In the ultra-competitive world of charitable enterprise, the communications quest for donor dollars often takes a path that circumvents focus on the pocketbook and instead appeals to the area just behind the breast pocket: the heart.
Getting your attention
Sandy MacKenzie, a partner and philanthropic architect with Inspire/DVA Navion in Toronto with 25 years of fundraising experience in the sector, suggests that charities and nonprofits need to be very focused on the human touch when looking at marketing to, and raising funds from, donors.
“There is an art and a science to fundraising,” MacKenzie says. “The science you can go and learn at universities [or by] going to conferences and from hands-on experience in the industry. But the art is something you learn through practical experience. What I’ve learned is that people give to people. You have to remember that your organization is a means to an end. It’s not the end product.”
By way of example, MacKenzie cites a recent, powerful TV ad campaign by Toronto’s Sick Kids’ Hospital titled “Believe”, which ran earlier this year. He says the ad campaign, which features the song “Lean On Me” being sung by child patients, doctors, and various hospital staff, was so effective because it focused on the cause and not on the institution.
Pina Pejovic, VP of Ipsos Public Affairs, points to a 2006 Ipsos-Reid survey titled Donating For the Cause (PDF) conducted for Scotiabank’s Scotia Private Client Group. It asked Canadians with assets over $250,000 across the country about their philanthropic decisions. The main finding: 97% of respondents said that “the charity’s cause is most important when considering philanthropic giving.”
“It’s extremely powerful because we relate to it on a human level,” MacKenzie says. When asked if there are any best practices he relies upon to communicate to donors and successfully bring in more dollars, MacKenzie insists that every campaign and organization is unique, thus precluding any set of prescribed actions.
Ads and ads not
So do ad campaigns that tug at our heartstrings really influence giving patterns among the average Canadian? A straw survey conducted by this writer of working, professional peers brought back results that would seem to bear out MacKenzie’s “people give to people” statements.
Ryan Murphy, 32, an entertainer and comedian in Vancouver, says his giving pattern was influenced at a very young age.
“My mother began a tradition in our family when my siblings and I were quite young in which she would donate money in our names every Christmas to a deserving charity,” Murphy told CharityVillage. “Now that I’m older, I’ve also continued the tradition and tend to give to many of the same charities that she first introduced me to more than 20 years ago. As such, advertising has very little impact upon where I choose to donate.”
Richard Levitt, 32, a Toronto lawyer, shared a similar sentiment.
“I donate to charities that hit closest to home. If I have a friend or relative who has suffered from breast cancer, I will donate to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation over a charity that I have no personal connection to,” Levitt says. “If a friend decides to jog or play hockey for a charitable endeavour, I will often donate no matter what the cause. I can think of one time recently where advertising may have helped. Shortly after I saw an ad for [Toronto’s] Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) on a bus shelter, I was approached by a CAMH volunteer for a donation. I donated mostly because mental illness has impacted my inner circle, but the ad may have played a role as well.”
Gordon Kent, an office manager in Toronto, admitted he doesn’t give to charities all that often, but when he does, it’s usually because someone he knows asked. “If there is a [charity] drive at work and someone approaches me, I always say yes. There are probably five to 10 of these a year, so I’m usually in for $10 [each time],” he said.
And therein lies another of MacKenzie’s rules about what promotes charitable giving in communications packages: “The ask.”
Ask and ye shall receive
“The number one reason people give to charity is because somebody asked,” he says. “If you look at your own charitable giving patterns, when was the last time you woke up one morning and decided to write a cheque for $500 or $1,000 and just go give it to a charity? It’s the odd person who does this, and usually as part of a life circumstance. More often than not, people give to people when asked…and they give larger donations when it’s something that’s personally meaningful to them. But there’s many times people support charities just because they were asked.”
Marketing campaigns and advertisements do play a key role in getting donor dollars, if the appeal is done right.
“The number two reason major gift donors give is because it’s a personal, meaningful impact,” MacKenzie adds. “I believe philanthropy is the most selfish act a human being can undertake. You’re giving to make yourself feel good…and giving to [honour a family member]. When I look at the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, the reason they are so successful, in my opinion, is because they get away from the organization [when marketing] and talk about how the disease impacts your mother, your sister, your wife, your daughter. Hence, there is the perception that it’s going to impact me at some point, so I should make a difference, I should give. By making those strong connections to people in your own life – it’s all about me, my friends my loved ones – the larger my gift’s going to be.”
According to MacKenzie, the four most successful charity areas for Canadians by personal impact are as follows:
- Religion, because it connects with everyone personally.
- Hospitals, because everyone will need one eventually.
- Alma maters, because of strong sentiment and historic ties.
- Everything else “depending on what your connection is. And even if you don’t have a connection to a [specific] charity, organizations can build one, if they can relate why I should care.”
Communicating in the web world
Though MacKenzie advises that each nonprofit and/or charity look to its own “DNA” to see what message fits before embarking on a communications campaign, others have come to rely on best practices for their own needs.
Zenia Wadhwani, director of program development for CanadaHelps, suggests that in her organization’s new, technological online lens, using a set of rules can be advantageous.
“There are a host of best practices when it comes to communicating with donors. And different charities are showing different results. Some are having great success with online communications, others not so much. It all depends on the campaign, the messaging, and of course, the donor. The great thing is that the various communications can, and should, happen simultaneously. A charity doesn’t have to give up on direct mail in order to do e-mail, for example. The message should, however, be consistent. And knowing the donor is key,” she says.
