What I’ve learned about donor management
I’ve been helping nonprofits build databases for over a year now. I’ve worked with about 10 orgs of various sizes–the largest being about 20 staff. A big part of my work is mapping out how these groups do fund development. Tracking donors, members, grants, and payments is a big part of what all nonprofits do. I sit down with each org and talk about how they raise money, so that I can understand the work in enough detail to be sure the database I build will support them in that work.
Turns out, these groups raise money in pretty similar ways. What I’d like to share today is some process maps that describe donor management at these orgs. We’ll start with two maps that focus on taking a new donor prospect through the ask process. There are many other processes that go into managing donors, but we’ll start here.
These process maps aren’t about technology at all–they’re about work and how it gets done. We’re creating a snapshot of how orgs work, and who does that work. It’s not about Salesforce.com, or even about databases. All this work could be supported by post it notes and phone calls. Taking the technology out of the picture gets us to focus on the work, which is the real point.
OK, now some vocabulary about process maps. Circle is the starting point, rectangles are things that happen, diamonds are where decisions need to be made, rectangles with a wavy bottom are documents that fit into the process, and the last shape on this first page is a link to another page. Arrows show you the direction of the flow, which is generally left to right.
Activities are put in a “lane” for the person who is responsible for that work. On these maps you’ll see lanes for Donor Management and Solicitor–if things are happening in their lanes, those folks are the ones doing that work.
So let’s look at our first process map:
Fig 1. Process map taking a new donor prospect through the steps necessary to move them to an ask for money (PDF)
This first map (Fig. 1) starts with a new donor prospect dropping in our lap. We then bring in an outside solicitor (i.e. board member) if that makes sense. Some initial communications brief the prospect as much as necessary, leaning on key collateral that already exists. We can have as many informational touches as necessary before we hit the end of this map and head off to the ask, which is on the next page.
Fig. 2. Process map taking a new donor prospect through the ask process, getting them to a yes/no decision (PDF)
We start where we come in from the previous page. You’ll see that most of the activities in the ask process are in the center lane, which is whomever is leading the donation, either donor management staff or a solicitor. Sometimes the ask occurred early on (like if the prospect is the ED’s sister) otherwise we create a team of folks for the ask meeting, brief them, have the meeting, and thank the prospect. Then we act on the donation if they’ve pledged by recording it and looking into corporate matching opportunities. If they didn’t commit, did they say no or do they just need more info? We can have more meetings to get to a yes or a no. Then we’re done!
Checks sometimes are written at the ask meeting, but sometimes not. The next process in the flow deals with handling donations as they come in. I’ll post that process in the future and take us through processing donations and thanking the donors.
The rest of the series:
February 15th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Whoa. I’ve been creating donor databases for a decade or so, and I really had no idea the process was this complex. Great food for thought — looking forward to part 2.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
[...] One of the best things about working at ONE/Northwest is the fact that I get to sit across the room from brilliant people like Steve Andersen. Over the past few months, Steve has been doing some amazing work helping our small- to mid-sized environmental organization partners build effective relationship management systems.One of the deep pieces of wisdom Steve brings to the table is the insight that successful database projects aren’t actually about technology — they’re about helping groups understand their business processes. And Steve has developed some amazing techniques for helping groups make process maps of their relationship management processes.They look something like this:Why is this helpful? Well, until a group really understands what they’re trying to do, it’s impossible to give them the right tools to support it. Steve has finally started to write up some of the results of this work. The first two maps he shares show how a group we work with work with donors to get them to the point of being ready to ask for money, then how they go about actually executing that ask.Great stuff. I can’t wait for Steve to unroll the next couple of installments. [...]
February 15th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Steve,
This is terrific. A little daunting - but it’s real. I bet a persona or a use case would add a lot of value for folks that have a hard time thinking in a purely linear fashion - especially for those that pass through some of these decision points without realizing that they’ve decided - you know - that gut reaction that says “ask now, not later” that really is stepping through some of the details you’ve outlined in a split second. I’d be glad to help with that when I can - I raised money for a living for a bit - and there are a handful of additional steps that often happen behind the scenes - the “what does my boss really know about this person that hasn’t yet been commited to our data tracking tool” and “Does my boss want ME to make this ask, or should I have them do it?”
