I wanted to share this article I recently wrote for the Rogare Critical Fundraising blog. These are my reflections on the recent review undertaken by Rogare. The original post has some interesting comments and, if you have any thoughts, I suggest you add them to the Rogare blog. I'd also recommend reading Ken Burnett's recent blog on the subject. Thanks for reading.
Rogare’s recent review of Relationship Fundraising gives much food for thought for the sector. Importantly, it suggests topics for further exploration to help improve the standards of fundraising and raising more money for the causes we care about.
However, I think there a couple of important areas that the review overlooked. For that reason, I believe it should be seen as an interesting starting point to discuss relationship fundraising. Below are some of my thoughts and suggestions for further thinking, clarification and discussion. I hope you find them useful.
1 Relationship fundraising is not a choice: all fundraising is relationship fundraising
Perhaps the most important line in the entire report does not feature in the final summary. This is disappointing. However, it goes to the heart of why relationship fundraising has been misunderstood over the years by so many practitioners. It also highlights an error (explained in point three) that I believe Ian MacQuillin and Adrian Sargeant have made in their recommendations.
In the introduction to volume two, the authors state:
…(T)he process of fundraising is by definition the process of establishing new links or reinforcing existing ones. In this sense, all fundraising is relationship building. If one chooses to be a fundraiser, one chooses to build relationships. Building relationships is not optional in fundraising; it is inherent in the definition of what fundraising is.
From this clear statement it seems hard to leap to the conclusion that relationship fundraising is a choice.
So what happened?
What was originally meant by Ken Burnett has been wrongly (though understandably) compared to relationship marketing.
In volume one it is acknowledged:
In the non-profit context, Ken Burnett did not have the relationship marketing concept in mind when he wrote his inspirational text.
Burnett has been quite clear on the subject over the years, as far back as 1996 when he was discussing the publication of Friends for Life – the follow up to Relationship Fundraising he said:
Relationship fundraising is, after all, just a currently fashionable piece of jargon … I wish I’d paid more attention to its subtitle – “A donor-based approach to the business of raising money.” Those ten words, I believe, are ultimately much more important than the two words that precede them.
Other books from Burnett, such as Zen of Fundraising and George Smith’s Asking Properly take a similar viewpoint. They talk about relationships in this high level sense and focus on how you build commitment, trust and satisfaction with donors, which we now know is so important.
In none of his writings did Burnett use an analogy with marriage or compare relationship fundraising to relationship marketing. Yet many still confuse the two concepts.
Before moving on, it is important to note that it would be wrong to say that relationship marketing does not have any application to fundraising. As the review states, there are clear times when it is a useful way to consider fundraising and there are snippets of advice from the theory that all fundraisers would do well to heed.
So how do we overcome this problem of confusion of what we mean by relationship fundraising?
I’d suggest that we think of relationship fundraising as operating on three levels, as represented by the diagram below:
Level one uses the word ‘relationship’ in its widest, dictionary definition. This, I believe, is what Burnett intended in his original Relationship Fundraising.
Level two relates to relationship theory in social psychology and the ideas outlined in volume two of the review.
Level three refers to relationship marketing theory. Volume one of the review.
Sitting outside the circle is poor fundraising practice that discourages commitment, trust and satisfaction from donors.
Considering relationship fundraising in this way allows a clear understanding of what we mean by relationships and what level any recommendations in the review refer to.
So, my firm belief is that fundraisers don’t need to make ‘a choice between relationship fundraising and ‘good old fashioned’ customer care’ but need to choose between applying level one, two or three relationship fundraising.
This model also explains the different North American and British ‘schools’ of relationship fundraising described in the review. The British school is firmly rooted in levels one and two and the North American school is more focused on level three.
2 Casting the net further – broadening the definition of relationship fundraising
If you accept the model above, then this opens up new areas for discussion and review of relationship fundraising. We do not need to confine ourselves to the realms of social psychology and relationship marketing.
I firmly believe relationship fundraising is an evolving concept that takes the best of business, marketing and behavioural theories and applies them to the fundraising world. Too much focus is on the word ‘relationship’ and not on the subtitle of the book ‘A donor-based approach to the business of raising money’.
A close look at theories behind customer experience, experiential marketing and contemporary marketing books could all prove fruitful areas for review to improve levels of trust, commitment and satisfaction in the fundraising world.
One of the few fundraisers who has documented such an approach is Richard Turner of Solar Aid. Turner’s proposed model of fundraising urges fundraisers to use the social capital in our own, and donors’, networks. The model applies 21st century marketing theory to how we build strong relationships with our donors and, ultimately, raise more money.
