As the year draws to a close, the holiday giving season provides essential support for many nonprofits facing budget shortfalls – particularly following such a tough economic year. Yet of nearly 400 charities polled in a recent study, one-third expect donations to decrease by 10 percent or more this season, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Despite this expected decline in giving, some donors are responding to the real needs in their communities by increasing giving, such as the donor who created a $85-million fund in Ohio to support the performing arts.
The hard part for every organization is identifying prospective donors and actively tailoring outreach to encourage additional contributions. In this environment, a solid understanding of the preferences and motivations of donors becomes all the more important.
The best way to get a sense of what donors value is to ask them. CEP recently developed the Donor Perception Report (DPR), a new assessment tool which offers community foundations a comprehensive and comparative perspective on the relationships they have with their donors.
To date, we have worked with eight community foundations in gathering donor feedback, and we will be launching this assessment again in 2010 to reach a broader set of community foundations. Once we have a larger dataset for the DPR, we hope to use the aggregate data for new research that could benefit community foundations and advance the field.
Community foundations are perhaps best positioned to help donors impact their communities, given their potential to deliver deep expertise about the community’s most pressing needs. With competition increasing from online giving sites and commercial charitable gift funds, it is critical that community foundations hear the voices of their donors.
While hearing from donors many not lead to an immediate increase in charitable contributions, deeper knowledge of a donor population can impact effectiveness in the long term. For example, which donors are most interested in online communications, and which donors still prefer in-person conversations? Does donor satisfaction tend to differ by donor age, gender, or preferences? The answers to these questions can help donor services staff allocate precious resources that generate the best returns.
We hope that by understanding donors’ perspectives – in a comparative context – our community foundation partners will be able to better understand and identify new opportunities, as well as to highlight the distinctive value they provide to their communities.