Finally - it would be cool to have a streamlined process for that bulk mail task that makes up a significant portion of most fund raising - the once a year letter to everyone that has donated in the last three years mailing that you and I get just after Thanksgiving.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Ah Patrick, always a step or two ahead! Mass appeals are coming in a future installment…
One of the things I didn’t mention in the intro to these maps is that fundraising is very fluid, so these process maps are not set-in-stone ways of working, but are meant to capture the average, best practice for getting the work done. Deviation from the boxes and arrows often makes the most sense and capturing the infinite options is impossible, and pointless. But I have tried to get to a level of detail that is, as you say, real. Thanks for the offer to flesh out use cases. I’d be interested to see an example or two.
February 17th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Steve, what process map software are you using? Or are those handcrafted in Illustrator?
February 17th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I use Visio to create the process maps. Visio works pretty well, but it’s pretty free-form work, so it’s a pain when you want to make a bunch of changes. It published to HTML pretty well, where each page is a GIF with an image map on top so all the off-page references are hyperlinks.
I start with brainstorming in mind mapping software to gather information about a new process, then when I have enough detail, I create a Visio map and put that in front of a client to get their feedback.
February 21st, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Hey Steve, I’ll add my voice to chorus of thanks for posting this. It’s always cool to see inside the practical processes of other consultants. More than cool - really helps us all not be reinventing every wheel all the time. I like your “lanes”.
A couple of quick comments:
First, I agree with your comment about fluidity in this stuff. I’d agree this is a pretty good representation of what a bunch of people consider best practices. That said, a lot of my clients have a process that’s a lot less complex than this, missing steps or whole wings of the charts (no volunteer solicitors, less formal ask processes, etc.) It follows org size to some extent, and whether there are dedicated fundraising staff, but it’s not just about that.
Also, from my very limited perspective (like you, I work with fundraisers all the time but I’m not one myself), that loop in the upper right corner of your first map is super important. The “cultivation” loop, perhaps? It’s not just that orgs that pay attention to this raise more money than those that don’t, although that seems true. It also seems true that those that succeed in actually getting constituents involved in meaningful ways beyond giving $ not only raise more money in the end but also end up with a healthier community overall. I think it goes beyond inviting them to events and sending materials, but I couldn’t define what the difference is. Something about the involvement not being just a precursor to a financial ask, or having the giving be genuinely just one way to be involved.
As a tech person, all of this makes me ask myself two questions:
First, given how fluid all of this can be, how much of it does it make sense to embody as processes in software, versus leaving things a little more open and flexible?
Second, to the extent any of us believe that cultivation gibberish I spouted above, can software play a role in making that happen better, and if so, how?
February 21st, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Steve - Thanks for starting the dialogue. I too amy looking forward to the next installment.
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:28 am
Matt - I can answer some of the cultivation questions - I was a fundraiser for a handful of years - and the easy answer is that software can help identify big lists of potential - but only people can convert them. So - Steve and Evan can make Salesforce work well in importing that list - but the piece it won’t do is tell me (as a fundraiser) HOW to take the next step. Direct mail? Invite to an event? Welcome phone call? That’s the people part that fundraisers ask all of the time the “what should I do with that list? that really only can be answered by their mission statement, the services they provide, and the way their agency works. For instance - I worked for a theater company, and a local pizza joint gave me about a grand a year if I’d put a 2 dollar off coupon on all of my tickets. Not bad - but that meant people had to come to my theatre. When I told the pizza guy that I’d GIVE him that space for an ad on his pizza box - he was ecstatic - but the rest of my team didn’t want to move ahead. So instead of almost 1,000 people a week getting news about my theatre -they had to buy a ticket first.
I’m not yet seeing where sotware is smart enough to figure that out. Maybe I wasn’t right about pushing the theatre on pizza boxes (althouhg the stats were on my side -they were all in the right zipcode and they all had disposable income!) - but you get what I mean.
As for the less complicated process - I think we need both - better yet - if we can implement the simple one first - a basic workflow - and then easily upgrade when an agency is ready for major gifts.
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:59 pm
One of the things that’s really important is to make it clear that the work is more important than the system–bringing in the donations is why we’re doing this. We’re not doing it just so we can have the exercise of following a process, so the system has to be very flexible. Much of the “touches” can be recorded with Activities in Salesforce, and those are very flexible. We could also use some custom fields to indicate some approaches that may work with certain kinds of folks. But Matt you’re totally right–the work is very flexible so we’re never going to enforce things to the letter. I just want to make sure I don’t close any doors for folks, even if they are pizza makers…
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Steve and Patrick: well said, both. Makes sense to me, and I definitely agree that software can’t tell us what to do, nor would we want it to in the long run.
