on the money by Larry F. Johnston What’s Driving Your Donors?
In seminars I teach at conferences, I’ll frequently ask participants, “What is the primary purpose of development?” Answers always vary, but they tend to cluster in several areas: raising funds, building relationships, advancing the organiza- tion’s mission and teaching stewardship. After hearing from the seminar audience, I’ll
tell them what the primary purpose of develop- ment is from my vantage point — to create and keep the right kinds of donors.
Creating donors entails many activities,
including branding, marketing and communi- cations. Central in these activities is developing and articulating a distinctive value proposition, something that should be the cornerstone of your organization’s strategy. A value proposition recognizes that increas-
Keeping donors entails knowing what value is for your donors, and more specifically,
what the key value drivers are for your donors.
ingly, development departments must be about the business of mutual value creation — proac- tively creating value for donors and other stakeholders as they go about creating value (gift income, a healthy donor base, visibility, brand equity, etc.) for their organizations. But keeping donors entails knowing what
value is for your donors, and more specifically, what the key value drivers are for your donors.
What’s driving your donors? Our research at McConkey-Johnston Interna- tional has confirmed that there are a couple dozen drivers of donor satisfaction, engagement, loyalty and thus, donor lifetime value. We know these drivers vary by organization, and that while some of these overlap, each donor base has a distinctive “personality.” What’s more, our research confirms that key
drivers not only vary between organizations, but also they can vary within organizations by donor segment. Tat is, key drivers for major donors can be different than those for medium and mass donors giving to the same organization. Now here’s the head-scratcher. It can be force-
fully argued that nothing is more important to the success of development than consistently delivering on these key drivers, yet I doubt that one in 100 development departments could provide empirically-based answers to the criti- cal question of what drives their donors’ loyalty.
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www.ccca.org May/June 2024
Photo courtesy of Camp Greystone
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