Your Donors LOVE You! Are You Listening to Them?

Donors often have interesting ways to tell organizations how much they love them. They may not doodle your organization’s name on their notebook or send flowers and chocolates- but as Blackbaud Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist Chuck Longfield points out, there are other things they do or say that point to the L-O-V-E factor.

Says Longfield, “A donor just phoned to tell you her change of address and commented on how much she loves the work of your organization. The data input clerk thanks her and puts in the change. Wait a minute! Something really rather wonderful just happened there.”

“What… a routine change of address?”

“No. Wrong. This donor just put her hand up and said, “I love you.” Think about it. She took the trouble to call to let you know her address has changed. She cares enough to tell you personally. She would never do that, unless she loved you. So the last thing she wants is for you to lose track of her.”

Chuck hit the nail on the head. Her action is a clear signal that needs the proper attention. Oftentimes, these “events” are treated as standard and routine database and administration changes. The moral of the story is that the data is there, it just often is not being used correctly to tell us something more important under the surface. To learn more about harnessing the LOVE from donors, check out Do You Have a Donor Love Meter? to see Chuck in action (via video) and get some great ideas that you can put into practice.

“She is self-identifying,” Chuck explains. “It’s something many donors will never do, though a surprising number will. However, very few nonprofits take steps to record this kind of data. Donors are telling us things, yet we ignore the information.” To learn more about identifying passionate donors, take a peek at Chuck’s article about Six Qualities of Passionate Donors.

Want to learn more about using data “gold” to identify these trends? Read Data is gold. But only if you can get to its real value to get more valuable insight and quotes from Chuck, as well as some helpful hints about how to use the data!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tiffany Crumpton

As the Director of Vertical Marketing and Strategy for Blackbaud’s Higher Education Solutions group, Tiffany is accountable for leading the strategic management and execution of the team’s go-to-market strategy across the entire higher education landscape in North America. Key areas of responsibility include the strategic planning, commercialization and go-to-market execution of launching solutions and services to meet the ever-changing needs of Higher Education institutions. Additionally, Tiffany leads the team that evaluates and introduces new solutions to the market to affect the entire income stream on campus through partnership and acquisition- one recent example is the acquisition of AcademicWorks scholarship and award management solution into the Blackbaud portfolio in April 2017.

Tiffany maintains a strong commitment to nonprofit leadership and has served on a number of nonprofit boards and steering committees supporting her alma mater, mentorship programs for women beginning careers in Marketing and Technology as well as organizations combatting the many issues that arise with hunger and homelessness in our community. Tiffany currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Lowcountry Food Bank.