Recently I was interviewed by Mazarine at Wild Woman Fundraising!

You can hear the interview here.

There’s one big point from the interview I figured you’d want to read (in case you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing): Getting to know your supporters is a humongous key to success. Tweet this!

If you really want to get to know them well, the best way to start at low cost is to simply ask them questions about themselves— preferably face to face or with a donor survey. Then, capture and record their answers as data. When they fill out forms or complete surveys, we call those responses “verbatims.”

Another way to learn about your supporters is by capturing “digital body language“. That entails tracking and recording the following online navigation metrics about each individual (not aggregate groups of people):

• Where they click
• How many minutes they spend on a certain page
• Where they navigate to
• What they download
• Etc.

If you engage your supporters and ask them to fill out a survey or multiple mini-surveys over time, then you will be progressively profiling them. Of course, we recommend you use our platform to collect all of that kind of information automatically. That way it gets scored and sorted for future automated marketing using highly segmented, highly relevant, highly personalized messages. But you don’t have to use our system to be successful.

Anyway, once you know about their interests, wants, needs and desires, then you’ll be able to send them messages that help your supporters (especially wealthy ones):

• Find meaning in their lives
• See how they can make a real impact
• Learn more about how they can be a hero in somebody’s story
• Find out how they can honor someone that was near and dear

By showing people that you know them and by always offering them highly relevant messages while also offering them opportunities to engage and find the best within themselves, you’ll be able to elicit the right responses from the right people. You’ll be able to help those people in your database who have the most capacity feel awesome.

Bottom line: That’s what fundraising is all about. You want to make your donors (especially the wealthy ones) feel good about themselves as you help them align their personal life missions with your organizations’ missions.

Doing all this (otherwise known as Engagement Fundraising) will help you uncover what you need to do to trigger those good vibes. Then, your hi-capacity supporters will give— A LOT.

Most wealthy people do, indeed, want to change the world in some way. They want to give back. They want to make an impact. They want to help a starving child. They want to cure a disease, perhaps because their mother had it. They want to take care of wounded Marines. Etc.

So, if you can help them realize their dreams, feel good and be a hero in their own life story, then you’ll get more money. Especially if they’re wealthy. And then (bonus!), they’ll probably introduce you to people just like them who are also wealthy and want to change the world for the better.

Again, you can read the whole interview here or listen to it here.

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