Your donor wants to feel important
Here’s the most interesting (yet unsurprising) thing about our Six Degrees site: people love it, and keep coming back to it, to see their own pictures and stories online. Celebs might be the hook, but the audience’s own role is the sticky part. People like to feel important. They want to feel powerful. They need to know they made a difference.
This is such an important perspective to keep in mind when you’re marketing to your supporters.
Here’s a really good comment to that effect from Tom Ahern in On Philanthropy today:
Donors aren’t ATM machines. I don’t think successful fundraising is about keeping the staff paid and the lights burning. It’s far more about giving your donors a vivid sense that they’re changing the world. It’s about recognizing that people want to feel important—something Carnegie learned from Sigmund Freud and philosopher John Dewey. And one way we feel important is when we feel we’ve made a difference, by making a gift to a terrific organization. I think fundraising’s real job is to give donors a powerful sense of accomplishment.
Yes, yes, yes.
Syndicate
Katya:
Thank you for posting at my blog about my classroom experiences utilizing your book, Robin Hood Marketing. I didn’t realize you had a blog and I’m very psyched to use this in class tomorrow! As a matter of fact you have provided me with a whole new set of websites and information to share with my students tomorrow. Several of the student teams are looking to fundraise, while others will be promoting different events and causes. This will be a GREAT resource!
Elaine Young
Associate Professor
Champlain College
Burlington, VT