Jack Eason Communicate to Cultivate”
It’s been said that the number one rule of communication is to know your audience. It’s ever been true, it is even more true in the day in which we live. During this last fundraising season, we have seen this to be evident with the ministries that we serve through Heart Share. The events that were fruitful (thankfully, most of them were!) had the common characteristics I would outline here.
Communicating specifically to the donor where they are is more important now than ever. There’s platforms, software, CRMs, etc. that will allow you to do that, and we should be utilizing technology to communicate with each specific donor in their specific way.
Here’s some things that we are learning when it comes to communicating.
1- You must be clear. I still hear too many ministries who are trying to “soft-sale” their fundraisers, not being clear about what the need is, not being transparent about where they are, and basically just not being honest with the listener. Listeners are not as ignorant as we sometimes treat them. We can’t “surprise” them into giving, or “sneak” up on them and get them to give.
2- You must give them (and should be giving them as a Christian radio station) a spiritual basis and reason to give and explain the scriptural instructions about giving. If you are assuming they are learning this in their churches or grew up knowing this, you can’t make that assumption.
3-You must communicate over and over again enough. One thing we have seen tested and proven over the last year is ramping up communication. The world is a busy place and people are busy. If we assume we can send one email, and the listener saw it and will respond to it, we are dead wrong. Most of our campaigns, events, fundraisers, etc had to have at least 7 (yes, seven!) deliberate and repetitive communications to be seen and get traction. For those stations or organizations that measured and tracked the responses, it was usually the 5th or 6th piece of communication before someone responded. As much as we would like to think that people are hanging on bated breath to hear from us, they aren’t. I get hundreds of emails every day. I sometimes miss seeing or responding to them, even from people I love and am WANTING to hear from. They are just pouring into my INBOX like a fountain. We have to add in social media and hard mail, of course. And then there’s texting. Ramping up to the election, I was getting 10-12 texts a week from political campaigns.
4-We need to communicate consistently. Because of #3 above, we have to be regularly communicating with our partners so they DO begin to expect communication and they are looking for it. That communication not only has to be consistent, BUT has to be appealing, inspiring, and deliver to them a strong reason/case/STORY for giving. It can’t just be another hoop for them to jump through (“come to the concert,” “get tickets here,” “sign up for this”); it has to prove your worth as a station and why they should give their hard-earned money to you.
If you effectively share your story and communicate, there’s no limit to how God will move on the hearts of people to fund the ministry. We have seen it over the last year.
Jack Eason is the President of The Heart Share Group, an organization dedicated to helping organizations reach their full potential through leadership development, brand development, and partnership development. Heart Share serves Christian radio through donor development strategies, fundraising initiatives (including on-air campaigns and major donor support), and creative partnerships. Contact Jack at jack@theheartsharegroup.com…
