Does Ask, Ask, and Ask Again Really Work?

I agree and disagree – you used the word “relationship” in your answer. That is the key word. How can I make an ask without knowing the prospect and why they might be interested. So I agree.
Here is where I disagree. Too many folks in development walk away from a prospect when they get a “no”. Experienced professionals know that “no” can mean a number of things – timing, wrong project and, maybe, wrong organization. Experienced folks take the time to build that relationship and understand the prospect, but will ask again.

In a way, I think it’s apples and oranges. Let’s envision a continuum with impersonal, mass solicitations (i.e., direct mail and e-mail) at one end and major donor relationships at the other.

I suspect that where things start to go sour is when the folks responsible for direct mail/e-mail aren’t well integrated into the overall fundraising organization. This may have to do partly with their metrics, which may focus on just a few items, such as how many dollars did an effort bring in? What was the ROI? How many donors were acquired? What was the retention rate? It may also have to do with reporting lines. I suspect that the gulf between treating donors as an ATM and having a relationship with them is greatest when the direct mail is out-sourced.

Mass solicitations do not lend themselves to being relational, except insofar as a donor responds. That response can simply take the form of a pattern of gifts (or not giving), or it can be information that is — or should be — golden. Unfortunately, my experience has been more negative than positive. I will share three examples.

The first was a telephone solicitation where I declined the solicitation because I had given my annual gift a few months previously. I did, however, volunteer a reaffirmation that the organization was in my will. The call came from an external vendor — one whose name would instantly be recognized. When the caller realized that he wasn’t going to be able to get an immediate gift, he seemed to lose all interest in the conversation. I don’t know whether the information was ever passed along, but I never heard anything from the organization.

On another occasion (different organization), I received a solicitation inviting me to increase my giving so I could belong to some elite circle for another. The solicitation included a stamped envelope. I don’t know whether it was out-sourced or generated in-house. I wrote back to decline because of a change in my financial circumstances, but I re-affirmed that they were in my will. Every month, like clockwork, I got the same solicitation, with the stamped envelope, and every month I wrote back to tell them that the best current gift I could give them was to let them know not to waste resources soliciting me. But the solicitations kept coming! Clearly, someone or some thing had decided I should be in this circle. After a few months, I reached out one of their planned giving officers. He had visited with me a few years previously to thank me for my gift. I explained the problem and told him that while I wasn’t going to take them out of my will because of this, there might be donors who could be alienated. (I was later told that the result was a high-level discussion and ultimately a re-organization.)

A third example concerns a charity that was soliciting me too often. I asked to receive fewer solicitations, and I was given a link and told I could select the mailing I wanted to receive. Following the link, I was sent to a menu that clearly seemed to have been posted in error; it had special codes for mailing that would only make sense to an employee, and many of the codes did not appear to be donor-related. There appeared to be about three dozen entries. I re-contacted them to ask if this list were a mistake; I was told it was not. I finally sent a screen shot and encouraged the young woman to ask further, and she finally came back and thanked me, telling me it had been a mistake. But the revised page wasn’t much better. Meanwhile, I should explain that this organization had several subordinate affiliates. I was giving to one of the subordinates and all the others wanted their “crack” at me. I finally gave up and completely unsubscribed from all mailings, which was unfortunate because I really liked getting news.

Mass solicitation may by its nature have to be impersonal when it goes out, and I don’t think we can blame it for being what it is. However, ultimately it should be subservient to building the relationship, which doesn’t happen when responses are ignored.