What, Not How

Here’s a principle I live by when creating fundraising:

“Ask individual donors to fund what your organization makes happen, not how your organization makes it happen.”

Most nonprofits tend to focus their fundraising on “how their organization makes things happen.”  This means their fundraising tends to be full of three things:

• Their Programs.  You see this in sentences like, “Our program Uplifting Kids takes children from 3-5 and….” 
• Their Approach.  “We have a holistic approach that preserves the dignity…”
• Their Analogy.  “What we really do is provide hope at the end of the road.”

That’s how the organization does its work.  It’s how the organization makes the change it makes.

It’s 100% true that institutional funders are very interested in how organizations do their work.  Institutional funders are often experts in the field, so when you tell them your programs & approach, the Grantmaking Officer has the knowledge & context to immediately understand why your programs & approach are valuable and worth supporting.

In fact, a grants officer might have proposals from five similar organizations on their desk on any given day.  In that context, how the organization does its work is vitally important.

On the other hand, individual donors are usually not experts in the field.  They don’t have the knowledge or context that helps them understand why your programs and approach are valuable.  And these non-experts tend to value different things about your work than institutional funders value.

So the question, “What do individual donors value about our work?” is one that every nonprofit should be asking itself.

And for what it’s worth, in our experience individual donors are more interested in funding what you make happen.  They are interested in the results of your approach.  They want to fund the change you make.

For example, a nonprofit that provides preschool to underserved families should say, “Will you give a gift to send one child to preschool” instead of saying “Will you support Uplifting Kids, our program that takes children from 3-5 and…”

Share results like “13 underprivileged women graduated from college because of you” and “the fall theatre season was a smashing success thanks to you.”

Share specifics like, “You can help a child in outer Mongolia get the medical care they need” instead of “You can give a child hope at the end of the road.”

You get it.

Is there room to mention your programs, approach, and analogies in your fundraising?  Sure.  They are a small part of what makes up your brand. 

But your fundraising to individual donors will immediately start working much better if you start to focus on what your donor’s gift will do instead of how your organization will do it.

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