. And I mean, personally, this has happened to me. more than once. Where like I was really being like I was in a relationship, I enjoyed it. The person checked in with me a lot. I was increasing my giving and then they left. And then nothing. I've even reached out to some new person and said, because I do do fundraising consulting and for organizations that I love, sometimes I'll do pro bono and I'll Ann Fellman: Mm-hmm. claire axelrad: say, Hey, if you ever have any quick questions, let me know. And they still don't stay in touch with me. you just have to pay attention when people stop engaging. Ann Fellman: I think it's really important too, as you you just hit on the staff turnover in nonprofits. It's obviously pretty high. So picking up the phone and reaching out I've seen time and time again, different fundraisers I've talked to when they picked up the phone and they had that conversation, they got a next gift or they made a deeper connection that pulls them back into the orbit of the organization. so Claire, through the online fundraising school that you've done and all your advising and coaching and your own professional experience. Can you talk to us about Yeah, nonprofit that you've helped that you're particularly proud of, what was the situation? what did you do? What changed for that organization? claire axelrad: I did work as a consultant and a coach for one organization where they had recently transitioned from one mission to another, kind of. they had been sort of an overarching clearinghouse and now they were doing more direct service. And they had a board that was used to giving very

nominal gifts, two hundred and fifty dollars each, and they were all high power professionals. They clearly Ann Fellman: Mm-hmm. claire axelrad: could afford more, but this is what they'd always given. And now they had this evolving mission where they wanted to kind of grow. So the executive director and I talked together and she agreed that she was going to go to them and lay out for them the scenarios of the organization. they could be status quo, keep raising as much money as they were raising and what that would mean. They could retrench and what that would mean, or they could grow and what that would mean. And she was like, whatever you want to do, you're in charge, but I just want to lay out all the scenarios for you. Well, of course, they wanted to do all these growth things because those were the exciting things. That was the new stuff. And so they started to get really excited about doing that. And then she said, Okay, well, you understand this means that the board is gonna have to step up. The board is gonna have to make this happen. The board is gonna have to give more money, raise more money. And they're like, Okay, okay. So then she and I sat down together. And we figured out what we wanted to ask each board member for, she was gonna go ask the board president, and then we were gonna ask him to ask everybody else. So she went to the board president, who was actually giving a thousand dollars. So he was already a leader in this group. And she went to him and Then she called me up and she goes, Claire, guess what? And I said, What? And she said, I didn't even have to ask him. He agreed to double his gift. And I went, Great. How much did we say we were going to ask him for? She said, four thousand. How much did he commit to? Two thousand. I said, What if every board member that we've decided we're going to ask? gives half of what we want to ask them for. And she went, I guess I have to go back to him. So she did and he thought about it and he got back to her the next day and he said, My wife and I talked about it. We agree. That's what we're gonna give. And once he did that, it was like he got religion. You know, it was like he had enacted his passion passionately. And now he was like really ready to share it with everybody else. So it it worked. It really worked. the whole board just rose up And then we did a session with the whole group and we talked about what philanthropy is and why it makes Ann Fellman: Mm-hmm. claire axelrad: people feel good to get engaged that way. And we did that rather than Talk about you have to exactly say this and stuff that makes people uncomfortable. But it really brought them to a whole new level. Ann Fellman: you structured the conversation in a way it sounds like you really tapped into passion and people getting excited about like I'm putting more in. Now I'm more invested in this. we've been talking about growth and now I'm a part and I have a role in that growth. that's a really interesting, way in which to bring that board along. and really feel a part of the next chapter in that revised mission for their organization. claire axelrad: even if you are not changing your mission, passion is the heart of everything. whenever I work with boards, I talk about passion, passion, passion. first, you have to get them to connect with their own passion for the organization. And sometimes people haven't thought about it for a long time. They got on the board years ago because a friend asked them to. But if you can have people Ann Fellman: Yeah. claire axelrad: go around the room and talk about why they're involved, or even just if it's a large board, talk to each other. This Ann Fellman: Mm. claire axelrad: is why I'm engaged. And then the other person says, this is why I'm engaged. first of all, it gets them used to talking about what they're passionate about, which is what you would Ann Fellman: Mm-hmm. claire axelrad: want them to do with other people. And they they get re-inspired by hearing other people's stories. And once they've done that, then you go, okay. Now we want you to enact your passion passionately. So this is the idea of making a stretch gift, Ann Fellman: you put that why put a couple not just their own personal why, but a couple of other people's why. That makes it a lot easier to get off there and tell the story of how we find connections with other people, of sharing some of those whys for people in terms of what was it that drew them into the organization. claire axelrad: And then when you make your own passionate gift, it's like I was saying this board member got religion. It's like you have to get religion before you can preach religion. the third part of this passion triad is going out and asking other people to join you in your passion. And that's it. it's very simple. It's very basic, I think common sense, Ann Fellman: So Claire, speaking of passions and hot topics, let's talk about AI for a minute. what's your advice for fundraisers about how to think about AI tools for nonprofits? claire axelrad: it's really, really difficult for us to wrap our heads around what may be coming. And that just makes me think about what we do know. And I think for centuries, identity has been deeply tied to work. So now we're entering this world where millions of People are no longer going to be needed in traditional economic systems. And that makes me think that in an AI revolutionized society, the role of nonprofits might become more important than ever in bringing meaning and purpose and a sense of identity to people. And so I would say lean into that. sure, in the short term, AI can absolutely help organizations process information and identify patterns and personalize outreach, improve efficiency, and you need to look at all that. but fundraisers should never forget the central truth people give to people. Relationships are built on trust. Trust is built when people feel seen, when they feel understood, when they feel appreciated, when

