Enhancing donor relationships with new technology tools: Are you training your team effectively?

As something of an old dog voicing on new 'tech tricks', firstly, I don't head a 'team', as such. I have, however, found when completing mostly online grant applications, that 'Bitly' links to SHORT hand-shot videos of your work, coupled with a small selection of 'action' jpegs of your work taking place - 'A Picture Paints' - user feedback letters, evaluation form comments - have all combined to positively impact on fundraising success rates. Imho, it's essential to have such support material in place to engage your funders, past, present and potential. Post-grant success, maintaining that connection is vital, as is on-time reporting on their grants. Diarising reporting dates in Google calendars helps with a 'month ahead' reminder to do so.

Technology plays a pivotal role in converting potential donors into loyal supporters by mapping the end-to-end donor journey. By leveraging tools such as CRM platforms, analytics, and automation, organizations can track donor interactions, personalize communication, and optimize engagement strategies. This holistic approach ensures a seamless and impactful donor experience, fostering long-term loyalty and increased contributions.

Storytelling is hugely impactful to engage donors and potential donors. I’ve seen firsthand how the use of social media through written, oral and video content can be enormously important in the growth of new donors. It also helps nonprofit organization reach an audience and demographic that they may not be reaching I like to use the three act structure which I teach that gives form and substance to stories that are told. By having well, constructed story content captured on social media channels can be hugely important to advance the reputation of an organization, expand stakeholders, and donors, extend vision and values to others, and importantly, make the organization memorable to those who engage with their content.

Know your donor. Being more tech savvy than your audience can be counter-productive. If you get out too far ahead from your audience, you might be confused with a train coming the other way.

Tech in philanthropy is mostly ‘back-office’: lists, totals, prospects. However, it can be incredibly efffective if used for the soft contact and image/brand building. Telling your organization’s stories in a coordinated, consistent manner keeps your message clear and communicates a sense of responsible stewardship. Using technology to create and standardize all communications also keeps you ‘on message’ internally as well as externally. Impact comes from consistent results and consistent results come from consistent work and communications. Tech can improve your consistency.