iCommunications

Never in the history of fundraising have there been so many good tools for developing and maintaining relationships with your donors.  Until a few years ago, you only had two methods: mail (which is impersonal and lacks timeliness in most cases), and telephone (which is intrusive when done on a regular basis).  Now the Internet had created so many more possibilities for communicating with your donor base. We call an important collection of these internet-fueled communications tools iCommunications.

The number one purpose of iCommunications is to connect with your constituency.  Fundraising is all about relationships, and now you have the best tools available to develop relationships with the most important people in your ministry. 

iCommunications is interactive, one of the greatest benefits of this emerging technology.  While snail mail has always been one-way communications, now you can use iCommunications to develop dialogue with your donors, which grows your relationships. E-mail, surveys, blogging, teleseminars and other tools allow the donor to give you immediate feedback.  There’s a connection that we’d never had until recently.

The main purpose of iCommunications is not fundraising appeals.  The end goal is more effective fundraising, but if you use these tools primarily for appeals, you will quickly wear out your donors and burn your bridges.  For fundraising to be effective, you need to use the iCommunications tools to nurture strong relationships and communicate well with your constituency.

Take the lesson of e-mail. When e-mail first came on the scene, lots of ministries jumped on it as an inexpensive fundraising tool. They soon found out is that it wasn’t working.  It had become an irritant to their donors and potential donors because they were just blasting away with appeals. They burned out their donors.

But effective fundraising is not just asking, it's relationships.  The iCommunications tools will help you build strong and healthy relationships with your donors and prospective donors.  They'll help you earn the right to ask - and will make your donors more responsive when you do.

By Jon Fugler and Ron Johnston, authors of The Complete System for Ministry Fundraising & Development.
The System provides details on executing an effective iCommunications program.