Ryan Wilson

Had a grand time visiting Tallahassee, Fl., with family to see my brother and his wife.

Here are a few snaps. We checked out Florida State University’s campus; went to the beach; and I got in a beach power wheelchair.

The chair, as you can see, was 4X my size, but, hey, it worked.

Most nonprofits are trying to find new donors, but you’re actually sitting on a gold mine right now.

If you focus your attention on the donors you have now, growth is so much easier.

Think about it.

You spend months planning an event. Staff is invested; you’re recruiting sponsors and donors; and then ... the event ends.

That’s often where donor retention breaks down, because the impact isn’t being consistently communicated.

So you’ve got a nonprofit, and you and your eight staff members are doing $1.1M a year.

You serve hundreds of families annually, and are seeing awesome results.

But your website, uh, looks like it was built by someone’s nephew in 2016.

Doh.

Many nonprofit executive directors believe that investing in how their story looks and sounds is somehow less legitimate than investing in the programs that story is about.

Here is the data:

Nonprofits that invest strategically in donor communications, including video, consistently outperform peer organizations in donor retention, major gift conversion and year-over-year fundraising growth. Bingo.

The investment in telling your story is not separate from the investment in your mission. (Ever notice how much I tell my story?? 🤔)

For a donor deciding between two organizations doing similar work, they will choose the with a story told clearly, professionally and with emotional precision.🎯

Your programs deserve to be funded at the level they perform.

That starts with a story told to earn it.