On May 30th, Jay Love and Sandy Rees spent an hour answering questions live about donor communications and donor engagement. The webinar participants asked some intriguing questions, and we’d like to share some of Jay and Sandy’s answers with you.
One participant asked about diversity inclusion:
Question: How do you include diversity in your donor relations strategy?
Jay Love: The first thing that comes back to my mind, is thinking about the connector that might be involved and using an appropriate connector that might bridge the gap that diversity might be bringing to table.
As you look around your board and if you’re going to be involving a board member to be part of that particular appointment, or existing donor, see if there’s an appropriate person that has bridged that diversity gap before, or is the logical step between the two in some way shape or form. I’ve seen that happen in a couple cases, but this is sort of a new one to me, too.
Sandy Rees: You know the first thing that popped into my head was you better have a sophisticated software program, so that you can start keeping up with preferences. If you have a diverse group of donors and they have some real different interests and needs, you better have a real good way to manage that. You better start thinking about how you get to know them and figure out what they want and what they need. I think that’s a great time to start thinking about one -size does not fit all in communication.
What I mean here is some people are going to respond to and prefer email, for example. Some people are going to prefer face-to-face and everything in between. You’ve got to spend some time to get to know your folks and what they want so you can deliver as best you can, the message in the format that kind of resonate with those folks.
You can listen to a replay of the entire Q&A session here.
Be sure to sign up for our next webinar with Kirsten Bullock here! Kirsten and Jay will be discussing the eight steps to fundraising success.
img via OregonDOT
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