A dog’s world: An Introduction

Earlier this week, one of my favorite bloggers, Jeff Brooks of Future Fundraising Now, posted a piece titled “Create good experiences for your donors” and my mind has been wrapped around it all week long.

In a nutshell, he draws a link between customer loyalty and profits and then goes on to suggust that a similar dynamic exists between a non-profit organization and its donors. It is really good and I suggest you click through and read it for yourself.

I think the reason I’ve been spinning on this all week is because a decade ago one of my favorite board members took me under his wing and played the role of Oprah. I was a new Executive Director and he was a wise bank President. One day after a board development committee meeting, he pulled me aside and handed me a book titled “The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value“. He urged me to read the book and encouraged me to return in a month so we can talk about how it applied to our non-profit situation.

Jeff Brooks mentions in his blog that he thinks a “good donor experience” includes:

• getting the data right
• being thankful
• reporting back
• offering choices around communication mediums

I think creating donor loyalty starts here and involves so much more, which is why I’ve dug out my old copy of “The Loyalty Effect”.  Here is my plan … I am dedicating all five blog posts next week to this book. I’ll read a few chapters, report back to you, and try to draw comparisions to the non-profit – donor experience. I am titling next week’s blog posts “A dog’s world” because nothing is more loyal in this world than “man’s best friend”. Right?

In the meantime, I encourage you to take a minute to weigh-in with your comments on “what do good donor experiences look and feel like? And how do you see non-profits building donor loyalty?”

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson

Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC

eanderson847@gmail.com

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