A few weeks ago, I was kicked back, staring at the ceiling, thinking about nonprofit marketing and donor communications.  Nothing unusual, right?

But it was unusual.

First off, I almost never just kick back. Between my company and my two little kids, my days are action-packed and fun-filled, but they don’t allow a lot of time for relaxation and calm reflection. (Not complainin’…just sayin’.)

The reason I was “kicked back” was because I was at the dentist and they love tipping you WAY back in those chairs. And weirder still is that I was relaxed even though my dentist was drilling holes in my teeth.

This gave me pause. Why the heck was I letting this woman forage in my mouth with big, pointy implements, for crying out loud?!

The answer was simple: I trusted her.

When I really stopped to think about it, I realized that I trusted her not just because she’s a good dentist (which she is), but that the whole office instills a great deal of trust in its patients.

Here’s what I mean: When I showed up that morning, I was scheduled for two procedures. Upon arriving, I told the receptionist that I was just going to do the drilling that day. (The mouth guard could wait.)  About 23 seconds later, the dental assistant came and got me. About 37 seconds after that, the dentist came and said, “So, I hear we’re just sticking with drilling today.”

It took them one minute to get the piece of information I’d given the receptionist into their system and the information given to everyone who needed to know it. One minute.

What, you might ask, does this have to do with donor communications? Well, how many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of, “I don’t give to that organization anymore because they were sending me too many things in the mail and I asked them repeatedly to stop and they didn’t”? What they’re saying is: I didn’t trust that organization anymore because they didn’t listen to my request. And we all know that donors give to organizations they trust.

It’s not that nonprofits are trying to willfully disregard donor requests. It’s simply that getting the systems and processes in place to follow through on these requests proves more challenging than you’d think. And it’s especially hard if you’re a small, resource-constrained nonprofit.

And this is why my dentist office epiphany is so handy. They’re a small shop with a really good system so we can learn from them.

If we simply swap “donor” for “patient”, their system can work for many small nonprofits. Here’s how it breaks down:

1. Appoint. Have “collect and process donor requests” written into one position’s job description. This is different than simply assigning the task to someone currently on staff.  Associating the task with a position ensures that, regardless of who is in the position, the task gets done. This is especially important in small organizations where there tends to be high staff turn-over. (If someone else receives a donor request,  they should immediately pass it along to whoever is currently in this position.)
2. Capture. Invest in a system that contains the fields your organization needs to honor these requests. Have opt-in/opt-out fields for each of your marketing mechanisms (e.g. newsletter, annual report, event invitations, etc.). The goal is to keep this information as current as possible. Your system doesn’t need to be expensive or fancy; it needs to work.
3. Convey. Have a standing agenda item at team meetings called “Donor Love” or “Delighting Donors” or something along those lines that is all about information you have recently collected that needs to be relayed to other team members in order for your organization to honor the request. If you only meet monthly, find some other way of relaying this information (e.g. weekly email, Basecamp message, etc.). The key is to get this information out proactively and regularly.

That’s it. That’s all my dentist did. Appointed, captured and conveyed.

Your donors may not let you drill holes in their mouths, but if you follow-through on the requests they make they will trust you. And we all know that donors give to organizations they trust.

Note: This post was inspired by Seattle dentist Dr. Lina Kim and her amazing team!

You might also like:

• Show your donors some love…quick!
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