Talk about fundraising with any charity and I bet you won’t wait more than five minutes before you hear the phrase ‘supporter journey’. It’s one of the laziest phrases in fundraising and I’ve banned its use at The Children’s Society.
That may sound a bit drastic, but let me explain. I’ve never met a supporter who believes they are on a ‘journey’ with a charity. Instead, they tend to divide their favourite charities into two groups: my charities and the others they support. The division is quite simple: my charities are organisations they would never let down, and there are other charities that they support from time to time but on a much less passionate basis.
In fact, my charities are seldom the organisations themselves, but also the people they help (eg a vulnerable child in need of care, or a brave, anti-whaling campaigner in their inflatable) or the cause, like fighting cancer because my mum died of it or development because I’ve lived in the developing world and seen dire poverty first hand.
In other words, my loyalty isn’t built through a careful set of communications that seamlessly move me up the donor pyramid, but rather because the cause engages me in a very personal way, which is nurtured over time.
Supporter engagement is about pursuing this sort of genuine loyalty, by treating supporters as the wonderful human beings they are, with a range of needs and interests. In turn, it also puts the supporter more in control of their relationship with us.
So what does this mean in practice?
Let’s consider an all-too-familiar occurrence in fundraising: a supporter recruited by face to face fundraising three months ago has cancelled their direct debit.
In response, the supporter journey approach would be to phone the person up and try to put them back on track by suggesting that they re-establish their direct debit. What a bizarre conversation that would be:
‘Dear supporter, we understand you’ve just cancelled your direct debit.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh dear. Would you like to sign up to a direct debit?’
Think about it! Even if the supporter does re-establish the direct debit, they’re most likely to cancel again. It’s likely just a journey down a dead-end street.
Supporter engagement in action
A supporter engagement approach would be broader. First, we would explain that we’re sorry they have cancelled their direct debit, and then ask why. Next, we’d offer other opportunities to re-engage with our work:
- ‘Would you still be keen to support our charity?’
- ‘If finances are a problem at the moment, would you be happy to support one of our campaigns for policy change?’
- ‘Would you be happy to have a fun event for us once a year with your friends – perhaps on your birthday?’
If that supporter gets involved, you’ve still got them and can perhaps re-approach them for a donation after a decent time has elapsed.
Whether they are donors, volunteers, campaign activists or other supporters, our charity – and charities across the country – would not survive without these wonderful people. We need to start looking at lifetime value as the total value of a supporter in financial and non-financial terms. Then, perhaps, we can start to break out of the straightjacket of pushbutton churn and burn fundraising.
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