they feel valued. And you really cannot fully automate that. So I would say that human interaction remains the engine of lasting donor engagement and investment. Ann Fellman: Yeah, that's something that we talk about is the human component. There's a lot of great things that it can do to free up time that used to take you away from people. So how do we use those technologies to give us more time to put back into the people component? definitely is important to learn what's out there and it's ever changing. And so understanding ways that can help in a good way and be principled and be decisive on what you will or won't do. You know, different causes will have different positions from that. So like have those intentional conversations and decisions of what you're gonna do. for people maybe that have just heard from you for the first time. if you could just describe clairification.com and, the work that you're doing and what kind of organization should be tapping into your resources and your advice and your content. who's a good fit for it? claire axelrad: I think of myself as a teacher and a problem solver. And so I I prefer coaching to doing big audits that people spend a lot of money on and then put them in a drawer. I like helping to reframe approaches to the work so that people feel happier and more confident. And I find generally that spills over and it makes donors feel exactly the same way. You know, I think joy and passion are contagious and I think fundraisers are in the happiness delivery business. So I prefer working with people who kind of lead from vision. Like you talked about brand earlier. And you know, the brand promise is really the why of your existence. And it's not so much the mission and programs and process. somebody tells me what they do and then I go, okay, great. So what? Ann Fellman: Yeah. claire axelrad: Well why should I be involved in that? And I like organizations that never lose sight of the change that they're endeavoring to bring about. And there's one organization that I've worked with that I ended up being on the board of, and it's it's a theater company. And I use this example because I love this. They don't say to you, we're a theater. the executive director came up with this brilliant notion that they are an empathy gym. And he wrote this email about a year ago that I loved, and I'm gonna read it Ann Fellman: Uh-huh. claire axelrad: to you. Our theater is a sacred space, a place where hearts are cracked open, souls are stirred, and compassion is not just spoken of, but practiced. The empathy gym is not just a clever phrase, it's a spiritual calling. In a time when we are taught to armor up, scroll past pain, and judge rather than connect, theater offers something radical, a return to feeling, a return to each other. that's the brand promise. That's Ann Fellman: yeah. Mm-hmm. claire axelrad: what people want to invest in. Ann Fellman: a great test that we do in marketing sometimes is cover up you're about for your organization. If you take similar type causes and you cover up the org name and you read it, how does yours stand out? So the example you just gave, right, that would really stand out when you're looking at a number of community theaters potentially. So that's another great test to do to say, how are we standing out and connecting in talking about why we're here? claire axelrad: And the other thing that I would say that's I think related to that is make your case for support meet the moment. You can always tie it to something that is top of mind for people, like pay attention to the news. What are people worrying about right now? And then figure out how your mission connects to that, how you touch people's lives, even in in subtle ways. And you know, you may have one program that really relates to something that's just top of mind for everyone. Ann Fellman: one more big question, then we're gonna go into some fun things, but Claire, what keeps you doing this work? claire axelrad: Well, I like being one of the good guys. when I started in law I thought I was gonna be a good guy, but I quickly didn't feel that way. so I ended up in nonprofit, but I would say I really enjoy the challenge of bringing science and art together. there's so much we can borrow from other disciplines and we are doing that a lot more now. But there's a lot of psychology and neurology and behavioral economics that you can apply. And then the art again, it's this relational intelligence, this creatively reading the room and making unexpected connections that really bring joy to people or this beauty of communal endeavor. That I love and I love reframing approaches to people. So they they go like, it's not begging it's not even persuading. It's really inviting. It's opening a door to an opportunity for people to find some joy and some purpose in their lives. that's what keeps me doing it is that it's constantly changing and it really depends on the person that you're connecting with and what they value. But that it's not just like this narrow set of fundraising techniques. It's like all these things that we know psychologically Ann Fellman: Mm-hmm. claire axelrad: motivate people to give and keen into those things. So it's common sense plus applied knowledge. Ann Fellman: love that. the reframing and reframing it for different individuals and kind of tailoring for them and then, you know, talking about it as inviting people in. So I want to invite you in to a really fun game that I love to play, which is I'm gonna ask you just a handful of questions and I want you to answer with like one word, one line type of answer. first question for you is One word for the future fundraising. claire axelrad: Disruptive. Ann Fellman: Disruptive. this is a fill in the blank. The nonprofit sector needs more. claire axelrad: Common sense, people sense? Ann Fellman: Coffee or tea, Claire? claire axelrad: Tarjeeling tea. Ann Fellman: one word that your clients or your team would use to describe you. claire axelrad: Would say teacher. And it's interesting when I left the nonprofit that I worked for for 22 years, my whole staff wrote a song for me, and one of the lines in it was she ran her own fundraising school. And so I think, yeah, it's natural that I founded my own little online Clairification school. Ann Fellman: that's fantastic. Well, you've heard from Claire Axelrad, founder and principal of Clairification So that's clairification.com So if you're nonprofit wrestling with raising more, making stronger connection, Claire is exactly the type of partner worth a conversation or worth a gander, just go to clairification.com C L A R I F I C A T I O N. claire axelrad: 'Cause Ann Fellman: Claire's exactly the kind of partner, worth that conversation. you're worth the investment. So thank you to everybody for listening to Fuel Impact by Bloomerang. We're gonna be back very soon with another fundraiser doing remarkable work for the sector. So until then, keep fueling your impact. Thanks for watching Fuel Impact. Subscribe for more real conversations with leaders shaping the nonprofit sector. Learn more at Bloomerang.com.