ask direct — a fundraising & direct marketing agency

I actually get a thrill when I see good fundraising in action.

A handwritten note on a thank you letter to a donor who’s just made a gift in memory of a loved one. A clever and compelling appeal that just stands out from the crowd. Or simply a perfectly crafted, beautifully written thank you letter.

Such are the joys when you mystery-shop charities. You get to see what the donor sees. Experience something of what the donor feels. And sometimes your heart does lift.

But sadly, to find these gems, you have to plough through acres of unremarkable stuff.

And that’s what I’ve spent the last few days doing.

All year, in tandem with Bluefrog, Ask Direct has been mystery shopping the top charities in Ireland, the UK, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. Our moles have been quietly making gifts and watching what comes back.

Some of it ain’t pretty.

It’s not that all of what we’ve seen is really awful (although some of it certainly is). It’s just that so much comes across as deeply impersonal, offhand and uninterested in the donor.

And if we’re going to build better, longer-lasting relationships with expensively acquired donors we need to do better than that.

Let me give you a couple of snippets.

You’d agree, I hope, that if someone made a gift in lieu of flowers that that the charity should offer condolences when they reply? Don’t hold your breath. There’s a very good chance that won’t happen.

I’ve banged on before about how rude it is when charities fail to thank donors for gifts. And still, some of our largest and best resourced charities can’t get this right. It’s bad enough when you don’t get thanked for an ‘ordinary’ donation, but when you don’t get a thank you for a gift in lieu of flowers, that’s really bad.

Enough of the horror stories.

What I’ve found most interesting about mystery shopping is that you really do get to see organisations from the outside in. And when you work for a charity (or agency) I think it’s very easy to neglect to look at your fundraising from that perspective.

But when you do, suddenly you see all the flaws. The long waits for thank you letters. The even longer waits before the charity you’ve just donated to contacts you again. The inappropriate personalisations. The even more inappropriate generalisations.

And the moments of brilliance that make you go wow.

Like this. This is how to start a thank you letter (from Starship Foundation in New Zealand)

When people ask me what difference a donation can make, I reply that donations to Starship transform lives. Parents have told me with tears in their eyes what it means to know their child is receiving the best possible care at Starship.

And behind every one of these children there are compassionate people like you dedicated to helping. Thank you.

That’s how you do it.

I’ll be presenting some of the findings from our mystery shopping research with Mark Phillips from Bluefrog at the IoF London Conference on 23 November. And there’ll be a Dublin presentation on the mystery shopping in early 2012.

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