The critical drill you need to connect to supporters
- Mon, November 07 2011
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
People are social creatures. When we feel we are part of the lives of others, we are happier and live longer. Social connections feed our souls and create our sense of well-being.
When you ask someone to support your cause, you are inviting one of the deepest connections possible. You are giving people the ability to change lives, the gift of attachment to others and the benefit of being part of something bigger than themselves.
Consider this quote via David Brooks from the historian William McNeill, reflecting on learning to march in boot camp in 1941:
Words are inadequate to describe the emotion aroused by the prolonged movement in unison that drilling involved. A sense of pervasive well-being is what I recall; a strange sense of personal enlargement; a sort of swelling out, becoming bigger than life, thanks to participation in a collective ritual.
Supporting a cause should feel like joining the beautiful unison of that collective march toward something good.
SO DON’T BLOW IT.
Help your donors be in full touch with that experience - treat them like people, create a sense of community and tell a vivid story of your collective journey. When you do it right, you give them everything. When you don’t, you are not only failing as an advocate—you’re denying them the human connection that yields the greatest of joys.
Comments
Hi Katya. Great point about the power, and joy, of feeling connected. I think this is one of the reasons it’s so important to share stories of the volunteers and donors who make an organization’s work possible. When you share these stories in newsletters and online, you help create a sense of community and belonging to a group of like-minded people. This is also why giving groups can be a powerful tool for fundraising.