http://vimeo.com/theglossary/thisiswater
I hadn’t come across David Foster Wallaces commencement speech (from 2005) – which later was turned into an essay called This Is Water. An excerpt of the speech has been taken and turned into this great 9 minute short, that is truly compelling and is worth watching. If it does nothing it will make you stop and think a bit more. You may not think you have the time, I’d urge you to take it.
OB Tampons wanted to apologise for the discontinuation of one of their products, promising their customers that they will get it back on the shelves in the near future. To apologize, more than 100, 000 women received an email that led them to their own personal music video, and an apology. This viral had more than 3 millions hits only in one weekend. Clearly the brand felt they had something to apologise for, and a good way to go about it.
The power of one, told brilliantly by Charity:Water.
I was researching great customer care today and came across this brilliant story from Peter Shankman. He was a Mortons fan before this happened…but now he’s a Raving Fan for life. He posted this joke tweet:
and then this happened
And of course Twitter got hold of it…and loved it!
Maybe you can’t deliver steaks to the airport (hopefully the only reason for that is that you dont sell steaks!), but what can you do to create Raving Fans for your organisation.
I really like how SVdeP have done a campaign to say thanks following their Christmas Appeal. Well done folks
No, I’m not looking for people to appreciate me. So what is this all about.
Well the wonderful Nancy Schwartz asked me if I would be interested in taking part in the Non Profit Blog Carnival this month. I wondered what I would talk about. The topic is ” What’s Your Dream”. So many dreams (lottery wins and that kind of thing) but as I spent a few days thinking more about it I thought about my dream for the sector, and my dream is for more appreciation.
I truly hope that 2012 is the year in which the sector embraces appreciation. I fundamentally believe that organisations that do appreciation well (and not just once) will thrive.
I hope that organisations will be creative in their appreciation, look for novel ways to reach those who support you. Here is an example that I gave to a non profit recently:
Think about all the schools who fundraise for you, all those kids (and parents) who care enough to take the effort to organise an event for you, bring money in, collect and count it and send it to you. What do you do to appreciate them? The answer is probably “we send them a letter” maybe it’s a card. Who cares, it’s generic and impersonal.
Enter dilemma…but we can’t visit all those schools we would be on the road 365.
Get Creative is the answer. Get in touch with the teacher in charge and organise a Skype video call with the class (or entire school). Answer their questions, say thanks. This will take 30 mins of your time.
Imagine how they will feel. Really good I’d say. Critics may suggest this is a bit like an award ceremony acceptance speech via video. Maybe. But it’s a hell of a lot better than just sending a letter.
So that’s my dream for this year, appreciation. More of it. More creative executions of it. So if you are in the mood for appreciation now is the time, answer the call….appoint your own director of appreciation this year.
Thanks for reading
Christmas is only 50 days away (I think) and all the window displays and music has got me thinking about gifting. This is probably obvious, but I think it is often forgotten, gifting isnt just about the person who receives the gift.
If you think about Christmas time when you give a gift to someone, first of all you spend a decent amount of time thinking about the gift. You probably write a list of ideas, the kind of things this person would like, would maybe never buy for themselves but would really enjoy using. Then you take time to wrap the gift and give it to them. You love seeing the reaction on their face when you hand over the gift. It is even better if you are there when they open it and you get to see the delight on their face. The fact that you thought of them, that you knew them so well to get them this gift. You, as the giver of the gift, get a warm glow, a feeling of joy, at seeing that reaction.
So, as a non profit, think about the gift giving process. Think about how you feel when you give a gift, how you love to know how the gift has made the person who received it feel. Then think about your donors.
When they send you a gift, they want this feeling too. They may say they don’t, but the do. They don’t just give to make you and your mission happy. They give because they too want to feel a warm glow, a feeling of joy.
Your job is to make sure that they get this feeling. So many charities either don’t do this or do it really badly. It is my strong contention that doing this well will make you and your cause stand out from others.
Appreciation is a sustainable business model.
