What do you say about a conference so chock full of “aha!” moments and takeaways, so teeming with savvy minds from Roger Craver, to Nancy Schwartz to 
Kivi Leroux Miller to Dane Grams to Tom Harrison? And the overriding theme was retention and donor loyalty? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.
FundRaising Success’ Engage Conference last week in Philadelphia was cutting edge. No theories, no BS, just a focus on what works. And, when it comes to no BS, who better to lead us off than the master of straight talk, Roger Craver who opened the event with the message that, yes, organizations are still losing seven out of 10 donors every year, thanks to fairytale fundraising. Indeed. Roger advised that we should be paying consultants based on retention. Can I get an amen?
Want to know what you can do to stop the leaky bucket? Download Roger’s 7 Drivers of Donor Retention from his upcoming book, Retention Fundraising.
Featuring case studies from three exceptional organizations, we learned:
- How Operation Smile took their donor acknowledgement process from six months to receive a thank you letter — to 24 hours.
- How Operation Smile ensures a seamless back-end by engaging everyone in their work — to the extent of taking call center staff on missions
- How American Bible Society used analytics to focus on the right donors and developing deep relationships with them
And Human Rights Campaign (they of the famous red marriage equality sign) closed out the case studies with seven key takeaways from their team:
- “Make friends with your vendors.” Remember my mantra: Everything, but everything, is figure-out-able. With your vendors on your side, it’s much easier to ensure that your back-end processes are flowing smoothly.
- “Be nimble.” Sometimes you can’t pause to take a breath — you’ve got to keep moving with the current and take advantage of opportunities (and, once you start focusing on what’s important, you’ll find opportunities falling into your lap. It’s that whole “woo woo” laws of attraction working in your favor).
- “You’ve got to be utterly tenacious.” Persistency rules. Rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat.
- “Dream big. You’ve got to take risks.” HRC.org was upfront and transparent about missteps along the way. And, yes, you will sometimes fail. What do you do when you fall? You pick yourself up and do it better next time.
- “Invest in retention.” How can you thank each and every donor personally? Making donor thank you calls is often an ideal first-step with board members who are reluctant to fundraise.
- “Invest in your people.” 40% of development directors plan to escape from fundraising within the next two years? What about instituting STAY interviews — what would it take to keep you here?
- “Reinvent and redefine.” If you’re not tweaking and reinventing, you’re not learning.
Oh, and what do all three organizations have in common? Robust monthly giving programs. Another awesome person I got to meet? Erica Waasdorp, author of the new book Monthly Giving: The Sleeping Giant.
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