I guess I brought this up because, as a developer, I am still constantly searching for that best balance between flexibility & power. You don’t want something completely free-form, or we’d all be using spreadsheets. But the more you encode processes, the less flexibility, etc.
Seems to me that when you use something like Raiser’s Edge, you’re not just adopting software, but to some extent an entire fundraising paradigm. It just got me wondering. With anything we work on, whether it be a configuration for SFDC, or ebase, or whatever: how far down that sort of path do we want to go? Not looking for an answer, just ponderin’
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Ismael Ghalimi had a comment that I can’t seem to find right now that fits: all software has best practices embedded in it. Word has all sorts of best practices in it, from Track Changes, to Styles, to Table of Contents. Work management software (sf.com, raiser’s edge) embed best practices as well. I think you’ve hit on the true value (and hard part) of what we do–getting the practices embedded in the software at the right depth and rigidity.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Hey Steve,
good points and some great dialogue,
looks like you “love your job”
March 7th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I’ve been a VISIO users since version 1, but also use mindjet and inspiration. VISIO is a diagram/illustration tool, the others are visual thinking tools. But I wanted to thank you for an excellent post and very useful! I’m so glad that you have shared it on your blog.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Thanks Dad! It was really fun to learn that you’ve been process mapping for 40 years! I guess it’s genetic…
March 7th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Thanks for the comment Beth. I’m a visual person as well and find these kinds of tools really helpful.
March 8th, 2007 at 5:44 am
This is really nice to see. Great job. I will link folks to this both as a process to look at and a setting specifications and functions tool.
We have done similar map in the past at Green Media Toolshed on the process campaigns and groups develop relationships with reporters. We also have a process map Bobbi developed years ago on the ways we reach out other environmental advocacy groups to join the Green Media Toolshed network.
As you said sometimes the process map is post-its on the wall.
My favorite element of the post by far is that your dad reads your blog. Very cool.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Ha! Yeah, he checks in every once in a while looking for kid pictures and articles on process mapping…
March 8th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
It’s very nice to see such a slick finished product. We have been going through a process mapping exercise with a software company that wants to donate time and expertise. The actual process determination phase, where the actual players and their actions are observed and documented, ended up being the most time-consuming. The time commitment on the organization’s part grew almost exponentially when the process started to involve more than one or two people, even for a simple ‘building block’ level task, like generating and sending out an e-newsletter.
We also realized that the presence of an outside observer was critical to the accuracy of the mapping. As staffers who were intimate with the workflow, we took too many steps for granted, and the process flow didn’t get properly documented. How much time did you invest into the research stage? How much time did the organization commit?
March 8th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
We spend about 12 hours total talking process. That’s about 15% of the overall project. I think an outside observer is great to have because they can ask the probing questions without triggering ownership issues. Also, it’s very important to have the right people at the table. I’ve found that a group can choose to use this process as an opportunity to come to shared agreement about their work. Or a group can see it solely as a requirement for a technology project, and it’s of less value.
March 19th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
[...] This is part two in a series of posts about the processes I’ve seen in the environmental nonprofits I’ve been working with. [...]
March 20th, 2007 at 4:47 am
Very neat way of looking at the donor development highway and the road one must travel to obtain a commitment—
March 20th, 2007 at 7:05 am
This posting has whetted my interest. Only one problem: I can’t read the process maps! The font is too small for me to read on the screen, and when I export it as a picture and magnify it, the letters blur. Could you send me a copy as a PDF? I would appreciate it very much.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:08 am
I will try to get PDFs of each process map up in the next couple days.
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:26 am
[...] None of our processes up till now have handled real money. In this post we’ll look at what happens when the check comes in. [...]
March 30th, 2007 at 9:11 am
[...] gokubi on Donor Management: These are great ways to start to visualize processes. The detail here is impressive, make sure to post some appreciative comments if you find it helpful. [...]
April 18th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Steve,
I would like to receive PDF’s of the maps as well. Great concept!
April 18th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
There are PDF links in the article now under each figure.