Inspiring generosity is an incredible goal that can feel difficult to pin down. Most fundraisers understand how to ask supporters for donations and how to encourage generosity, but inspiration takes things to a whole different level. Inspiration is all about creating the right environment and setting the stage. Ultimately, fundraisers can never force inspiration, but fortunately with the right tools and the right framework, inspiration is never too far away.
How do we define generosity right now?
If you want to be an organization that is inspiring generosity, you need to first understand what it truly is. Generosity can be defined as a willingness to give or share, often without any expectation of receiving anything in return. However, when it comes to nonprofit organizations, the concept of generosity tends to be defined more specifically as writing checks or making an immediate financial donation.
This view of generosity is limited and puts your organization’s financial needs right at the center of your relationship with your supporters. While that may create some short term success, ultimately it’s the long-term relationships that provide the greatest lifetime value for donors.
How should we define generosity?
If immediate cash donations are a too limited definition of generosity, how should we define this concept? Generosity should be defined more broadly to encompass all forms of giving and sharing. Creative financial contributions such as donating stocks, donating crypto, making planned gifts, or participating in workplace giving programs are all excellent ways to show generosity. Volunteering time, attending events, and advocating for an organization's mission can also be incredibly valuable contributions.
The responsive framework is an umbrella philosophy that helps organizations listen to their supporters and connect with them in a meaningful way in order to make thoughtful, personalized suggestions on how each supporter can be generous to your organization. The tips below are pulled from the concepts of responsive fundraising, but if you are interested in taking a deep dive into the responsive framework, check out this free e-book from Virtuous: The Responsive Playbook.
4 Tips for Inspiring Generosity
Inspiration has to be natural and organic at some level. It is simply something that cannot be forced. However, being more responsive in your fundraising efforts and creating more opportunities to engage build the foundation for inspiring generosity.
Tip 1: Know your supporters personally
Inspiring generosity in your supporters requires that you know them personally. Understanding what motivates them and what causes they care about can help you tailor your fundraising appeals to their interests. Understanding your supporters isn’t a particularly controversial stance, but it’s incredibly difficult to do at scale without the right tools.
In order to know your supporters, you need to first listen to them. With a responsive nonprofit CRM, you have the tools you need to listen to the signals your supporters are already giving you. Indirect signals that a good CRM can track include:
- Geolocation
- Social score
- Wealth score
- Website tracking
- Email open and click-through rates
You can also listen to your supporters by directly soliciting feedback. You can do this by conducting surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one conversations with supporters.
Listen to your supporters. Connect with them. Get to know them. The reality is that what inspires me and what inspires you are likely two different things. If you send out the same messaging to everyone in your database, you won’t be inspiring generosity for all recipients. However, if you listen to your supporters and respond to their unique interests, passions, and capabilities with personalized messaging, they will be much more likely to be inspired to generosity.
Tip 2: Set up multiple ways to be generous
Inspiring generosity must be centered around your supporters. Once you get to know them a little bit better, you may also find that they ways in which they want to be generous is not perfectly aligned with the opportunities your organization creates for generosity. One of the most frustration situations a fundraiser can create is building a relationship with a donor who wants to be generous, but the organization is not set up to receive the generosity.
A common example of this is stock giving. Many donors who are inspired by an organization may want to make a large gift, but their best way to do that is through stock giving. If you have met a donor, listened to them, connected personally, and found that you are inspiring generosity, you want to be able to take the next step. However, if your organization is not set up for stock gifts, you may have to turn down the donation or go through a complicated process that is not creating a good donor experience for your aspiring major donor.
The example above can happen with so many forms of generosity: crypto, volunteering, attending events, etc. As an organization that is inspiring generosity, you need to be prepared for the different ways a donor may show up to be generous.
Tip 3: Create a community around your mission
Think about the last time you felt inspired to action. It was probably emotional and you probably felt that your action would be a part of a greater movement towards some good in the world. Creating a sense of community around your mission can help with inspiring generosity. People love to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Making a donation or volunteering your time in isolation lacks meaning. A movement of a community towards a single goal is powerful. Creating that community will help inspire generosity among your supporters.
Creating a community can be achieved through regular communication, events, and opportunities for supporters to connect with one another and with your organization. The great news about creating a community is that it has a bit of a snowball effect. Start with a single annual event you do every year in the community, and make it excellent. As you get known for that event, your supporters will help spread the word and build the community for you. Creating the community is a team effort, and it will result in greater awareness around your organization and a stronger supporter identity with your mission.
Creating a community also allows supporters to feel a greater sense of ownership and involvement with your organization's mission, which can lead to inspiring generosity at a larger scale. All of those individuals who are volunteering, advocating, and sharing your mission? They are great candidates for talking to about financial generosity (whatever form it may take!).
Tip 4: Use automation for inspiring generosity at scale
Using automation can help you inspire generosity at scale. Not only will the right tool help you pull in donor signals and make it easier to listen to your supporters, but the right tool will also include automation functionality that will make it easier for you to scale your fundraising efforts. Automation is a powerful tool that can personalize supporter communications at scale, ultimately connecting with your supporters and inspiring them to generosity.
For fundraisers new to automation, knowing where to start is a challenge. Fortunately there are plenty of free resources out there, such as this free Marketing Automation Playbook. At a high level though, automation means that you can track those pieces of data that tell you who a donor is and what they care about and use that data to trigger specific, relevant automation workflows.
For example, you can set up automated marketing campaigns that highlight specific fundraising appeals or volunteer opportunities that are sent when someone makes a specific kind of online donation, attends a particular event, or is tagged by a staff member in a particular way. You can also use automation to send personalized messages to supporters based on their interests and past contributions. Automating these communications means you can scale your fundraising efforts while inspiring generosity through personalized, specific communications.
Key Takeaways
In conclusion, nonprofit professionals can use the concepts of responsive fundraising to inspire greater generosity from their supporters. By broadening our definition of generosity and recognizing the various ways in which individuals can contribute to a nonprofit organization's mission, we can create a more inclusive and impactful fundraising strategy. By knowing our supporters personally, building multiple paths for generosity, creating a community around our mission, and using automation to inspire generosity at scale, we can build stronger relationships with our supporters and inspire them to continue supporting our organizations.
Want to learn more? Check out this free, on-demand webinar where experts from Virtuous, Overflow, and DonorSearch discuss how to strategically increase major gifts!
