BIG’s Blog: Time to Transform

So seriously, what do you as a fundraiser make of all the changes in the retail shopping
scene?

Do you think there is a fundraising connection to the fact that Christmas 2011 shoppers
did more shopping online than ever before? Or, if they were shopping in retail stores they
were using smartphone or iPad apps to comparison shop?

Do you think this online thing somehow won’t affect your organization's fundraising
efforts?

You think you’ve got the time, right? You know this online movement is coming, but
your current base of donors will sustain your organization while you figure it out.

On that point you’re probably right . . . if you seriously start transforming your fundraising organization in 2012.

My take is that 2012 is the pivotal year.

The old timelines don’t apply in the digital age. Everyday you are seriously falling
behind as new charities and other nonprofit organizations come on the scene...and from
day one they are digital. Frankly, these new charities and other nonprofit organizations
don’t have the money to compete with your direct mail programs.

But guess what? They don’t have to. Your fundraising group has a website, uses email marketing and has a Facebook page...so you think you’re digital. You have ceded
these new fundraisers to the always-on Internet world.

2012 is the crucial year.

You still have the upper hand. But the moves you make in 2012 will, in all likelihood,
actually determine your fundraising group’s competitiveness beyond 2012.

Remember Borders Books? A decade ago their super store model was putting mom &
pop bookstores out of business. They were smart managers. Borders took the existing
bookstore model and made it bigger, shinier and better. But they didn’t get digital.  And
now they are bankrupt and out of business.

Don’t choose the Borders mindset of "doing better" than what everyone has been doing for
50+ years.

The Internet changes everything!

2012 is the time to transform your fundraising.

-Mike

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