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5 Ways to Get Your Major Donors to Refer You and Your Organization to Others
1. Constantly ask them to refer you. Have a referral mindset and remember, if you don’t ask… you won’t get.
2. Remind them to refer you. Give them a reminder at the bottom of every email in your signature or as a P.S. Put the message on the back of every business card. Make sure the reminder includes a benefit for the major supporter such as: “Please consider referring your friends to me so I can help them learn how they can impact too. They’ll be really glad you did!”
3. Let them know that each referral can make a huge impact. Remind them that they can multiply their impact by referring you to others like them (or with even greater means).
4. Act fast. Once you get a referral, give that new prospect the best service as quickly as possible so they’ll tell the referral source how awesome you are.
5. Say thank you. If you don’t thank the person who referred you, they’ll never do it again. Come on now… I shouldn’t even have to tell you that one.
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Feeling like your job is getting harder because donor expectations have changed and competition for the charitable dollar is growing?
Finding that the old orthodoxies and conventions espoused by so-called experts in online echo-chambers and at conferences don’t work anymore?
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Engagement Fundraising was developed from the perspective of a donor who discovered firsthand that the impersonal, spray-and-pray approaches of his beloved charity were not only offensive but also wasteful and ineffective. So he took action. And now, you can too.
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Sample letters – How do you let the donor know who referred you? Or do you?
Absolutely. It’s best to let the donor know who referred you. The way to do it is simply to be straight-up. Say, “______________ suggested I reach out to you…”