Wadhwani adds her organization is discovering that one of the best ways to talk to donors is actually not to talk to them directly. “Talking to potential donors through their networks is definitely one of the new ways to go when it comes to reaching out. Peer-to-peer networking is extremely popular, cost-efficient, and proving to be highly beneficial for a number of charities. This type of networking is happening in obvious spaces like Facebook. This fundraising tool allows individuals and groups to set up a page for any reason at all, e.g., giftless birthday, wedding registry, in memoriam, for any charity they want. Once a page is set up, they simply inform their network…and all of a sudden, a host of people have been recruited for a charity.”
In addition, making use of current communication technologies can provide more return for an organization’s minimal investment, she says.
“Communicating with a donor is all about marketing. With all the web 2.0 offerings of late, there is no shortage of ways for charities to put their name out there. Some of these include simply having a presence on Wikipedia, posting an ad on YouTube, posting pictures of an event on Flickr, and setting up a page on Facebook. Combined together, and at virtually no cost, these little things add up to greater presence online and greater awareness in the long run,” she says.
But Wadhwani also eventually returns to a more mundane explanation for effective communications to elicit donations. One of the motivators that will “work forever”, she says, is the emotional tie to a cause.
“Not all charities have the ‘luxury’ of this, but it certainly works. More importantly now, charities need to demonstrate impact. It’s what donors are asking for…actually it’s what they demand. They want to know their dollars are really making a difference and if they can demonstrate that, they’ll see greater success.”
A surprising bit of good news for the times
Back in Toronto, CharityVillage asked MacKenzie what he would advise executive directors and presidents in the charitable sector to do, communications-wise, during the current economic slowdown. The answer may surprise you.
“In terms of moving [a charity] forward in an economic challenge…if you look at the research of the impact of a poor economic climate on philanthropy, you don’t see much impact at all,” he states. The reason, he says, is that most often, when people are in need, citizens become more generous and rise to the occasion with goodwill.
“It’s not about marketing, it’s reacting to a circumstance,” he says. “The challenge with marketing and fundraising [in these times] is with annual campaigns and direct mail. That may be impacted and may decrease because you may not have as many donors giving small gifts because they’re tightening their belts.”
That being said, MacKenzie advises charities to take a long-term approach to their communications.
Talking to the future
In his experience, MacKenzie says new clients often expect to communicate their brand and get results quickly or “take the shortcut” to fundraising. This is a mistake, he says.
“We advise the long road. A lot of organizations want to do it fast, and think that there’s a magic communications solution. Fundraising is a very methodical process. You need to have a solid case for your cause and once you do, you need to find solid leadership. Again, because it’s people asking people. So you need the right person asking for the right amount of money for the right project at the right time,” he says.
“Staff just going out and asking on their own isn’t going to maximize the gift you may get from a donor. You also need to make sure you have the right prospect pool. And then you take all of that and build a [communications] plan around it. A marketing campaign needs to have larger objectives than just fundraising. While fundraising may be one of them, others are better positioning the organization to improve brand or the emotional connection.”
Growing or moving the organization forward, he says, is a slower, but ultimately more rewarding process in terms of creating brand loyalty and increasing donations.
A case in point, last month, in an effort to engage long-term donors, Imagine Canada, in partnership with CanadaHelps, Investors Group and Macleans Magazine, announced the inaugural launch of its Thanks and Giving campaign.
“The long-term strategy for the Thanks and Giving campaign is to develop additional partnerships in order to further increase awareness of this giving movement during a traditional time of thanks,” said Jocelyne Daw, VP of marketing and community engagement with Imagine Canada, in a press release. “Initial response from potential partners for year two has been encouraging; we look forward to growing this campaign beyond its inaugural launch.”
Georgina Steinsky-Schwartz, outgoing president and CEO of Imagine added: “We hope families will take the time this Thanksgiving weekend to reflect on which charities matter to them. The Thanks and Giving campaign introduces a new Thanksgiving tradition that encourages Canadians to come together to give back while they give thanks.”
It’s a prime example of future planning through an aggressive communications campaign by attempting to link charitable behaviour with an established holiday tradition.
What charities need to know about communication plans
Newer organizations have a few things to get straight right off the bat, according to MacKenzie.
“If you don’t have a donor base, you’ll probably spend a lot more money on your annual giving campaigns to build a broad base of donors with an interest in you so that you have a pool for major gift donors in the future,” he says. “But there aren’t cookie-cutter answers.”
MacKenzie offers three suggestions to help you succeed in your communications with donors.
- Understand the mechanics of fundraising, but adjust it to reflect the true DNA of your organization. Meaning, don’t do what everyone else does. Anyone can put up a donor wall. Do something creative.
- Understand the art of fundraising. Create the inspiration to inspire donors to give more. There are approximately 232 cancer agencies in Ontario alone. So how does a donor decide which to give to? The answer: to the one that personally impacts and actually asks for donations with an inspiring message via compelling stories. Don’t tell me about your organization, because I don’t really care. Bring that in later on in the message.
- Choose a marketing/communications consultant that fits for your organization. There are many great consultants that can do the work, but choose the one who best reflects the nature of your organization, and who can help you stretch, grow and inspire you to be bigger than you are.
Three hints for succeeding in your communication with donors courtesy of Sandy MacKenzie
- Understand the mechanics of fundraising, but adjust it to reflect the true DNA of your organization. Don’t do what everyone else does. Be creative.
- Understand the art of fundraising. Create the inspiration to inspire donors to give more. Ask for donations via compelling stories.
- Choose a marketing and/or communications consultant that fits for your organization. Choose the one who best reflects the nature of your organization and who can help you stretch, grow and inspire you to be bigger than you are.
Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf is president of WordLaunch professional writing services in Toronto. He can be reached at andy@wordlaunch.com.
