As you’ve probably experienced, most New Year’s resolutions fizzle out by the second or third week of January. That’s why I wanted to share an approach that is much more likely to last: habits that genuinely change the fundraising results you achieve.
For 20 years I’ve been curious about what certain fundraisers do to achieve good results consistently. I’ve interviewed hundreds of them! And I’ve noticed they don’t just have one brilliant idea once in a while or nail one perfect pitch.
Their success comes from repeatedly doing certain things regularly. Most of these repeated practices or habits are relatively easy to do…but they are also easy to not do!
I recently caught up with my colleague Ben Swart for the Fundraising Bright Spots podcast to record this episode: Four habits for your best fundraising year ever.
Here is an outline with some ideas and resources that I hope will help you choose one or two you’d like to try this year.
Habit 1: Decide what you want. And make it visual.
There is a part of your brain, the reticular activating system (R.A.S) that helps you notice things that are important to you. Remember buying a new car and suddenly seeing that model everywhere? Those cars were always there—you just weren’t paying attention because they hadn’t been meaningful.
The practical application of making use of your RAS works for many types of fundraising, but for example, if you are a corporate fundraiser, rather than have a list of 100 or so possible partners, create a ‘Dream Partner’ list, focusing on just ten. Put their logos on one piece of paper for your noticeboard, like it’s your personal Wanted poster.
Your brain will start noticing opportunities to create or deepen a relationship with those companies. One place is connections or posts you see on LinkedIn; or you might remember past conversations or ideas you’ve had about that company; and if you share it in meetings with colleagues or volunteers, they might say “I know someone who works there’’ or ‘someone from that company just did our event.’
Charlie Richardson from Medical Detection Dogs applied this strategy when she took part in the Corporate Partnerships Mastery programme. A colleague saw her poster and immediately helped with introductions to friends at a company where she used to work. Within a few months the charity had been nominated for and won a Charity of the Year partnership worth more than £50,000.
Want to know more? Listen to Winning Partnerships and Growing Existing Ones (Episode 171).
Habit 2: Seek conversations. And pick up the phone!
Once you’re clear on who you want to connect with, don’t initially seek money / partnerships, seek conversations.
There are many ways to increase the number of conversations you have with people who could care about your cause. But one of the most powerful is to call them.
I know—this feels uncomfortable. But get clear that your purpose is not to “ask for money” but to “seek conversations to build great relationships.”
Some calls are relatively easy, because they are all give and no take:
Is there someone who recently supported your charity who you could call just to say thank you?
One fundraiser name Debbie who did our recent Major Gifts Mastery programme shared that she called a donor who was donating £500 per month. She called just to say thank you. He was so moved by this sincere, thoughtful call that he immediately doubled his gift to £1,000 monthly—from a three-minute conversation.
Or Pam, who called a company that was considering a £2,000-£5,000 donation, just to understand them better. Two days later, the company donated £50,000 to Pam’s charity. Their feedback? “We’d told ten charities we might support. You were the only one who called us.’’
As one smart fundraiser Leanne put it: “If I don’t call, supporters are just size 12 arial font on a spreadsheet. When I call and connect, now there’s colour, the relationship feels far more real.”
I know this is not the easiest habit for most of us to jump into, but it’s so valuable, and I promise you it’s easier than you think. For help and encouragement check out this blog full of practical tips:
How to be more confident talking to supporters.
Habit 3: Make time to think
In a very popular episode of my podcast, Jhumar Johnson shared her secret to remaining calm and effective: she deliberately thinking time into her day.
It’s all too easy to rush from one task to the other, doing doing doing.
Pausing to think clearly makes such a difference to your effectiveness. It helps you make better choices about what to do first and spend most time on. And it helps you do those things well.
For example, before diving in to reply to emails each morning, spend at least 5-10 minutes asking: what would be great outcomes today? What 3 important things would I most like to achieve?
Thinking time is partly about asking yourself good questions. In our recent podcast, Juliane Caillouette Noble from the Sustainable Restaurant Association shared that one important element of her leadership is to ask: “Is there a better (or easier) way to get this outcome?”
Want help with this? Listen to Make time to think (Episode 170).
Habit 4: Search for the leverage point
Imagine your biggest fundraising challenge as a boulder. You could apply pressure to dozens of places on the boulder, getting tired, and feel you’ve made no progress.
The leverage point principle says 1 or 2 things usually have disproportionate power to create momentum in solving a problem—like finding exactly where to place a lever to shift a boulder.
Craig Linton talks about this brilliantly in Episode 179. For patchy individual giving income, one powerful leverage point is changing the time it takes for donors receive a thank you for their gift.
Research shows that thanking someone within two days, compared within two to three weeks, increases the likelihood people will give again by 60%. So the process for thanking promptly is a valuable element of the Individual Giving puzzle to solve.
Craig has found that many charities take at least two weeks to send out thank you letters. There are several common reasons for it taking this long, but he found that many follow a linear process, originally created when donations were cheques—waiting for clearance before initiating the process of step of sending a thank you.
By redesigning the process so that more key steps happen at the same time, he has found most charities can reduce the time it takes to send a thank you from 2-3 weeks to within 48 hours. The impact on retention and generosity has been dramatic.
Of course, the fundraising challenge you need to solve may be different. And you may not know exactly what the ‘leverage point’ is for your challenge. But the habit of ongoingly trying to work out what the leverage point is, is an invaluable habit.
Keep asking, and seeking answers to: ‘where will focused effort make a disproportionate difference to this issue?’
If you keep asking, sooner or later it will become clear.
For help and more examples, listen to How to change what’s not working with Craig Linton.
Which habit will you try?
Is there a habit or two here that you’d like to deliberately test out in the next few weeks?
1. Decide what you want. And make it visual.
2. Seek conversations. And pick up the phone.
3. Make time to think.
4. Search for the leverage point.
To go much deeper into strategies for growing fundraising income, a Bright Spot team training or Mastery Programme makes a big difference. Find out more or request a chat here.
Which habit(s) will you try this year? Let me know how you get on.
Find this helpful? If so, please share it on, so we can help as many good causes as possible.
