Discovering Donor Interests

20 Aug Discovering Donor Interests

20 August 2024

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

Have you ever been to the LL Bean flagship store in Freeport Maine? It’s enormous. And the factory store itself isn’t even the only building. LL Bean occupies an entire campus of buildings. There’s an auxiliary building for watercraft, another for something else – camping equipment maybe – an outside demonstration area, and an outlet store down the block.

When you arrive, you are greeted and asked what brought you to the store today.

Now imagine that you came to look at canoes. But instead of asking you what you were interested in, the salesperson took you directly to the fishing department, where she was very excited to show you all the top-line items at terrific prices! You politely explain that you are interested in canoes and she directs you to a different building.

Maybe a week later you go back to look at the canoes again, and this salesperson takes you to the luggage department.

A few more times with this experience and you will probably stop going to LL Bean altogether.

Or imagine that the salesperson greeting you at the door painstakingly starts to list all the items that LL Bean has to sell. You listen politely, but after the first dozen or so, your eyes glaze over and shortly after that, you leave without remembering what it was you were going to look at. What a waste of time!

Or imagine the salesperson sizing you up, concluding that you couldn’t afford a canoe anyway, and directing you to the inflatables instead.

In each of these cases, how does the experience make you feel? It probably feels fine for someone looking for fishing equipment, luggage, or inflatables. And chances are that someone will be interested in those things. So, it works sometimes.

But not for the rest of us.

Could it be – is it possible – that our communications leave members and donors feeling the same way? Showing them wetlands when their interest is in birds? Painstakingly listing all the organizational activities without ever honing in on the one thing they are most interested in hearing about? Not asking for meaningful levels of financial engagement when we judge that they can’t afford it?

What can we learn from LL Bean?

“I’m so glad you’re here. What brings you to the land trust today?”

The obvious answer is to ask. But when? And how?

I can think of at least three tools – practices, really – that could help. But the larger important thing is to make asking a habit. Don’t assume that individual’s attitudes, perspectives, interests, or even capacity to give is static. Ask, and ask again. And again.

1. Three question surveys – Use your social media and eNews to hotlink the willing to quick, three question surveys that might rotate every month. The sample sizes will be small, and self-selected, so the data you get back will be of limited usefulness in terms of broader interest areas. But it can tell you a lot about what individual members and donors think and feel.
2. Interest area briefings – Create entertaining program updates about specific topics, like restoration efforts, geographically specific project areas identified by your Strategic Conservation Plan, or specific assemblages of flora and fauna. Don’t create a program that covers all the options. Piece it out. The presentations could be in person or on ZOOM, but you should require registration. The people who respond – even those who cannot attend – are signaling their interest in that particular “catalogue item.”
3. Thank you messages – Make it a habit to ask a question in your thank you messages. How did you hear about the land trust? Do you have a favorite preserve?

And don’t forget to bring this information into your donor database. When you can connect individual donors to their specific areas of interest, you can more effectively tailor all of your donor communications – even fundraising messages.

And they will come back if you listen.

Now consider this: Why does someone give $5,000 to one organization and only $250 to us? Maybe it’s because the other organization is tailoring their communications more effectively than we are.

How are you tailoring your donor communications? What tools are you using? What are you learning?

I would love to hear of your experience.

Cheers, and Have a great week!

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by Junior Peres  courtesy of Pixaby.