Thoughts

The year is in full swing, your organization’s goals are in place, your teams are off and running. Are you ready for a successful year of people raising? Notice I didn’t say fundraising. ..more on that later.

How well do you know your donors? Knowing how your organization aligns with your donors values, goals and culture can make all the difference between a year success vs. stress.  This is where donor assessments can be a huge help.

Sidebar - I started my career in social research. I’m curious, analytical and a little bit of an extrovert, so anytime I get a chance to conduct a survey, run a focus group or host an interview, I’m in my happy place.  

I’ve seen amazing things happen when fundraising teams take the time to deeply understand their donors.  I’ve been equally frustrated in organizations when the only donor metric was revenue. Here's how assessments can make a big impact:

1.       You can zero in on which donor relationships to prioritize.  As humans, there’s social science that says we can only actively manage about 150  1-to-1 relationships in our lives (Dunbar’s Number).  So if you’re a fundraising teamof 1 or 10 or 100, there are only so many sincere relationships your organization’s staff can have with major donors, corporate donors, and foundations.  If your organization relies on mass marketing and direct response fundraising to raise dollars then there are only so many segments your organization can manage before at an appropriate level of cost and complexity. The point -time is a limited resouce focus on the right donors.

2.       Ensure you’re telling your mission story so it's relevant and resonates. Make sure funders understand your organization’s work, impact and how they fit into the big picture.

3.       Understand funder’s goals and preferences. Get them involved and keep in touch in a way they prefer. Eliminate any communications friction.

If donor assessments aren’t in your 2025 plan you can still make it happen. Ideally, you can find budget, people with expertise, and time to take this on. If budget and expertise are a challenge, I strongly believe some good information is better than no information. Creating a habit of listening to donors and gathering feedback is a great start. Here are two activities to consider taking on yourself:

1)       1-to-1 donor interviews.  Put together a list of 5-8 questions that you most want to know about your donors. Schedule 30-minute meetings with a small portion of donors and prospects who represent your overall funders well. Ask the same questions of each and record your answers.  

2)       Conduct a simple survey.  10-15 questions using a Google form or Survey Monkey that can be emailed to your donor list can go far.  Make sure you can take action on the questions you ask.

When this is all done, thank your donors and tell them how you’re using the information they provided.

There’s a lot of ways to approach donor assessments, and  I’m just scratching the surface,  so I’m happy to nerd out on this with anyone who’s interested.

I’m curious – who has donor assessments built into theirdevelopment work? What are you doing in 2025?

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