BROWNE INNOVATION GROUP

Sunday, July 17, 2011

BIG’s Blog: The Attention Economy

We are all very interested in and pay attention to the economy of money. But, as fund raisers, there is another economy we need to pay attention to and that is the attention economy.

At the risk of getting too far ahead of some of my readers, the subject of the attention economy is going to be more and more important to your success as fund raisers in the years to come.

Today, we measure fund raising activities such as response rates on appeals, the number of presentations or asks by our Charitable Gift Officers or the cost to raise a dollar.

But, with all this activity that is fairly easy to measure, we may be overlooking the more important economy growing around attention.

What happens if I send too many mail appeals spaced too close together? Do I have that permission?

If our Web site was easier to navigate, would our donors go there more often?

Do we offer acknowledgements by mail or email, making it a donor’s choice?

Are we wasting donors' attention sending them emails about subjects they don’t care about? Will they stop opening our emails?

Like real estate, they aren’t making anymore attention. That’s why keeping your donor’s permission keeps their attention which keeps your organization top-of-mind. And top-of-mind means continued donations.

-Mike

Welcome to BIG’s Blog and yes, by all means forward our blog to your friends and co-workers.

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