A robust testing of Turner’s proposals in a similar vein to volumes two and three could be a fruitful area for future study.
3 Language is important: transactional fundraising shouldn’t be encouraged in mass marketing terms
MacQuillin and Sargeant appear to inter-change relationship fundraising and relationship marketing techniques in their conclusions. This results in the following summary:
Rogare suggests that a more ‘transactional’ form of fundraising might be more effective and relevant in fundraising from individuals, with relationship fundraising tenets being applied to donors who have a much higher level of involvement with the charity, such as corporate and high net worth individuals.
Not that the majority of individual donors need be downgraded in any way. It is just that ‘good old fashioned’ excellent customer care might be a more effective approach for mass marketing fundraising.
As I argued above, this seems to confuse level three relationship fundraising (based on relationship marketing) with level one relationship fundraising as defined by Burnett.
I believe classifying fundraising as ‘transactional’ is a dangerous view to propose. It strips fundraising of its emotional soul. It is transactional, mass marketing fundraising techniques that led to 2015 being such a tough year for fundraising in the UK. We need to move away from transactional fundraising in mature markets as it is responsible for the current threat of regulation in the UK and it is why charities lose more donors than they recruit in the US.
We need to encourage emerging markets to learn the lessons from the UK and USA and not go down the low cost, transactional route which appears, on current trends, to be unsustainable (though more research needs to be conducted to prove this point).
Proposing that transactional fundraising could be an effective way to fundraising sends the wrong message to the sector. If a distinction is to be made between major donor fundraising and mass marketing fundraising, then perhaps wider adaptation of Stephen Pidgeon’s term ‘minor donor’ would be useful. Pidgeon defines this as ‘raising smaller gifts from lots of people, often through a regular monthly donation paid through their bank.’
‘Minor donor’ fundraising has none of the negative implications of a transactional approach and makes the distinction I believe the authors are trying to make.
Finally, what is the purpose of “‘good old fashioned’ excellent customer care”? To build trust, commitment and satisfaction? If it is, then I’d argue it is hard to have trust, commitment and satisfaction with something or someone if no relationship exists.
Even for donors who give only once (for example, to an emergency appeal) we should, as fundraisers, still try to give a satisfying experience that builds trust in donating. The donor may not want to commit to future support now, but it would seem intuitive that a good experience would increase the likelihood of further donations. This could be in the event of a future emergency the donor cared about or the next time the donor feels an emotional connection to a cause and is asked to give.
4 Is ‘relationship fundraising’ even the correct phrase?
Of course, it might be that the term ‘relationship fundraising’ has become too tainted and confusing. It is possible that my proposals above wouldn’t resolve the conflicts that exist around the subject.
So perhaps we should abandon the term ‘relationship fundraising’ all together?
In the introduction of Friends for Life Burnett writes:
Relationship fundraising is at best an attitude of mind. Whether you call it donor care, or supporter loyalty, or donor development, or just common sense it all comes down to the same thing – a donor-based approach to the business of raising money.
Would using a different term for British ‘school’ relationship fundraising be useful for fundraisers?
My personal view is we can repair the damage and provide clarity on the subject. However, discussing the definitions and agreeing what we mean when we say ‘relationship fundraising’ is crucial for the future development of the concept.
Last year I proposed a model of what relationship fundraising looks like at an operational level.
I believe relationship fundraising is centred on the emotional reason for why a person would want to give to your cause. From that point you can build your fundraising structure around telling this story, building relationships, making relevant asks, offering outstanding donor care and using data intelligently to strengthen relationships.
Sitting above this operational model is the leadership, strategy and culture you need to embed relationship fundraising in your organisation.
I offer this model in support of point four. If we can’t agree what we mean by relationship fundraising and how we can apply it in our organisations then we will continue to tie ourselves in knots. We spend too much time arguing over the word ‘relationship’ and need to get on with the urgent requirement to do better fundraising. Hopefully the two models in this article would provide clarity so we can all be certain what we are talking about when we discuss relationship fundraising.
Conclusions
The review has the subheading ‘Where Do We Go from Here?’ I believe there are four things that warrant further investigation. We need:
- To propose, and agree, a clear definition of what we mean by relationship fundraising that can be used by the entire sector.
- To broaden the literature review to look at what fundraising can learn from all contemporary marketing theories.
- To evaluate, both quantitatively and qualitatively, whether relationship fundraising (as per our agreed definition) works and raises more money in the long term than transactional techniques.
- To decide how we share our findings and encourage chief executives and boards to nurture a culture that rewards long term success over short term gain.
By doing this we will be able to definitively prove if relationship fundraising works and in what context.