Great Donor Care

I have had an AMAZING donor experience with Nothing But Nets.

I came across them about a year ago and really liked the concept and some of the stuff they were doing. Recently when thinking about getting married myself and Gemma decided that instead of doing favours we were going to buy a net for every guest who attends (we were really taken by the impact a net has when we saw it on Comic Relief). Liking what Nothing But Nets does I decided to contact them and just ask if we could get something small to put on each table to let people know.

They have been fantastic.

Firstly they replied to my initial email within a couple of hours and straight away made me feel like I was important to them. I emailed an info@ address (which I tend not to like) but the reply to it made up for it, I was speaking to a person, Julie, and she gave me her email address and direct line so I could call her if I wanted to.

I went back with a few questions or thoughts that I had and Julie came back to me and really over delivered on my expectations. Lots of suggestions and she emailed me a whole load of stuff.

What I really liked was that Julie was taking a personal interest in the donation and she was so appreciative, not in a gushing way, but in a genuine way.

So well done Nothing But Nets. A great donor experience (oh and we still have to complete the donation as we still dont know the numbers attending our wedding).

Always Say Thanks

Im pretty sure that anyone reading this blog doesnt need this reminder. So please dont think I am insulting your intelligence. But there is good reason for this post.

I was out over the weekend and two friends of mine commented about their experiences of giving over the past 12 months. Both had run the Dublin Marathon last October, both raised in excess of 2,000 euros via an online gving site, to two seperate (and big enough) charities.

Neither even got a note to say thanks.

They just wanted to know the money was recieved ok and that it went to some good use. How hard is that.

I couldn’t believe it. So I just had to post about it

212 Degrees

I was given the book, 212 degrees, last year and kept meaning to post about it. I signed up to the publishers e-newsletter and nearly every day get some message from them. Its real feel-good motivational stuff. Some of it a bit over the top. But the principle of 212 degrees is great.

I got another message from them recently that reminded me to post about it. This short video explains it and once you watch it write down some ways you can apply it to your job.

Finding the time to communicate

Do you have difficulty finding the time to communicate to your donors?

Well when I saw that the crew of the Big Ocean Row are able to do it there really is no excuse for any of us.

A friend of mine is part of this crew that are rowing the atlantic. Its a challenge that is completly astounding to me. They are rowing unsupported, taking 2 hours on and 2 hours off.  During those 2 hours off they have to eat, wash, look after any injuries and oh yeh sleep.

But still during what is an incredible challenge they are finding time to communicate and tell people, including donors, how they are getting on (impact!). 

So no more excuses folks!

They hope to complete it in less than 33 days to break the world record, you can track their progress here and see their blogs here and here and here

New Years Resolution

Have you made a work related one? Its not too late. Here’s one you could try

Say thanks to donors more than you did last year.

Let me know in Jan ‘10 what impact it has had on your organisation. Check out Kimberely MacKenzies a good habit to start post here which prompted this, also check out my Director of Appreciation post here

A Great way to say thanks – Part 2

I know I keep going on about saying thanks and appreciation. Well its very important.

You may remember last week I wrote about a postcard I got from Temple Street and I thought it was a great way to say thanks (read that post here). There were some problems with it, the copy, the timing, it wasnt personalised, but overall I liked it/the idea of it.

I was interested then to read a post of Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications blog of something really similar.  Kivi got a thank you letter, again it seems the copy wasnt great, but what stood out was this image:

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Kivi says that:

But this grabbed me nonetheless. Why?

In part, because it was so unexpected, but primarily because even though I have no idea what these people actually look like, I can see the center director Amanda, who signed the letter, sitting down at one of those little tables and asking Yoselyn to grab a crayon and draw this picture for me. I can see her asking the little girl what this is (as it might not be quite obvious to the untrained eye) and adding the title and signature to this masterpiece. They took a little extra time to personalize this letter in a way that only an agency that works with little kids can, and I only sent them $10! But you can bet they’ll get more out of me next time

Read the full post here

Great way to say Thanks

I really like this Thank you note from Temple Street Children’s Hospital.

It came some time (probably 6 months) after the appeal, so it may not be the most timely, but it was really nice. As soon as it came in the door it was something I wanted to look at. It wasnt personalised, which would have been nice, but the fact that it was a postcard, for some reason, made it ok not to have it personalised.

You can’t really read the copy here on this image, it  isnt great, certainly doesnt stir the emotions, but it does get the message across.

The end result was I felt good about Temple Street and when they send me out their raffle tickets later in the year I will be more than happy to sell them on their behalf.