Fundraising practices have changed over the recent past with a majority of the shift recorded being the complete shift from transaction to relationships. In order to ensure proper fundraising, development and maintenance of long-term relationships with donors should be enhanced. The relationships maintained may be either aimed at one time donation or lifetime relationships to enhance better donor relationships.
With the complete shift from transaction to donor relationship management approach, it should be more than playing with words. There should be a concise strategy to ensure better donation luring modules that emphasizes on performance rather than the need to generate returns in each individual donation campaign, are ensured. The donation strategy should be that that ensures that awareness is created among the participants on the need of holding such donation function. For instance, the function may be that geared to improve education among the less fortunate but bright students with a brighter future if awarded funds to enable them attend schools. This strategy will make the donors see the sense and the possibility of gaining highest return on the students. Donation geared towards educating students will therefore be observed as an investment that will provide highest returns on their investment. Therefore, the donors should be made to understand the returns of the course to be supported. (Sargeant 1990, p31)
It is vital to understand that every communication with the donor requires break even for future contacts. Therefore, the relationships with the donors should recognize a respectable treatment of current and prospective donors just so to ensure they are retained to give again. When the donors are respectfully treated, they recognize that they will have a cordial relationship to ensure a lifetime value. When the donors understand that they are valued that much to be maintained for a lifetime contact, they feel impressed of their worth to the group, or society they deal with. The donors will therefore ensure that they offer their best to satisfy the individual’s needs just so to maintain that lifetime value.
It is therefore evident that when donors are properly made sensitive of the contribution and how important they are, their lifetime value increases, which effectively and in turn increases fundraising effectiveness.
Works Cited
Sargeant A. (1999) “Why Donors Stop Giving? Professional Fundraising.
