What's in a name?

""What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

William Shakespeare, through Romeo and Juliet may have had a point.  But actually, a common knowledge is useful, especially in teaching.

I presented two sessions at AFP last week, to a mostly American audience and spoke about two things - what we in Australia call regular giving and a method of recruiting them, called face to face.  

By regular givers, I mean someone who has money debited automatically again and again in an agreed time period, usually monthly.

By face to face, I mean the act of speaking with someone, in person, and asking them for such an automatic donation.

These two names don't really work.

To many fundraisers, a regular giver is, understandably, someone who gives - um - regularly. This could include people who donate every Christmas.  So regular givers is not the right term. The Canadian approach is to call them monthly givers doesn't quite work either, since some are quarterly and some are fortnightly.

As for face to face, many fundraisers have, for decades, referred to the act of asking major donors for money, in person, as face to face. So this confuses people. Even if you define what you are talking about, people need to train their minds to the crossed meaning, which reduces the impact of the point of the teaching.

My proposed solution is to grab the best descriptions that exist and make them universal (for English speakers anyway - I don't know where to start with Chinese or Spanish equivalents).

I recommend for monthly donors / regular donors / automatic debitors we take on the American descriptor:  "Sustainer".  It makes sense, isn't a re-branding of the word and is not ambiguous. 

For face to face / street fundraising / chugging we should go with the old British descriptor: 

"Direct dialogue."  I won't even complain about the inevitable American misspelling (Dialog) which is more environmentally friendly anyway.  (Think about it).

Anyone want to help me with the re-branding campaign?

Sean

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast Data 2

The second of three bits of data on the value of regular givers, relevant to the recent podcast on Fundraising is Beautiful.It shows the value of regular givers recruited from thirty odd New Zealand and Australian charities.  (Australian and New Zealand charities, email Clarke if you want to come into next year's benchmarking program).SeanRg numbers for podcast part 2 value

View more presentations from Pareto Group.

Fundraising Basics: 8 - Regular Giving

Regular giving / monthly giving / direct debit

Call it what you want, but automatic debits from credit cards, bank accounts and phone bills - pre-programmed regular giving has led to the biggest revolution in fundraising history.

For mass donor programs, donors giving through these methods have a much better retention and delivery than anything else.

But it is expensive, you need to pay someone to mail, phone, visit or stop in the street potential donors. It usually takes nine months to three years to break even (!) depending on the market you are in, but it is the single biggest driver for growth since the mid-late 90s, and is still going strong.

For a little bit more information on regular giving check out my earlier blog.

Sean Triner

SOFII Saturday Showcase VI: Bringing the sense of touch to fundraising

UK agency bluefrog are well know for their brilliant creativity. One of their clients Sense, who work with deaf and blind kids, use face-to-face (direct dialogue) to recruit regular givers. bluefrog worked with Sense to find a way for strangers to identify with the kids and motivate them to decide to help Sense.

Tim Longfoot, then a bluefrog director (now a director of Open) worked with a specialist face-to-face fundraising agency, Gift, and Sense to develop a unique approach to direct dialogue.

Close your eyes and just think for a moment about kids who are deaf and blind. How can you make that positive? It’s a tough cause, and quite difficult to put across in print.

Tim reckoned face-to-face was ideal. ‘Imagine the isolated world of a deaf/blind child…’ says Tim ‘Yet the most amazing things can be done to reach these children, with Sense’s help. Our fundraisers are trained to show this to potential donors in the most dramatic and involving way.’

How did they do this? When a passer-by is prepared to stop and listen, there and then on the pavement the fundraiser will create for them the imaginary silent world of a deaf/blind child. In one hand the fundraiser holds a length of chain, in the other a piece of soft cloth. ‘Touch is crucial communication for a deaf/blind child’ explains Tim. ‘We ask our potential donor to close her or his eyes and grasp the chain in their hand. They imagine the chain is from a child’s swing and can see immediately the pleasure of a child holding such a simple gift; how it reaches in to the child’s silent world. The piece of cloth represents the mother’s sleeve as she adopts the open-armed greeting that for these children symbolises ‘love’. In this simple, involving way people are able to touch and feel what it means to be a child with neither sound nor vision. Often, they are touched by this experience and many willingly agree to help.

Sign up through the SOFII home page and search for Sense to see the whole exhibit.

Sean Triner

Regular giving reference blog

In many blogs and articles will refer to regular giving. What do I mean?

Regular giving is, to me and all those in Pareto Fundraising and Pareto Phone, the act of giving an automated gift to a charity, usually by credit card or straight from bank account. It is usually monthly.

It is also the biggest revolution in non-governmental fundraising history, producing more growth for more charities than anything else, ever.

Large and small charities have had their ability to provide services revolutionised by regular giving. For a great example, check out this article by Kate Hoelter, Fundraising Manager at The Lost Dogs' Home.

Last year we gathered together a group of charities in Australia, and analysed their income by source, excluding legacies and government. As you can see in the chart below, HALF of their fundraising revenue of $160m p.a. now comes from regular giving.

(F2F, RG, Child Sponsorship and F2F Child Sponsorship make up the four top segments, orange, blue, purple and green - and all are types of regular giving).

If you work in charities, and raise money from individuals it is essential that you investigate it further if you haven't already. If you don't, you are negligent and should fire yourself!

Credit card expiry date - Wiki Blog

This blog is a plea for help. Please write comments to help charities overcome credit card expiry issues.

For years charities in Australia, UK, Canada and almost certainly more countries have been able to continue to process donations on a monthly basis from people who have made an ongoing commitment to that charity. Often credit card expiry dates would go by, without the donor's details being updated. Credit card processing companies have just let the donations continue.

A client of ours recently found out their bank is about to stop this practice.

Of course, we all know that charities should take opportunities from phone calls and even appeals to capture up to date expiry dates - every phone call, even a 'failed sale' should update credit card expiry dates.

From the fundraisers out there who read this blog - and from the commerical people who deal with a similar issue, please can you post some comments with some ideas of how to help?

Thank you!