I mentioned to a charity recently the importance of appreciation, I suggested that where it isn’t possible to physically get to a location to say thanks in person, the technology is available to us to still thank people personally.
Then coming out of the IFC last week this turned up, a great example of this being done really well. And guess who it is that is doing it well?
Yes – Charity Water! They are just so good at what they do. Here is a personalised thank you they sent to a 6 year old boy. Its fantastic.
Sometimes when you look at presentations out of context (ie without the speaker) they aren’t great. This isn’t one of those!
Great information and insights from Damian O’Broin of Ask Direct. Well worth looking through and then putting into practice. If you arent sure how…call Damian!!
And they have made this amazing video.
These guys have such a great model (100% of your donations go to the cause, we will find other ways to fund our staff) – how can a donor not love that.
But they don’t just stop there, they look to be fully accountable. They tell you how much things cost, they show you where they are working, they put GPS trackers on things so you – the donor – can see that your money is still working.
They mobilise people really well, create communities that want to support their work. They have created a movement.
Have a look at their video and if it doesn’t make you want to support them, please tell me what is missing or what they should do differently, because for me, this is on the mark (maybe Scotts VO is a bit annoying in places!)
The 2011 September Campaign. Our 5-year-anniversary video from charity: water on Vimeo.
…….Director of Appreciation last week! And I was thrilled. For two years I have been wondering if any organisation would appoint one…and I have finally found one that has.
Granted they are fairly large, but still, what a great move by the Children’s Medical Research Foundation and congratulations to Catriona McGloin (her title is actually Head of Donor Care) . Maybe you could do a guest blog post in the next few months and tell us how its all going?
Over two years ago I posted on this blog about the need for organisations to appoint Directors of Appreciation. At the time I said:
I don’t know. But, outside of its mission, what is the most important thing a non-profit does? In my book it’s…..Appreciate.
As soon as we start to take our donations for granted, we are in trouble. As soon as we don’t treat each donation as a personal gift to us, we are in trouble. As soon as we start to send out mail merged receipts that don’t talk personally about why that person donated, we are in trouble.
I know it is difficult to wade through all the donations we get and treat each one personally, but we need to. We need to invest in this and that is why I believe non-profits need to consider appointing a Director of Appreciation. Their job description is simple:
Make sure that everyone who connects with your cause feels appreciated and ensure that every contact every single staff member has results in the donor feeling special
I think it is time for non-profits to consider such a role in their organisation
I still think this would be one of the most important posts a non profit could fill (I also think lots of companies could benefit from taking on this kind of thinking!)
So has anyone appointed a Director of Appreciation yet?
I posted about the Thank you book when it launched a few weeks ago. (take a look here)
I was just contacted by their agency offering to give away a book to a reader of this blog. So if you would like a copy just watch the short video below and let me know Who had the idea for the thank you project (its in the first few seconds of this video!)
And I will randomly pick a winner and get the book sent to you (here is a link to the book site )
Imagine if we were as good to our donors as Zappos are to their customers. (these are real calls!).
thanks to Kevin Dunne for showing me this
Picture Source: http://z6.co.uk/sr7qg8
You know what its like when you get a hand written thank you card, it makes you feel special. Don’t we want to make our donors feel special?
So is it worth taking the time to hand write your thank you notes?
Its possibly not realistic to hand-write all your thank you notes, but maybe you could take the time to write one a day? Ask all your staff to write one a day.
I think by doing this something else will happen in your organisation. You will start to look at all your appreciation communications. As you hand write a note you will look for ways to relate the donation to the donor, to talk about impact, to really personalise it. Thats not something we do with mail merge. We tend to categorise donations into campaign pigeon holes and so the person that responded to mailing X gets thanks letter X and the person that donated because of event Y gets thank you letter Y.
By taking the time to hand write some notes, not only will you make those donors feel great (do it randomly too, dont just pick the big cheques), you will start to think about how you can apply this right across your organisation.
So while the idea of hand writing all your thank you notes may be a bit idealogical, you should look at how you can apply your hand written note thinking to all your thank you letters (should they be letters by the way?)
Conor Byrne's Blog 