In my last blog, Part Two of the series, "Relationship Building – Fund Raising Faith-based Organizations Can Love," (February 2, 2011) I contrasted the old analog paradigm of fund raising that begins with a direct mail donation with the new paradigm of fund raising that begins with an interested potential constituent making contact with the organization. By the way, I make a distinction between a constituent – someone who supports your organization, but, for whatever reason, cannot make a financial gift at the moment – and a constituent donor who supports your organization, but also donates to your work.
Readers of Part Two of this blog series already know that the paradigm shift in the way nonprofit organization fund raising is made possible by the digital-based Internet and online digital communication tools.
Does this mean that direct mail doesn’t work today? Of course not. A shift like this takes time, as people of a certain vintage – like me – change our habits slowly, while people in their 20s and 30s have grown up with digital communications and don’t know anything else. The Internet only came into the public consciousness less than 20 years ago. We are in a cross-over or transition time. I guarantee you that people were still driving horses and buggies as Henry Ford’s Model Ts were rolling off the assembly lines.
The point isn’t that direct mail is going away tomorrow. The real point is that online digital communications is the rising dominant form of communications and is very relationship building friendly.
In my next blog, Part Four of "Relationship Building - Fund Raising Faith-based Organizations Can Love," I will discuss how your organization can build deep relationships with a small circle of friends; even if that small circle is 10 million friends.
-Mike
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