OVER A MILLION OTHER NONPROFITS WANT YOUR DONORS
I had lunch with a great nonprofit’s super-smart president today, and we were talking about American social movements.
His 40-year-old organization can genuinely be said to have helped spur and fuel an incredibly successful movement.
But he told me that he is intentionally trying to shift the way the people in the movement think of themselves. He wants them to think of their cause not in terms of movement but as an institution.
I asked him why.
He answered by quoting Eric Hoffer: “Because every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
That. Is. So. True.
Or at least it is true with tragic frequency.
That makes me think of the number of nonprofits in the United States.
There are 1.5 million 501(c)3 nonprofits in the U.S.
That number has almost doubled since 2000, when there were 800,000 nonprofits operating in the States.
So we’ve added 700,000 nonprofits in the last 24 years.
Does that make sense?
It might. There may be a case for adding one new nonprofit for every 50 people in the country, but it sure seems like an awful lot of new nonprofits, especially when we seemingly already had so many nonprofits for every conceivable cause.
It’s hard not to wonder if a lot of people aren’t turning causes into businesses and into rackets.
How do you compete for audience attention?
One thing’s for sure: every nonprofit today has wayyyyy more competition than they used to.
What can you do about that?
What you can do is create the most remarkable, enchanting, unexpectedly awesome experience for your current and future donors and volunteers.
Experience is the strategy that always wins. Always. In every era and sector.
The people who created nonprofits to make a name and make bank don't care enough about their supporters and volunteers to create awesome experiences.
But you do.
You can do better. Much, much better.
Your starting point for fresh, new experiences
To help you brainstorm, consider and imagine different types of experiences you might offer your supporters, we created the SUBLIMITY Audience Experience (AX) Schema (downloadable here).
The AX Schema is simple: it's basically twelve different types of experiences you might consider creating for supporters.
So think of the audience you want to enchant or reenchant, look through the schema's twelve experience types, pick one and start imagining experience concepts for your audience.
Yep, it's that simple. And that useful.
An amazing sustainer program is essential
In the upper left of the AX Schema, you'll see the first box called "Sowing Machine." Here we are primarily focused on uniquely great, experience-driven sustainer programs.
And we mean "experience driven." Adding a "make it monthly" checkbox to your donation page will, yes, add more monthly donors to your file, but that's not a remarkable experience and you'll never attract anywhere near as many sustainers as you could with an experience driven sustainer program.
The sustainer decision is different
Remember, the decision to give monthly is a vastly different decision than a simple one time gift.
What are you asking someone to do, when you ask them to give monthly?
You're asking them to:
Hand over their credit card…
…so you can ding it automatically
…month after month after month
…in perpetuity
…with no end date
That's quite the ask!
Some of your most raving fans will do that readily, of course. But if you're going to really grow, then you need more than your most diehard fans to become sustainers.
And those not-diehard-but-still-favorable fans will be far, far more likely to join your sustainer program if you care enough to give them an experience.
The moments that matter most
What does it mean to make your sustainer program an experience?
Think about these two moments in particular:
Encounter: the moment they first notice your existence
Belonging: the period after they've joined and see themselves as members
At the moment of encounter, you're going to have to break through the clutter of the 1.5MM nonprofits out there and stand out in a relevant way.
Tools of that trade include advertising hooks, remarkable video, copy that sets the heart racing and an offer for the amazing opportunity they didn't know existed (but that you discovered they'd love via Human Centered Design).
Make the most of the encounter
In late 2011, at my local running store, I picked up a brochure for the nascent Spartan Race obstacle course racing series, which headlined its brochure with "You might die!"
It showed images of people crawling through mud, hauling themselves up over enormous walls, climbing up ropes and various other forms of endurance-based suffering.
I thought "WHAT. IS. THIS???"
Granted, "you might die!" is not the advertising hook for everyone! But it was for me, and for a lot of my friends and acquaintances.
By 2013, I'd competed in a number of Spartan Race events and organized teams totalling at least forty other competitors.
All from encountering one great hook and an amazing opportunity I didn't know existed.
Your sustainer program should do the same.
Encountering a great sustainer program
One of the great sustainer programs my team and I helped develop (with marketing director Tracey Werre and her great team) was Mission Aviation Fellowship's Flight Crew.
The moment of encounter offered audience members the opportunity to “take a virtual flight” on their phone via the chatbot-powered, multimedia flight experience we’d created for them.
The audience loved it. But, we would never have understood this amazing opportunity if we had not used Human Centered Design to meet and involve audience members. Unforeseen audience member storytelling led directly to the virtual flight experience.
Sustainers deserve to feel like they belong
Providing moments of ongoing belonging is also crucial for creating an effective sustainer journey.
That’s the time to deliver on the promise you made to them, in return for becoming sustainers.
There are some clear Dos and Don'ts associated with the belonging phase:
Do:
Make a big deal about their joining your sustainer community
Deliver on what you promised them as sustainers (e.g., impact reports, special edition videos, useful resources, wearables)
Execute on the on-brand surprise and delight experience you discovered they would love through Human Centered Design (e.g., art print, special thank you from beneficiaries, Flat Stanley style family experience designed by my colleague Paige Walthall 🙂)
Give them meaningful opportunities to upgrade or give extra gifts toward fresh needs
Tell the fuller story of what their giving does through your organization
Seek opportunities to upgrade the experience they have with you, so that it doesn't get stale
Don't:
Keep sending them all the single gift appeals you used to
Let your ongoing communication fail to acknowledge their status
Fail to send them anything at all (this actually happens!)
Forget to lead with gratitude when seeking to update their credit card information
Settle for a "good enough" sustainer experience — your sustainers deserve better
Be afraid to change the fundamental sustainer program concept, if powerful new opportunities come along (but ONLY after validating through Human Centered Design)
Your sustainer program should be a primary source of growth
Nearly every organization has a sustainer program at this point. If that sustainer program is driving significant annual growth for your organization, then it's probably reasonably successful.
If your sustainer program is not driving significant annual growth for your organization — and most aren't — then something is wrong with the experience you're providing.
Obviously, we'd love to help you discover, develop, and launch the remarkable new sustainer experience that your audience will love.
But we'd also love to help you get better at experience development.
Wonder Camp is just the place for that!
And it's coming up quick (Oct 15-17, in Carefree AZ).
We're mostly filled up, but we have a few spots left.
Join us there!
Allen
allen@sublimity.co
571.283.8283
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Wonder Camp
October 16-17 | Carefree, AZ
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