Making it personal

Fundraising is so crowded now that it’s not enough just to have a good appeal or a nice idea. It needs to stand out – to be what American entrepreneur Seth Godin calls ‘remarkable’.

But remarkable doesn’t mean simply looking for the next shiny new idea. In fact, recent evidence suggests that successful arts campaigns are successful because they do the basics well. And worryingly, the obsession with the new and glittery drives lots of really poorly thought-out initiatives.

By all means learn from what others have done but don’t try and copy anyone else’s campaign or idea

Of course, the next shiny new thing varies. It was HNWI (high net worth individuals), and now it’s crowdfunding, and pretty soon it will be virtual reality. But let’s pause for a moment. For most ‘regular’ charities experienced in working in the private donor space, crowdfunding is recognised as an acquisition tool. It’s a way to secure new, longer-term donors rather than directly raise cash for something.

As soon as you realise that, you can stop launching big crowdfunding campaigns to do a project. Instead, you can think about them as a way to engage potential supporters. (Also note the change in language – not funders or donors but supporters.) That way you get long-term value not a short-term hit.

Supporter experience

So what will make a big difference? My suggestion is to think more about creating a powerful and engaging supporter experience, or SEX. By focusing on SEX, you move beyond the idea of a simple one-off gift or even a donor journey, moving mechanically from first gift through a series of upgrades to a legacy. Instead, you apply the techniques of immersive theatre to an iterative process of a supporter finding out about, becoming interested in, offering support to, and establishing the impact of a gift. This doesn’t need to be complicated.

For example, my friend Jamie was buying a new BMW car that the dealer was modifying on its arrival in the UK. Every day in the run-up to the collection, the car salesman sent him a WhatsApp picture of a different part of the car – a hubcap, the steering wheel, the dashboard, etc. So by the time Jamie went to pick up his car the salesperson had added a huge sense of excitement and anticipation to the process.

Similarly, if you make a donation to the Turkish Red Crescent it sends you a picture of a typical package of goods that your donation has supported, and then shows you on an interactive map your gift’s journey to a refugee camp.

Is there any reason why a touring performance company couldn’t send supporters a photo and a couple of lines of text to show the impact of their performance in a rural location? Or a gallery send images of the re-hang in progress?

Some do’s and don’ts

How else can you create good SEX? Stop doing three things and start doing three more.

1. Stop thinking about it as fundraising. No one cares about your fundraising, your lack of core revenue support or your struggle to make ends meet. What people do care about is the work you do and the impact it has – the ability to create extraordinary new productions, the desire to provide access for an audience that otherwise wouldn’t be there, or the ways you grow and nurture new talent. Too many appeals put the mechanic or the need for money first. Always begin with what you’re trying to achieve and where possible put people at the heart of that – whether it’s people who will participate or people who will benefit.
2. Stop copying best practice or even the last coolest thing you saw. I worry when people talk about best practice or are keen to find out and copy what other organisations are doing. This leads to ‘me too’ fundraising. By all means learn from what others have done but don’t try and copy anyone else’s campaign or idea.
3. You have to be prepared to take risks. And then take inspiration from the end of Samuel Becket’s novella, Worstward Ho: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” Every great idea has normally been through a number of iterations and the secret is to learn fast from mistakes and adapt.

So now you know what not to do, here are some to dos:

1. Start making it very personal. The secret of success in the private supporter space – individual giving, HNWI, foundations and even corporate sponsorship – is to make your proposition personal and specific. It’s much better to appeal to a small number of highly committed supporters and target your proposal at them. Think Otaku, a Japanese word for someone ultra-engaged with something. Identify your organisation’s Otaku and make them feel ultra-special and informed. Scottish Opera has done great work on this. It invited a small group of wealthier Otaku donors to walk up the three flights of stairs in the theatre to experience what it was like for the elderly or those with a disability to get to the low-cost seats. The result? A real understanding of the challenges faced by these people, and increased gifts for the campaign to improve access.
2. Start making partnerships. The buzzword in high-value and corporate sponsorship is ‘co-creation’ not ‘investment’. So HNWI and sponsors are less interested in simply coughing up for big, fully costed, fully created projects. They want to share in idea and project development.
3. Start supporter impact reporting and tell your supporters what they did. Many appeals ‘finish’ with a thank you and maybe a receipt for a gift. The thank you is for the money that let the arts organisation do something very clever.

Real stewardship involves making the supporter feel that they made it happen. Think about sending an impact or annual report about the supporters’ impact. An approach adopted by many of the UK’s leading charities (Macmillan and the Red Cross), this is especially effective with corporate supporters. Companies can then circulate the report to employees and shareholders to create a positive feeling about the whole business of supporting your organisation.

So SEX, at least in this form, still sells.

Bernard Ross is Director of The National Arts Fundraising School.
www.nationalartsfundraisingschool.com