October 21, 2009 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Charities can enhance their relationships with donors by applying the same principles corporations have used to improve their ties to customers, according to London executives who spoke at the 29th annual International Fundraising Congress, which started today in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands.
Too often, organizations focus on creating a brand image “from the inside out,” without taking the time to ensure that the image they project is consistent with what clients, donors, and others see, said Steven Walden and Qaalfa Dibeehi of Beyond Philosophy, a company that helps businesses improve profits by enhancing customer satisfaction. They spoke with Paul Farthing, a senior fund raiser at Cancer Research UK.
To illustrate their point, Paul Farthing, a senior fund raiser at Cancer Research UK, pointed to the disconnect between the image of the American Red Cross, which bills itself as a leading humanitarian organization, and an inhumane lack of service that many clients of the charity complained about after Hurricane Katrina.
The most successful organizations work at understanding the expectations that their supporters have and seek ways to deliberately create an experience that fulfills or exceeds those expectations, Mr. Walden and Mr. Dibeehi said.
They pointed to a successful effort to solve a problem by Mears, a British company that won a small contract to rehabilitate public-housing units for the elderly.
The job required residents to leave their homes, but instead of leaving them in the lurch, the company invested in an expensive alternative: a fleet of staffed mobile homes on the property stocked with free food and other amenities where residents could spend the day while their homes were renovated.
That one investment won so much praise from the elderly that the company has since become the provider of choice for public-housing renovations, more than making up for the cost, Mr. Walden and Mr. Dibeehi said.
Charities, they said, should similarly look for ways to meet and exceed donors’ expectations.
